Give yourself a slow breath, deep into your lungs. Follow it with awareness as your chest expands. Relax and release the breath. Notice how oxygen and chi radiates from your lungs. Follow another breath deeper into the abdomen. Relax and exhale. Let a third breath carry awareness into the pelvis. Releasing the exhale, follow inner expansion through the whole of your body.
Breathing consciously into your body you can return to Self and Spirit. Awareness flows inward, finding relaxation, expansion, spaciousness. The spaciousness of the tissues, of the cells and atoms, of all the inbetween places is where the other levels of your Being hang out. You will find them in all the spaces.
While the physical body is often spoken of as simply a vehicle or container, for Spirit, for Self. It is more than this. The body is the foundation for all levels of who you are; emotional, mental and spiritual. It is also the physical manifestation of Spirit and Self. Not separate from Spirit, it is an integral aspect of your Spirit. All aspects of your physicality are comprised of Spirit as matter.
The body is constantly communicating with us through internal sensation. We can learn to give it our attention. With practice you will become aware of all the sensations that your body produces as it goes about its business. This allows us to nurture our body. It is a way we can love our Self. Coming into wholeness.
Awareness of body leads also to awareness of emotional and energetic levels. Entering into our bodies we find sensation, but also emotional energies, energetic awareness, memory and wisdom.The body mediates external senses, but also internal senses. Learning to be aware physically is a way to also open up emotional and intuitive awareness.
Through living as a human, our body takes on many things. It becomes a storage place for all sorts of old stuff, injuries and traumas, along with pleasant memories. This is why we may hesitate to enter into this inner world. However it is important to do so. Clearing the body opens up the rest; the emotions and Spirit. Cleansing the Temple for your Soul to reside with you. It is hard to be aware of Self when we are ignoring its physical aspects.
When the body is burdened with old unfinished business, it doesn’t work as well as it can. Tension from avoiding trauma compounds tightness and contraction. Moreover the body is itself intelligent. It will constantly be trying to let you know something is off, trying to get your attention so that it can relax and open to healing. This produces all sorts of unwanted affects, which only increase over time.
We do well to work with our body, to respect it and learn from it, rather than trying to subdue it. It has the wisdom to know what is wrong and how to heal. Coming into conscious relationship with it allows healing to happen. As it does the body has many gifts of awareness and connection to the Spirit that is its Source as well as ours. It is not a cage or trap to be avoided or escaped. It is part of our Soul and thus a gateway to coming home. It is Temple, Spiritual laboratory, gateway to Self, and the Foundation of Relationship. If we are to create Heaven on Earth, we must start here.
Breath deep. Begin to cultivate a relationship with the physical part of your Self. Welcome Home.
(© 11/2017)
