We humans spend so much time and money trying to prevent ever feeling pain. Emotional, physical, mental, spiritual pain. The idea of discomfort is perhaps the source of most worry and anxiety. Yet, pain is inevitable. Physical pain can be present every second of the day and finding ways to cope, deal, and find rest may seem impossible. What if pain wasn’t the problem? What if you could find contentment through pain in your body, your life vessel? I know I have a list of bodily injuries that call out to me daily, from a memorable snowboarding accident, being hungover, over-training as a gymnast, always holding my 40-pound 2-year-old on my left hip. The injury that calls loudest on any given day is the one that receives my attention first. Paying attention—or attending to my body when it “talks”—can be done in many ways. Sitting still, taking a bath, giving self-massage: all ways of attending. In addition to physically reducing the pain, this attending helps me become familiar with my pain. Familiarity can create small levels of healing. While the pain may never go away 100%, my body’s response to my attentiveness is where the beauty lies.
The daily ways we attend to our bodies:
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food
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digestion
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sleep
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exercise
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stretching
These daily practices are foundation for contentment. Contentment isn’t a circumstantial thing, whipped around by the events of your life or day. Contentment comes from within, within your body. Ignoring your body, denying it attentiveness, is the opposite of contentment.
Love, Love, Love!!!