You could learn a thing or two from your body…

I heard these words during my meditation time a couple of weeks ago and it took me a little while to process them.

I grew up in the Baptist tradition, and I was taught that we are a tri-part being: body, soul and spirit. Our spirit is the part of us that “houses” the presence of God within us. Our soul is basically our personality; what makes us “us”. It is made up of our mind, will and emotions. Lastly (and leastly) is our body, which is full of carnal desires, appetites and basically is the root of all our problems. Or so I was taught.

Add to this teaching the scriptures written by the Apostle Paul about daily “buffeting” our body to make it our slave, and you get the idea that there is a clear hierarchy between our body, soul and spirit. My teachers said that the spirit was to be “in charge” of my soul and that the body comes last in the chain of command. It needs to be daily disciplined, denied and basically starved into control, which is one of the purposes of fasting.

I see now that this kind of teaching has caused more harm than good.

We believe that we were created in the image of God, a tri-part being (the Trinity). We have no trouble thinking of the Trinity as separate but equal parts of the whole. God is equally Father, Son and Spirit. We would never consider placing them in a chain of command, top to bottom. Since we were created in the image of God, why do we place greater importance on our spirit or soul, but not our bodies?

The truth is that my body is the best at being fully present right here, right now, in this moment. What my body feels right now through my five senses is what is happening right now. I feel the warmth of the sun on my face and the soothing wind that is blowing right now. I am comfortable, because the temperature is perfect for me right now. My body is not feeling hot and sweaty because it will be over a hundred degrees within a month from now. My body is simply not capable of “sweating” the future. It feels what it feels right now.

You could learn something from your body. What is it telling you right now?

I used to get frequent stress-related headaches because of work. The truth is that I am so project-oriented that I often get completely and totally absorbed in the task at hand, frequently working right through lunchtime and taking no breaks. There I sit, hunched over my laptop, typing code furiously until the project is completely finished to my satisfaction. And when I am done, I find myself with a splitting headache, wracked with pain and often fighting off the nausea that comes as a result of such severe headaches.

Am I nuts?

I was not created by God to design websites. That is part of what I do, but it is not who I AM. God created me for much more than this. And if I had listened to my body, I would have heard this message much sooner.

These days, I listen to my body. When I feel the tension creeping up in my neck and shoulders, I simply close the laptop, and go sit on the couch. I meditate. I breathe. I remind myself that I was not created for my laptop. I was created for HIM.

Best of all, I no longer feel compelled to finish the project right now. I have begun to be more realistic about my goals and deadlines, often budgeting twice as much time as I used to require to finish tasks.

I am finding that I have more peace during my day. More joy. I’m simply able to enjoy being around people now, rather than obsessing about everything that I have to “get done”. I’m able to enjoy simply being.

I’m beginning to learn from my body and I know I have many more lessons to learn.

What could you learn from your body if you felt it was as important as any other part of your being?