My Body, My "Support System"

“Support system” can mean many different things to different people – or to the same person at different times or from different angles. Here is one of those angles.

My body is my contact point to the most potent support system to which I have access – the enormous power, richness and healing capacity of the present moment.

When I abandon my body and get lost in my thoughts, memories, plans, emotions, etc., I become hollow. My body, uninhabited, drifts without an anchor. It is a shell, unable to take nurturance from the environment – or to have any genuine engagement with its surroundings. And my mental being, unsupported by my body, wanders without a home - unprotected, unable to keep its bearings or to prevent thoughts or feelings from ballooning out of control.

When I can keep my attention grounded in my body, then – even while the ideas for this piece are erupting in my mind – I can put enough attention on pumping gas that I remember to put the gas cap on the passenger seat (the only location I have found that guarantees I will not drive off without it). I can also – while thinking about this piece and pumping gas – hear the cackle of a kingfisher from the stream just across the road. Kingfishers are one of my favorite birds: they swoop down rivers and streams, diving for fish and making this great racket while they fly. I have not seen one for a few years now, but have now heard one on two recent occasions. The very sound of this fabulous bird fills me with happiness and makes my environment, for me, measurably richer, more beautiful, more supportive of life.

If I stay anchored in my body, then – even while I sit on my porch with my laptop, writing these very words – I can be watching the pair of nuthatches (ok, did I deny that I am nuts about birds?) climbing upside down on the tree just beyond my porch, anchoring these words in the truth they describe.

I am completely supported by my environment in this present moment. My visual sense wants to see things as distant, separate. When I come back to my body, I can feel my feet on the ground, my clothing rubbing against my skin, the teensy movement of air on my skin. The sounds of the birds around me caress my ears. The late-summer smells wafting around my nose are quite clearly not distant – they are touching me.

The chair I am sitting on supports me – it keeps me from falling on the floor. It allows me to sit here at my little porch-desk, typing these words. If I pay a little attention, I can notice the sensations of the cushions supporting my butt and back – I can even make little micro-adjustments and feel them even more, can fine-tune just how good they feel, how well they support me.

When I tune deeply enough into my physical reality in the present moment, I can discover that my environment literally, physically supports me. Modern science has thoroughly refuted the illusion of separation, of empty space between hard objects. With electrons whizzing around at amazing speeds, objects have only a “tendency” to exist in a specific, limited space. And the seeming empty space between these objects is absolutely filled with living material. We are not alone – we are utterly connected with the life that is blooming and buzzing all around us. Martial artists know this and learn to work with the invisible energy in the field around them. Were I to fall over, I would not fall through empty space, but through and into more life.

Obviously, there are many more layers to my support system – the foods that I eat, the ideas I take in, the friends I keep, etc. But my body can help me better access these other layers:
· When I listen to my body, I can better know when I am genuinely hungry, whether this item that I am eating really feels/tastes right at this present moment, when I am really full (which, when I am not anchored in my body, often occurs well before I notice it).
· If I stay in my body, I am less likely to be tossed around by ideas. When I shuttle back and forth between my physical and mental realms, my thoughts tend to be somewhat clearer, a bit slower – and I know when I have had enough of them, when I need to get up/stretch/move around, when I need to breathe more.
· My body can give me cues about whether this particular person feels like a support or like a toxin at this particular moment, when I need a hug and when more separateness, when I need to seek contact and when to keep my own company.

I cannot control to what extent I can stay present in my body – any attempt to force this will quickly devolve into a mental exercise that directly interferes with grounding myself in present-moment awareness. What I can do (and even the word “do” is a misnomer here) is notice when I notice the present moment.
· When I happen to feel my feet on the ground, I can celebrate that.
· When I feel any physical sensations, I can even slightly let go of judging them as good or bad, pleasurable or less so – and simply notice them.
· When I hear the symphonic feast of sounds around me, I can let myself be really interested in them, can let my attention be drawn further into them – even while I continue to pump gas, type at my computer, etc. (OK, this “symphony of sounds” can tend to be way more fun out in the country where I live now than it is downtown where I used to live – but this focus used to and still can work for me down there, too.)

And, when none of these access points to my physical support system seem available to me – when I seem hopelessly mired in my thoughts, feelings, etc. – I can, as much as I am able, decline to judge this present moment. Judging is the big killer of present moment awareness of all kinds. Our capacity to pay attention is somewhat fragile and developmental, and becomes easily traumatized when it is criticized. Present moment physical awareness, and the whole host of supports to which it gives us access, will always return.

To the extent that we neither cling to nor resist whatever is in our here-and-now awareness, to that extent our awareness process will come naturally into balance. And we will come more into balance.