Why Do I Clench My Jaw During AEQ Exercises? Why Do I Clench My Jaw or Grind My Teeth While Sleeping?
From the perspective of the AEQ method, jaw clenching is most often the result of having to “hold one’s tongue” many times during childhood. Initially, this explanation may seem incorrect, but as sensory-motor amnesia (SMA) decreases and emotional maturity increases—along with a deeper understanding of one’s past—it often proves accurate.
As a child or adolescent, one often had to develop chronic control over verbal expression, while at least one parent or caregiver acted in the opposite way. When the child reacted spontaneously—through screaming, loud talking, swearing, blaming, verbal attacks, baring teeth, growling, or literal/figurative biting—they were punished, even when such behavior was completely justified at the time.
A child’s rational mind and sophisticated communication are significantly underdeveloped. Their expressions more closely resemble those of an animal, a being with lower-developed intelligence. This so-called “primitive” behavior is not actually primitive for a two- or three-year-old, but perfectly normal for that age.
In an environment full of tension and low resistance, a child may experience a strong flow of internal energy. This flow cannot be rationally controlled and cannot be expressed in a mature, adult way—such as through deep indignation over the emotional immaturity of parents who argue about the same unresolved issue for the fifth time in two months. A child cannot verbalize confusion and disappointment with the parents’ emotional incompetence. Imagine a two-year-old telling you this—you would likely be stunned. So the child can’t operate in this way. But they might bite, poke, resist, or express aggression in other physical forms.
The core problem is that early in life, the influence of the body on the child’s consciousness is extremely strong, as it should be. This is also shaped by the mother’s state during and after pregnancy. In most cases, children experience very little SMA between body and consciousness. The issue is that their consciousness, especially the left hemisphere, lacks the vocabulary to describe what they feel. Their expressions are childlike—understandable not through rational adult logic but through irrational perception.
To feel a child irrationally, especially the mother must have a soft enough body, low muscle tension, and a well-functioning right brain hemisphere. Only the right hemisphere can interpret “what the poet meant with the poem”—it combines what is heard and seen with what is felt. It can empathize with the child and therefore understand them. In such a setting, the child can express what they feel in their body and be heard, understood, and accepted.
A woman with emotional maturity can sense when a child lives in a high-tension environment and communicates that to the man, so they can create a more suitable and healthy developmental environment. On the other hand, a man primarily uses the left hemisphere, which is separated from the body and primarily connects to it through the right hemisphere. If he blocks communication between the hemispheres or between the right hemisphere and the body, his ability to understand the child decreases significantly.
Today it often happens that the father calms the child more effectively than the mother. If male and female behavior were functioning as intended, this would be impossible. But if the woman is in a strong sympathetic state and very tense, she becomes less capable of soothing the child. Men, evolutionarily designed to function under long-term high pressure, operate better under such stress than women.
At the beginning of life, a child is deeply aware of what happens in and around their body, but lacks the words to express it. As the child grows and develops language and the left hemisphere, the more words they know to describe their experience, the more SMA they also develop—lessening the body’s influence on their awareness. Their growing vocabulary brings little benefit in expressing what they truly feel.
Later, the child might act like the boy in “The Emperor’s New Clothes”—the only one who dares to say the truth adults don’t want to see, admit, or say out loud.
The problem with telling the truth is the reaction it evokes—usually a strong one, described well by Newton’s third law: every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Telling someone the truth can trigger a strong response. But if a child tells the truth, adults can’t respond equally, because the child hasn’t had time to make mistakes or lie. Unable to react in kind, the adult responds differently, and the child quickly learns that telling the truth to adults is not wise.
So the child begins to “hold their tongue,” and the likelihood of clenching the jaw muscles becomes very high.
