CONNECTION TO OUR BODY
EXPLORING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH OUR BODY & LIFE
Living in connection to our body and the essence of who we are is our natural state of being. Our body is constantly communicating to us what it is feeling and what it needs. By bringing awareness to our body we are able to hear what is being communicated. But do we always choose to listen? As shared here listening to our body is essential for our health and wellbeing.
“If we start listening to what our body is saying, we can have a much deeper relationship with our body that will lead to greater awareness and connection within ourselves that will support us to know how to live in a way that fosters true health and wellbeing.” (Andrew Mooney, Physiotherapist)
Connection is as simple as becoming aware of how our body is feeling in any moment. For example:
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How do your feet feel when you’re walking?
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How does your back feel while you’re sitting at work?
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How are your hands gripping the steering wheel while you’re driving?
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How does your stomach feel as you’re eating or drinking?
"The body is the marker of all truth".
SERGE BENHAYON
Serge Benhayon, Esoteric Teachings & Revelations Volume I, ed I, p 569
Often, we are so caught up in what’s going on around us, or what we have to get done, that we ignore what’s going on within us, within our body. We can easily ignore or override how our body is feeling; for example, staying up late even though we are tired. We tend to treat our body as just a vehicle to get us from A to B without any regard to how it feels while we are doing what we’re doing. It’s like we switch to auto-pilot and forget about the rest of the ‘plane’ and allow ourselves to be driven by our thoughts.
When we are not aware of our body while we are doing things – our body is in one place while our mind is somewhere else. In fact, we are not consciously present.
It is when we are going about life in this way that our body lets us know we are not moving in harmony and offers us messages. We might find ourselves bumping into something, dropping things, or tripping over nothing. In these moments, our body is letting us know that we are not moving with the awareness and care that is possible. If we continue to ignore the messages we may end up with louder messages such as aches, pain or illness.
If we are going about life with conscious presence, bringing awareness to our body, life flows and there is a different quality to everything we do and the way in which we are with everything around us. In connection to this quality we naturally bring gentleness and tenderness to our activities and to our interactions with others offering us a steady foundation as we go about our day.
Connection Tools
The following tools offer support when we are not feeling quite ourselves.
Gentle Breath Meditation™
The Gentle Breath Meditation™ is a very practical tool to support our connection, or re-connection, to the breath, the body and our essence.
The Gentle Breath Meditation™ can be done in 10 minutes, or less, at the start of the day and/or at the end of the day, or in fact at any time. Taking a moment to breathe our own breath brings us instantly back to our self with the quality of gentleness bringing a feeling of harmony to our body. See what others have to say about the Gentle Breath Meditation™ here.
You may like to explore further information on meditation here.
Esoteric Yoga
Esoteric Yoga, or the Yoga of Stillness is another way to build and develop a connection to your body and your essence. Yoga simply means union and this unique and gentle form of yoga is about supporting us to return to the stillness that is naturally within us all where can feel deeply the truth of who we are. It is a modality that supports us to develop body awareness, gentleness, conscious presence and stillness. This modality supports us to develop self-care and self-love as nurse and Esoteric Yoga presenter Fiona Lotherington explains in this article Your body tells the truth.
Gentle Walking
Walking is not only great exercise but is a powerful way to connect with our body when we choose to walk gently without anywhere to be and without headphones in our ears or a phone in our pocket. Instead, we can choose to bring our awareness to how our feet feel when they connect with the ground, how our arms feel as they swing by our side or even the gentle feel of the air on our cheeks. When we walk in this way we can experience the gentleness and harmony that is naturally within us. Joshua Campbell shares here how walking in this way allowed him to feel who he truly is.
Conscious Presence
Conscious Presence is the practice of training the mind to be present with the body as we go about our activities. For example, if we are driving our car our mind is with us as we drive as opposed to driving and thinking about what we need to do at work. Most of us would easily be able to give examples of when our mind is wandering all over the place while we are physically in one place engaged in a particular activity.
We can develop conscious presence by making a conscious choice to check in on our mind and bring it back to being present with what we are doing at the time. The Gentle Breath Meditation™ presented here also specifically supports the development of conscious presence.
Taking moments
Stopping, even for a minute or two, can support us to connect to our body but it seems many of us find it difficult to stop as shared here by someone learning to stop. Yet stopping allows us space to feel what is needed next and starts to build a way of being that honours what our body needs in any given moment.
For example, you’ve unloaded the groceries from the car and the next step is to put them away. Imagine before putting them away that you stop for a moment and ask yourself what you actually feel to do – you might discover you need to sit for a minute to rest, or you’d like a cup of tea or you might be ready to put the groceries away. By stopping, we can be guided by our body.
Even in our increasingly busy lives stop moments can be incorporated into our day if we choose. You can start with just one somewhere in your day. Or we can become of aware of the moments of pause offered to us in our day described in this blog about appreciating the times when we’re forced to slow down or wait in a queue.
Body Awareness
Body awareness is about being aware of our posture, our breathing, the quality of our movements and what we are feeling as we go about our daily activities. This can be as simple as bringing our attention to our hands or fingertips as we open a door, wash the dishes, or drive the car. We can choose to start the day by taking a moment to bring our attention to the body before getting out of bed and becoming aware of how it is feeling. Body awareness is not necessarily about changing what we feel but simply becoming aware of what’s happening in the body. From there the choice is ours.
PERSONAL STORY
How developing body awareness and conscious presence has changed my life
Michelle shares how her once busy mind, one that was constantly thinking about what needed to be done, left her anxious, tense and very tired. Developing conscious presence has allowed her to be more aware of her body in every moment and make more loving choices which support more energy for everyday life.