We have with us, everyday, and in whatever activities we perform, an opportunity to connect to ourselves in a deeper way, to deepen our experience of living through our bodies.
We often begrudge our bodies and have a negative relationship with it. It hurts. It is tense and uncomfortable. It has pain. It has disease. We have to feed it and do all kinds of daily rituals to take care of it and we often create a scenario where we don’t have time to do this, and find it an annoyance to have to do so.
Many of these rituals operate on an unconscious, habitual mode where we don’t even know what we are doing as we go about living our lives. Much of our time and energy is spent whirling around in our thoughts to the determent of our bodies.
We often ignore our bodies, but by doing so, we are ignoring an essential part of ourselves.
I often ask people what they are aware of in their bodies and almost all the time, I am met with a look of dumbfounded confusion. What are you talking about? “I don’t know,” is a very familiar response with a tone of angst and annoyance on why I am even asking such a question. But why does that question evoke such responses? What prevents us from being aware of our bodies and what we are doing while moving through our lives? And why does it evoke such annoyance by asking the question.
We can learn to develop a better relationship with our bodies and they can become a vehicle to understanding more about ourselves. As we learn to be more aware and present in our daily living through our bodies, we can develop a healthier outlook and a greater sense of mindfulness and fulfillment.
