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LIVING SOULFULLY Body & Soulful Living When I think of Soulful Living, I think of the body. Meditations for being present always start with the body: the breath, the feel of my hands in what I am doing, my feet fitting onto the ground. What I do for a living is bring myself into the present moment. In my counseling work, in my teaching, I am always returning to the breath. It is in this return to the breath that I learn to speak from my experience and call others back to the moment. Soulful Living is made of present moments. The mind, on the other hand, doesn't rely upon the present, or even, reality. It operates without boundaries and can trash everything you think is real. That's not to say that the body is not affected by our thoughts. Some thoughts can stir the body by raising blood pressure and shortening the breath. And though the reaction we have to these thoughts is present and real, the thought itself is fictional, and based on the past. Even what we think about for the future is created through thoughts that are rooted in the past, and not the present moment. Spontaneous knowledge comes from the body. It bubbles up from the emptiness of a moment where we are perfectly present. Our breath, a holy song; our listening, a moment of emptiness. Without comment, we experience; without judgment, we move through time; and without warning, in the magic of a present moment, we can have spontaneous knowing which calms the body, soothes the soul, aligns our thinking, and anchors us in the present. How can we find soulful living if we are not inhabiting our body? For our souls reside in the present moment - and the present moment is known through our body. "Snap to!" the man shouts, slapping his friend in the face. He doesn't reason the man back to the moment; he calls him there through his body. We have to face the reality of life as it is proposed to us - through our minds and through our bodies. How we prepare our minds, through meditation, through the return of the breath, through the emptiness that we can help to create - determines how it will feed our body, how it can live in harmony with the body. How we create the conditions necessary to produce spontaneous knowing, the conditions of the mind and the conditions of the body - that is the process, the dance of soulful living. My work has always been about the present moment and the soulful living that springs effortlessly from that experience of time. At home, it is the attention we give to what we touch, what we pass by, who we speak to, how we speak to them, how we rest, what we feel, that we feel, what we allow, how we do what we do, all day long. Home is where we cultivate the skill to be quiet, to listen, to nurture, to respond, to be still, to be steady, to be present, to be with the breath, to be in our hands, to feel where we walk, to nestle when we sit, and fold onto ourselves when we curl up.
We are in a flow in our lives. In a stream carrying us forward. We are not in certainty or platitudes. We are being spontaneously created in the image of whatever we see as God. It could be the emptiness and nothingness of the world, or the magnificence and wonderment. Either is found in the moment. Strive to reconnect to your body so that you can find the present moment. Your breath, your feelings, your impulses. Follow them. Where? To your first breath, to your soulful life, to the end. And there, at the end, you will find everything that you found all the journey long - the present soulful moments of full life. First published on SoulfulLiving.com - January 2003 © Copyright 2003 Karen Deborah Farris. |
