Returning to our body – The wonder, beauty and science of our body
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Returning to our body – The wonder, beauty and science of our body
Our mind can wander from one topic to another, play out an endless array of stories and can race here and there at any time of the night or day. It appears that our heads hold a seemingly private world where literally anything and everything can be taking place.
Call it daydreaming, thinking, fantasising, imagination, make believe or a secret dream world, what is happening is that we have found a multitude of ways to run away from our body and escape into the mind.
The concept of leaving our body, let alone returning to our body, can at first appear quite strange. We grow up and go to school learning the importance of reading, writing, spelling, maths, science, history and so on, but we receive little education on the wonder, beauty and magnificent science of our body.
I don’t remember these kinds of topics or subjects being discussed or learnt at school, yet the science of our body never ceases to fascinate and amaze me. It is a subject that I can see will never end as my body is the one thing I will have for the remainder of my life.
How often do we consider if we are with or even ‘in’ our body?
This I have found is possibly one of the most important questions I can be asking myself on a daily basis as I have come to learn that this will determine everything that I then experience. It can be very easy to assume we are always in our body just because of the obvious fact that we have a body. But is there more to this?
How do we know if we are ‘in’ our body?
The difference between being in our body or being disconnected from our body is vast and literally worlds apart.
The tell-tale signs that we haven’t been in our body are: anxiety, nervousness, tiredness, exhaustion, depression, emotional ups and downs, raciness, confusion, a busy and distracted mind, and not being able to think clearly, to name only a few.
This is opposed to how we can feel when we are in our body, which is a feeling of being relaxed, content, steady, focussed, balanced, aware and consciously present - along with an inner quality known as stillness.
Many work very hard at training their body for sports or training the mind through study and further education, but what would we discover about ourselves if we put that same effort into studying and understanding our body and the unlimited awareness that we can tap into when we truly re-connect with it?
Practical steps to returning to our body
To return to our body requires a very practical and dedicated approach and below are a few essential ingredients we can begin with:
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Gentleness: Gentleness is a quality that we can bring to each movement that we make with our body. For example each time we sit, stand, walk, pick up an object and so on we can deliberately make the quality of our movements gentle
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Conscious Presence: Conscious Presence is where we train the mind to be present, or in other words together with what we are doing. For example, if we are walking from A to B our mind is with our body as we are moving. This is opposed to walking from A to B and thinking of what we are going to do tomorrow
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Posture: This is about bringing our awareness to our posture and the position we place our body in. Our posture has a great influence on how we feel and we can choose to place our body in a posture that supports us
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Body Awareness: Body awareness is where we are aware of our body, our posture, the quality of our movements and how present we are with what we are doing
Returning to our body is therefore a very personal choice that each and every one of us can explore. It is a beautiful reminder of how equal we actually are, as returning to our body does not depend on anything material such as what we own, how much money we have, what type of work we do or don’t do, or where we live. When we put all of this together on a consistent basis we support our body to return to its natural harmony, order and vitality and the abundant awareness that comes from this.
While on the outside everything appears to be the same, these inward movements change the way we relate and interact with everything that is outside of us.
The movements of our physical body, which includes all of our physical actions, words, thoughts and intentions, facilitate this inward movement. Every one of our movements therefore has the potential to open us up to greater awareness and wisdom via a certain rhythm or quality that is held and lived in the body. This is an energetic quality and therefore a vibration, which is known as stillness. When this rhythm is honoured in our everyday lives, a deepening of the inward movement and awareness occurs. Every movement that we make with our physical body determines the quality of stillness we can experience, and the rate at which the inward movement, and therefore deepening awareness, is either accelerated or delayed.
Inward movements allow us to deepen and expand our awareness and therefore our ability to access the wisdom of the Universe. It is a constant communication that is occurring deep within the consciousness of every human being.
To return to our body is one of the most amazing gifts we can give ourselves. The more consistently we choose to be in our body, the more our body very gracefully reveals to us the depth and wisdom of the universe and the grand beauty and order that we are a part of. If we haven’t yet taken these steps, it is easy to dismiss this as some grand delusion, but for every step taken, we are returned back towards a way of living and being that we all have walked and known before.
"It has been through Esoteric Yoga, as founded by Serge Benhayon of Universal Medicine in 1999, that I have been reminded of the importance of returning to my body. The teacher is my body, so it is not like a class or a practice that ends when you finish or leave. The more I truly listen, the more natural intelligence and unlimited awareness my body has to share."
Filed under
Awareness, Body awareness, Conscious presence, Gentleness, Yoga
