Enjoy your body

Enjoy your body, use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it, or what other people think of it; it's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

                                                                            Kurt Vonnegut

I know that my weekly contemplations may seem a bit too head-oriented, always coming back to how to master your mind. The reason is that I myself find that is a demanding task and one I easily forget, so by reminding you I remind myself! ;-)

A good friend asked me if I didn't forget the body along the way? It is true, I might not often write about the body, but I certainly don't forget it. I know that our  bodies are the only place we have to live. They are the only place that procure us with all the manifold sensual pleasures life has to offer: to feel the sunshine on our faces, or to taste an excellent meal. To hug a loved child, see the first tiny flower of spring or hear Rachmaninoff's second piano concerto. 

We often worry too much about what others might think of our physical appearance and perhaps we hide behind bland clothing in discreet colors, but doesn't it just make you happy to see somebody in a cary yellow sweater or a really visible scarf with a bold pattern? We have a lot of "body musts" in our lives: watching our diet meticulously, doing fitness strictly and just trying to shape it the way we or our society's ideals want it.

Why not procure your body with its favorite pleasures more often, be it having a cup of hot chocolate, making love with all the time in the world, crawling your cat behind the ears or dancing to your favorite beat? Let's enjoy our bodies!

You Are Not the Splinter

You Are Not the Splinter

You may not control all the events that happen to you, but you can decide not to be reduced by them.

Maya Angelou

A wrong move with some extra pressure on top, and I got a fissured rib. Now, per se that is nothing dangerous, but it is quite painful and the only remedy is to R.E.S.T. So for me it was a double “misery”: every movement hurt, and I was forced to stay put at home. 

The biggest challenge in such a situation are neither the physical pain nor the constraint not to move, but not to be reduced by the situation. I didn’t want to feel pity for myself or whine about it: "The fissured rib is not all that I am!". 

Instead I grabbed the occasion to meditate more often, to read and write for hours, to start up a new knitting project and prepare my meals with extra love and care. The best thing about these immobile days was that I really noticed their positive effect on my rib. :-)

As Mark Nepo puts it in his Book of Awakening: “When feeling miserable we must look wider than what hurts. When feeling a splinter, we must, while trying to remove it, remember there is a body that is not splinter, and a spirit that is not splinter, and a world that is not splinter.”

Straying

AA wrote: Yes! Thank you for the lovely reminder this morning. it helps me to worry less ans stay more focused on now, on my work, on staying healthy, on being patient with my children, to fulfill my tasks with joy and purpose and not to be elsewhere in my mind and do the things I do superficially. 

BB wrote: Vielen Dank für den wunderbaren Text, Sabina

        CC wrote: You're words and thoughts somehow reminded me of Übermensch    of Nietzsche. I as a human stray a lot. That's I've been doing all my life. Yet when I think I see half of the life is in our hands and the other half depends on when, where and how we're born and live. 
         
          Straying

The moment we stray from where we are, we create a tension between two places - where we are and where we are thinking of being. It is this tension that blocks us from being fully alive. For each of us, straying from where we are and coming back is a never-ending task, very much like blinking or breathing. 

That we stray from the moment is not surprising. The more crucial thing is that we return.

Mark Nepo: The Book of Awakening

I come back to this theme again and again, because as natural as straying is, it sometimes becomes painful. No, it is not surprising that we’re constantly slipping off somewhere else in our minds, while our bodies remain in the here and now. The important thing is to catch ourself doing it - and bring our minds back.

Learning to return is is a task of a lifetime, because I don’t think that straying will ever end. But I can learn to notice it, and I can learn to act upon it. When I catch myself drifting off, instead of indulging in my curiosities about the future, my regrets about the past, or my guesses about what others might say or do, I just stop. Why spend precious time and energy on unfounded theories or useless regrets that serve nobody? 

In the Kingdom of Me, I am the master, not the mind. So I stop the thought flow, and return to the present moment. It’s okay to stray, but once I’ve noticed it, I need to return. Return to the real life, as I live it, body and mind united, right here and now. 

Far Greater Than Death

Far Greater Than Death

 Nothing, not even the death of those we have loved, can separate us from the love we have shared with them. For love is far stronger than death, and in the end the greatest gifts of love will be shared again and again. For more than we can imagine, we have been changed by those who have loved us, altered in every dimension, so that, in the centre of our souls, they now inhabit us, and we inhabit them.

                                            Daphne Rose Kingma: A Garland of Love

 When we suffer the loss of a dear one, we often concentrate on the loss and tend to forget what we gained through knowing this beloved person.

My mother just passed away, and I miss her so much. It breaks my heart to know that never again will I feel her loving presence, hold her hand or softly strike her cheek. Well, I guess I need my heart to be broken up to let the love flow, but it hurts. 

Instead of focussing on my loss, now is the time to remember all the beautiful moments of happiness and care that I have shared with my mother. All the gifts of closeness, inspiration and joy she has given me. For all of us who knew her she was a wonderful person with her positive mind-set, her open heart, and her radiant smile. That is what I choose to remember now.

The love we have lived will always stay with us, like a warm caress deep in our hearts.