Working with thousands of patients over the years, I’ve noticed that a majority of them tend to feel like the body has let them down. They’re feeling pain or some other symptom is interrupting their life and they want to get back to living. Well who wouldn’t right? What is notable though is that a lot of people feel at odds with their body, and I don’t just mean from a body image point of view.
They’ll refer to their bodies almost as if the body were a vehicle that they were just inhabiting, not as a soul, but as a mind. It’s almost as if they see their body as an old clunker of a car, that’s been through a lot, it’s “beaten up” and it’s getting time to replace some parts.
This may FEEL true and I can relate. Since crossing the 50 yard line of life a while ago, I have noticed my body not always working as I would expect it to.
This being at odds with the body is also reinforced by the culture we live in as well as special interest groups such as pharmaceutical companies that want you to buy their products.
Part of the process of healing that I’ve seen happens for most people is that they learn to appreciate their body not just as something that has utility. They learn that their body is here for the long haul and always has been. Even if it has been mistreated in the past through youthful obsessions and blind spots.
Your body is always doing its best to help you live the life that you’re choosing to live. It’s sensitive to your needs of living in the way that you live. How do I know this? Because what I do relies on the body’s ability to heal itself.
And what I see time and time again is this: You can decide that you want to take better care of your body. And this is the first but not final step. Being like a custodian and taking better care of your body is still seeing your body as separate from you. What if you could see and feel how you move with your body, how you inhabit your body and how you express yourself through your body? What if you could feel how you create your life using your body?
This would require us to feel the consequences of our habits and choices which would give us the motivation to change what wasn’t working and thereby bringing ourselves more into alignment.
The is what we need for true healing. And this is what the world needs as well.