For millennia in Western culture, women, in particular, have been told that the body is wrong. Somehow it’s the enemy that it’s going to lead you (and men!) astray – those crazy bodily impulses will push you to “evil”, immoral decisions.
This is the by-product of patriarchal teaching that has nothing to do with reality but has a lot to do with keeping us obedient. But when we make the body the enemy, we create all kinds of mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical issues for ourselves that are really hard to resolve by ourselves. If we can’t befriend this beautiful “Earth Suit”, this product of 3 billion years of evolution, we are going against our natural design, which causes so much confusion, pain and suffering.
In fact, there’s a divine intelligence here that we need to honor and listen to – to get comfortable with – as a really important part of our internal guidance system. This intelligence is a critical aspect of our intuition.
I spend a lot of time with my clients simply teaching them how to be comfortable with their body, and to be aware of the signals it’s sending them. I ask them to stop for just a moment and attend to what is happening within their body and ask themselves:
What are my five senses experiencing right now? What are the sensations I’m feeling inside my skin?
What is it to be a human in this body in this moment and just be with myself without trying to fix something, change something, or improve it somehow?
What is it like to be a friend to ourselves, listening to the body as though we were talking to a good friend over a cup of tea?
As a starting point, there’s a very short practice that you can do
to just see how comfortable you can be inside your hands. Put your attention inside each of your thumbs and the fingers and palms of your hands – use your mind to go inside your hands as though you were putting on a glove.
Ask yourself, what are the sensations inside my hands? Perhaps, like me, you will experience a little bit of pulsing, a little buzzing, or a tiny bit of numbness at the very tips of the fingers and so on.
Have a physical experience of yourself. You do not need to fix anything. You might be more aware of a problem spot and make a decision to deal with it later, but at this moment, you’re just trying to experience your hands as they are.
And then, try your feet, as though you’re putting on a pair of socks with your mind, going inside your feet, noticing each toe, the ball of your foot, the heel, and so on. See if you can expand your attention to other parts of your body.
What signals are you receiving as a result of being inside your body, and being your body’s ally instead of its enemy?
Many emotions and clarifying thoughts are often more accessible when we can relax and just be inside our body for a moment without trying to fix it or make it better – we are just being with ourselves.
I hope that you will try out this simple and profound practice. If you’re curious about other practices I have to offer keep tuning into my blogs and videos, or reach out.
I offer 30-minute complimentary discovery sessions where we can explore how I might help you move forward, especially in getting more comfortable inside your beautiful Earth Suit and listening to its signals. It’s yours for this lifetime and it brings you so many gifts – the gifts of breath, the gifts of expressing yourself in movement, and your ability to paint, to dance, to hug, to kiss, to sleep … all those incredible gifts that we need to love and be with in this lifetime.