After her phenomenal memoir of surviving Auschwitz, psychologist Dr Edith Eger wrote a book about her work as a psychiatrist The Gift, 12 Lessons to Save Your Life.
Based on the Hungarian saying „if you sit with one butt on two chairs, you become half-assed“, a metaphor for leading two lives and keeping a secret, Dr Eger developed an exercise, taking the saying literally.
„Healing can‘t happen as long as we‘re hiding or disowning parts of ourselves.“, she says. By physically experiencing what it feels like to sit on two chairs at the same time, we can get a sense of the cost of having to „bridge the gap between our ideal self and our real self“. And then, in comparison, what it is like to sit in one chair, in „our own fulfillment“. In the exercise, Dr. Eger also guides us to experience the breath in the two positions.
“If you sit with one butt on two chairs, you become half-assed“.
Place two chairs side by side. Begin by sitting on one chair, legs uncrossed. Feel the way your feet rest against the floor. Feel your sit bones heavy on the chair. Feel your spine lengthen out of your pelvis, your head extend from your neck. Soften your shoulders away from your ears. Take a few deep, nourishing breaths, lengthening with the inhale, grounding with the exhale. Now move so you are sitting with one butt cheek on one chair, the other cheek on the other chair. Check in with your feet, your sit bones, your spine, neck, head, and shoulders. How do your body and breath feel when you straddle two chairs? Finally, return to one chair. Ground your feet and sit bones. Lengthen your spine and neck. You‘re back home. Follow your breath as you realign and become congruent.“
Source: The Gift, 12 Lessons to Save Your Life, Dr Edith Eger, Scribner, 2020