The Art of Intimacy

“Take care of your body. It is the only place you have to live.” – Jim Rohn

Intro

The body has a form of ordered and intelligent sentience with its own dominion that has a world as expansive, complex, and rich as the mind. We traditionally have only understood the body in relation to the mind because it is the only lens we have looked through, so we have treated the body more like a tool for the mind, rather than something powerful in and of itself. It is not until we view the body through its own lens that we can begin to understand an entire world right here that has been indistinguishable to our mind-based perception.

When we are seated in the perspective of the body, on its own terms, we can begin to distinguish some of what it offers and how to work with it. The body has no limitations on what it will feel or experience. The body’s experience is one of connection with the environment; it feels the environment in its entirety.

Reading – The Intelligence of the Body

While consciousness has been the subject of a great deal of study, exaltation and exploration, the body is virtually uncharted. We have learned about the body in the context of how it can be tamed and controlled for purposes of consciousness, how it can be exploited for purposes of pleasure, or how it can be driven for purposes of performance. But rarely, if ever, have we examined the body as a form of ordered and intelligent sentience with its own dominion that has a world as expansive, complex and rich as what we call mind. We only understand the body in relation to the mind because it is the only lens we have looked through. It is not until we view body through its own lens that we can begin to understand an entire world right here that has been indistinguishable to our mind-based perception.

When we are seated in the perspective of the body, on its own terms, we can begin to distinguish some of what it offers and how to work with it. The body has no limitations on what it will feel or experience. The body’s experience is one of connection with the environment; it feels the environment in its entirety.

What we interpret as pain is a contraction that occurs when the mind, perceiving something as too much or not in alignment with its prescriptions of identity, cuts off connection to the body, disrupting the whole. The body contracts — pain — as a way to communicate the feeling of being cut off. Where the cut occurs, the body cannot digest the information that the contraction is occurring around. 

Furthermore, consciousness will issue a command that the body is to constrict against any incoming phenomena that do not match its perception of itself. Anything that is too intense, extreme, uncertain, or unfamiliar is constricted against. Consciousness is then locked out of the slow steadiness of the body; it experiences a shock that registers as fear, or a problem to be fixed, and begins to race for a solution. Consciousness misinterprets the offense as originating in the body as opposed to the body receiving information outside the range of consciousness. This misinterpretation leads to consciousness cutting the connection: disconnecting it from the source. Inside that source lies the very information that would tell us how to not only meet and respond to but also become intimate with and grow from the incoming stimuli. Untrained consciousness aims merely to protect us from the environment by either mastering or moving away from it. The body aims to develop wisdom and resilience through the incoming stimuli. 

The challenge is that right when consciousness wants to escape — to go into the higher realms, to focus on something calming like the breath, to control the experience by fixing, make sense of things through judging and comparing, employ a “good” behavior to counteract the “bad” that is happening, focus outside of oneself and body — the body wants only for consciousness to be with it throughout the entire process regardless of intensity, speed or direction. The body most wants consciousness to do almost precisely the opposite of what it has been trained to do — control and protect — and instead drop in, be with, track and listen. This process of connection is not a healing process, and it is not a growth process; it is the process we are meant to have in this life. It is the imperative.

While the body cannot demand or control as the rational mind can, it has a deep knowing of a holistic way where both benefit and get the liberation they seek. The difference is that when life is accessed through the body, it is not liberation from, it is liberation with. 

And while consciousness does get free — free from having to operate without adequate information, from having to protect what in fact is the seat of wisdom, from having to resist, restrict, control and tune out much of reality — it is what consciousness perceives as the ultimate cost. It is not a mere willingness to enter the body while reserving the right to direct and control it that is called for, but a full offering of itself over, with its gift of vision and executive functions in service to the wisdom of the body.

