Reclaiming a Loving Relationship With the Body by Alex Clark

Do you Love your Physical Body?

Sometimes in our focus on the spiritual, we miss the importance of our physical body.

We have our first guest author on my blog today, Alex Clark.  I’m so pleased to re-publish her original articles originally published on Gaia Scenics View.  I have learned so much for her take on ‘spiritual biology’. 

As a scientist and a person who pursues the path of awareness, Alex has so much to share with us. 

Thank you for sharing your wisdom, Alex! 

~ Susan Lacerra

As we walk the spiritual path, we tend to focus on consciousness – our spiritual aspects, but many rarely focus on the body. For years, I would cringe at the discussion of the ‘meat suit’ or that our body was an illusion.

For me, it has mostly been a miraculous partner that has served me joyously throughout this lifetime, but that is not to say that I didn’t forget this for a while along the way.

I wonder if there is a tendency not to love the body, or get attached to it, because deep down we know that it is the part of us that we shed when we leave this lifetime. Holding back love or focus from that which we absolutely know we cannot keep as we traverse this universe seems pretty intuitive, but oh, what we miss when we choose to interact with it in this way.

If I were to ask any being if they loved their body, most would bring up a litany of issues that hold them back from that love. Too fat, too old, too achy, too ugly, too sick, but as they list these issues, I wonder if the thought ever crossed their minds that they created these things by their continued focus on these issues?

We create our reality, and most folks can get their minds around that to a greater or lesser extent, but our body is also created as part of our reality. This is quite obvious when we look at individuals who use their body in specific ways.

A swimmer develops strong legs and upper back in order to glide through the water. A ballerina develops long muscles and extreme flexibility to perform. A rock climber develops extreme upper body strength and hand/eye coordination. A baseball player develops quick reflexes and sprinting ability. A free diver develops the ability to breath hold for excessively long periods of time.

Well, but isn’t that because they train in such a way that the body responds and develops in a certain way? Isn’t it the training that makes the body exhibit a certain form? Of course.

The body responds to the training because it CAN! Does that not specifically show how flexible the body is and how nimble it can be in its response to a being’s desires? If the body could only respond in one way to the desires of the mind, then we would all be exactly the same and have the same physical capabilities. This is anything but the truth.

It goes even further than this, as at a biological level, a body system can actually run differently depending on where it is placed on the planet. The oxygen level effects how a body runs. Just take a being who lives at sea level and put them in a mountainous region and this is very obvious. The miracle, of course, is that the body will eventually adapt and change how it processes oxygen and deals with altitude. The way the body works is not set in stone, and it does everything it can to deliver to a being optimal performance.

The body also responds to the subtle language and focus we consistently apply to it. I learned a strong lesson about this first hand when I was traveling my healing journey through Lyme Disease. It dawned on me one day that I was constantly complaining, both internally and externally, that I was always “in pain,” and “I wish that I wasn’t in pain.” I also consistently used my health situation as an excuse for others not to overly depend on me, instead of setting strong boundaries based on self-love and self-care.

Certainly the process of the disease caused the initial pain in my body that indicated the need to address the bacteria within my body. After the bacteria was dealt with, I experienced a ‘die off healing crisis’ where the pain was much worse, as the bacteria died and released toxins into my blood stream. This process is acute, but it is also short-lived if we allow its natural course and support the body.

But, as a young mother, who was still working, I did not do everything I could to support the body. I tried to push it beyond its capability during a time of intense healing and need. My body needed me to be ‘on its side’ and I was not. I got mad at it, like this was its fault, and I punished it by pushing it past its ability to endure.

Eventually I retired from working and had more time to address an alternative path to healing. During that time, a dear healer who works with the Alexander Technique, came into my life and after speaking to me about the technique, which asks us to ‘inhibit our habits through mindfulness’ of both body and thought, I got it. I had been habitually pushing, consistently declaring my illness and victim status, and constantly stating to my body and my energy field that I was IN PAIN.

I decided to shift into being well. I decided to shift into inhibiting the habits that continued to anchor me exactly where I was. I decided to reclaim a loving relationship with my body. I do believe this really was the beginning of my spiritual path, that has led me to here, and while the situation was difficult, I bless it now as a catalyst of evolution on my spiritual path.

The process began slowly, because the body, with its innate wisdom, doesn’t always trust the mind when it initially shifts, but I was able to be consistent and have a long-term commitment to loving my body. As a being who has long been on the path of self-love, I felt quite sad that this level of not love had been so invisible to me.

I set about to change that, and have continued to see positive changes over the past 20 years of loving my body. I realized as I loved on my body, that it very much loved me back and wanted to deliver good feelings and optimal health to me. Its desire was to serve me in this lifetime, and that service, when I really thought about it was vast in its scope.

