When in Doubt, Ask Your Body
Bodies get a bad rap, especially when they don’t do what we want them to do.
What if the whole notion of being with your body could be framed as the greatest gift you ever had, a best friend and companion that shares your deepest secrets, will tell you whatever you want to know, holds an open door to grace on a moment’s notice, and never leaves you!
Your body is your most obvious relationship and yet remains a hidden jewel of a friendship in most modern cultures.
The simple act of connecting to your body through breath can bring you home to yourself in seconds, home to the body temple -- where an endless reservoir of truth resides, along with a vast library of the stories of your life.
You can take guided meditation tours through the body and learn all kinds of things. You can even drop into a body meditation, initiate a dialog, and discover the emotional root of why you’ve been in pain.
But for on the spot needs, just a few conscious breaths will bring you back to center, to the place where all your parts come together, body, heart, mind, and spirit. Taking a breath in with the intention of feeling the inspiration expanding into your deep belly will connect you repeatedly to your body and yourself, truly your most reliable medicine, available to you 24-7.
To breathe in, or inspire, is to connect with spirit, your essential nature. Inspire finds its word roots “in spirit,” and amazingly is also defined as the “urge to do or feel something, especially to do something creative.” When you are connected is when you feel creative, a force any artist or musician will tell you is much bigger than any individual!
To exhale, or expire, is to release what has expired, the past or “that which has come to an end,” as defined by an online dictionary.
Breath is the connecting point between spirit and body, and has the tremendous capacity to guide you to the hidden jewels within yourself.
Conscious breath in the midst of anxiety or a confused mind spin, even in the face of resistance, is a sure-fire way back to center, especially when done with gratitude for your body and its infinite wisdom.
Loving, deep listening and witnessing the body holds an important key to embracing Self. This too creates a successful relationship with your most constant lifetime companion, a companion that can tell you secrets about yourself that even you may have long since forgotten.
There are ways to work with breath, especially in guided settings, or directing breath specific body parts, that can deeply empower you, to self-awareness, open doorways to God, and find answers hidden deep inside that are revealed through breathing.
Using breath to get to center is an easy tool for everyday living. When feeling stressed, simply take a series of belly breathes. Anchor your feet on the ground. Return to center. Repeat as needed! Depending on how disconnected you felt before consciously breathing will determine how long it takes to find your center again.
Since everything is energy, it’s really all about returning to the resonant frequency that is most aligned with your true self, where you can then most accurately feel truth, the truth of the moment and the truth of who you really are.
Ultimately every person and situation you encounter has an energy signature or frequency, and you then respond with a frequency that we measure by how you feel. Being connected to your body helps to register the feelings that are true and dispel those that are not.
Breath is both opening and revealing, unifying connection between the body and the divine, and exposing the history in our cells from this lifetime and beyond. If you have a question, you can always relax into your breath and ask your body. Aaaaa!
