Physical Sensations
As James Joyce said of the character Mr. Duffy, he “lived a short distance from his body”. As humourous as that phrase is, this is how most of us actually live. Our awareness is centred in our brains, our heads. It is as if we don’t exist from the neck down unless we are actually being touched, and sometimes not even then.
The path to becoming more present runs directly through the body -- through developing more awareness of what is physically felt. With our conscious minds, we are able to process only a small fraction of what comes at us. Our bodies contain a lot of wisdom and information that we usually don’t notice, because the busy mind blocks access to its intuition. For example, you have most likely experienced times when something sounded right to your thinking brain, but caused a knot in your stomach or a tense feeling. Most of the time we just block out those body feelings that signal “there is something more to this”. Or we may notice the body feeling, but plow ahead anyway, not wanting to take the time or the risk to find out what is under the surface.
Ten or fifteen years ago, the body aspect sounded very new-age and flighty to me. I was a committed “head first” type of person. On one level, I just couldn’t relate to all of this talk about getting in touch with the body or believe it was all that important. On another level, I think I felt inadequate because noticing the feelings in my body didn’t come naturally to me, so I wanted to stick with what felt safe and familiar – my thoughts! Maybe most of all, I knew it would slow me down, and I didn’t want to slow down.
It’s still a challenge for me to consistently stay connected with my body, but I understand the importance of it as both a way to be more fully here, and as a barometer of awareness.
To start working with body awareness, you can simply try to notice your physical sensations when you’re caught up in an emotion – what are the feelings in your body? Can you feel any tension, tightness, fluttering, holding…? Notice your stomach, your neck, your chest, your face, your hands, and other parts of your body….
Though it can seem difficult and unfamiliar to be “in our bodies”, it does get more natural over time, even for us head-first types!
