Body: Mindfulness
In recent years, it’s become more known that “the body keeps the score,” a phrase that comes from a book by the same name by Bessel van der Kolk. In the West, however, we tend to be quite detached from our bodies. We prize the intellect, academia, and thought over emotions and the body.
This idea that the body is a source of wisdom, that it’s to be valued as much as any other part of us, is not new. It stems back hundreds and thousands of years and is seen all over the world, across culture, time, and place. So how do we reconnect with our bodies when we’ve been so disconnected from them?
One way is through any kind of mindfulness practice or meditation. I attended an online meeting for practitioners the other day in which we were guided to select one of our five primary senses and focus on it for the duration of the meditation. We were asked to notice what we became aware of first, be it the taste of coffee on our tongue, the fan making a quiet hum in our room, or the fuzzy softness of a blanket on our lap. We were then asked to go beyond that initial noticing, to sit with the sense long enough to see what else comes up. Beyond coffee, maybe there’s a hint of soap with which we used to wash our mug. Beyond the fan’s hum, maybe it’s the footsteps of someone else in our house or apartment. Beyond the fuzziness of the blanket, maybe it’s the cool temperature of the floor beneath our feet, the back of the chair supporting our posture, or the smoothness of the clothes we are wearing.
The challenge in this kind of practice is that we often don’t sit still long enough to notice these things in the first place. Just this morning, I joined a meditation class in which we sat in silence for thirty minutes. For the majority of the meditation, my mind was racing, jumping from thought to thought, and my body was fidgeting with discomfort and unease. Eventually, though, my mind and my body settled. Once I pushed past the initial frenzy of my thoughts and discomfort in my body, I was able to settle, find calm, and notice things I hadn’t noticed before.
In the coming weeks, we’ll explore other ways to reconnect with and deepen our relationship to our bodies. I’ll share my own thoughts and experiences and insights from authors, clinicians, and other experts on this topic. I challenge you to pick a sense and give it more attention than usual today. See what comes up – you just might be surprised what you discover.
