Inhabiting the Body

There is a difference between simply having a body and actually inhabiting it.

Last week, I began what I’m calling the Inhabiting series by reflecting on what it might mean to inhabit your life as a gift — to live from the deep awareness that you are precious, and that your preciousness shapes the way you engage the world.

This week, I want to take a small step backward and begin somewhere even more immediate:

What does it mean to inhabit your body?

For most of us, the body is how we meet the world.

We see through our eyes. We hear. We touch. We taste. We smell. We move. We speak. We experience warmth and cold, tiredness and energy, tension and ease.

And yet it is remarkably easy to move through the day without paying much attention to the body at all.

We ask it to keep going.

We sit in front of one more screen. Read one more page. Finish one more task. Have one more conversation. Push through one more hour.

The body, meanwhile, is speaking.

The Body Is Always Telling Us Something

As I write this, I can feel tiredness in my shoulders.

My eyes are tired after a full day of reading, thinking, writing, preparing, and looking at screens.

Those sensations are not interruptions to my life.

They are part of my life.

To inhabit the body is to notice them.

It is to recognize the dryness in my eyes and perhaps close them for a moment.

It is to notice thirst and drink some water.

It is to feel tension beginning to gather in my shoulders, my face, my hands, or my stomach during a difficult conversation and recognize:

Something is happening here.

The body often knows something before our thoughts have caught up.

Fear may arrive as tightness.

Anger may show itself in clenched muscles.

Stress may settle into the shoulders.

Exhaustion may appear in heavy eyes or aching legs.

Sometimes, of course, we have to keep going. There are moments when stopping simply is not possible.

But not every moment is one of those moments.

Sometimes the wisest response is simply to listen.

I am tired.

I am thirsty.

This is too much right now.

I need to breathe.

I need to rest.

The body is not an obstacle we must overcome in order to live our lives.

The body is part of the gift through which we experience them.

Noticing What Feels Good, Too

Listening to the body is not only about fatigue or stress.

It is also about joy.

Step outside on a breezy day and feel the air move across your skin.

Notice the coolness.

Or notice the heaviness of a humid August afternoon.

Feel the warmth of water in the shower.

Walk barefoot in the grass and pay attention to what touches the bottoms of your feet.

Wash your hands and notice the water, the soap, the movement of one hand against the other.

And when happiness arises?

Let yourself feel that, too.

Maybe you smile.

Maybe you sing.

Maybe you dance for thirty seconds in the kitchen.

That is inhabiting the body as well.

It is receiving the life that is happening right now.

The Body and the Spiritual Life

For those of us who seek the spiritual or the divine in everyday life, I think the body matters enormously.

We sometimes imagine spirituality as something happening somewhere beyond the physical world.

But much of our experience of life — perhaps even our experience of God — comes to us through the body.

Through touch.

Through taste.

Through sound.

Through sight.

Through breath.

Through the simple awareness that time is passing and that we are here for this particular moment.

Our bodies locate us in the now.

They keep inviting us back into the life we are actually living rather than the life we are remembering, anticipating, worrying about, or planning.

A Simple Practice

So perhaps the practice this week is very small.

When you wake up tomorrow morning, before you get out of bed, notice your body.

Do you feel rested?

What does rested actually feel like?

When you take a shower, notice the water touching your skin.

While sitting at your desk, wiggle your toes.

Feel your feet inside your shoes.

When you wash your hands, pay attention to the sensation of the water and the soap.

When you walk outside, feel the air against your face.

Nothing extraordinary has to happen.

You are simply returning your attention to the body you are already inhabiting.

Then listen.

What is it telling you?

Perhaps:

Rest.

Drink some water.

Take a walk.

Stretch.

Breathe.

Dance.

Be still.

And when you hear the invitation, respond when you can.

Because inhabiting the body is really another way of inhabiting this moment.

And this moment is where your life is happening.

So whether you inhabit your body beautifully today or barely notice it at all, remember this:

You are infinitely precious and unconditionally loved for the gift you already are.

And this body — this imperfect, sensing, changing, tired, joyful, living body — is part of that gift.

Inhabit it.

Listen to it.

And receive the life that is here.