12.30.19 Intentions

The body has so many ways of protecting itself from the will of the mind. When we overextend our muscles the stick together forming adhesions to protect our body’s from permanent damage. When we walk around in our bare feet, our skin manufactures calluses to protect us from wounds and infection. When injuries do occur, our bodies send pain signals to the brain to tend to the injury. Bodies are so smart.

But what happens when we apply emotions and memory to this system? It complicates things. When we are afraid, or determined, or hurt repeatedly, the messages the body sends us can get hard to hear. Sometimes if I personally don’t like the messages that my body is sending me I let them pile up like email notifications on my iPhone. Once I had over 60,000 messages and I was relatively unbothered by it.

Here is the problem; the body is going to win eventually. The body is the proverbial rubber that meets the road. Our minds, our emotions, and our ego will only go as far as our bodies allow them to go. Once the body goes, the nature of our existence changes.

“A body without a soul is a corpse. A soul without a body is a ghost.”

- Anodea Judith

Optimally, we can have the mind and the body move together which will help to balance our emotions and create a nice space for the soul to reside. Whether or not we achieve alignment of our body and mind in this lifetime, remains to be seen, but nonetheless, the soul does reside in the space of our bodies - our “spacesuits” as Ram Dass referred to them.

So here we are, these infinite beings walking around in these smart bodies/spacesuits - smart suits! And our minds and body’s are constantly chattering and arguing while our soul is just witnessing and figuring out how to maneuver.

This is yoga, so we start with the mind. We sweetly bring our thoughts to a stop. I like to think of a meri-go-round that is turning and turning until someone stops pushing it. The first step in our practice is to just stop pushing the meri-go-round. We may watch it spin for a while as it slows down.

When the distraction has stopped, we can start to be in the body. First the breath. We can stop and notice the breath. For me personally, my first instinct when I notice the breath is to begin to manage it. I will start to even it or deepen it or make it very soft. It takes a certain amount of time and safety for me to allow it to exist - to relax the diaphragm and the throat and the jaw and let life happen. For me personally it takes a substantial leap of faith to know that breath is actually truly involuntary. Regardless of all of the things I control, my breath is just happening on its own. My lungs fill themselves and keep me alive all by themselves. This is true for you too.

If we quiet the mind and let the breath sustain us, we can tend to the body. We place the body in a safe and comfortable posture and leave it there where it can talk to us. The body, much like the mind may need some time to stop moving. Our hips or shoulders or jaws may talk to us. We can give them our attention until the noise stops.

Through a process of extreme reduction, we may now find ourselves as actual as we have ever been. This is when we finally become available to listen to the body. We can soften our muscles and our calluses. We can allow sensations, feelings, energy, and thoughts to move in and out of the body. We can give and receive. We can let go. In these moments, we can notice the empty spaces that used to be taken up by distractions, noise, pain, worry, and exhaustion. We can admire these new empty spaces or fill them with some kind of nourishment.

As we share this space of community at the end of a decade, consider the safety here. Let these moments to soften your whole being. Allow the body and mind to become permeable enough to let go of what does not serve you and allow in the matter that is magnetized by the soul. In this way, we will till the soil and prepare the garden for our seeds of intention.