Do you crave depth? Community? UNION?? Join us at the Mystics & Prophets course!
Transforming Suffering in our Bodies: Embodiment, Pain, and Activism
with Mark Kutolowski
Get ready for a full-bodied experience!
Join Mark Kutolowski and Kelly Deutsch as they explore what it means to be embodied and how suffering can transform us. We’ll talk about:
How embodied practices change your physiology,
How suffering can carve out spaciousness in us (and how resisting or ignoring it can perpetuate it),
The role of anger in activism.
He’ll also share about Systema, the Russian Orthodox martial arts (the only martial arts born out of Christian tradition), how receiving emotional blows is like receiving physical blows, and then lead us through an embodied practice from Systema, designed to help us expand our inner capacity.
Mark Kutolowski is a lay contemplative who has been exploring the intersection between Christian spirituality, the body, and the natural world for the past 25 years. He is a Benedictine oblate, a wilderness guide, and an instructor of the Russian martial art and embodiment practice Systema. Mark and his wife Lisa are co-directors of Metanoia of Vermont, a small non-profit based on their homestead with the mission to 'nurture the Way of Christ through work and prayer in relationship with the land'.
00;04;35;18 - 00;05;12;00
Kelly Deutsch
Welcome to Spiritual Wanderlust, where we explore our interior life in search of the sacred. Many of us will travel the whole world to find ourselves, but here will follow those longings within to our spiritual and emotional landscapes. In each episode, we'll talk with inspiring guests, contemplative teachers, embodiment experts, neuropsychologists and mystics. With a blend of ancient wisdom and modern science, along with a healthy dash of mischief, will deep dove into divine intimacy and what it means to behold I'm your host, Kelly Deutsch.
00;05;21;28 - 00;05;59;17
Kelly Deutsch
Hi, everyone. Kelly Deutsch here. And today I'm being joined by Mark Could Olasky. I'm excited to have him here with us. I've been looking forward to our conversation. Mark is a lay contemplative, and he's been exploring the intersection between Christian spirituality, the body and the natural world for 25 years. He's a Benedictine oblate, he's a wilderness guide, and he's an instructor of this Russian martial art called Systema, which I'm excited to hear about, too, because it's possibly the only perhaps embodied martial arts that's based in Christianity.
00;05;59;17 - 00;06;22;06
Kelly Deutsch
And Orthodox Christianity. I'll ask you more about that later, Mark. Mark, it is wife Lisa, our co-directors of Medina of Vermont, which is a small nonprofit based on their homestead with a mission to nurture the way of Christ through work and prayer and relationship with the land. So I know embodiment is very important to many of you, and I'm excited to talk with you about it today, Mark.
00;06;23;15 - 00;06;24;25
Mark Kutolowski
Thank you, Kelly. It's great to be here.
00;06;25;10 - 00;06;46;13
Kelly Deutsch
Absolutely. Well, to get us started, I would love to start with the question, just what is embodiment? How would you define that? Because I know it's something that's very popular and a lot of us know that we need it. But sometimes beyond just having a general awareness of what's happening in my body, we're not really sure what that all includes.
00;06;46;17 - 00;06;49;04
Kelly Deutsch
So what would you how would you define that term?
00;06;50;00 - 00;07;18;16
Mark Kutolowski
Sure. That's that's a great question. When I think about the human person, I think about the Christian anthropology that you see often referenced in the New Testament letters at the beginning of Paul wishes that his heroes are well in body, soul and spirit. There's a sense that we have three parts, a body, you know, our physical form that's expressed in the world and then our soul, which I think of as our personality.
00;07;18;16 - 00;07;39;13
Mark Kutolowski
It's the Greek word psyche. So it also is both our emotional self, our mental self, and our uniqueness and our personality. And then which is also an interior aspect of ourselves. And then there's our spirit, which is the aspect where we're connected to the divine in dwelling into God's presence that is more transpersonal. Yet still contained within our being.
00;07;40;11 - 00;08;04;27
Mark Kutolowski
So to me, embodiment is a state where both soul and spirit are in intimate connection and relationship and expression in the body, so that my body is bearing and expressing the reality of both my soul and also my spirit. And to some extent, if we might even say of God's spirit finding a place, a dwelling place within our body.
00;08;04;27 - 00;08;29;10
Mark Kutolowski
And I think that's an invitation to all of us as incarnate beings. There is, in the Christian tradition, would say it's made in the image and likeness of God, but it's by no means a guarantee By the time we come into adulthood that we're able to keep that, that connection and that and that shared presence and awareness between those three aspects of the self.
00;08;29;23 - 00;08;34;20
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Why is that? Why do we lose that sense of connection between body and spirit and soul?
00;08;35;09 - 00;09;04;07
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah, it's a great a great question. I think part part of it may be a natural part of the development process that as we go into a greater sense of individual nation, we tend to identify a little more with mind and psyche and our our emotions and our thoughts. The classic problem that many spiritual traditions talk about and then there's an additional issue of culturally our culture is not very body aware.
00;09;04;08 - 00;09;29;03
Mark Kutolowski
So we do a lot of things like we're doing right now, like being in front of screens or watching movies with our phones or even driving cars where the body is kind of just sort of something that's carried along. But we're really engaging primarily with thoughts and mind, and we often kind of lose awareness of our sensations, their body.
00;09;29;03 - 00;09;49;02
Mark Kutolowski
Like I can be in front of a computer screen and go a couple of hours and forget what's happening in my body. And it's not until I get off that I actually feel, Oh, I'm kind of stiff or even I have to pee. And I wasn't even I wasn't even tuned in enough to notice that. So that's another level of that kind of disembodied nature, you might say, if some of our shared cultural experience.
00;09;49;29 - 00;10;39;15
Mark Kutolowski
And then another issue that can happen is is trauma, and that is that when we've experienced something that's an overload for our nervous system, you know, too much, too fast, too soon, one of the protective mechanisms is a retreat of consciousness from the body when the pain is too great to bear consciously. So this could happen in something more circumstantial, like an auto accident or a physical trauma, or it could happen in something more more harmful on the soul level, like situations of physical or sexual abuse where we we disembodied as a protective mechanism and so then body awareness and body sensation is kind of numb to it, and that can even be passed on through
00;10;39;15 - 00;11;06;11
Mark Kutolowski
generations to you I'm a Polish-American, and culture has a long tradition of sort of enduring pain stoically and not necessarily feeling the feelings And so part of my own journey of embodiment was sort of learning to really listen and then feel the pain not only of myself, but even even some of the collective pain that's been passed along, not fully embodied or felt or experienced.
00;11;06;17 - 00;11;42;22
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm. Yeah, I've just been reading recently. It didn't start with you which is one of the books that really helped catalyze that intergenerational exploration. And that's been so fascinating to see how much we can even just on an epigenetic level, you know, the genetic changes that make us respond differently to stress and anxiety and things and all the studies that they've done, both in humans and animals of survivors of the Holocaust and their offspring, which my grandpa was one of them or you know, people after nine 11.
00;11;42;22 - 00;12;07;00
Kelly Deutsch
And it's remarkable to see how much we are affected by things that we didn't personally experience, you know, and I mean that's I feel like the big discussion the book my grandmother's hands, you know the interracial Yeah. Just burdened that's carried by generations it's.
00;12;07;21 - 00;12;28;25
Mark Kutolowski
And that it's carried in the bodies of both people that are and the role of oppressed and also and people in the role of oppressor and so if we if we only try to address some of these these big issues cognitively and with a sort of a sense of will you know you should be able to do better if we don't address the trauma in the body I think will have limited success.
