How I Discovered Mindfulness Through My Body
Research shows less thinking and more feeling is the key
“Deep knowing and presence do not happen with our thinking minds. To truly know something, our whole being must be open, awake, and present.” — Franciscan priest Richard Rohr
I stepped into my first therapeutic yoga class when I was in a dark, painful season of life. Everything hurt.
Slowly — and I mean slowly — I began to heal. But what I didn’t know at the time is as I was moving my body, I was also healing my mind, my inner wounds, my emotions, and my heart.
My pain experience and the healing that followed lead to my passion for guiding others in therapeutic movement and embodied meditation for their own healing.
That was almost 15 years ago, and through my lived experience as well as walking alongside countless others, I can say this with confidence:
As humans, we are inextricably interconnected — the mind, body, heart — every part of ourselves always influencing the other.
Mindfulness is a bit of a buzzword these days, and simply means being able to know what’s happening in your head in the moment. And ideally, as we grow our ‘mindfulness muscle,’ we become more capable of being with what is happening without being swept away by it.
No question, this is a worthy skill to cultivate for a well-lived life.
Study after study demonstrates the benefits of mindfulness:
- sleep
- anxiety
- depression
- brain health
- mental focus and clarity
- immune system function
- heart health
- self-confidence
- mood
- pain
And while mindfulness is a balm to the body, mind, and soul, to be fully present, we must move outside the confines of our thinking brain. How? I will show you in a 2-minute embodied experiment below.
But first, to understand the why behind ‘more feeling, less thinking,’ we turn to psychiatrist and trauma expert Bessel van der Kolk, in The Body Keeps the Score:
“Agency starts with what scientists call interoception, our awareness of our subtle sensory, body-based feelings: the greater that awareness, the greater our potential to control our lives.”
In other words, the more you attune to your bodily sensations, emotions, and inner workings, the more control you gain over your mindset, words, actions, and responses to life — whether it’s dealing with a grumpy cashier, a scary diagnosis, or practicing self-forgiveness.
I like to think of this more expansive presence as being
fully awake to life.
We ruminate less and respond more intentionally.
We become less overwhelmed and find more emotional flexibility.
How do we achieve such feats of embodied wakefulness in life?
Authentic, free-flowing movement.
It doesn’t have to be yoga; it’s moving in ways that you can hold space to pay attention to the subtleties inside — physically, emotionally, spiritually.
Your body is always speaking; give yourself the space to listen.
2-Minute Embodied Movement Experiment:
Try a simple standing cat-cow. Find your feet rooted into the ground, lean forward and place your hands on either your thighs, the back of a chair, or a table and begin to move your spine.
No rules.
You can begin with the classic cat-cow by rounding and tucking your spine, then extending and arching. Feel free to twist, roll, side bend. Closing your eyes can help tune inward, but it’s up to you. Explore and be curious, remember, no rules.
Free flow for about 2 minutes, and ask yourself these questions:
What am I noticing?
What’s happening with my breath?
Is there an emotion showing up as tension in my lower back/neck/jaw/shoulders?
Is there an annoyance from today that came to mind?
You just gave yourself a healthy dose of whole being presence. As Richard reminds us, deep knowing and presence does not happen with our thinking minds.
You are now ready to be more fully awake to the experience of life and meet the next challenge (aka life) with a bit more emotional finesse and ease.
So, friend, how will this upgraded sense of agency affect the rest of your day? Your week? Your circumstances?
