How To Cultivate More Body Awareness & A Loving Relationship with Your Body
Body awareness refers to the ability to tune into and understand the sensations, movements, and functions of our bodies. It’s important to have body awareness and to embrace the miracle of inhabiting our body. Unfortunately though, the vast majority of the time, we do not actually inhabit it.
We are not usually aware of our bodies unless there is something wrong with them. But we are in a relationship with our bodies, in the same way that we would be with a child. Just imagine that you have a child and the only time you pay attention to him/her is when there is something wrong, otherwise you ignore them completely. Not very healthy! That child will grow up feeling neglected and unloved and that is what we do to our bodies. The relationship with your body is the most important relationship in your life. And you need to treat it with the utmost respect and consideration.
The Connection Between Body Awareness and the Present Moment
Our mind is always living in the past or the future. But our body is always in the present moment, which is the only place life happens. It takes effort, motivation, and dedication to cultivate body awareness and live an embodied life. And a very important step for doing so is to consciously take time out of your day to be with your body. This will foster more presence in your life and allow you to experience the incredible joy of being in the moment.
How to Cultivate Body Awareness & a Deeper Relationship with Your Body
1) Do things in a different way than you normally do to make sure you have to pay attention. A few examples:
- Carve 10 minutes out, several times a day, and use that time to walk at half speed. This will force you to pay attention. Notice what it feels like when your foot hits the ground, notice the air going in and out of your lungs. This is your “presence time” with your body.
- Blindfold yourself and walk around the house carefully for 10 minutes, twice a day.
- Do things with your non-dominant hand – this is an important one because you use your hands all the time – e.g. if you normally brush your teeth with your right hand, do it with your left hand.
2) Take a few times a day to just check in with yourself. Set an intention to reconnect with your physical and your emotional self. Scan each body part and notice whether there is any tension or not. If you do find tension, inquire into what is going on in that body part, and breathe into it. Visualize the tension releasing out of your body through the breath. