Mind - Soul - Body Coherence

I’ve been quietly obsessing over and restoring a loving relationship with my body for 25 years now. 25 years. I took many courses of bridging this relationship; talked about it with some people; asked several different lands “whyyy” and “how”; apologized for my body; hugged myself and licked the wounds of rejection and disassociation; danced freely; felt immense debilitating pain; run in forests and city roads; swam on clear, muddy and cold waters; trained and rested in cycles; enjoyed and hated sex; smelled amazing and horrendous smells; looked at magical and mundane things; numbed myself and then woke up from the numbing with more energy to begin again; caressed many animals who loved me back unconditionally; ate delicious food; touched countless interesting surfaces; loved the Earth so very much. 

These are only a few of the experiences that being in my body made possible because, the truth is that my spirit chose this body, they’re one interconnected entity I call “me”. For now there is no actual separation, until death will do us apart. This body is simultaneously me and FOR me.

Whether my conditioning or de-conditioning prevents me from fully experiencing life as a coherent unity or as a conflicted sum of parts, life still happens.

Yesterday, as I was walking my daily walk with Mita and Mojo, I felt this sense of unity, this body-mind-soul coherence that is there whether I’m conscious of it or not.

The past few unsettling years, my main nervous system response has been pleasing others and abandoning my needs and wants to create an apparent safe space for others. A response that stems from the need for safety. 

It worked and it never truly worked.

I’d be safe because others were somehow cared for (most of the times, they didn't ask for that) but the result was disconnection. I'd be lost somewhere outside myself. A fake safety, that would not give me more energy, opportunities and freedom to be myself.

I realized in my bones that there’s something foundationally unnatural about micromanaging others’ needs and becoming hyper-responsible for their actions and emotions, when I literally and physically am not in their body, I’m not them. 

The only needs, actions and emotions I have authority over, truly feel and respond for are mine because they originate in my body. The boundaries I so implored myself to have and set, are already here: the borders between my body and the external world are the very boundaries that I always can access to. But the body is always in constant interaction and communication with the environment, creatures and things around, so it's a complex journey to navigate. Being within while being without.

As I write this I can definitely see how all of this is staggeringly simple and yet, at the same time, challenging because it’s easy to confuse what we naturally have total authority over and what we don’t because it’s someone else's. 

Reading this back feels like splitting hairs. Attempting to articulate this experience of inhabiting myself flattens the quiet, complex and marvellous reality of just being here.

Go explore :)