Health | Awakening to the Dance

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AWAKENING TO GOOD HEALTH

Posted on February 20, 2013 | Leave a comment

“To enjoy true health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will come to him.” Buddha

I wanted to write today about the connection between body and mind and good health, but when I read back over a previous post, “Body and Soul As One,” I decided to repost it because, at the moment, I feel it says everything I want to say. When we love ourselves, we take care of all parts of ourselves: body, mind and soul. And when we are ill, we need to take care of the mind, body, and soul. Even science is now proving this connection exists.

The Body As Container For The Soul

One of the problems I’ve often had with traditional religion is the way it describes the body as a lesser part of our being. The body is, after all, the container for our soul. If we didn’t need it in some cosmic sense, we wouldn’t have it. At this stage in our spiritual journey, we are experiencing a physical life because we need to learn lessons we can only learn by being in a physical body.

If we embrace the idea of wholeness or oneness, then we have to acknowledge that all parts of ourselves are sacred. Living in a body offers us infinite opportunities to learn. As a child, I had many illnesses including one that left me with a heart murmur which I out grew by the time I was twelve. I missed those early carefree years of life that others remember with joy. What I remember is lying in bed alone reading and designing paper doll dresses, feeling weak and shy and inadequate when we played softball at school and never learning to ride a bicycle. I remember having a friend or two but never feeling part of a group because so many group activities were too strenuous.

Awakening The Body And Soul

As a result of this childhood experience, I developed two interests: good health and creativity which I later developed through dance and writing. Staying healthy became a priority in my life. As a young adult I began to search for the answers that would allow me to become stronger and stay in good health. My love of dance was not just about expressing myself creatively. It was about building muscles on my skinny frame to become strong. It was also about the mind/body connection. Having rejected traditional religion by this time, I found that dancing brought me joy and touched my spirit. At times, dancing was transcendent, my body seemed to fall away and I was all spirit.

Each physical challenge has been a teacher. Around 1976, I studied with an amazing dancer, Erick Hawkins during a summer dance program at American University. Having studied Eastern philosophy and anatomy and kinesiology, he had created a modern dance technique that trained the body gently, working with the pelvis as the center of the body, and teaching us to respect our own bodies.

Hawkins in El Penitente, 1930s (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

But that summer, I was in distress, and despite Hawkins’ peaceful way, I made a decision I would regret. I injured one foot simply walking across campus, adding more pain to the tendinitis slowly healing in the other foot. I was in a dance company and had a performance coming up. We were short on dancers; I couldn’t disappoint the director. So, I demanded that my doctor give me cortisone shots which he did, going against his own better judgment.

When I danced, my feet were numb; I couldn’t feel the floor, but somehow I got through the performance. Afterwards, as I rested and healed over several weeks, I realized I had committed a terrible act of aggression against myself. I’d somehow crossed a line I’d never crossed before and was willing to abuse myself in order not to disappoint others. This was clearly a signal that something was very wrong with my thinking. I realized at that moment that I couldn’t stop thinking about the reverence with which Hawkins treated the body even in training. As I thought about Hawkins and the reverence he had taught us to have for our own bodies, I realized he had been my spiritual teacher that summer.

Loving Ourselves With Good Health

This experience made me realize that I needed to learn to love myself. I had created unnecessary suffering and my soul ached. Dance taught me about one aspect of taking care of my body, but other experiences taught me about a healthy diet. When I had Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, I found a doctor of integrated medicine who taught me how to use food and supplements to heal. What I learned from him has continued to serve me well over the years to support my immune system, keep my blood sugar level, and sustain a level of energy that creates a feeling of well-being.

It is difficult to enjoy life when we don’t feel well, and while it is important to take care of our minds and soul, taking care of the body is sacred work too. To deny the body’s needs is just as detrimental to our well-being as ignoring our spiritual or emotional needs. Although I am middle aged, I’m actually healthier than I’ve ever been, and I believe that is because, in addition to taking care of my spiritual life, I have cared for my body, this precious container for my precious soul.

Do you want life to be a dance or a drag?

We have a choice and it’s an important one. Caring for our bodies makes it possible to do things that feed the soul like walking in the forest, dancing until dawn or jogging through the early morning air with your daughter. What are you willing to do to make your body and soul one?

AWAKENING TO THE SILENCE

Posted on October 17, 2012 | 5 comments

“True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.” William Penn

Do you meditate daily? If not, do you schedule a certain time to be silent? What do you gain from incorporating times of silence into your life? What do you lose if you don’t?

Listen to the Body’s Messages

For most of the first eight or nine months of the year, I had a strange health problem. What was especially puzzling was that it came and went following no real pattern. Everything inside my mouth seemed inflamed: gums, roof of mouth, and throat. I explored many possibilities: a new electric toothbrush might have caused the gum irritation, a troublesome tooth was going bad, my acid reflux was irritating more than my throat. I looked for blisters. There were none so I decided to go to the doctor.

On the day I visited the doctor, the symptoms were so minor that he couldn’t diagnose it and referred me to a specialist. The symptoms returned but went away again the day before my appointment. I cancelled the appointment. The symptoms came back. Two more times, I planned to make an appointment the next day, and at both times the symptoms were not there the next day.

Reading the Messages the Body Sends

Not long after this, when I attended a wisdom class, the teacher began talking about the mind/body connection and how the changes in our energy and the energy around us may affect our bodies and manifest as health problems. When I told her what I had experienced, she said that my body was trying to tell me something and suggested that I do a process where I write a question with my dominant hand and let my non-dominant hand write the answer. This bypasses the rational mind and connects us to a deeper awareness.

Awakening to the Spiritual Message

After I went home, I took a piece of paper and wrote, “What is my on-going sore throat and mouth about?” My left hand scribbled around for awhile and then wrote, “Pain is a sign I’m not on track.” Wow! Not on track! Everything’s been going great. I was shocked, but I explored further and discovered there was a problem in my spiritual life.

The message I received was “Love, open your heart to all who need; speak truth and love; teach wisdom.” Then I asked if I needed to do something more than promoting my memoir and doing Releasing Your Fear workshops and private sessions. The answer was “Laugh more, fall in love with people.” Then I asked, “What am I not doing that I need to do?” The answer was “Be more silent.”

Make Time For the Beauty of the Silence

I don’t know what message I had expected to get, but it wasn’t this. Then I took a good look at my life over the last few months and realized that although I was alone and writing many hours a day, I was not in silence. Now, I lie in bed in the early morning more often and listen to the silence. In that silence, answers may appear, but often I just feel the love of Spirit wash over me. Sometimes I do actually meditate and sometimes I just sit and watch the squirrels play.

I have to repeatedly remind myself to choose the silence at some point in my day. Sometimes I forget. But my heart is opening more as I find time almost each day to brush away thoughts about my “to do” list. I just stop and feel that moment and its silence, knowing I am in touch with something so much more important than getting things done. Oh, and since receiving that message, the inflammation in my throat and mouth has not returned and more people have come into my life that I can laugh with.

How did you experience silence today?