Nancy Floy, a very gifted healer, taught me how to live in my body. For quite awhile I didn’t get what she was talking about. I tried to eat a healthy diet, exercise regularly, but my body wasn’t cooperating. Pain permeated my legs and arms. My right foot and ankle weakened and gave out. My head was foggy some days. Nancy and I did bodywork together biweekly and she recommended I try Tai Chi. The combination was like a perfectly fitting glove and I slowly learned how to listen and then pay attention to my body.
Along the way, I read some wise words by Melody Beattie, in her book, Journey to the Heart, 1996, that reinforced what I was learning through Nancy and Tai Chi. To this day it’s a good reminder and I want to share it with you:
“Our bodies can provide us with direction.”
Many of us have heard the expression I’m leaning toward that or I’m leaning away from that. When we’re centered and balanced, our body will help show us what we really want to do. We will literally lean toward or away from what we like or don’t like. We’ve spent so much of our lives forcing our body into situations, into energy fields and circumstances that it leaned away from, resisted, moved back from. Then we wondered why we hurt and felt uncomfortable.
The more we honor our body, the more it will help lead us. And the more it will become a natural guide helping us on our path, reflecting the desires of our heart and soul. The more we learn to trust our body, the more we’ll come into harmony with our natural rhythms, the cycles and movements of our lives.
Learn to open to the subtle guidance and messages your body sends to you about what it likes, what it dislikes, what it leans toward, and what it leans away from. Learn to see where it’s leading you. Talk to your body. Ask it what it wants. Then let it show you. Respect it enough to listen.”
SO true!!! I love this post.