Chapter 5. Enduring

This investigation describes a particular form of traumatic body memory that I term “enduring.” This is an inner bodily gesture that allows us to endure (withstand, survive) difficult experiences while we are undergoing them, yet may continue to endure (in the temporal sense) long after these experiences are over, whether we are aware of its effect on our ongoing style of embodiment or not. I use a Husserlian phenomenological approach to elucidate the kinaesthetic structure of “enduring,” linking it with boundary violation and examining its temporal structure before suggesting some ways in which movement and awareness practices can help to restore a more open, fluid relation to the world in the here and now.