The mindfulness movement talks a lot about “being in your body.” I’ve read a lot of recommendations for my Enneagram Type, the Peacemaker (Type 9), to get in touch with my body.
Why is being in your body important? Many traditional religions today emphasize the differences between body and soul. Christianity, especially, focuses on how the body is sinful and how only the soul can be holy.
While I understand the reasoning behind it is to call ourselves to something beyond this material world, I think it can lead to fractured thinking about ourselves. We feel alien in our bodies and disconnected with ourselves. When illness or aging happens, we resent it instead of accepting it. After I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis at a young age, I felt like my body was betraying me, even though my body is me.
Your body, your mind, and your soul are all wrapped up together and it’s hard to extricate one from the other. Yet we constantly try to separate them. By intentionally trying to be in your body, you foster a more holistic approach to your existence.
So, what exactly does “being in your body” look like? For a long time, I took this nebulous phrase and equated it with just exercise and sports. But there are a lot of things we can do to feel more connection with our bodies, and most of them we can do every day.
Music, dancing, and singing. Your ears receive sound waves, and your body can feel them if the sound waves are lower, like bass. Many deaf people still enjoy music, though they experience it through their body and not all of them can hear the vocals to a song.
Dancing brings your body into the experience of music even more. I find it’s easiest to try your hand at dancing if you’re by yourself or with kids, who don’t yet have the self-consciousness adults have about dancing.
I also love singing (last night, I was enjoying Lianne La Havas’ album Blood). When I use my voice to sing, I’m using my throat, my lungs, and my breath. It’s the same for playing an instrument, whether you’re using your hands with a guitar, your breath and fingers with a brass instrument, or your whole body with the drums.
Physical touch such as massage, cuddling, or sex. One of the most visceral ways to be in your body is to have someone else touch you. I had a baby in March, so I’ve learned about the benefits of skin-to-skin contact and infant massage. Adults reap similar benefits, and we can receive even more with intimate relationships and sex. If it’s just you, you can still give yourself a massage by rubbing your feet or your hands, or you can spend some intimate time alone.
Yoga, stretching, and breathing exercises. These are big in the mindfulness movement. They typically require you to slow down, so it may take more discipline than others on this list. They don’t have to be cumbersome, though. I can’t remember who said it, but I’ve heard the quote, “Your breath is your portable meditation device.” Have some time between appointments or stuck in a commute? Take ten deep breaths, trying to focus only on your breath and lungs. Maybe next time, take twenty, and so on.
Eating good food. Activate those taste buds and make yourself or order a good meal. If it’s healthy on top of merely tasting good, you can feel your whole body sing afterwards.
Swimming, showers, and baths. One of my favorites on this list, because I love being in the water. There’s something magical about how being in the water lightens gravity on your body so aches and pains lessen and everything moves slower and more deliberately. Even just the act of taking a shower, when you’re not fully submerged in water, is full of sensations as the water moves over your skin and muscles.
Intentional prayer or meditation centered around your body. If you like to pray, you could say a prayer thanking God for your body and all the things it does for you. Even unconscious things like breathing, pumping blood, shedding dead cells, are things to be grateful for. A meditation could be to focus on just one part of your body — for example, your hand. If you study your hand and focus on the sensations inside, you may start to feel your blood flowing. Your meditation could travel from area to area, or it could expand until you feel your body as one whole entity. The last episode of Midnight Gospel on Netflix has a beautiful example of this exercise.
Grooming. I’m a minimalist when it comes to my beauty routine, so this is something I could do more often. Doing something special for your body can be a great tool to appreciate it. Brush your hair with 100 strokes. Give yourself a pedicure in the bathtub. Do a face mask. Care for your body in a way you may not usually.
Adrenaline-filled activities. These can be mild, like jumping into cold river water, or more extreme, like bungee jumping or sky diving. When adrenaline flows through your brain, it activates various functions in your body such as “increasing the heart rate, increasing blood pressure, expanding the air passages of the lungs“, and more.
Saunas, steam rooms, and sweat lodges. When I lived in Pendleton, my family had a membership to a recreation center. After every visit to the pool, I’d sit in the sauna or steam room and sweat. It’s such an uncomfortable experience at first, but as I sweat out toxins, my body always felt lighter and cleansed. I can understand why Native Americans used sweat lodges in religious and spiritual rituals. The heat pulls your body into a different state, and it’s very healthy for you as well.
If you’re seeking to be in the here and now, the body is your biggest tool. It can be incredibly grounding to come back to your body. If you want to be more present, but don’t know how to reign in your thoughts, start with your body first. It’s easier to do any of the above activities than force your thoughts in a certain direction. If your body is active and your senses engaged, you will naturally think about what it’s doing and what sensations you’re experiencing.
In the same vein, being in our bodies can lead us away from worry, anxiety, and fear. The mind can travel to painful memories to imagined conversations to self-hatred within seconds. In today’s world, it is easy to get bogged down in worry about world pandemics and our country’s politics.
When we return to our bodies, we can let go of stresses that we can’t control. When we return to our bodies, we return home.
Other resources for being in your body (will add as I find more):