Western culture is astonishingly disembodied and uniquely so. The way I like to say is that we basically come from a post-alcoholic culture. People whose origins are in Northern Europe had only one way of treating distress: with a bottle of alcohol. North American culture continues with that notion. If you feel bad, just take a swig or take a pill.

The notion that you can do things to change the harmony inside of yourself is just not something that we teach in schools and in our culture, in our churches, in our religious practices. But if you look at religions around the world, they always start with dancing, moving, singing, physical experiences. The more “respectable” people become, the more stiff they become, somehow.

Bessel van der Kolk in Krista Tippet, Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.