The other day I was really in my body. How silly does that sound? How else could one roam the world? Afterall we are our bodies, right? You know the quote: “Wherever You Go, There You Are” – Jon Kabat-Zinn. His book title is: “Wherever You Go, There You Are” Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life. I understood that quote only superficially for a long time. Mindfulness and meditation opened the door to more understanding over time.
I was recently remembering how, in my earlier years, I typically used my body to: get around and to get what I wanted or needed. I made it do what I had to do and expected it to be super on for me all the time, no matter how I was treating it. I wasn’t treating it badly on purpose or with intent of abusing or misusing it. I was just living my life getting around in my body. Like everyone else was, so I thought.
Along with that modus operandi, I often wished my body was less of this or more of that. I would get upset at it for not performing how I wished it would. I would drag my body around like a burden sometimes, even with a sense of shame or unworthiness. Looking back, I didn’t realize what I was missing. I was just living my life, trying to survive and live up to all the conditioned expectations. My mind ruled the roost and made many demands of my body.
Along life’s way, seemingly, almost in one moment of time, after many years, my eyes opened: not my literal eyes, but my inward eyes, my heart eyes, my caring eyes, my loving eyes. My body had been an innocent victim of judgments and expectations for a long time. My mind had been running rampant, giving orders of doing and performance and offering judgments. My body was taken for granted and given rest only because one has to rest. I would arise the next day to start the attempts of doing and accomplishing, or not, again and again.
But one evening in time, during a particular sangha (a meditation gathering), the theme and meditation was about sensing into the body, first. First feeling the breathing, then feeling the body. Being quiet as a mouse, observing, feeling in stillness. What does it feel like? What are the sensations - pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? Are there multiple sensations in different parts of the body all at the same time? How is the heart space? What emotions are present? How does the body feel when there is a sense of joy? When there is a sense of sadness? How does it feel when there is a sense of fear? Can you just be with the sensations? Can you feel the connection between the sensations and thoughts and emotions? Can you allow yourself to just be with the sensations, thoughts and emotions just as they are, without judgment, without needing to change them? Can you just be with them with a sense of kindness and caring? Can you hear what they are calling for? Are you listening? What is true?
That evening is when I learned to respect my body, love my body, appreciate my body, to listen to my body first and gently allow the mind to take a break and recede into the background. That was when I began allowing my body to lead.
Before that I didn’t realize the body is the first and last messenger of what is true now, and the mind likes to be overzealous “trying to be the guardian”. All my mind was doing was trying to protect me, but from a place of needing to survive and fear of not surviving. With heartful reassurance I gently, lovingly whispered, “Dear mind, you’re okay, we’re okay, let the body breathe, let the body lead.”
I finally heard my body calling, saying, hey, let’s be friends. You take care of me and I’ll take care of you and together we will find our way. I am so grateful for mindfulness and meditation. They open our wise eyes and heart, they unite body, mind and spirit and set us free. They show us the way to love and be loved, unconditionally.
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