This morning I moved with my body in a way that, no matter how many times I do it, brings me to a place of such unconditional Beingness with myself that I’m overcome with emotion (which in no way is a “bad” thing). A place where what I look like or how I move dissolves.
For so many years I starved, numbed, and forced my body to be a certain way, to deny Her certain experiences, or to mentally berate Her because She didn’t look or move or function in the way I thought She should. She became “broken” because I did that to her NOT because broken was or is Her default, because it’s not.
I bought into the idea that my body was the enemy.
Something to fix, manipulate, mold, shape, coerce, or TRANSCEND. It’s this place of transcendence that I traded the compulsive exercise and eating disorders, etc for which ended up becoming another form of body debasement.
On the outside what I was doing looked TOTALLY different than before but the underlying message “your body is just a tool” rang loud. “Your body is just a house for your Spirit.” “Treat your body as a temple.”
I learned from a very young age that I had to transcend my body, to bend her to my will, that my mind ruled all, I just needed to control both my body and my mind to ascend to nirvana, and I couldn’t be in love with all the parts of myself OR the world because of how flawed we both were.
I was disheartened to find that many practices categorized as spiritual are (in part) about transcending the body. Of ascending from this earthly plane. I’m in no way saying that spiritual practices, ones that are more Yang in nature, are wrong.
What I AM saying is that there’s another – often missing – piece.
That is the one of the Soulful path. A Yin approach.
One where our bodies don’t just house the Spirit but are what opens us to the direct experience with (not just to) our Soul. It is this blessed body through which we embody our essential Nature. It is not just a sterile place awaiting the Spirit to arrive.
My body isn’t a house, or a temple, She isn’t a sacred “vessel”.
My Body IS Sacred – full stop. Period.
It – SHE, the body – is the playground through which the Soul expresses Life. I revere Her simply because She exists. She need not prove anything to me.
No need to prove Herself worthy of Love. No need to prove Herself worthy of Respect. No need to apologize when She wants Pleasure, when She wants to MOVE, when She wants to be Still.
And when I danced myself silly in that small little gym this morning, all of this was gloriously Alive in me simply because. And that was enough, is enough. I am enough.
THIS my dearest SHE tribe is what an embodiment practice is all about. This is the other side of the coin, that part that is often missing for those seeking Wholeness.
Where we embrace not the sacred OR the everyday, not the spirit OR the soul, but both AT THE SAME TIME.
This is why attuning to my body’s fluctuating needs according to natural rhythms like the changing seasons and the phases of the moon transformed everything for me.
I invite you to check out this video about the Difference Between a Spiritual Practice and Soulful Path and if this nudges you, if you hear the call howling for you, to consider answering and joining me and other like-minded and hearted women in the SHE Collective Moon Lodge.
There is a place for you here: shecollective.ca/moonlodge/