00;12;29;04 - 00;12;40;16
Mark Kutolowski
So it's really I think it's wonderful that these sort of dimensions of of social social issues and social evils are starting to enter the conversation.
00;12;40;26 - 00;13;10;09
Kelly Deutsch
Amen. It's so big. And I I'm sure for many people listening, but also for me personally to say addressing trauma through talk therapy or spiritual direction or any of those things where it's a more disembodied thing, it just it can only go so far, you know, and so addressing it more on an embodied level where it's stored in our autonomic nervous system, in our muscles and everything else, the patterns are epigenetics.
00;13;10;09 - 00;13;14;15
Kelly Deutsch
I mean, wow, it's remarkable to see what changes can happen.
00;13;14;24 - 00;13;19;19
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah. Yeah. Now it's an exciting time to be able to be entering the realms.
00;13;20;01 - 00;13;34;02
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. You kind of hinted while you were sharing there that, you know, because of your heritage, it took you some time to actually come home to your body in a sense. I'm curious if you would share a little bit of your story about how you came to a place of being more embodied.
00;13;35;18 - 00;14;00;15
Mark Kutolowski
Yes. Yeah. So for myself, I mean, I grew up always being drawn towards the physical. And so that that came out with a lot of interest in sports. And and I would was drawn to the most physical sports that were available to me. So hockey and football and rugby and just these things where there's a lot of bodies coming into coming into contact with other bodies.
00;14;00;16 - 00;14;33;16
Mark Kutolowski
And but it was always kind of accompanied with with a lot of will and tension. So, you know, you'd psych yourself up or you do weightlifting and a lot of heavy exertion with the intention of sort of building strength and power and that also can only take you so far. And it's a lot of the teaching of kind of overriding, overriding pain, you know, no pain no gain to push harder, push through the ethos of those sports.
00;14;33;19 - 00;15;09;17
Mark Kutolowski
And what really came to head for me is I had a knee injury that was not, not healing easily that I in when I was about 20 and I had a surgery that ended up being much worse than the injury and that I had an epidural injection for anesthetic, which then ended up going poorly and I have developed a spinal fluid leak and lost quite a bit of that spinal fluid and had I was more of the the mechanistic, you know, doc, just fix me so I can get back to playing sports mode.
00;15;09;17 - 00;15;59;15
Mark Kutolowski
But for six months, nothing was working and increasingly intensive interventions in the Western medical field and then kind of out of desperation as things were getting worse with no help, I started looking for alternatives. And in that time two things happened. First of all, it was psychologically very difficult for me. And I first was exposed to the Christian contemplative tradition and practices and learned about centering prayer and spent some time at a Benedictine monastery at Mount Savior in upstate New York, where I'm still an oblate and simultaneously I was introduced to the practice of Qigong, which some people, some of the listeners may be familiar with, but it's the embodied or body based practice in a
00;15;59;21 - 00;16;30;24
Mark Kutolowski
traditional Chinese medical system. And the form I was introduced to did a lot of work with healing through breathwork and visualization and feeling, sensing, cheer, kind of a subtle bioenergy within the body. And I recovered within within a few months of being given practices that I did for 2 hours a day every day. So and it just and I started feeling all these the energies and sensations in my body that this whole other aspect of the human experience that I never even knew existed.
00;16;30;24 - 00;16;55;24
Mark Kutolowski
So was it a huge Eye-Opener for me? And and I got better in a way that didn't fit with the Western model. Like, I nobody ever, you know, nobody ever patch the hole in my spinal, you know, the sheath around my spinal cord. But I stopped having problems and started feeling much, much better. And so that began a journey of exploring this whole realm and was only 20.
00;16;56;16 - 00;17;23;02
Mark Kutolowski
And that continued exploring within that realm of qigong for about a decade until I well, I still you know, I still have awareness of that practice, and I'm grateful for it. But I shifted my focus towards the to the Russian tradition when I discovered that in 2008 because it helped to kind of bridge the world between the physical practice I was doing and the spiritual practice as I was doing.
00;17;23;02 - 00;17;36;09
Mark Kutolowski
Because as you mentioned, it is a tradition that emerged from the Orthodox Christian practice. And there are there are subtle differences, but a lot of also complementary themes with the style of qigong that I had learned earlier.
00;17;36;18 - 00;17;48;08
Kelly Deutsch
So yeah. Would you tell us a little bit about that, this system of the Russian practice because and also why why would it be important that it has a Christian foundation?
00;17;48;21 - 00;18;16;29
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah, that's a great question. This gets into a realm that I want to speak with with some subtlety here, because I don't want to come across as saying that, you know, it's it's better just because it's Christian or that Christian shouldn't be doing taichi or yoga. I think there can be a place for that. But the deeper one goes, this is my in my own experience, and there are people that I, I respect very well who would take a different stance on this.
00;18;16;29 - 00;18;47;25
Mark Kutolowski
That's why I say with, with, with humility and charity. My experience has been that the further one goes in and embody practice, you're actually changing your physiology and your nervous system and the energetic system towards the imprint that the practices give or impress. And so. Well, I think spiritual traditions may like the more you're working with the transcending transcendence spiritual aspect of their tradition in practice, it points towards a reality and experience.
00;18;47;25 - 00;19;09;06
Mark Kutolowski
It's universal, but the more you're working with the embodied practice, you're actually dealing with an aspect of the tradition that is particular because it's actually bringing the practice into your own flesh and tissue, which is always unique in particular. So you can own that. You, each of us, has a body which is not at all universal. My body is not your body, even though we may be sharing in the same spirit.
00;19;10;09 - 00;19;51;11
Mark Kutolowski
So there's a particular aspect to it, and the traditions that I've noticed is that they do shape the body and the nervous system, and in different ways they're all positive compared to a non trained state, as we typically encounter in our culture, but they're different. And so for me, the system I brought a unity to the the themes of the Christian contemplative path of the self-emptying or Gnosis and Greek and the the incarnational aspect, that the emphasis of God entering into the body becoming body image of Jesus in the Transfiguration, sort of becoming a body of light.
00;19;51;11 - 00;20;29;06
Mark Kutolowski
These are all themes that are very important, and Christianity has a particular take on these things. The value of suffering is another one that Christianity has a lot to say about how willingly embracing and being present with our pain in dialog with both God and the pain can be transformative for ourselves and for the world. Sharing in the sufferings of Christ so systemic has practices that are in relationship and dialog with those spiritual themes in a way that that qigong practice that I was doing did not like that, even though there were many things that were beneficial about it.
00;20;31;00 - 00;20;40;10
Mark Kutolowski
So so for me it really did bring a whole nother level of of unity between body and spirit to engage with this tradition that emerged from the Christian.
00;20;40;25 - 00;20;41;08
Kelly Deutsch
Hymn.
00;20;41;29 - 00;20;42;22
Mark Kutolowski
Christian Strain.
00;20;44;28 - 00;21;08;23
Kelly Deutsch
My attention was snagged by something you said around suffering and how Christianity can find it to be transformative or at least potentially transforming Chile. And I would be curious to hear a little bit more about that, because I think a lot of people I mean, it's part of the human condition, right? We don't know what to do with suffering.
00;21;08;23 - 00;21;23;16
Kelly Deutsch
And that's what a lot of religions are trying to respond to. In essence. And I'd love to hear your thoughts on how Christianity and maybe in particular what you've learned through Sistema, how that has helped you respond to suffering.
