Home is Where the Body is

Home is Where the Body is

I like to think about where I live from time to time, and to expand it up, into the Universe, and then bring it back; Earth, western hemisphere, North America, USA, Minnesota, all the way down to my body. I think it’s kind of funny to think that I live in my body, like it’s a residence.

We have three primary modes for processing the world, processing our information. We process visually, auditorily, and kinesthetically. Very simply, we see stuff in our minds, or hear words, or imagine physical experience.

We all do all three, but one will be our preferred, one our least preferred. My preference is auditory. I tend to process through sounds, think in words, play music in my head if I’m not thinking about stuff. Visual people are seeing pictures very clearly, and kinesthetics feel their experience. I am working on that one, very useful in my qigong practice.

I try to remember that “I” live with my body, like roommates or something. We speak different languages, and don’t always communicate well. My body tends to be more honest that I am. It never pretends to be full of energy when it wants to sleep, or that one bite is good when it’s ravenous.

Thing is, I make a lot of our decisions, up in my think-y part. You know, about how much to move around, what to eat and drink, when to sleep, when to get up. Body doesn’t have a lot of say in the matter.

I also have tended to treat Body very badly, deprived it, pushed it too hard, withheld water, nourishment, rest, fun. I have spoken to Body cruelly, actively hated it. Yikes. If someone else treated me like I treated Body, I would think about having them arrested for abuse.

Why do I love my body? Why do my body and I get along? Why do I treat my body with kindness and respect?

When I think about Body as hosting me, hosting “I”, I feel so grateful. I want to be a better guest. After all, if it weren’t for Body, I wouldn’t be able to do much of anything. But Body means I can do so much. Smell lilacs, hold a child’s hand, hear little cats purr, see my baby snails look at me, and come over. I can dance, and run, and kung my fu. I can fall asleep, and wake up. I can swim, and talk.

Why do I enjoy my body? What makes me take good care? Why do I like where I live?

Body has her own brain, in her guts. When I learn to pay attention to messages from that brain, my life gets better. Body can often process outside information way faster than I can, and will shoot me the word. If I am paying attention, Body will clue me in to all sorts of useful stuff. We make a great team when we work together.

Regardless of our circumstances, the better I take care of her, the better off we are. When I treat my body with loving kindness, she will respond with lightness, and love back to me.

How have I changed from reviling my body to loving where I live?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 05242014

Everything You Wanted to Know

Feeling wanted is one of those things that is essential to our well being. Because it is so important, it’s one of the places where we can have a lot of feelings, not only the ones we are aware of, but the others, too, the ones that are roiling beneath the surface.

Those “beneath the surface” feelings are so interesting. When they start swirling around, we can feel like we are going crazy. They bump around inside us, but we don’t have any conscious thoughts, no words, no images. We are having physical sensations that, because we don’t know what they are about, feel awful.

I know I am having those big unconscious things going on when I feel dread, or doomed, or even when I have a hunch. You know, those belly feelings. Turns out that we have a kind of second brain in our guts; they are filled with the same kinds of neurotransmitters we have in our heads, and sending information about our being up to the brain all the time.

Since our belly brain doesn’t have verbal language, we have to learn to read it differently. The best way I know to do that is to sit still for a while to let the information resolve into something my conscious mind can understand.

In the course of living our lives, we get stuff wrong about how the world works. We may learn bad patterns from our childhood adults who got it wrong from their adults, all the way back. Things as awful as legacies of abuse happen this way. But little things, like cutting the ends off the roast, like great-grandma did because she didn’t have a pan that was big enough, will be passed along, too.

Our minds and bodies are connected, regardless of our recognizing those connections. Our bodies are conveying important information about our well being all the time in the only way they can, through sensation. As we become more adept at reading those communications, we can make our corrections in our actions, or choices, or thoughts more quickly and get back to our true paths of happiness.

One of my examples was a headache that happened at the base of my skull. It turned out that I got that headache when I was ignoring my wisdom. When I would attend to my wisdom, the headache would disappear. I could also make it go away with drugs, but then I missed to gift of listening to my wisdom.

When I am having physical discomfort, I find a lot of benefit in “reading” it. Maybe it’s like a horoscope, simply giving me a point of view to consider, but maybe it’s actually knowledgeable, and conveying personal and useful information. After all, I listen to it being hungry, or tired, or thirsty.

The more we learn to read the information we are getting from our bodies, the easier we will find our living. Paying attention to these messages will let us know the work we need to do to make our way smoother every day.

When we experience well being in our social lives, our career, our finances, our physical selves, and our communal selves, we feel great. I want that, so I try all sorts of things to get there. And when one doesn’t work, I will try another. Reading my sensations, and Creative Questions are two of my absolutely all time favorites for their high success rates.

How have I changed from ignoring my whole experience to attending to all my information?

(c) Pam Guthrie 2014 all rights reserved 04062014

I know this is a challenging and controversial topic. It has made a huge difference in my life. All I ask is that you consider it. Oh, and + or share, if you like what you find. What makes you feel great?