Africa
The Psychoafricalytic Circular Exercise (PCE): A Global Rhythm for Mental Freedom -By John Egbeazien Oshodi, Ph.D
Western psychology often describes life as a straight path moving from illness to wellness, from problem to solution. Psychoafricalysis views life differently. Human experience is circular. We move through stress and recovery, sorrow and renewal, confusion and clarity. Healing is not escape from struggle but movement through it.
There is a kind of tiredness that sleep cannot cure. It is the tiredness that comes from carrying life without ever being allowed to put it down. Many people wake each morning already holding yesterday’s burdens in their shoulders, their breathing, and their thoughts. Before the day begins, responsibilities have already arrived. Expectations speak louder than rest. The mind prepares for survival before the heart experiences peace.
Modern life has quietly trained people to believe that stress lives only in the mind. We are told to think positively, stay strong, and keep moving. Yet the body tells another story. The body records what words conceal. The shoulders tighten under invisible pressure. The joints stiffen from silent worries. Breathing becomes shallow under accumulated responsibility. People often say they are fine while their posture reveals exhaustion.
In Psychoafricalysis, we recognize a simple but profound truth: tension does not live only in thought. Tension lives in the body. It settles especially in the joints because the joints represent movement, and stress is often the experience of blocked movement. When life feels trapped, the body begins to feel trapped as well.
Long before psychology became a formal science, communities across the world understood that healing required rhythm. Villages restored emotional balance through music, movement, and shared expression. Dance was not entertainment. Dance was release. Dance allowed sorrow to leave and strength to return. The human being healed not only by reflection but by motion.
The Psychoafricalytic Circular Exercise emerges from this life centered understanding. Rooted in Psychoafricalysis, a psychological framework integrating African cultural wisdom with contemporary clinical insight, the exercise restores emotional balance through embodied movement. While grounded in African philosophy, its message is global: healing is not only something we think it is something we live through the body.
How It Is Danced Out: The Psychoafricalytic Circular Exercise (PCE)
A movement journey from burden to balance
Healing sometimes begins when the body is finally allowed to speak. The Psychoafricalytic Circular Exercise is danced, not merely performed. Each movement carries meaning. Each step releases something the mind has been holding.
The exercise becomes especially powerful when guided by uplifting rhythm. Many participants practice using songs such as “Emmanuel” by Gabriel Eziashi, “Way Maker” by Sinach, “You Are Great” by Steve Crown, or any music that inspires calm, hope, and spiritual reassurance.
Allow the rhythm to guide you gently.
1. The Global Sway
Stand comfortably.
Begin swaying slowly from left to right.
Let your hands rise naturally with the motion.
Feel your breathing deepen.
Allow the body to remember balance.
2. The Shoulder Release
Lift your shoulders upward slowly.
Release them downward without force.
Move shoulders left to right.
Then right to left.
Imagine unloading the weight of the day from your joints.
3. The Body Release
Gently shake the body from head to toe.
Allow arms and legs to loosen.
Do not rush the movement.
Let tension leave through motion.
Feel stiffness dissolve into freedom.
4. The Circular Jump
Begin a gentle jump or light step.
Turn slowly toward your left side.
Continue turning until you complete a full 360 degree circle.
Move at your own pace.
Feel yourself returning to your center.
5. The Skyward Reach
Slow the movement gradually.
Lift your face upward.
Stretch both hands toward the sky.
Take a deep breath.
Receive calm and renewal.
6. The Prayer Seal
Bring your hands together at your heart.
Close your eyes briefly if comfortable.
Allow breathing to settle.
Feel stillness return.
Let peace rest within you.
This sequence is more than exercise. It is lived psychology. The body releases what words cannot explain. Movement becomes testimony that healing is not always spoken sometimes it is danced into existence.
A Circular Path to Wellness
Western psychology often describes life as a straight path moving from illness to wellness, from problem to solution. Psychoafricalysis views life differently. Human experience is circular. We move through stress and recovery, sorrow and renewal, confusion and clarity. Healing is not escape from struggle but movement through it.
The circle teaches continuity. When overwhelmed, we do not disappear. We come around again. Movement becomes therapy. Rhythm becomes regulation. The body becomes a bridge back to emotional balance.
Peace is not always found by chasing it. Sometimes peace arrives when the body releases what it has been holding for too long.
Personal Reflection
As you move your shoulders left and right, notice whether yesterday’s worries begin to loosen. As you turn in a circle, ask yourself when was the last time your body felt free without apology.
Sometimes healing begins with conversation.
Sometimes it begins with silence.
And sometimes healing begins with a simple movement that reminds the spirit it is still alive.
John Egbeazien Oshodi, Ph.D.
Founder, Psychoafricalysis
Forensic and Clinical Psychologist
Psychoafricalytic Psychology explores the intersection of African cultural dynamics, history, and modern psychological principles, integrating indigenous Village wisdom with contemporary clinical insight to promote individual and societal transformation.