00;21;24;03 - 00;21;44;18
Mark Kutolowski
Okay. Yeah. Well, let's let's break that down because there's so much there's so much there. It's such a rich topic. So let's talk a little bit about the so the more theological piece. And then I want to so and you can help me to remember if we if we go off on a separate track to talk about the what that looks like with the embodied practice of systemic because there are some very practical components to it.
00;21;45;13 - 00;22;21;01
Mark Kutolowski
So first, in the broader kind of theological sense, I find it's very helpful to think of the root of the meaning of the word suffering in English, which is what we commonly think of suffering in terms of experiencing pain. But it also means to allow So you'll see in more Shakespearian English, just like the King James, or as I say, you know, suffer the little children to come on to me, Jesus saying, allow them, you know, allow it to be so to suffer in a sense is to consent to the reality of the pain that we're experiencing, to suffer it rather than, again, to what we were talking about earlier to to numb to it or
00;22;21;01 - 00;22;47;23
Mark Kutolowski
to push it away or to repress it because it's too much. So. So when we suffer, we're actually experienced in the sensation of the pain. And if we have the capacity to suffer, which requires a certain amount of spaciousness and peace in the body, the suffering then kind of move through when we don't have the capacity. Then again, there can be an overload where it goes into numbness or the pain is kind of stored in our tissues.
00;22;47;23 - 00;23;15;04
Mark Kutolowski
And that's that's a negative experience for us. But then if we happen to say later in life, be in a position of power over others and we haven't we haven't dealt with that unprocessed pain, we may tend to pass it along or pass on a new pain to others on totally unconsciously. And so we we perpetuate the pain in the world by not being able to suffer it ourselves.
00;23;17;24 - 00;23;42;07
Mark Kutolowski
And I think Jesus is the great image, Jesus on the cross of refusing to pass the suffering along, but taking it in and and bringing it bringing it to surrender to God and feeling it in his body to the point that it was completely overwhelmed And the mystery is also transformative, that the story doesn't end with his death.
00;23;42;07 - 00;24;20;14
Mark Kutolowski
It ends or it continues with the resurrection. So with the transformation of the suffering. So I think there's a there's a great image or archetype of the transformative effect of suffering in the image of Jesus or even in Isaiah's passages about the suffering servant prophet, prophesying about that centuries earlier, that that healing, even of the collective, we must as a collective mass of pain of humanity by taking it in and then in relationship and conscious awareness about holding the pain in the body in dialog with the infinite love and presence of God also felt in the body.
00;24;20;27 - 00;24;55;01
Mark Kutolowski
There's an alchemy that kind of goes on that I think brings about healing of the suffering of the whole. And, well, I hesitate to talk too much about my own experience. I can think this is the kind of thing that we do need to talk about is that over my journey with this work, it sort of went from primarily an experience of dealing with my own pain and my own suffering and some of my ancestral to later beginning to experience some of that not not even that much in in my day to day life.
00;24;55;01 - 00;25;36;00
Mark Kutolowski
But there are periods where where I've been later invited by the spirit to spend time in solitary retreat and wilderness retreat. And there is a sense of sometimes of feeling the pain of the collective coming into my body and being given that invitation to hold that in prayer and feeling some sense of some of that moving through. And it's just a little hint and a little glimpse of, oh, this is some of what the Christian tradition is talking about, this transformative power of suffering united to the suffering of Christ so that my own body is in some little way part of that cell of the mystical body of Christ that is doing some continuing to do
00;25;36;00 - 00;25;59;29
Mark Kutolowski
some of that work in the world. And that's, you know, Paul has that mysterious line. I forget which episode is where he says make up in yourself what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ. Now it seems like, what is he talking about until this experience? Like, oh, it's not lacking in the mystical body of Christ, but what he's mean is that body continues in space and time, and those who are united with it can share in that same embodied suffering.
00;26;00;13 - 00;26;00;22
Kelly Deutsch
May.
00;26;01;03 - 00;26;03;02
Mark Kutolowski
Be a blessing for the world in doing so.
00;26;03;11 - 00;26;20;19
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, that's beautiful. I mean, growing up Catholic, we would call that redemptive suffering, but I've found very few people who can express it so eloquently, you know, instead of like just offered up, you know, you're not your sufferings to Jesus on the cross. And it's like there's a little more to it than just saying like, All right, Jesus sisters.
00;26;21;06 - 00;26;41;00
Mark Kutolowski
And when it's just said cognitively like that, there's the danger that it actually becomes the opposite. It becomes destructive. You're saying, you know, just, you know, just endure your suffering. But if you don't have the tools to really experience it in your body, it can feel sometimes like it's it's dismissive of the reality and the depth and the pain of the suffering.
00;26;41;01 - 00;26;53;29
Mark Kutolowski
So I think, you know, it's one of those things that is both transformative power in the tradition and held wrongly. It can it can be damaging. I mean, I know some people that have grown up Catholic that have had a negative experience of that type of.
00;26;54;18 - 00;26;55;10
Kelly Deutsch
Oh, absolutely.
00;26;55;27 - 00;26;57;02
Mark Kutolowski
How poorly.
00;26;58;08 - 00;27;06;19
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. It can end up becoming like a spiritual toxicity kind of thing where. Yeah, it's yeah. Just like endure it, have fun, you know, but.
00;27;06;19 - 00;27;10;10
Mark Kutolowski
Even or even people over identifying with that as a role.
00;27;10;12 - 00;27;11;03
Kelly Deutsch
Oh, sure.
00;27;11;10 - 00;27;50;22
Mark Kutolowski
I'm I'm the mascot with the the murder. A victim. A victim soul as a term God is making me suffer, aren't I saving souls because I'm suffering too much? And it may just be that you're actually you know, over identifying with, with, with pain and and not, not holding it in body way. So but you but you see, that because a person who's holding who's not holding their pain and embodied way, even if they talk about how great it is, there's a harshness and a dissonance and a bitterness that goes along with it, where somebody who's truly experiencing, embodying suffering is humility, gentleness, patience, self-control, you know, the fruits of the spirit.
00;27;51;06 - 00;27;55;11
Mark Kutolowski
They're there if you see them, they're you know it. You feel safe in their presence.
00;27;56;15 - 00;28;08;22
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. So do you think that that's almost a I don't know if you want to call it a prerequisite to really suffering in that transformative way is being able to have that inner spaciousness to.
00;28;08;28 - 00;28;09;07
Mark Kutolowski
I do.
00;28;09;09 - 00;28;12;20
Kelly Deutsch
Receive it in your body. So that it essentially doesn't become trauma.
00;28;13;03 - 00;28;17;22
Mark Kutolowski
Yes. And so that's so this is that's a perfect segue into talking about what would be a practice.
00;28;18;05 - 00;28;18;10
Kelly Deutsch
To.
00;28;18;10 - 00;28;45;17
Mark Kutolowski
Help us do that. Yeah. So that's where we can start talking about and system up because I think you're right. If our body doesn't have the capacity to hold either trauma or we say, let's, let's, we'll stay on the theoretical level or the glory of God, because that's the other thing that in the later Christian tradition, especially in the West with losing a sense of embodied spirituality, I believe that there are these examples of saints.
00;28;45;17 - 00;29;11;12
Mark Kutolowski
They're really open to the divine energies. But without the capacity to hold it in their body. And it's almost like putting an electric current that's ten times too intense for the circuit that's holding it, and it can kind of blow the circuits. And so I think you get these cases of these some of these really great saints who died quite young, often of illness.
