Increase Body Awareness

 How to Increase Body Awareness

“One of the magical experiences in Buddhist training is our growing ability to quiet the mind and sense the body and the world anew. Zen poets celebrate the crunch of snow on the winter path, spring blossoms covering their robes, wind among the pines, walking wet in the autumn mist, listening to the laughter of children.”—Jack Kornfield

Mindfulness of the body teaches us to tune into our bodies' needs. Learning to trust and love our bodies is important as we age. Our culture would have us trusting pharmaceutical companies and Western medicine without regard to what our bodies may be trying to tell us. Learning how to ask my body what it needs and listening for the answer has been one of the greatest gifts of mindfulness. No one understands me and can love me as I do. I am the only expert who knows me, what comforts me, my joys, and desires like I do. Through self-awareness, and awareness without judgment, I can increase my joy and decrease the things, I fear.

We know one of the keys to better relationships is to make sure the person hears us and knows we are listening. Remember words matter. The subconscious mind does not know false from true. It only accepts what you say and thinks as fact. It takes information and builds on it creating the reality it hears. Become aware of the words you use with your body. “Everybody’s body starts declining at the age of 40.” “I hate my stomach.” “I am fearful of getting cancer, because it runs in my family.” This is not what the body needs to hear. If you are saying things like this, it is time to seek more awareness of the messages you are picking up from a disease-based culture. A diagnosis may be a message to the subconscious mind. In my therapy practice, I tried to avoid diagnosing a client out loud. I did not want to reinforce the message of depression or anxiety. While it is important to treat the symptoms, I never liked to say, “You are depressed.”

Tim Desmond, L.M.F.T. describes how mindfulness is used to listen to our body without judgment. By bringing more awareness to the body we notice sensations of tension, pain, or sensations of tingling and heaviness. We keep our attention focused on the body sensation without trying to change it. We just feel it. He describes how it is important to have an attitude of warmth and acceptance toward the sensation. One of the analogies is that Thich Nhat Hanh is of a mother holding her newborn baby with an open and loving acceptance. More information follows when we discuss using mindfulness to manage pain.

Ellen Langer in her book, Counterclockwise, states “Instead of mindfully attending to our health, we are a culture bent on the psycho-pathologizing of everyday life. Instead of recognizing that in certain circumstances sadness is rational, we call ourselves depressed. Rather than recognize that there is more than one view of any situation, we deem people— even ourselves— to be “in denial” if they disagree with the dominant view. If we have a positive view of events, we are told we are rationalizing. Almost every pain becomes a syndrome. How many of us declare that we suffer from insomnia after just one night of little sleep?” Langer calls us to become “Mindful Learners” by learning how to tune into our bodies and to become more involved in our own healthcare. Mindfulness of body “is most relevant for the prevention of disease” because it enhances our ability to tune into our bodies and distinguish changes. This empowers us to discern imbalances before they become a disease or chronic illness. Langer described how mindfulness and body awareness are “literally and figuratively enlivening.” When we are fully engaged and learning we are more alive and fuller of the energy needed to understand and create greater control over our health care.

Louise Hay in her book, Loving Yourself to Great Health, describes in chapter four “How Listening to your Body is a Powerful yet little-known Health Secret.” She states that when learning to listen to your body, it may only whisper with a vague feeling or a slight symptom. The more you practice listening, the easier it will become to understand the message. Intuition is a mind-body function, often described as a “gut feeling.” When you are more in touch with your body sensations through your senses, you will be able to sense intuitive messages. You will notice the difference between thinking of the chattering brain and knowing with the body. Knowing with our hearts and body is an intention we work on throughout this journey of wisdom.

Some Things to try:

·       Louise Hay suggests writing in your journal ways your body speaks to you through body sensations. “Today I woke up feeling like I needed more rest. My body may be fighting off an infection.”

·       A guided body scan with the intention of listening to your body is helpful.

·       When you are feeling like your body is trying to tell you something, listen and try to do what it is asking for, more sleep, less sugar, more water, or exercise.

·       When I catch myself saying something unkind or not helpful to my body, I say, “cancel cancel” and replace it with an affirmation.

o   My body is a healing machine.

o   My body guides me to my highest good.

o   I know what is true for me.

o   I trust my body to know what is best.

Exercise for more body awareness from Eckhart Tolle, author of The Power of Now, offers this technique for becoming fully present in the moment.

1. Close your eyes and hold up one hand so that it’s not touching anything but air.

2. Ask your thinking mind, “Without opening your eyes, how can I know that my hand exists?”

3. Feel your mind’s attention go inside the body to answer the question, activating a nonverbal part of the brain.

4. Now hold up both hands (eyes closed, remember) and feel the inside of both at the same time.