Home Body

“Your body is the harp of your soul and it is yours to bring forth sweet music from it or confused sounds.” - Khalil Gibran

Our bodies are the only home we have throughout our entire time here on earth. Although the mind can wander to different places, transporting us to the past and projecting us into the future, our flesh and bones keep us firmly planted on solid ground, connecting us to what is happening in the moment by reflecting the world back to us through tangible, solid experience. Our senses—what we see, hear, touch, taste, and smell--offer information about our environment. They show us how we are rubbing up against the world. What we do with this information influences our decisions, beliefs, and narratives. It is the raw material we use to shape our lives. More than just a bundle of bones, tissues, blood, and nerves, our bodies are a microcosm of the world we have created, reflecting our social environment, culture, and values. Our minds can deceive us and confuse reality, but the body, this home we have on earth, does not lie. It is a great source of wisdom, if we would only listen.

Your body is a unique universe that only you can understand. Each body is made up of a nervous system that generates sensations, most of which we all recognize, but are experienced in ways that are unique to each of us. That’s why a hot, humid day may be torture for one person but quite enjoyable to another. A group sharing the same physical space may agree about what they see, hear, taste, touch, and smell, but which of the senses dominate, their intensity, and residual effect is unique to the individual. Your body, your physical self, is the most intimate and personal connection you have with the earth, providing an experience that is uniquely yours.

Babies and children are fascinated with their bodies. They completely immerse themselves in a stream of sensory experiences--eating sand, kissing smelly dogs, squishing food between their fingers. This fascination fades as their brains develop and they become more aware of their social environment. As children grow, they naturally start to judge and compare but, if raised in an environment steeped in body criticism, they learn to distrust their senses and strive for arbitrary ideals of body “perfection”. This is illustrated in studies related to body image in young children. Normal sized girls as young as 7 years old who are exposed to messages of body perfection are more likely to describe models with anorexic bodies as “normal” and express higher levels of negative attitudes toward their own physique. Harsh attitudes about our bodies tend to intensify with age and stay with us well into our later decades. The cultural ideal for men and women entering later decades of life is now one of a “Zoomer”: an amazingly fit, globetrotting adventurer who, at age 65 or older, is participating in triathlons, hiking the Rockies, and solving climate change while joyfully embracing the freedom of retirement. It makes me tired just thinking about it. Continuing to work may be the easier option.

Even if we aren’t overly critical of our bodies, occasionally we may feel uncomfortable in our physical home. The body is a great unknown, fickle and unreliable, not always working the way we think it should. Very often our healthy behaviors don’t reap the rewards we anticipated. We get sick when we least expect it, we fall and hurt ourselves, we develop conditions that require medicine, and our most diligent efforts to lose weight fail. We try to control the uncertainty by measuring our steps, heart rate, sleep patterns, and food intake. We search for the perfect routine that will guarantee success and give us a body that performs as we think it should. Although positive changes in our health behaviors do help us feel better, there are limits to what a body can do. Endless striving for self-improvement is counterproductive, even harmful, when we ignore body signals that tell us we’ve gone too far, that we’ve run up against our limitations. Our watches and apps measure and evaluate our every move, but they can create a sense of dissatisfaction that makes us miserable in our own home. When we switch our attention away from health to focus on well-being, we find peace and acceptance in the unique space we occupy on earth. Rather than endlessly measure, perhaps we can instead tune into the language of our sensations and allow them to guide us toward a more vibrant life.

So often our suffering comes from our inability to tap into the wisdom of the body. Who hasn’t ever made a decision that “went against the gut”, one that was later regretted? Tapping into our senses makes us aware of our edges, our boundaries, our limitations. Thoughts offer freedom and expansiveness, but ideas become reality only when they are brought down to earth, when we dig into their nuts and bolts to bring them into existence. Thoughts are free flowing and expansive, but life has limits. Ignoring bodily sensations in favor of thoughts, living primarily “in our heads”, creates instability in life. We are more likely to make poor decisions that lead to actions that are out of sync with what we need and value.

Grounding is the process of coming in full contact with our senses. It is a practice of experiencing dynamic contact with the earth, coming into the full experience of the entirety of our sensations, making a direct connection with our physiology as it arises in the present moment. Grounding is a direct, visceral experience of how the world is impacting us, an awareness of both pain and pleasure. Through grounding we find the power, stability, and wisdom that bring our intentions into reality.

We practice grounding when we engage in activities that involve all our senses, beyond just vision and hearing. These activities are more earthbound, relying heavily on touch, taste, and smell. Although seeing and hearing are important sensory experiences, they tend to dominate during intellectual pursuits when we are primarily thinking, judging, or analyzing. Touching, tasting, and smelling—which includes breathing--are sensations that dominate with more earth-bound activities such as movement, exercise, eating, and relaxation. Tuning into all our senses helps us to be better equipped to make decisions about our lives with greater clarity.

Rather than making resolutions tied to goals of self-improvement, what if you started 2022 with gratitude for the ways in which you are supported by your body? Rather than measuring, judging, or changing your physical self, what if you resolved to tune into your senses? How might that change your experience of your world? Rather than list all the things you want to change, can you start 2022 by befriending your body?

Throughout January we will explore ways in which we can find peace with our bodies so we can make more meaningful decisions about our well-being. We’ll find ways to approach movement, nutrition, and rest that cultivate appreciation rather than judgment and criticism. We’ll start next week by exploring how our relationship with pleasure and pain impact movement patterns. Next, we’ll turn the typical New Year’s focus away from losing weight to take a broader view of nutrition as an act of self-care. Lastly, we’ll dive into all the ways the body can rest, from sleep, to eating patterns, to mindfulness and meditation. This will be more than a weekly “how to” blog, as the focus will be on finding comfort and safety in the one beautiful and unique vessel that supports us throughout our time on earth. Perhaps you’d like to make a resolution for 2022 to turn inward and celebrate the one and only body you’ll ever experience, this special place you call home.