However, because the mind exalts duty and is loathe to surrender, it will attempt to bypass the act of surrender and instead act in compliance. Not only will it “comply” but it will congratulate itself on how selfless it is in the process. It will continue to hold itself out, not understanding that the surrender is the reward and not the punishment. It also doesn’t understand that the machinations of service do nothing for the body; if anything they are an irritant and always off-key. The mind will feel exhausted and even martyred in its attempts to conceal its lack of surrender through performative action. It will bristle at the demand of the body in only accepting this demand. It is not until the mind has surrendered that it will understand that this perseverance of the body was an act of love for both of them.

Consciousness, trained to see control and protection as honorable, may perceive this shift in the order of things as defeat. The mind operates according to hierarchy and sees it as a boon that it is “on top” of the body. The body does not operate according to this model; it seeks connection. For the body, both win when consciousness descends.

It may not feel that way at first though. Consciousness, accustomed to having dominion over its limited territory, is now aghast to discover that the environment of the body not only has its own language but, when experienced on its terms, is resilient, rich, dynamic, coherent and immediate. This is despite the fact that consciousness has been trying to control it. The “knowing” of the body through the faculties of intuition and insight — although they make no “sense” to consciousness — prove to be elegant and a much more efficient means of knowing. The body, as part of the environment, speaks the language of the present moment. It does not need to interpret and thus proves an effective guide in navigating experience.

Meditation 

Do this meditation in a location where there are a variety of sounds. Find a comfortable place to sit where you can close your eyes. Set your timer for 20 minutes. Close your eyes and become aware of your breath and the sensations in your body. Take a moment to get grounded in your own body, becoming aware of the way it feels. Places where your body feels open and relaxes or places where your body feels tight and contracted. Breathe into the places where it feels tight. Once you are ready, start to tune your hearing and senses to the sounds around you. Without trying to make sense or categorize what you hear, simply note the vibrations and frequencies of the sounds. Open your body to its vibrations. Allow the sounds to enter your body not just from the sounds but also the energy of it. Feel where the vibrations affect your body. Do you feel it in your heart? In your solar plexus? In your throat or your temple? Continue to open your senses further out letting in the symphony of sounds around you. Continue this meditation for the duration of the time. Towards the end, slowly start to bring your attention back to your body. At the end of the meditation, slowly bring yourself back into the room. Feel the seat beneath you and the sounds around you. Slowly open your eyes when you are ready. Journal on any insights that came up or sensations that caught your attention.

Exercise 

Write about a time you made a decision that both your mind and body felt in alignment about. What was the decision? How did you come to make that decision? How did it feel to have your mind and body feel good about it? Now describe a situation where you went with your mind only. How did your body respond? Did you feel discomfort, tightness, or stuckness in a particular part of the body? What made you choose to only listen to your mind and did you come to regret not paying more attention to your bodily sensations? Notice the difference in how you felt between the two situations.

Example

I’ve been a skier for two decades. I love the slopes, they are my “happy place”, as my daughter would say. There is just nothing like flying down a mountain, feeling every nuance of the ground and the snow beneath my skis, the velocity of the wind and which direction it’s going, peering ahead to chart my path a few seconds in advance. The speed of it, the beauty of the world around me…there is just nothing like it. Something happens when I’m skiing where my mind gets really quiet and my body takes over. It’s not that I have no thoughts, but my thoughts organize themselves differently. They support the deeper knowing that my body has from so many years of practice. They send my body information, like which way the path turns up ahead, but my body seems to make all the decisions. I’ll tell you, I rarely feel as much peace as I do when I’m skiing. 

“To keep the body in good health is a duty… otherwise we shall not be able to keep our mind strong and clear.” – Buddha

Summary

The body is often forgotten in favor of the mind and spirit, but isn’t it interesting how when we are out of alignment with the body, too, we end up with disease? Dis-ease? You now are more aware of how the body signals to you guidance, wisdom, and direction. You looked at how ignoring the body can lead to the wrong decision, and how it feels when you embrace the “voice” of the body and pay it heed. This is never more evident than when we play.