“In minds crammed with thoughts, organs clogged with toxins, and bodies stiffened with neglect, there is just no space for anything else.” ~Alison Rose Levy, “An Ancient Cure for Modern Life”
The Buddhists celebrate the great fortune of being born into a human body. It is a divine experience actually to have five senses awake in world that has a magically huge range of sights, smells, tastes, sounds and sensations. Truly if you were deliberate you could probably experience something new or for the first time most every day of your life. We forget this as our senses become muted and lost to the range of the familiar.
It is a bold way to live, with a primary focus on our ability to sense the world around us. It requires finding the skills for true attention. It means giving up the seduction and power of multi-tasking. It means you are living deeply in your body. A recent neck/shoulder problem which has been speaking to me regularly throughout the day in recent weeks is my active barometer for how I am living.
Our bodies are perhaps the best barometer of our experience. Although I can attest to the lag time that sometimes exists between the emotional and mental experience and the physical/visceral one. Emotional wounds can live in the body for months after the issue is seemingly resolved and unresolved issues can and do often turn into diseases.
Bodies work best when they are in motion. Experimenting with different kinds of movement and exercise and making a discipline out of whatever form works best to keep you both flexible and strong is a living foundation that makes everything else you do painful or easy by the same proportion. As I have built my core strength through week after week of Pilates training, I have also learned to slow down and sense how my body works.
Just as important and perhaps even more satisfying than the process of extending your physical capacity is the tender exchange of getting body work done. The number of healing modalities that are available through touch are plentiful. Larry Dossey reminds us that, “The power of love to change bodies is legendary, built into folklore, common sense, and everyday experience. Love moves the flesh, it pushes matter around…. Throughout history, “tender loving care” has uniformly been recognized as a valuable element in healing.”
I consider my time with the remarkable healers I know to be some of the most gifted moments I experience on the planet. Knowing people who care enough for you to transmit love in the form of healing energy into you is a true experience of compassion and authenticity. My positivity quest is where it is today because of the people who have helped me find and expand the comforts of living in my body. I bow in gratitude.
