Life requires much inner awareness from us, as we work on integration and alignment. We need access to information that will help us navigate our lives. Most of us do this by thinking things to death. Here is the problem with that line of examination: our mind is relatively new on the evolutionary scene. As amazing and wonderful a tool it is, it is limited as being relied upon as the only compass. Our body, on the other hand, is ancient in comparison. There is much wisdom in our body, if we slowed down enough to feel. Our body, in fact, is the most honest and accurate tool we have that can help us walk through life. 

Here is an exercise that will take you 10 minutes. Take five minutes and think about something that you are presently grappling with. It can be a person or an issue. Let your mind wrap itself around the topic. As usual, tie yourself in knots thinking about it. Now, take five minutes and do your best to feel your body. Feel the ground under your feet and drop the breath into the belly. Feel. Pay attention to specific feelings and sensations that come up. Stay with these sensations and feelings; do not jump into the mind to understand what is going on. What did you feel?

It is amazing how much we know when we actually sit with our self. Even more amazing that we can partake in all forms of powerful body centered practices, like yoga or martial arts, but leave those practices behind on the mat when we enter back into our lives. We always know what feeds us or poisons us, if we slow down enough to feel our way into the question. But our incessant thinking (born from a constant underlying anxiety) keeps us asleep in our thinking mind.

No one can help us, but us. Yes, people and practices can be shepherds and allies on our path. But at the end, it is solely up to us. We need to befriend our self. To use all at our disposal to have clarity between what poisons and what nourishes. We have to learn to have expert discernment between which are the flowers and which are the weeds. Now is a good time to stop feeding the weeds and pulling out the flowers. Let’s turn it around. Let’s become expert gardeners.