Breathing in All the Wind: The Wonders of a Soft Body in This World
Why do I resist offering myself the loving tenderness which I ask of others?
Hi!
How are you this week? What do you feel in between your ribs?
This week, and a bit of the last one, I noticed myself pondering the body — and what it enables.
I’d let myself test its current limits a little more daringly during aerial yoga classes, and then I’d fall into patient listening within the hatha flow (which, in case you are not familiar, as I hadn’t been still until very recently, is a much slower and focused flow, in some sense similar to meditation). I have also been thinking about ways to keep my body healthier and happier.
But through that all, I noticed the curiosity to explore how much tenderness I hold for the body I am in.
I found — there’s not much.
Or, at least, not enough. Less than I would expect of others, the closest ones, to offer me and this body.
That is not the way I’d like it to be. Why do I resist offering myself the loving tenderness, the gentle warmth, and the caring sight which, ultimately, I do need, and which I ask of others, like everyone else does? Why do I expect my body to earn my affection?
I suppose it is because I, like many of us, had grown to perceive my body through the lens of its appearance. I forgot what it is like to look at it as the complex, wonderful, potent, and soft element of creation that it is.
I am not sure if I had ever given it due respect and warmth. Maybe when I was a child, but I can’t remember.
So this is something I am, it seems, set on changing these days and months — this year. I didn’t choose it consciously, or at least, I didn’t choose to start this way; I wouldn’t know. Nevertheless, one of my six goals for this year is, indeed, to establish greater physical strength and well-being. I suppose the intention forged a path for the method.
This is an excerpt from my 2024 Vision Board, where I gathered my six goals:
Current state:
I feel that parts of my body are still somewhat disconnected and dis-harmonised. I can’t feel unity and ease in movement; my intuitive body awareness and connection are still low.
Goal:
Reconnect with my body, build intuitive body awareness, improve mobility, incorporate some form of movement into my everyday life. Embrace discomfort to build strength and physical resilience.
Taking this goal upon myself early in January, I knew I wanted to find ways in which it would feel natural and quickly become the only logical and wise way to follow.
I didn’t want to try and establish routines that I’d have to adhere to in order to maintain this goal. Rather, my objective is to bring out the natural wisdom of my body, the knowing that intuitively directs me to what food to eat and on which day, what meals to skip, what movement feels good and healthy for me on different occasions, when to rest, when to wake up very very early and when to sleep in.
All of this, as opposed to what I think is right, what I read somewhere or have been told by someone.
I don’t mean advice is bad. But I strongly believe in the inherent wisdom of the body, and that it knows what’s best for it, and it’s happy to tell us, if we only let it speak.
And that’s how I am approaching this.
The ground base is always meditation, mindful walk, taking intentional breaths amidst ordinary everyday activities, closing my eyes in short free moments, soothing my mind, emptying it over and over again of the excess, turning down the volume of external narratives, practising non-identification with my thoughts: making space to hear what otherwise too easily drowns in the ocean of noise.
In the process of placing an ear of my mind to the mouth of my body, I noticed our relationship began growing stronger — and fonder. I noticed that now I hardly ever look at it and only stop at the superficial level of its appearance, but I see deeper and wider, and in that, I naturally begin to feel greater love for it. It just happens.
In the past, I have tried to offer my body love — the self-love — because I’ve been told this is what needs to be done, and that if you do it, it means you have healed. This is what I read in articles, and I have seen everywhere on Instagram, too.
I wanted to be healed. So, I tried my best to love my body as it was, and then extend that love to everything it contained. And maybe I even succeeded at times, but now I can see it: I had never managed to reach the basement of my mind. That’s where, after hours of stillness, I found the roots of the resentment that my relationship with my body was laced with.
During the quiet hours of meditation, I meet, as it seems, not only my mind, but the entirety of my being indeed, and I get to relate to it in ways I had never known before. Such tenderness, such care. I close my eyes and I am home.
