Our bodies talk to us all the time but we have lost the ability to hear, let alone listen to what they are saying. The reason that we are out of touch with our bodies and unable to listen to them is that our culture favors intellectual abilities as the indicator of intelligence, and values “thinking” above feeling-sensing abilities as a form of intelligence.
We are trained from early on, especially in schools where we spend many hours of the day, to override many of the things our bodies tell us through physical sensation, until class is over. Suddenly, it is recess or school is over and we are in the social environment of our friends where culturally “appropriate actions based and values are upheld by the peer pressure of our friends.
On tv, when a person has a headache, you don’t see people taking a moment to get quiet and open their breathing, relax and do self-massage techniques that will alleviate the headache. You see them taking a pill and then smiling, “All Gone” and walking off with a loving partner who is so-o happy to be with them. They didn’t have to take any time for themselves or resolve what was causing the headache. Just take a pill and everything is okay. Hurray for pharmaceuticals! Aren’t we lucky to be living in such an advanced country in such an advanced, intelligent time?
Thinking in a focused left brain analytical, goal-oriented way is the most highly rewarded by a society in which success is measured by profit. People are trying to get as much done or sold as possible in a given period of time. Time becomes that oppressor, that concept that pushes us around, pushes us farther than we would comfortably go; it becomes that precious commodity that we never have enough of. “Oh, if there were only more hours in the day!” No matter that the amount of time is ruled by forces of nature much grander and more important than how much we little humans don’t get done.
So, with not enough time, what do we do? We rush, we push ourselves. And when we rush, we don’t breathe fully. And when we don’t breathe fully, our entire bodies are affected…for the worse. STRESS! And most of us know this. And what do we do. We keep doing it.
Some people know about this knowledge about breathing and relaxing. They meditate. Or they do Tai Chi. Or they do yoga. Sometimes they rush from work to get to their yoga classes on time. And then, in class they are doing techniques designed and sequenced by someone else. Mind you – I’m not saying that there is anything wrong with doing yoga. It’s a great practice, and I highly regard those who do it. I do it myself.
But when do we take the time to be quiet, relax and lay down on the floor and pay attention to those long-ignored sensations? When do we listen to the body’s voice that says “Oh, stretch me here.” “Oh I need a little pressure there.” And then we roll over to get that spot. How often do we luxuriate in the feelings of just being, in a body? To have no goal or agenda, other than to just bring awareness and breath to all the places that hurt, all the places where sensation has been deadened by lack of consciousness. No purpose except to let go – of all the feelings, pressures, tensions that weigh us down. No function except to release all the inner static of living in a crazy world.
We lay down our bodies and our burdens, and we breathe life into every part of ourselves. WE COME HOME TO OURSELVES.