00;29;11;12 - 00;29;31;01
Mark Kutolowski
But I think first you hear them holding this almost a tremendous amount of energy. Francis of Assisi would be one example, and you can always point to other things. You know, you fasted too much or whatever. But Teresa, bless you being another one. You know, Francis died in his mid-forties, three sinner kind of early to mid twenties. And there are many others.
00;29;31;01 - 00;29;54;11
Mark Kutolowski
And once again, I can't prove it, but from my own expense, it really feels like there's an aspect of that these people open to torment to sleep, to divine power, but they didn't have a way to really hold it in the flesh over the long haul. Now, to contrast that, when you look at some of the desert monastics of old Anthony of Egypt and Saint Paul, the Hermit and others, they recorded deaths.
00;29;54;11 - 00;30;14;05
Mark Kutolowski
We're at 105, one or six within the known historic human age range, but at the far end of it, and I suspect that they were more tuned in to some of these realities in that earlier era. Once again, I can't prove it, but it's you see more of that in the early centuries of Christianity than you do in the later centuries.
00;30;14;05 - 00;30;24;21
Kelly Deutsch
So I suspect that's fascinating that's going on Yeah. Yeah. So share with us a bit what that looks like. How do we carve out that kind of capacity in us?
00;30;25;03 - 00;31;00;15
Mark Kutolowski
So the practice then. Yeah. So so in Systema there's four fundamental principles that we work with in doing the work, there's there's breath work or breath awareness there's movement or sort of natural soft soft movement. There's relaxation, and then there's structure or alignment and form. So those four different pieces are always kind of incorporated into the different exercises and practices and there are other pieces too, but those are in place.
00;31;00;15 - 00;31;28;13
Mark Kutolowski
And so like a very typical early exercise that we do is starting a class. You spend time just breathing notice and breath in and out of your body like many other traditions do. And then we'll practice doing tension and relaxation so you tense all the muscles in your body, then relax them and tense them and relax them. And what you're doing is you're training your body to experience the full capacity of tension and the whole experience of relaxation.
00;31;28;13 - 00;31;49;02
Mark Kutolowski
And we're often kind of stuck in a three out of five in terms of tension, just default going through our body. So then when you try and give yourself the five and a one, then you start to regain a little of that fluidity and flexibility. And then another thing we'll do is a lot of movement that's united with breaths.
00;31;49;02 - 00;32;15;21
Mark Kutolowski
So they got us moving an arm, you know, doing a arm rotation, but you're breathing at the same time and you're feeling the breath leading the movement. So rather than moving from muscular effort or strain or willfulness you kind of let the gentle expansion and of the breath kind of lead into a movement. And over time, you you learn to move with with less muscular effort more the sense of ease and flowing from breath.
00;32;16;05 - 00;32;37;23
Mark Kutolowski
And there's a softness to it. And there's a and there's a smoothness to the movement that's different from that, that kind of more willful movement from muscular strain tends to have a kind of a jerky quality to it. So the more you do that type of movement, your body softens, your nervous system relaxes and you gain a greater kind of holding capacity retention.
00;32;38;04 - 00;32;40;08
Mark Kutolowski
So it's a lot of working with tension and relaxation.
00;32;40;19 - 00;32;41;00
Kelly Deutsch
Mm.
00;32;41;13 - 00;33;15;10
Mark Kutolowski
So now so that's an example of a solo practice, those gentle movements in breath. But then when we move into the martial component in Systema, we don't use pads. We do sparring always with bare hands and without padding. So you spend an equal amount of time learning how to receive a strike as you do to give one and the receiving aspect is if somebody, somebody hits you in, I'm just showing my chest because it's what you can see here, but it gives a strike and then that is actually neutral.
00;33;15;10 - 00;33;35;29
Mark Kutolowski
It's just force. Now, if my body is loose and relaxed, that force will kind of ripple through the body without doing harm. And in fact, if you're loosened up, it can actually soften a place where you have a little tightness or stuckness, just like a percussive massage will and so and the key in the moment to assisting with that is breathing.
00;33;35;29 - 00;33;58;15
Mark Kutolowski
So when I when I receive the strike, I exhale a little bit. I let the the force of it kind of go through my body and I may even move a little bit, breathe, stay soft, stay relaxed, and the energy dissipates And like I said, if you're really relaxed, it can even actually come out of a session where you've been punched a lot, actually feeling better now.
00;33;58;15 - 00;34;07;24
Mark Kutolowski
We don't even think about we think, oh, isn't that a terrible thing? You know, you're getting hit by. If you're getting hit with tension and you're stiff, then the impact actually does damage to the tissues.
00;34;08;00 - 00;34;08;12
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm.
00;34;08;26 - 00;34;34;02
Mark Kutolowski
So it's a completely different experience depending on your inner state. So the more you practice that, the more you learn to receive intensity of sensation and impact, whether it's a strike or wrestling or, you know, falling to the ground or being thrown to the ground, you receive it with softness. And there is no break, there's no dissonance. And so so that's all about receiving some impact.
00;34;34;03 - 00;34;54;28
Mark Kutolowski
Now, the same thing that translates to emotions, you know, as somebody says something mean to you, you can take it from the ego love, then get out and then start fighting back in your mind or even externally. And you get tense and you get stiff and you get angry and agitate your heart rate goes up or you breathe, you soften, you move, you you let it kind of move through you.
00;34;55;08 - 00;35;31;07
Mark Kutolowski
Hmm. And so these are you know, these are some of the things that a practice like system builds the capacity for, which then in my mind translates into that ability to hold suffering, whether it's my own the world's suffering and then also even the positive things, like I mentioned, that experience of God's presence, allowing that to stretch out because it's also an intensity of sensation, even though it may be positive rather than the negative giving space in my body to breathe, to feel my tissues, my physical tissues actually be soft enough for that energy to to have somewhere to go in my nervous system.
00;35;31;17 - 00;36;14;22
Kelly Deutsch
So, yeah, that's beautiful. And that's it just makes me think of practicing scales on piano or any other kind of practice or exercise where you're helping your muscle memory, if you will, like your, your body. Remember, what to do in that circumstance so that, you know, my fingers know where to move on a piano or when I'm receiving an emotional or physical strike that I can soften and make space for and then allow it to move through so that when those things do happen in life as suffering and inevitably comes, yes, that that I can do the same, that I'm used to having that stance of receptivity.
00;36;15;07 - 00;36;19;26
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Beautiful. Yeah.
00;36;20;29 - 00;36;48;13
Mark Kutolowski
And something else that comes to my mind as we're speaking about this is the the other thing with an embodied spirituality with with a physical state like this that can receive these things is then it assists greatly in the reality that we experience in prayer of divine mercy, of divine forgiveness, of love, of gods life, life flight and all.
00;36;48;17 - 00;37;29;15
Mark Kutolowski
You know, this is the blessedness that can come in these moments in prayer. It allows those those experiences to be more connected to our embodied experience. Whereas without that, if the body is is in a state of tension and stress, I think what can often happen is when we go to prayer, to silent prayer or practice like centering prayer or Christian meditation or some other meditative practice we can experience peace and stillness in meditation, but it tends to have almost a dreamlike quality of being happening out there somewhere else, apart from the body and then when we come back to it being in our body and moving, it's our stiff pain, uncomfortable.
