Incongruence: When Body Messages Belie Our Spoken Words

This article explores the concept of incongruence, a state of disharmony between our body messages and spoken words. It is when the words we speak are not aligned with our our internal world within the body. This is the world of our experience, thoughts, beliefs, feelings, and emotions. Incongruent communication involves four components: placating, blaming, becoming super-reasonable, and becoming irrelevant in the face of our self-worth.

Placating is a way of discounting our own feelings and neglecting our self-worth. It shows up when we feel stressed or when we try to please and agree with others, despite feeling conflicted about this on the inside. Blaming is a way of discounting the feelings of others and neglecting their worth. It shows up when we need to feel important and do this by putting others down.

Becoming super-reasonable is a way of discounting both our own feelings and another person’s feelings when we neglect both people’s worth and only place value on the context or task in a relationship situation. It shows up when we are focused on the intellectual aspects of a task, and we neglect to tune into and express a feeling response.

Becoming irrelevant is when we discount our feelings and the context of the situation so that all versions of reality are neglected and unworthy in a relationship. This may show up when we feel low self-worth. Some people use behavior that is distracting or they try to hide away and go unnoticed.

The physical implications of incongruence are potentially quite dangerous for our health and well-being. American psychotherapist Virginia Satir likened this to ‘drying up the juices in our feeling glands’ and eventually over time suffering the consequences of this through various possible conditions of illness or disease, including cancer.

When I reflect on incongruence, the imagery I see is of a spectrum of different colored and textured emotional energies that are created within our body, which may become blocked or trapped in areas, such as the myofascial tissue, nerves, and organs (including genitals, stomach and intestinal tract, lungs, heart, throat, face, and head/brain) where it may stagnate and build up unless it finds a way to be released and dispersed.

For science minded people, this is likened to electrical particles and electrons of atoms bouncing around in a container of molecules that are trapped and cause cellular or tissue damage. This could also lead to mutations at the chromosomal or genetic level, or perhaps an overzealous psycho-neuro-immune system response that becomes dysregulated. Another possibility is where damaged tissues cells are not eliminated (apoptosis) appropriately and build up.

Our emotions are interconnected with our bodies, so there is a physiological response when we are congruent or incongruent in our relationships with family, community, and society. There is a well-known association between emotional pain and physical symptoms such as contraction and tightness of the musculature, nerve pain, and neuromuscular symptoms. An elevated intensity of symptoms are commonly experienced for people with autoimmune, inflammatory, digestive, and neurological conditions. Lower lumbar back and joint pain is also quite common for people experiencing emotional distress.

One well-researched link in neuroscience is found through the pathways of the cranial nerves, especially the Vagus nerve and its fibers which extend from the base of the skull to the ears, throat, chest, lungs, heart, and digestive tract. Another example is the hypothalamic pituitary adrenal (HPA) axis and the central role it plays with chronic stress response cycle and mood dysregulation from the release of hormones like cortisol.

These physical symptoms can be messages and signals our body is telling us to pay attention to, letting us know there may be emotional issues that are out of balance. When we are out of balance, it may mean our body language is mismatched with our words. When these messages belie our spoken words, dissonance arises.

Sources

Brothers, B. J. (2013). Virginia Satir: Foundational Ideas. Routledge.

Mearns, D., Thorne, B., Lambers, E., & Warner, M. (2000). Person-Centred Therapy Today:

New Frontiers in Theory and Practice. SAGE.