Being in your body
Posted by Jill • Wednesday, 30-June-2010
I’m interested in this idea of “being in your body”, a concept I came across in one of the many self help books and articles I’ve read over the years. It’s often connected to physical therapies like yoga. I believe in the wisdom of our bodies; sometimes, perhaps most times, our bodies are wiser than our minds. I love the Ashleigh Brilliant saying “my body always knows what it wants, but my mind is often much less certain”. I’ve tried ignoring my body at times. For essential items, like food, warmth and rest, my body wins every time. The further we go up Maslow’s heirarchy of needs, the more my mind jumps into the fray and argues with my body. When will I ever learn?
But here’s the thing. If we use the entire wisdom at our disposal – our hearts, minds, souls and bodies – we are able to hear more deeply, feel more sensitively, think more calmly and decide more soundly. Many of us could be decapitated and not feel the loss of the wisdom our bodies provides in our daily lives and interactions with others. Our bodies are just there to carry our heads around, right?
So we accept that’s not true – our bodies are more than a body-shaped FedEx vehicle. If we agree on that, then we’d also agree that we need to be in our bodies more – to tune into its wisdom, to really use what our bodies have to tell us. Right? What does it mean to be “in your body”? It seems like almost a crazy question – I mean, where else are we going to be? But you may have had this experience of your body being in one place, whereas your mind is somewhere else. Maybe you’re daydreaming. Maybe you’re remembering an experience from the past. Maybe you’re projecting yourself into a possible future. But your attention, your mind, your heart – it’s not here with your body. The lights are on but nobody’s home.
So if you want to be in your body more – to tune into all the internal and body wisdom at your disposal, how can you do it? Well, before you get to Bikram Yoga there are some much easier and quicker things you can try. Here’s 3 easy ways you can play around with:
- Breathing. The most obvious way is through breathing. We all breathe, but most of us have no idea how to do it so that it nourishes our body and our brains: the trick is to breathe deeply, from the diaphragm and not from the upper part of our chest. If you take a deep breath and your shoulders rise, you’re breathing is likely shallow. It’d be so much easier for me to show you if I was there with you, but for now put your hand on the lower part of your abdomen (below your waist) - if you are breathing deeply, your hand will be moved out when you breath in. Keep trying if this doesn’t happen straight away – we all know how to do this, because this is how we breathed as babies – and eventually you’ll get it. The other thing is to gently pay attention to your breathing. Just bring your attention to your in-breath, and to your out-breath. Don’t strain or struggle or try to change your breathing in any way – just notice. It is truly miraculous what focused attention can do, and this is one of those situations. This one action alone, repeated multiple times a day, can bring you into closer connection with your thoughts and feelings.
- Scanning. Another way to get more in your body is to scan it for tension points – bring your attention to each part of your body and notice where you feel strain or stiffness. In your mind, move from your head to your toes, inwardly scanning each section of your body. Once you are aware of where you are holding tension, focus on that body part for a moment and from there, you can then relax those parts of your body. (and if you’re sceptical, that’s ok. Just try it a few times before you email me to tell me it doesn’t work. Deal?).
- Stretching your body, particularly after long periods of sitting at a desk, is a quick and easy way to connect with your physical form. Even in cubicle land, it’s possible to have a short stretch break. And if you’ve been on a flight longer than 2 hours in the last decade, you’ll have been exhorted to stretch to avoid DVT. During the aerobics mad 1990s, my favourite gym class was a 60 minute stretch class – it would invigorate me more than those crazy step classes!
If you are not connected in with your body, your attention can be scattered, or limited to what’s happening only in your head. When you are truly in your body, your awareness becomes calm and encompassing – you are noticing what is around you, but there is an ease to it. From this place of full awareness, you can connect openly with others.
When you are connecting with others from this place of full body awareness, accessing the full body wisdom, you can listen to others more fully. Our listening is happening on multiple levels – we are listening with our ears, our eyes (seeing what is in front of us, as well as what is in our peripheral vision), our hearts, our minds and our souls. To listen to others with this fullness is a rare and beautiful gift. And it can all start from such a simple place – tuning into this physical form we all live in.
This week, have a play with this. How can you listen more with your entire body? What body wisdom can you tap into today? Drop me a line and let me know. I’m interested. And I’m listening.
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