“To lose our connection with the body is to become spiritually homeless. Without an anchor we float aimlessly, battered by the winds and waves of life.” Anode Judith
The mind + body connection is a term that’s thrown around like it’s going out of style, so we thought we’d explain a little bit about how we see the mind + body connection and why we think it’s so important. In this vlog, we’re talking about why we humans are so quick to disconnect from our bodies, why habitual disconnection is a slippery slope and how staying connected to your body is the key to all the good things.
First off – what causes us to disconnect? On a fundamental level – our biological makeup. We’re wired to move away from pain and unpleasantness – of both the physical and emotional variety. We forget that feelings and sensations are like distinct and fast-moving weather patterns – subtle, ever-shifting forces. Clouds, passing through the sky. They surface and sweep through our interior landscape, then they’re gone. We forget, as Rilke says, that “no feeling is final.” We become overly attached to what’s happening, or worse, we disconnect.
So when we’re lonely, confronted, when we’re in pain, or even just mildly uncomfortable what happens? We concoct exit strategies that take us away from our bodies – away from the present moment – away from wholeness. The type of escape varies for each of us…overeating, oversleeping, losing ourselves in online wanderings and virtual realities, numbing out with addictions or compulsive behaviours, taking the edge off with a little too much wine…the list goes on. It’s the out-of-body-back-in-five-minutes sign we dangle from our front doors while we sneak out the back door to escape from what’s happening.
Here’s the clincher. Regularly and habitually disconnecting from our bodies opens the door to even more broken behaviour. If we’re estranged from our bodies, we see them as separate entities. It’s easier to trash, abuse or mistreat a body that is separate from our sense of self. In this state of dissociation our inclinations are toward harmful behaviours. Hello eating disorders, self-harm, compulsive or addictive behaviours, toxic relationships and the like.
By forfeiting our connection to our body, we give up the key to accessing wholeness. Anodea Judith writes, “Without the body as a unifying figure of existence, we become fragmented. We repress our aliveness and become machinelike, easily manipulated. We lose our testing ground for truth.”
By reconnecting to our body (A.K.A being embodied), we move through life with presence, balance and a lightness of being. We tend not to over eat or under eat…or under or over exercise for that matter. We make choices in line with our highest good. Our relationship with ourselves and others flourish. We eat, sleep and move consciously, in harmony with our natural rhythms. In short, being embodied is pure presence. You can’t be connected to your body without being present. And presence has a positive on flow effect in all aspects of life.
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