00;37;30;05 - 00;38;01;04
Mark Kutolowski
And so they become attached to different worlds. Whereas the more we allow and prepare the body to be open and soft, I think there can be a bridge between the experiences of the interior reality and prayer that then manifest more fully in the body. Hmm. And so there's this link or a unification again between body and spirit and body, soul and spirit that happens, I think is a critical work in our time to it to allow that to happen.
00;38;01;18 - 00;38;29;28
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Wow. My my insides are just like processing all of this and putting together pieces from my own life and periods of of illness where, you know, when it felt like my life was falling apart, but really just trying to continue to open and receive and what was happening both on a, on a physical level, emotional level and a spiritual level in that kind of gesture of that interior stance of openness.
00;38;30;28 - 00;38;31;10
Mark Kutolowski
Yes.
00;38;33;11 - 00;38;35;07
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm. That's lovely.
00;38;38;08 - 00;38;46;09
Kelly Deutsch
So do you. I don't even remember. Do you teach Systema? Is that something that you are active in or is it a personal practice of both?
00;38;46;16 - 00;39;16;19
Mark Kutolowski
Both So I've, I've been practicing since 2008 and then I became an instructor in, I guess instructor in training in 20, 15, and then a full instructor in 2016. So it's been about five years and I mean our life at our homestead is you know, we live in a small town of about a thousand folks and so there have been a few years where we had a weekly system of practice which would always be people in the, the local school gym and off hours.
00;39;16;19 - 00;39;44;17
Mark Kutolowski
And then currently my wife and I have been experimenting with doing a specific but not so much teaching the martial part of system, but doing a once a month. We call a day of practice and integration where we have a Saturday. It's a four hour or so time, specifically looking at the relationship between these types of embodied practices, drawing heavily from system, although not exclusively and prayer.
00;39;44;18 - 00;39;48;09
Mark Kutolowski
So it's an integrated day of a kind of embodied prayer practice.
00;39;48;12 - 00;39;48;26
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah.
00;39;49;09 - 00;39;57;03
Mark Kutolowski
We started out this summer and we have our third one coming up soon. So it's kind of a once a month activity.
00;39;57;10 - 00;40;13;19
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, that sounds lovely. What, what do you find? I mean, a, I assume most people, I mean, unless they've met you or know you for a long time, you've probably not heard of this before. So I'm curious what they think of it and what impact it has on people who come.
00;40;14;07 - 00;40;39;13
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah, yeah, it's a good question. Well, first one thing I'll mention, and this would be relevant to people hearing this this recording or this this talk is that if you just hear your system and then go on a YouTube kind of deep dove you'll see lots of images of, of, of combat Systema, you'll see very little about what I'm talking about, the more subtle realms.
00;40;39;13 - 00;41;01;24
Mark Kutolowski
And culturally in the Russian culture, there is a lot of that of not being able to forward with some of these these subtler elements. I do think it's worth or speaking about, but just to just to mention as a caveat, because what I will I've had retreats where I bring some of these practices forward and we'll meet, you know, one day and do some of these practices and talk about.
00;41;01;25 - 00;41;21;05
Mark Kutolowski
And then the next morning I'll see people come in wide eyed because they've just watched videos that people in in the Russian military, you know, hitting each other with sledgehammers or something like is this really what we're doing? Well, it's part of the same whole world, but it's, you know, it's just like, you know, it's just like Buddhist meditation.
00;41;21;05 - 00;41;57;20
Mark Kutolowski
And watching Jackie Chan beat somebody up in a movie, like they're both tied to a traditional Chinese practice, but they're very you know, there's lots of diversity of how those things play out in the world. So I'll just mention that people do a systemic dove, but what I find to go back to your question, when people encounter this for the first time, people who have a previously established spiritual practice, oftentimes you have the but it takes a little while to get used to the body part.
00;41;57;22 - 00;42;10;29
Mark Kutolowski
It can be kind of uncomfortable at first because we've we've not seen this as an area where we really need to do work. So it's almost like a catch up period. But then when when the work is done in the body, a lot of things link up very quickly.
00;42;11;11 - 00;42;11;21
Kelly Deutsch
Mm.
00;42;12;18 - 00;42;31;12
Mark Kutolowski
Things that we've been experiencing in the spiritual realm or in the soul realm, suddenly have a space to go in the body. And it can be very exciting and very empowering a short period of time. So there can be the sense of like, you know, it's the piece of that body, soul, spirit that we've maybe, you know, is lagging behind the others.
00;42;31;12 - 00;42;41;04
Mark Kutolowski
And then when we give it some space, there's like this rush of energy and sensation that comes in. And so it can be a very positive experience very, very quickly.
00;42;41;16 - 00;42;43;19
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm. Yeah. Beautiful.
00;42;44;10 - 00;43;09;13
Mark Kutolowski
And, and like I said, and there can sometimes just the body hasn't been tended to for years or decades. The body has things to say. There can be painful emotions and sensations that that arise as well. So sometimes it needs to be patience and ideally support of other people and community or, you know, a mentor or somebody that can work with you in processing some of that pain that arises.
00;43;09;13 - 00;43;31;03
Mark Kutolowski
Sometimes we've been disembodied for for very good reasons of self-protection and preservation so I'll say that too, that sometimes that can be an issue. And it's good to be gentle with ourselves. And the concept of titration of, you know, a little bit at a time, you know, going in and feeling some but not not trying to push through, not being overwhelmed.
00;43;31;23 - 00;43;38;15
Mark Kutolowski
So instead of pushing opening up a little bit more feeling, letting the experience settle, opening up a little bit more.
00;43;39;04 - 00;44;10;24
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, I'm glad you said that because I think it's easy for us again, kind of the western mind of like, I just want to do this thing, okay? I'm going to be embodied now, you know, instead of recognizing that your body does have an inherent wisdom and if if you've been disembodied, there's there's probably a reason for it and that there almost needs to be a development of trust as, as more space is being opened up so that it doesn't just, you know, have all the boxes in the attic come crashing down at the same time.
00;44;11;03 - 00;44;12;28
Mark Kutolowski
That's that's really well said.
00;44;13;07 - 00;44;14;14
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah.
00;44;14;15 - 00;44;47;21
Mark Kutolowski
And and that's and it's also beyond the personal, you know, there may be our personal trauma like we talked about that might lead to discipline, but also culturally and so many of us don't have a lifestyle that encourages or supports that and body sensations. So, for example, if you're living in a in a city and not all of us go to work now but but walking to, you know, walking to work or going on a subway, you know, you're encountering thousands or tens of thousands or maybe, I don't know, maybe even hundreds of thousands of people in a very short period of time.
00;44;48;03 - 00;45;15;01
Mark Kutolowski
If your senses are as open as I am, after spending a week on a solo retreat in the woods, it would completely be completely overwhelming. And so we we we shut down and we closed down our senses to survive in that environment. And that's okay. That's actually a smart adaptation. So, you know, just recognizing that some aspects of our life and lifestyle might not be conducive to fully sensing and feeling everything right away.
00;45;15;01 - 00;45;37;14
Mark Kutolowski
Now, you can learn those practices in a city, but it requires patience and building resilience and building the ability to filter what's mine and what someone else's stuff and things. And it just yeah, it requires patience and subtlety and respecting what is right now as well as what's possible with some of this work. And more really need both need to be respected.
00;45;37;24 - 00;46;00;23
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes. And I know I've talked about this elsewhere, but discovering all of the science between behind what it means to be a highly sensitive person and have a highly sensitive nervous system. Yes. Oh, man, that changes so much. And I find, you know, the statistics are that about one in five people have a highly sensitive nervous system.