When I go through the days and I feel tired or I feel scared or I don’t know how to make the next step, I just need to close my eyes, and feel the spaces in between my ribs, and I just watch as they expand and contract, and then I feel the touch of breath slightly above my upper lip — and that’s all I need to do to know again where my feet stand.
So yes, the body.
How many of us resent it for not being the way we’d imagine it should be? I won’t say: let’s love the body for what it enables us to do. I mean, that is only fair to do, and it does deserve it with all its right. Yet, if it were that easy, nobody would look into the mirror and think “hate”. Nobody would starve themselves or overeat or try to hide under too much clothes or makeup or go to the gym even when they feel they need to rest or else yet — so many other ways to punish our bodies for being just the way they are. Soft, warm, mysterious — changing.
As it often happens, when we set our minds onto something good for us, consciously or not, the fragments of our reality arrange themselves to feed the fire of our curiosity, and they seamlessly provide inspiration as we go through our days.
I realised this morning that these past two weeks have been filled with love letters to the body; letters which I haven’t actively sought at all.
A few days back, I listened to a podcast, and I haven’t finished it yet, but this fragment of a conversation between Krista Tippett and Sara Hendren appeared right at the beginning, and it stayed with me:
“Bodies are soft flesh in a world of machinery, and that can be a beautiful match or an experience that’s full of hurdles.”
This is a fact so ordinary — and yet not something we routinely pause to know and to ponder and work with. That our built world is designed around something called “normal” and yet every single one of our bodies is mysterious, and constantly adapting, for better or worse, and always, always changing.
Then, we went to the cinema, and we saw Poor Things, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos (perhaps some of you have seen it too; I would be curious to hear your thoughts!) and there, among all the other wonderful, or surprising, scenes, was one in which the main character, Bella states something along these lines: “I find the act of living fascinating”.
Throughout the whole movie, we watch her as she explores the wonders and dangers resulting from having a body in this world, and, not to tell you too much if you haven’t seen it yet but plan on doing so, I will just say that it really, really depicts the childish awe of physicality and the adventure that are closely tied with the act of living.
Third, there is the poetry of Mary Oliver, which I have been reading more of these days. And, if you are familiar with her work, it probably comes as no surprise, but I can’t help falling deeper and deeper into the rich soil of her words. I am excited to sprout nurtured by it.
There is one poem that I actually read yesterday in the late evening after arriving in Portugal, where I will spend this whole month. I sat with my own small dog, twirling her little ear in between my fingers, and I read:
Now through the white orchard my little dog romps, breaking the new snow with wild feet. Running here running there, excited, hardly able to stop, he leaps, he spins until the white snow is written upon in large, exuberant letters, a long sentence, expressing the pleasures of the body in this world. Oh, I could not have said it better myself.
— Mary Oliver, The Storm
I don’t think anyone could have said it better — maybe only the body itself would. And that’s why, through the practice, I want to encourage it to speak. And, certainly, I need to learn how to listen better.
If you, too, dear reader, don’t always feel at home in your body and wish for it to be given more tenderness, please feel welcome to join me on this path. I probably cannot offer much more than a simple and steady companionship, but wouldn’t it, after all, be better to continue getting lost and found together, rather than all alone? I would certainly enjoy more company.
And even if just for now, just for a moment, let’s do it together once:
Let's breathe into the empty spaces inside our minds, hearts, and bodies.
Let’s allow those between our ribs to contract and expand gently and rhythmically.
Let's recognise that the emptiness they hold doesn’t have to be a bad or scary thing.
And let's notice how the breath alone makes them feel cared for, nurtured, and loved.
A conscious, deep, and trustful breath.
Coming back home.
Lastly, the final inspiration of this week unexpectedly came from a few lines opening a song my friend recorded with her friend, which I stumbled upon by chance. It says:
How to breathe all the wind
with this body that I’m in?
I highly recommend listening to the audio version of it, it’s carried by beautiful voices. Here’s the link:
Repeating it over and over again for the whole week, I found this simple question to be all I needed to be reminded of the potential, the limits and the wonderful mystery of the body.
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