The body is a miraculous thing. Just think, for a moment, of the countless particles of quanta and the trillions of cells that have, through agreement with the Universe, agreed to be in physical service to your soul. It is mind blowing. It comes into this world in one incarnational form and then takes on a number of wholly different forms throughout the life of a being. It literally recreates itself a number of times to serve the life path of the being. The infant form, the toddler, the child, the pre-teen, the puberty body, the young adult, the mother body, the father body, the middle aged body, the elder body, the healthy body and the sick body are all different incarnational forms of biology, and each is created to serve the essence of your soul here on planet.

The body is in service to the soul and mind on planet and it absolutely is devoted to the process. It wants to be of optimal use and service and thus responds to every desire of the soul and mind to create what is asked for, in an unconditional way, for its own good or ill, based completely on the desire of the soul and mind of an individual.

I liken the relationship between the innate body and the physical body and the human soul to that of a devoted pet. Most of us have had that type of relationship, or observed it, and so it is easy to understand what I am referring to.

We see a loyal dog gaze at its human with such unconditional love and devotion. When its human gives it love and attention it literally wiggles with joy. Even those who are not consciously attuned to energy can feel the love of the dog for its human.

It dances around in its silly dance, wagging its tail and rolling over, showing its belly. Its human observes this goofy behavior and its heart opens wide, completely loving the dog and giving it treats and pats and hugs.

We think nothing of loving on a silly wiggly dog, but how many times have we internally told our loving joyful body to stop wiggling because it looks silly? Do not dance because you look awkward? Do not make love with the lights on because you look fat? Do not sing because you sound bad?

Who says? Society? Our family? The media? Who says we look bad or silly or fat or ugly or old? Who is the one who gets to choose those adjectives and who stuck them in our brains for constant dripping into our relationship with our body? Who does it serve to dislocate us from a loving relationship with the one and only body we will have this journey around the Sun?

Who does it serve for us to torture our bodies with the latest fad diet? Starve it? Refuse its desires? Abuse it through our thoughts and actions? Hold it up to a completely false and computer-generated ideal? No wonder it sometimes cowers in a corner in confusion and feels hopelessly rejected. If we were really conscious of how horribly we have treated our bodies with our thoughts and actions we would beg it for forgiveness.

We all came in having a loving relationship with our body. Just watch a baby suck its hand or discover its toes, and you will see this reflected in its joyful and curious eyes. Along the way, we were separated from this loving relationship in order to keep us where we were and not attaining the physical and evolutionary heights we were capable of achieving.

The body wants to serve us with love. It is a devoted servant in this lifetime, and every single particle of quanta, cell, process and building block is specifically created and amassed to serve our soul. It is imperative, if one wishes to evolve as a divinely empowered human walking in mastery, to reclaim a loving relationship with this miracle of biology.

It is a huge part of our being. It is the temple of our soul, but not a cold and unfeeling temple lacking consciousness. Every single part of the body is filled with innate consciousness and it responds to intention immediately.

We can experiment with this and see the direct results almost immediately. I invite you to lie in bed, or find a comfy place and focus your love and energetic focus on the tips of your toes, and tell them “I Love YOU!” Scan up the body and at every distinct level, repeat the love. Then HUG yourself. Grasp your feet and give them a squeeze. Rap your arms around yourself and rock in a warm embrace, repeating your love and devotion and gratitude for the body.

You may find a deep sadness is released and a feeling of guilt at how hurtful your mind has been to this integral part of your humanity team. Release this to the ethers. As beloved children of the Universe, we are each gifted with these miraculous body vehicles and we also get to choose the way we think, feel and act towards them from one moment to another, and so, we can easily choose to be more loving and kind to our bodies and ultimately ourselves.

Eventually the heart opens wide and the body courses with chills and internal joy. I can feel my feet being silly, rolling around like puppies energetically. I can feel my belly in deep laughter, and my bottom swaying from side to side energetically. I can feel it wanting to dance for joy, and my eyes over-welling with gratitude and love.

So, we dance together, my body and I and we hold each other in an embrace of deep love and joy and partnership and understanding. You are mine, and you are wonderful, and I honor you deeply and will treat you with love from this day forward. I will listen to your needs and desires and will address them, just as I would the needs of a beloved pet or a devoted lover.

As each of us chooses to reclaim a loving relationship with our body, we help to heal this deep rift between the physical, the spiritual and the mental for the collective. This is some of the most important work, in my estimation, that we can do for humanity at this time.

My joy is your joy, dear body, for we are one, and without you I would not be incarnate. Thank you dear body, for being here with me and for me.

Written for Gaia Scenics’ View

First published as Reclaiming a Loving Relationship With the Body by Alex Clark at the SusanLacerra Blog on March 29, 2017 – Thank you!