00;46;00;23 - 00;46;24;09
Kelly Deutsch
But I don't know about your experience, but I would guess in contemplative circles, it's more like one in two. Sure. Yeah. But we're just more naturally drawn towards, you know, the spiritual and the contemplative. And so a lot of people have that experience of taking in stimulus really deeply, feeling other people's feelings very easily. And may be easily moved by beauty and music and movies.
00;46;25;09 - 00;46;35;08
Kelly Deutsch
But that also means being on the subway and sometimes just in those environments can be really overwhelming to our senses. Yes. So learning how to filter is an important skill. Yes.
00;46;35;20 - 00;46;48;10
Mark Kutolowski
And this is an interesting thing. So with with Pratt, you know, with spiritual practice and I do I've done a you know, I have a very small spiritual direction practice, so I don't advertise it. But just a few people come along and I'm.
00;46;48;10 - 00;46;48;22
Kelly Deutsch
Sure.
00;46;49;10 - 00;47;11;10
Mark Kutolowski
In working with folks in spiritual direction, I found that there are you know, there are some people for whom the work is. How do I open up to feel more into sense, more and to be more present? And there are some people who I've had the gift to work with for whom they're experiencing immense know an immensity of information and very subtle information.
00;47;11;10 - 00;47;36;08
Mark Kutolowski
And on the psychic level and the real work is about how do I integrate that? And actually give a greater caring capacity and sometimes even tone things down a little bit to stay and body to not be totally overwhelmed for that. So in that circumstance, you know, the practice isn't so much about learning to sense and feel more as it is to really root the body.
00;47;36;08 - 00;48;12;23
Mark Kutolowski
So there might be things like not doing this with tension but doing it with awareness and strengthening exercises. So in Systema, we do like things like squats and pushups with slow motion, with breathing where it's really, really bringing energy into the body. And diet is another thing actually. And I find that the eating group more grounding food, you know, organic meats and good fats and proteins, root vegetables, these kind of denser foods, still whole foods, not junk food, but for denser foods.
00;48;12;23 - 00;48;37;02
Mark Kutolowski
Because oftentimes people who are pursuing a spiritual life will often be doing a, you know, a raw food diet or a very light at which can be supportive of sensitivity. But if you have too much sensitivity, it sometimes is the exact opposite is helpful in doing things both physically with your body and with your diet help for rooting to kind of keep heaven and earth connected on that side.
00;48;37;25 - 00;49;20;29
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I find all of that so fascinating because it's such a I don't know, it can just be so life-changing when you recognize how your how your body is made, how your nervous system is wired, and how to best care for that. You know, I, I remember I was in the convent for a number of years, and my first home visit coming home, and I walked through a mall for the first time and, you know, over a year, maybe a year and a half, and I was so overwhelmed by flashing lights and sounds and so many people and I like, you know, learning a little later, learning that your nervous system, it's your brain
00;49;20;29 - 00;49;33;29
Kelly Deutsch
reaches what they call trans marginal inhibition. Which I nicknamed STEM Pop. You know, when your stimulus reaches a certain point, feel like, okay, I'm just done. I like you just got to go lay down in the dark room or something.
00;49;34;12 - 00;49;34;18
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah.
00;49;35;11 - 00;49;49;26
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. But not having the science behind that, knowing what's going on internally just makes so much more sense of it instead of, you know, like what's going on with me and why I'm so overwhelmed or easily stressed out by crowds or whatever it might be for folks.
00;49;50;12 - 00;49;53;22
Mark Kutolowski
Right? Yeah. Yeah, that's that's yeah.
00;49;54;03 - 00;49;56;01
Kelly Deutsch
Just, yeah, so fascinating.
00;49;56;01 - 00;50;32;24
Mark Kutolowski
And it makes me think another piece with, with the system around this, this issue of dealing with stimulation and sometimes too much is we do I talked about a little bit with receiving strikes, but there's there's just a part of the practice is learning to receive pain or unpleasant sensations with awareness, with the breathing you know working with a loving partner that's in the exercise, partner in the exercise who's supporting you we can sort of learn to help build the capacity and there even solo practices like one of the ones that we do is working with breath holds.
00;50;32;24 - 00;50;54;25
Mark Kutolowski
So you're doing breathing, soft breathing and then you do a breath hold for a long period of time. And then at the end, you know, your body, of course, experiences that as a as a tension. The system's all amped up and you hold as long as you can. And then and then when you start to breathe again, you, you learn breathing in, in a particular fashion that helps you to then come back to relaxation.
00;50;54;25 - 00;51;27;05
Mark Kutolowski
So you're training your body from touching on the edge of that highly stimulated kind of edge of fight flight to then back down into a place of ease and relaxation and each time you do that, over time, you know, it builds the capacity to know how to make the link from here back to here. And then you're just and you get less, less overstimulated and, and systemic as the traditional art in a place where I'm more drawn to it is tied in with this Orthodox tradition.
00;51;27;05 - 00;51;50;29
Mark Kutolowski
It was also adapted and in some cases co-opted by the Soviets in the Soviet period, some of the spiritual aspects repressed. But one of the things that Soviets had in the military training was a lot of this work of training the soldiers nervous system so they wouldn't go into fight or flight mode when bullets were whizzing by and explosions all around.
00;51;51;00 - 00;52;08;24
Mark Kutolowski
And so there's a there's a practical military application of having a soldier that could stay within their rational mind and cognitive awareness in a situation that would often lead to a psychotic break. And so there are whole methods for building psychic carrying capacity. The breath holds being just one of them.
00;52;09;01 - 00;52;32;26
Kelly Deutsch
Sure. Right. And that's I mean, essentially what happens physiologically when we build resilience, right? I guess being able to have that fluid fluidity. And I mean, in neuroscience geek terms, they call that vagal tone. You know, in the public, they go where it's, you know, you're going you're able to transition from that sympathetic fight flight into the ventral vagal that's the rest and digest.
00;52;32;26 - 00;53;08;13
Kelly Deutsch
And but it's it's beautiful to see how many different traditions have known this for centuries, if not millennia. Yes. Yeah. Might not use those terms, but they they know the interior sensations and awareness and how to transition between those states so that we can flow more easily instead of just getting stuck in that kind of panicky state where you know, when we can't go to sleep because our minds are abuzz and we have kind of a buzzing energy in our chest and to help our bodies know how to downshift essentially from that Yeah.
00;53;09;07 - 00;53;45;20
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah. It reminds me of one another topic that I've drawn to go into it, not just because it is one that I feel like there's a lot of there are different opinions, and I have a sort of a minority opinion, it seems like, in this in this area. And that is our relationship with anger anger and activism, because part of this physiological aspect is that when you get angry and then go into action from that stimulated sense, it feels like you're doing real work and you're actually really getting something done.
00;53;45;20 - 00;54;09;27
Mark Kutolowski
And, you know, if you if you're angry you know, and people talk a lot about and even in spiritual circles, I hear a lot of language of channeling your anger towards good or towards reform, channeling your anger for social change. And I believe that that's mistaken. I believe that it's in in system when in sparring, the moment you get angry, you become less effective.
00;54;10;00 - 00;54;37;17
Mark Kutolowski
Your your you know, you talk about your your sympathetic nervous system is all amped up. Your movements become more choppy. And the funny thing is, you when you when you are agitated like that and you're working with force, when you strike or you wrestle, you feel like you're stronger, but you're actually weaker. And from being on the receiving end of thousands of strikes, I know that the more relaxed the person that's hitting me is, the more force that they're able to deliver and the more anger they're the less effective it is.
