I’m sitting in my recliner at home on a Wednesday evening. My phone rings. That’s rare (it’s usually a buzz from a text or a ding from a Polo). I glance at the number. It’s unknown.
But I recognize the area code. It’s one I’d love to hear voices from. My heart beats a little faster.
I click Accept.
I say, Hello? I hear chaos in the background. Young voices. Home noises. My heart is now in a full sprint. I sit up taller in my chair.
Again I say, Hello?
I see Jeff out of the corner of my eye, passing through to another room, but he halts. He’s looking at me. He can tell something is happening, just by observing my body language.
Which Is More Important?
Somewhere along the way I picked up a message that it’s only the soul that matters. The invisible insides. That my body is just the turtle shell that carries around my soul, of no particular importance on its own except as transportation to take me from here to there.
And to hear through. To see through. To touch through. To smell through. To taste through. To think through. To feel through. To love through.
This is quite significant.
The older I get, the more I understand that the body is important. And that I need to live more embodied. Not to craft a chiseled body nor mimic a model’s face nor bear an ideal weight. But to appreciate all the amazing things my body does for me on a daily basis—even if imperfectly—since the moment I was conceived.
But how do we live more embodied?
Blur the Lines
We can begin by appreciating the wisdom of our body.
Hillary McBride, PhD says this in her new book, Practices for Embodied Living: Experiencing the Wisdom of Your Body:
“There is more wisdom in the hands holding this book, than in the pages of the book the hands are holding.”
That’s a good start.
McBride goes further…
“As I continued to experiment with different ways of being in my body, my sense of self continued to change.
The once clear line between who I believed myself to be (my mind) and the object that housed my self (my body) began to blur.
I started to see that everything that happened to my body happened to me; nothing happened to me that didn’t also permeate the experience of being in my body. I was becoming my body, and it was making me more of myself.”
Our bodies do much more than just carry around our minds.
“A body is not just a thing you have; it is who you are.”
Practices for Embodied Living
It is in our bodies that “we experience loneliness, social rejection, illness, and death. Bodies are here, even when we don’t want to be here.”
McBride writes that we learn to experience ourselves as a body through three pathways:
- MENTAL: the stories we think and perpetuate about bodies
- SOCIAL: the social landscape around us
- PHYSICAL: the physical experiences we have
In Practices for Embodied Living, she gives us activities to try with our bodies, stories to open us up to embodiment, ways to help our bodies and minds become better friends.
They are simple things, such us:
“Imagine that your nondominant hand is your thinking self and that your dominant hand is your sensing, bodily self. Try holding them side by side, noticing how the distance feels. When you’re ready, experiment with bringing them closer together, clasping your hands and interweaving your fingers.
What do your thoughts long to hear from your sensing body? What does your bodily self long to hear from your thinking self?“
But they are important things.
“Complete the following sentences:
‘It makes me feel loved when a friend . . .’ (try doing that for yourself)
‘I long to hear from those I love that I . . .’ (try saying this to yourself)”
Bodies Can Release Our Trauma
When we are in stressful situations, feeling out of control, it’s not just our minds that are disturbed: our bodies absorb the trauma.
When I heard the yet-unidentified voices on the other end of my phone call that Wednesday night, in a split-second my body went into full alert mode.
But only a moment later, the now-familiar caller was talking to me: “Hi, Lisa! How are you?” I knew who it was. Now I recognized her children’s voices in the background.
My heart rate started slowing. I glanced up at Jeff and mouthed, “It’s Victoria.”
She and I had a lovely conversation. I was glad she called. She made me smile and laugh.
But as soon as we hung up, without even thinking about it, I collapsed in my chair and cried. Because for the briefest of seconds in that liminal space before I’d identified the caller, I had thought it might be another person I hadn’t heard from in awhile, someone I was longing to hear from.
And it hadn’t been them.
My body, doing its best to take care of me, was now draining out the trauma through my eyes in the form of tears. I let them come. And eventually go. I took several deep breaths. I stood up. I walked around.
Yes, our bodies are much more than just vehicles to move us from room to room, from meal to meal, from birth to death. Our bodies are here FOR us, on our side—in ordinary and extraordinary ways.
Even though I don’t always say it or even think it, I am amazed by my body, both the pleasurable and the painful parts. I am more than a body, yet my body does matter.
My body is me. And I am my body.
Do you have a good relationship with your body? I’m still working on the relationship with mine. Share in the comments.
Read More:
My thanks to Netgalley for the review
copy of Practices for Embodied Living
