Our body is our guide
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Our body is our guide
When we think of our body, often the first and maybe only thing we think about is how it looks. We can be very critical of our body, wanting to mould it into the ideal shape that we want it to be. Often our ideal of a ‘perfect body’ is not our natural body type, so much effort and even abuse go into achieving these goals. Then come the punishing thoughts when we fail to achieve them. There are many ideals regarding our body that we may have taken on without question. This can deeply affect our relationship with ourself. In fact, hating our body is considered normal.
But have we ever stopped to wonder why there is so much emphasis on the way our body looks, when it is only one small aspect of ourselves? Why is it that we base our value on something so superficial when there is so much more to us? Accepting and appreciating our body for the way it looks is one important aspect of building a healthy relationship with our body. But what if I told you there is so much more than that? What if I told you that our body offers an untapped resource? That developing a relationship with our body could actually be our guide through life, connecting us to a source of wisdom and intelligence that is greater than that of the mind. In fact, by connecting deeply within, we can begin to live from our essence, which is beyond the body, but needs us to be very present with the body in order to feel it.
This is how I now live to the best of my ability, and because I live it I know it to be true. But it has not always been this way, and in fact I was very sceptical that I could feel this way because I was a very ‘intelligent’ person. I, like many people, went through life thinking that intelligence resided in my head. I lived completely from my head, often going through life as if I didn’t even have a body. For me that was what felt safe, to be constantly thinking, in a bid to control life, or at least have a plan for every possible outcome in every possible situation.
Jesus referred to our body as ‘our temple’. And the Ageless Wisdom tells us that ‘the body is the marker of all Truth’.[1] So the body is far more important than we are led to believe. And recent research is showing the importance of the heart, showing that it communicates with the brain in ways that affect how we perceive and react to the world.[2] In fact, the concept of the brain being the only or main source of intelligence is a fairly recent development. Throughout history the heart and the non-physical dimensions of life, have been regarded as highly important by many cultures as a way to access wisdom, intuition and intelligence.
So is it possible that they lived connected to something of value that we have ‘forgotten’ about, but that we can still access today despite our busy, high-pressured lives and it is actually within us waiting for us to return to?
The ancient ways of living are no longer apparent in our modern world today, but perhaps if we lived by some of the principles they lived by, in greater connection with our ‘innermost’, this would support us to live our true selves. We may think we are so much more sophisticated and advanced than our ancestors with our modern technology and our modern understanding of the world, but if we look at the rising global rates of ill mental and physical health, and the level of stress and angst that we now consider ‘normal’, then perhaps it is time for us to truly consider how we are living and reconnect to something that we have collectively dismissed.
So what could this mean for our lives today? The Ageless Wisdom teaches us about living in connection with our ‘inner heart’. The daily application of connecting to this inner aspect of ourselves includes developing a relationship with our body. This means being present with our body and listening to its communications. It involves being very real and committed to life, not floating off somewhere. For me being present with my body required a lot of practice because I was so used to being in my head. The Gentle Breath Meditation® is a powerful tool which helped me settle and connect; often, when doing the meditation I would feel how I resisted the stillness and the presence it offered as I was so used to being in raciness, unsettlement and constant thinking. I committed to listening to my body in very simple ways, starting with things like food and sleep. It became clear to me that my body knew what to eat and when to rest, and this could be very different from what my mind or my cravings wanted.
Everything we put into our body affects it. And this includes emotions, as well as food. I began to feel the effects of emotions in my body, for example how anxiety would drain me, or how the heaviness of sadness would weigh me down. I began to understand that feelings and emotions are registered by my body, and not something experienced in my mind as I used to believe, and that different feelings and emotions had different effects on my body. In fact, the Ageless Wisdom teaches that emotions are energy, and when we take on emotions (and this can include other people’s emotions) this energy is registered in our body and sometimes can stay there for a long time, such as with childhood hurts that some of us may hold on to for decades even when the cause of the hurt has long gone away.
Our bodies can actually feel energy. In the past I was fascinated by the idea of people being able to feel energy, but I didn’t think that I had the ‘ability’ too. But in fact we can all feel energy, it’s just that we are not always aware of it. The more I opened up to my awareness the more I realised how natural it is to sense energy, from being able to sense another’s feelings to being able to read the energy in a room or in a particular situation.
In fact, one of the fundamental teachings of the Ageless Wisdom is that ‘everything is energy, and everything is because of energy’.[3]
We are all living interconnected to each other in an ‘energetic soup’, and everything we think, say or do has an impact on the whole. This brings us to an entirely new meaning of responsibility, as all our thoughts and actions, whether seen our unseen, can either heal or harm. But this is also very empowering as it means that we don’t need to go out and fight to change the world. If we focus on connecting to our innermost, and living from a place of truth and integrity, then we naturally bring this out to the world and help to bring about true and lasting change.
For me the awareness of energy has brought great meaning to my life, as I have always felt that there is more to life than what we can see with our five senses, that there is more to us than just the human aspect. In the past it was something that I would wonder about and be fascinated by, never realising that it was something that I could experience and live for myself. It is not just about feeling energy, but being discerning about what energy we align to. Are we aligning to an energy that connects us to who we truly are, or an energy that takes us away from that? The body is what we can turn to, to connect with our true innermost self, to guide our decisions, and to sense the energetic aspects of life.
The body, not the mind, is the only tool that registers energy and allows us to deeply discern it.
With all this available to us, why has life been set up to make our body so unsettled, and why have we been so overwhelmingly encouraged to treat the body superficially, as a thing to look a certain way and to hate, goad and bombard when it does not? We are offered so many ways to numb and distract ourselves from our body, such as numbing with food and drink or distracting ourselves with constant entertainment. Why are we living so disconnected from ourselves?
Is it because on some deep level we already know the power of what is within us, and we are not yet sure if we are willing to live in a deeply connected way?
The more we deepen the more we will know that we are inextricably a part of a greater whole, and the responsibility we each have to connect to and live in a true way, in a world that is designed to steer us away from that. However, when we look out at the world and at our lives today, it is clear that change is needed.
Will we choose to look more deeply and be the ones to make that change, starting with ourselves?
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Ageless Wisdom, Awareness, Body image, Energy, Gentle breath