00;54;38;08 - 00;54;57;07
Mark Kutolowski
And so but it gives us this cognitive illusion. It feels good to the ego and the ego level. It feels like we're really doing something when we're angry, when we're raging at somebody. But it's actually less effective action. And I think that's true on other levels, too. And it's it's a false dichotomy to think we have to get angry in order to act with power.
00;54;57;17 - 00;54;58;00
Kelly Deutsch
Hmm.
00;54;58;03 - 00;55;21;17
Mark Kutolowski
True power comes from that place of ease. Stillness can move into extremely direct powerful action, but it can still be held with love and the capacity to see the humanity of the other. It does not require getting angry to act effectively. If you have the false dichotomy that I can either act in anger or not act, maybe, maybe I can see.
00;55;21;17 - 00;55;41;14
Mark Kutolowski
Yes, it's good to get angry and act, but on a more subtle level, it's also possible to act from freedom and do more effective action. And I would argue that the most effective activists over time have acted from that place. You know, Dr. King or Gandhi examples, people that were acting from love and freedom very directly, very powerfully.
00;55;42;27 - 00;55;44;28
Mark Kutolowski
So just bring that up yeah.
00;55;44;28 - 00;56;02;27
Kelly Deutsch
I love that example because it's it's much easier and much more tangible when you think about it in a sense of like a martial arts and like and being able to say like, I have been on the receiving end of a strike. You know, I know how these things feel when others are moving out of anger or moving from a place of ease.
00;56;03;09 - 00;56;24;24
Kelly Deutsch
And I think of it four times. I did a lot of leadership development in the corporate world and thinking, you know, leaving people through emotional intelligence and how to have difficult conversations. And even just thinking for myself, if somebody, you know, hit kind of a sensitive area for me and I got flared up with anger inside, I was like, this is not the time to have this conversation.
00;56;24;24 - 00;56;54;02
Kelly Deutsch
I feel like that. I mean, I could just let my anger out and just lash out, but that would be far less effective than going back. Getting grounded again figuring out what I'm really feeling and what I really need and me to ask for. And I'm going to request or sometimes demand. Yes, but having the time to be at ease and my body allows, you know, my prefrontal cortex to get back online so that I'm not just acting from that lizard brain.
00;56;54;12 - 00;57;02;25
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Of of anger, because that that's not our most developed part of ourselves. Yes.
00;57;03;04 - 00;57;23;09
Mark Kutolowski
Yes. And the other thing with this, which is I so fascinating and I love what you're just just seeing and the wisdom of that about being able to see that and to wait for is it when we act from that agitated state you know, you can say it's from the mirror neurons or whatever, but the other person is is automatically invited to also enter into that agitated state.
00;57;23;09 - 00;57;47;02
Mark Kutolowski
And so we come agitation to agitation. And one of the higher level kind of practices in Systema is that, you know, a practitioner who's staying totally relaxed and embodied in this way can enter into a conflict with a person who's agitated and angry and tense and diffuse the conflict either before coming to blows or even in the midst of engagement by staying relaxed.
00;57;47;02 - 00;58;10;02
Mark Kutolowski
And their nervous system will start to then relax in the context when you don't pick up the other end of the stick and it kind of scrambles the usual narrative of tension meeting. Tension, yes, agitation, negotiation. So when you meet it with ease, you can actually diffuse that energy in another person. Sometimes when they don't even know what's going on because they just they're just they're not feeling the normal feedback that comes into conflict.
00;58;10;09 - 00;58;35;28
Kelly Deutsch
Yes. Yes, absolutely. I mean, I just think of you know, the handful of people that I've met in my life that have such a profound presence that you just I mean, that's what happens when I listen to Jim Findlay, for example, you know, like listening to his audio book on the Right Path to the Palace of Nowhere and just listening to his voice, you know, just like his nervous system, speaking across the way, you know, just it calms me.
00;58;35;28 - 00;59;15;01
Kelly Deutsch
And I just want to go soak in silence for the next 3 hours, you know, and I think of people like that whose presence have such a profound effect. Right. That is a really concrete example of what that kind of presence can do. And to be able to bring that to conflict or bring that even to activism so that I mean, if you're talking to your racist uncle or something like that, instead of coming in with all of your ideas and arguments and can't you see instead of a depth of presence that might start with curiosity I mean, it changes everything like where you start from.
00;59;15;01 - 00;59;19;07
Kelly Deutsch
And I'm sure it's the same in martial arts. Like the starting point is entirely different.
00;59;19;22 - 00;59;42;17
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah. Yeah, I agree. And that yeah, that capacity be in that space of curiosity is tremendously diffusing. And when you start seeing humanity in another person and have to then have the space in your body, to be able to hold that, that you know, the complexity of that, then very often the other person feels the space to then let down their guard.
00;59;42;17 - 00;59;45;18
Mark Kutolowski
And then that's when a real human exchange can happen.
00;59;45;27 - 01;00;16;19
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, beautiful. I, I find that so incredibly important, especially when there is such a need for social change. That it is very easy to default to the anger because it does feel much more powerful and like we're actually going to get something done instead of allowing ourselves to be transformed and allow suffering to pass through us, be receptive, open, curious, and start from that deeper place of breath awareness, whatever you want to call it.
01;00;17;01 - 01;00;21;02
Kelly Deutsch
Realm. It changes everything. Yeah, yeah.
01;00;21;19 - 01;00;39;01
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, it's, you know, it's a truism to say that, you know, the be the change you wish to, to be in the world. But, but the great gift of this type of work is that that's a gift no matter what is happening on the level of you know, laws and reforms or whatever, these more subtle things where there can be victories and setbacks and all that.
01;00;39;01 - 01;01;00;24
Mark Kutolowski
But this is always a gift to the people that were in relationship with in any form in this space. And, you know, again, I speak about my Eastern European background. I do have Russian martial art. You know, those of us, you know, those of us whose relatives, distant or recent relatives have gone through the communist experience in Eastern Europe.
01;01;00;24 - 01;01;35;02
Mark Kutolowski
You know, we have a little bit more caution about the idea of a big social reform that with the right ideas, it's just going to make everything better because we tried that before and it didn't didn't end well. We so just really, you know, the more we can stay at the level of body presents, relationship, love know not that there isn't a place for those larger issues, but always bringing this as is primary I think can help to avoid repeating some of the mistakes of the past where very high ideals start.
01;01;35;02 - 01;01;40;25
Mark Kutolowski
You know, movements began with very high ideals and often went ended up in a very destructive path.
01;01;41;06 - 01;02;06;20
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah. Yeah. I remember hearing this is a politician that was quoted, I think from back in the eighties, if I'm not mistaken. But someone asked a politician what he considered the, you know, biggest things that we can do to affect society, the planet, etc., you know, kind of social issues, you know, and they're expecting like okay, here's how you can work for climate change or racial equality and all these things.
01;02;06;20 - 01;02;32;03
Kelly Deutsch
He's like, we need to work on the self-centeredness that we find within our hearts. We need to work on our presence in the world and loving our neighbors. I was like, Oh, you know, that's yeah, that's where it starts yeah. And that's just as hurt people, hurt people, loving people. Also create loving people. Yeah. Yeah.
01;02;32;19 - 01;02;55;05
Mark Kutolowski
And I think what can if we're not careful also what can can often happen is we can take our own unresolved pain that we're tearing in our body. And unconsciously wedded to the social issue that we care about. And then we can we can look to try to fix and fight the pain that's in here. Out there which it still may be a thing out there that's really worth fighting for.
