Exploring the Mind/Body Connection Part 2
I am grateful to my body for all the years it has amazingly, carried me through this life. In elementary school, it helped me win races and high jump and in high school, allowed me to participate in team sports like baseball and basketball. I could act in film and on stage. I could walk for miles and often had to. This body bore me three fine children. And in the confines of this body, I cared for a husband with a critical heart condition.
But ultimately, I never thought much about the physical embodiment that accompanied ‘me’ wherever I went. I stumbled, tripped, rushed, and blundered.
Alternately, I would sit for hours in an unhealthy position, lost in a book or a problem or a project. My body was just there with me, taken for granted, unnoticed, like an unloved child in the room.
The most positive remark I can make about my attitude toward my body is that I have always been aware that mobility is crucial to a vibrant and happy life. So, this project of honouring my physical self should be a simple matter, right?
The trouble is my mind seems to be jealous.
Just when I think I’m doing well with regular breaks from the computer for movement and stretching, or going to the gym, my mind steps in and takes over, completely absorbing me for hours beyond the time I have allotted it, and once again robbing my body of its due.
Why do I live so much in my head? Why are my thoughts a constant flow of unremitting playback and commentary?
Why can I not enjoy a mental silence now and then? A cessation of mental chatter, a period of serenity which would allow me to breathe more deeply, to drink in the moment, the bright purple and yellow of the primulas outside my window, the hummingbirds hovering at the feeder, the snow on the roofs across the way.
Suddenly, it becomes clear: to give my body its due, I must be able to exert some control over my mind.
My friend, Richard, an expert in mindfulness tells me it will take a conscious effort to co-ordinate my body and mind. It’s a matter of giving my physicality the mindful recognition it deserves. And treating it respectfully.
Richard says I must learn to be still: to extricate myself from this mental rat race in which I seem perpetually absorbed.
I must deliberately engage both body and mind, he tells me, not only when motion is involved but also when it’s time to be still!
He says there is a way to harmoniously reunite my mind with my body. That I must recognize that there are no grounds for perceiving these aspects of myself as a duality. But this body/mind division seems so real to me. If he’s right, I’m not dealing with two separate entities, body and mind are intimately connected. It seems they just don’t recognize each other now.
I must introduce my body and my mind to each other.
I’m going to ask Richard to tell me more about this. What does recognizing the oneness of my body and mind look like in everyday life? How do I practice this kind of unity? Does anyone else feel this disconnect–this separation of these two aspects of self? How do we reconnect, assuming the connection existed in the first place?
Come join me in my exploration of the mind/body connection!
Margaret Jean 