Living in the Body
A complete guide to owning what you’ve been given
If you were to visit a hotel, you’d be first concerned for your comfort. You really don’t need to know what the management is like — you just care for the nice rooms, great view, well yeah…your comfort! If you are in a hotel, you don’t care what their electricity bill comes to every month, you aren’t bothered about the staff wages and all that; as long as they keep you comfortable, you’re good!
The case is not the same in the house where you live. In the house where you live, you care about many other things, and most times, it is the state of the things you care about which will influence (or maybe even direct) how comfortable you are in that house. In the house where you live, I mean really live, you want it to be as functional and as beautiful as you can make it. You pay attention to the little stain on the floor and you turn off sockets you aren’t using. The stakes are even higher if you are living with a spouse and even higher if there are children in the equation.
In the house where you live, if you are even a little bit responsible, you manage your resources and are accountable for usage. Am I right? But this is all to soothe you into the matter at hand today…
Living in your body
For those of us who have decided to go beyond the material universe (no matter how flawed our efforts are), we have come to see that we are not our physical bodies. However, these physical bodies have been given to us so we can better interact with the material universe we call Earth, or the life experience… or whatever. You get my point!
I think we should have realized by now that if we damage this physical body, we have nowhere else to live in this physical reality — this event is usually called Death! Death means our house no longer functions for some reason and we have to ‘vacate’. No one really likes that. Are you with me so far?
The thing is that many people who are currently in this physical reality have not come to the realization that their ‘house’ is of utmost importance. Let me rephrase; they don’t realize that the continued wellbeing of their ‘house’ lies with them. They are treating their house the same way they stay in a hotel; not caring about the inner workings of the system and just calling the repair guy (in some cases) when there is a small challenge.
If we are to come to the awareness that we actually ‘live’ in our bodies, we would do some things differently. We would be more careful as to how we treat these bodies because if we lose a hand, we don’t get another functional body, we have to live with the fact that our hand is gone and we have to get a synthetic replacement (which will always cost more than the one we came with). And no one really likes that.
How do we live in our bodies?
Have you ever had a guest come to your house and behave the same way you behave in a hotel? It’s not really nice, is it? Well, think about this. Anytime you wake up and not drink water, anytime you refuse to get rest, and all the time you choose to let negative thoughts stay for hours, you are not ‘living in your body’ because it seems you don’t care about your ‘house’
Your ‘house’ is made up of all these cells, organs, and systems; and when we truly live in that house, we will lay claim to the responsibilities that come with living there.
Listen
Our house is smart and is always talking to us. A sense of responsibility comes along with the realization that we are actually ‘living’ (for a limited but extended period) in our bodies. These bodies create itches when they sense foreign bodies on the skin, they create pain and discomfort when any little thing is off. When you accept your body as a house, and not just some hotel, you get to feel these little changes and you can adjust accordingly.
My mom is 65 currently and she is my number 1 example when it comes to listening to your body. Her manor staff usually give her a serving of hot water for drinking in the morning and she’s been on that for a while. Recently she asked them to stop because of a recent change. When she drank the hot water, she would feel a pain in her neck. After about three weeks, she asked for the hot water again and she told me that the break was amazing. As she had the water, she felt great just as she used to feel when she started.
We are advised to go hard on exercising and we are also advised to take a small break after 6 weeks of consistency. I don’t usually obey this rule and I have had to deal with some major breakdowns after a period of strenuous exercise.
When you listen to the body, there will always be clues before an incident, and most times, we don’t share or deal with these clues (because we feel we are in a hotel). When the little headache comes, investigate! Check your recent lifestyle. When you feel off in any way, drink water (that’s my remedy for everything), if the feeling persists, a binge of some good fruits (like there are any bad fruits right?).
Conclusion
Living in the body, just like living in your house consists of one major thing. An awareness that you are responsible for what goes on in there, and this awareness leads to two things.
- Responsibility
- Listening for feedback
Once the awareness is there, the rest takes care of itself — if we allow the body to get ruined to the extent that we can no longer live in it, you know what follows. Be careful and attentive out there.