01;02;55;17 - 01;03;06;16
Mark Kutolowski
But if we first feel the pain within here, it will change our relationship to the work to the thing out there in a very positive way. And again, allow for for more effective action.
01;03;06;23 - 01;03;20;11
Kelly Deutsch
Excellent point. Yes. I mean, essentially owning your shadow first instead of projecting it out there and attacking whoever you attached it to, right? Yeah. Wow. Beautiful Lisbon, juicy yeah.
01;03;22;05 - 01;03;22;17
Mark Kutolowski
Yeah.
01;03;24;08 - 01;03;36;13
Kelly Deutsch
Yeah, absolutely. I'm wondering if before we close, if you are able or interested in sharing with us some sort of embodied practice, be it from Sistema or or otherwise that you like to share with people?
01;03;36;23 - 01;04;09;29
Mark Kutolowski
Certainly be happy to. So as I mentioned, one of the things that we focus on a lot and Sistema is working with breath. And so this is a breath based practice and um, but I'll do it as sort of first just working with the breath and the last part on by people to, to add the spoken of the Curia liaison on Jesus prayer of it simply Lord have mercy or God does mercy invoking God's mercy beautiful.
01;04;09;29 - 01;05;15;29
Mark Kutolowski
So, so wherever, wherever you are is you're as you're listening to this if you're not driving a car or doing something like that, but if you're a place where you can be still invited to place your, your feet and contact with the ground and to relax position up, close your eyes, and begin by simply noticing your breath and for this practicing invite you to breathe in through your nose and then out through your mouth and get you to begin by noticing the sensation of breath coming in at the level of your nose and sensation of the breath leaving your lips or your mouth and now to change your shift your awareness to the sensation of the
01;05;15;29 - 01;06;01;28
Mark Kutolowski
breath entering into your head, into the area of your skull, breathing in your nose, out to the inner and as you breathe in and out and get you to notice the subtle sensation of expansion that comes to the in-breath the breath fills your body and the subtle sensation of release or relaxation that happens with the ultra and now allow your awareness to shift to the sensation of the breath breathing into your throat and breathing out from your throat.
01;06;05;20 - 01;07;00;16
Mark Kutolowski
Standing on the in-breath releasing and relaxing in the air we're not pushing for maximal depth of breath, nor is it shallow. It's somewhere in the middle of the natural relaxed breath Now, with your awareness, notice the sensation of the breath coming into the upper part of your chest, over your shoulders, and expanding, breathing out quacks and now notice the sensation coming down into the fullness of your chest, your ribcage, breathing in, expanding breathing.
01;07;00;16 - 01;07;01;05
Kelly Deutsch
Outcrops.
01;07;10;22 - 01;09;13;03
Mark Kutolowski
Notice the expansion of the ribcage forward the front of your body, breathing in, expanding, not relaxing, expansion of the ribcage backwards into your back, expanding relaxing and now into your sides, the sides of your ribs, breathing in, expanding and now relaxing and bite you to notice the sensation as you breathe of breathing into your solar plexus. Or into your belly and expanding and now relaxing the breath continues into your hips, into your pelvis, breathing and standing out, relaxing now as best you're able to allow the sensation of expansion of the in-breath flow down all the way into your thighs, into your upper legs and an expanding relaxing now moving down into your lower legs, into your
01;09;13;03 - 01;11;09;12
Mark Kutolowski
calves shins and expanding now relaxed now to continue to breath all the way down into your feet. Sensation of breathing in an expanding out and relax Now invite you to augment, it would seem, awareness of breath expanding and relaxing into your arms. So into your shoulders upper arms, biceps and triceps lower arms, forearms, now into your hands in standing, breathing out, flexing Now invites you to allow that sensation to expand to your whole body.
01;11;09;19 - 01;11;20;00
Mark Kutolowski
So as you breathe in the whole body, expand like your body has this one long breathing in an expanding breathing out.
01;11;20;04 - 01;11;20;22
Kelly Deutsch
Relaxing.
01;11;25;01 - 01;12;06;03
Mark Kutolowski
In an expanding from this place of a full body breath, I invite you to add the prayer a mason on In-breath same prayer lay on the outer breathing in expanding lace on breathing out in a relaxing day.
01;12;09;24 - 01;12;10;02
Kelly Deutsch
You.
01;12;12;12 - 01;13;55;03
Mark Kutolowski
Can do this spoken softly, or you can do it simply keeping the prayer within. Either way, as time standing, breathing in on the thing out relaxing here you in an expanding area on and out and relaxing very two more times in an expanding area. Leave some breathing out and relax here. You may in an expanding your on breathing out in relaxing your invite you to gently allow the awareness of the words of the prayer to fade returning to your breath and gently allow your awareness of your breath to shift from your full body to drawn inward to your core hips to your head, expanding or relaxing now shifting your attention simply to expand your chest, expanding
01;13;55;03 - 01;14;58;12
Mark Kutolowski
and relaxing and expanding out, relaxing shifting that awareness now just to the throat and expanding and relaxing now to just a sensation of breath entering through your nose and leaving through your lips and expanding and when you're ready to turn your attention from breath to sensations, maybe move your hands a little bit with the feet. Shift your position where you're sitting gently, open your eyes, tuning more fully to your outside environment.
01;15;09;11 - 01;15;10;05
Kelly Deutsch
Thank you.
01;15;13;07 - 01;15;32;23
Kelly Deutsch
I think I've melted into a puddle it's lovely. And you feel like that is a perfect way to gift everyone at the end of our conversation.
01;15;35;14 - 01;15;41;23
Mark Kutolowski
Grateful for the chance to be in this conversation and to share in this time with all of you, wherever you may be.
01;15;42;25 - 01;15;54;15
Kelly Deutsch
Wonderful. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom and your thoughts and your experience with us. And Mark, if people want to learn more about you and what you're up to, where should they go?
01;15;55;00 - 01;16;22;13
Mark Kutolowski
Yes. Well, probably the easiest way is we do have a website that's meant to annoy Etsy.com, and that just gives a little a little overview of the life that Lisa and I are trying to create some sense of our own embodied practice. And there's a series of reflections there on there as well of places where we've been exploring and articulating over the last year and a half or so.
01;16;22;13 - 01;16;28;12
Mark Kutolowski
So that would be the one place to begin exploring. And there's there's contact information for us that's there as.
01;16;28;12 - 01;16;32;00
Kelly Deutsch
Well off something that annoyed or just met in no way of.
01;16;32;13 - 01;16;33;03
Mark Kutolowski
Knowing about.
01;16;33;13 - 01;16;59;07
Kelly Deutsch
That. Beautiful. Well, I encourage you all to check that out and, and to return to this conversation later in the future. It'll be up both on Facebook and we'll eventually get it onto the podcast platforms so that you can listen again to not only some interesting conversation but such a delightful practice as well. So, Mark, thank you so much for joining us.
01;16;59;07 - 01;17;01;23
Kelly Deutsch
And thank you everyone for tuning in to listen.
01;17;02;07 - 01;17;03;01
Mark Kutolowski
Yes, thank you, Kelly.
TAGS :
embodiment
body awareness
trauma
intergenerational trauma
epigenetics
spiritual direction
martial arts
Benedictine oblate
wilderness guide
Medina of Vermont
Christian spirituality
Orthodox Christianity
qigong
Russian tradition
Christian foundation
self-emptying
incarnational aspect
value of suffering
Books