Caring for the Physical Body – Practice Being In It

The first step in caring for the body is to practice being it, having moment to moment awareness, awareness of the breath, sensations, feelings and thoughts.  Can you even remember the last time you stepped mindfully into your physical body? Each day we are given an opportunity to honor this temple through the simple practice of awareness. 

As you open your eyes in the morning, are you aware of what you first see or do you jump into action, or chose to close them again and retreat under the covers.  There is no right or wrong, just an opportunity to notice that each brings a different quality to the body and an opportunity for us to take our first morning sip of awareness.  Awareness is one of the most powerful tools we have for our optimal health.  Allow your morning awareness to permeate you the same way a warm shower awakens all the senses.  Step into your body and allow the inner experience to awaken and inform the outer experience.  When you find yourself hunched over, achy, crying in pain as you step forth into the day, have you identified, examined and contemplated what inner sensations, emotions, feelings, or thoughts have guided your body to respond in this manner?  This is the body’s way of giving you an opportunity to step into the present moment and gain a sense of where you are simply through body awareness.

Consider doing you own body scan each morning before you even rise.  Imagine a search light floating through you from the crown of the head to the tips of the toes.  Follow this scan consciously taking note of sensations or areas that feel especially open and spacious or those that might feel more closed and tight. When you begin to move the joints, do you notice they move with ease or are they rigid and almost immobile?  Or maybe a certain part of the body is calling out to you…..”Here I am, notice me.” 

Allow yourself to shift your morning mindset from areas of pain and resistance to those areas of comfort and pleasure. Hold onto these points and make them the focus of your awareness.  When you learn to listen to the messages of the body a shift occurs and you innately begin the healing process.    And who knows, you may find yourself waking up to a whole new body.

Consider enhancing your body awareness with a breath with movement practice utilizing mudras, pranayama, pranavayus and meditation.  Our therapeutic center’s mantra is – A Place to Discover Yoga as a Healing Art.

NamasteWorks Yoga + Wellness, 5860 S. Curtice St., Littleton, CO 80120. We are not a walk-in studio, we operate as a private center for our clients. All classes and private sessions require an RSVP. www.namasteworksyoga.com – A Place to Discover Yoga as a Healing Art.