I have been noticing that a small patch of dry skin on the arch of my right foot itches on and off. I will feel the itch, focus my attention on it and the itching stops. It just stops. Back and forth like a game of hide and seek the itch starts and stops, and seemingly my awareness affects it.
I start to notice this with other parts of my body... not just itches, but all sorts of subtle tingles, whispering throbs, or instant twitches will get my attention and then disappear so fast it's like they never happened and I forget about them... except for when I decide to stay present and focus on all of the movement of sensations that seem to be happening all the time... and when I stop noticing I feel none of it. It seems to be gone.
Sometimes, when I go into deep meditation my body recedes from my awareness to the extent that when I come out of meditation I am shocked for a moment that I even have a body. So, this makes me wonder, "what" feels? And "what" is communicating to me through the body to "talk" using a language of sensations -- a kind of morse-code signaling to me? To communicate what?
When I ask my body about this, I sense a playful, joyful (almost laughing) response that might be my soul reflecting back to me a clue about this mystery. The mystic, Emmanuel Swedenborg, said that "the body is obedient," and modern-day science-mystic, Dr. Gabor Mate, says that our bodies are obedient, informed by physiological brain-thought pathways influenced by the emotions/immune system, to create health or disease.
This question, "What feels?" is the reason I wrote my yoga book, "One Heart, Four Seasons," because becoming aware of the true self is the only way to understand suffering, both emotional and physical. And the body is obedient! It starts with yogic breathing, which puts the mind in to more subtle states, so the body can deeply relax. Otherwise, unconscious breathing locks the mind in to repetitive fearful states, and the body becomes super stressed.
I am amazed by this body I inhabit, and I think that wisdom loves to communicate through it, especially when I help things along with yoga and meditation. I wrote a book to de-mystify what kundalini yoga looks like. And since you breathe, move and vocalize you can start practicing now. You have everything it takes.
I invite you to check out more about my book here
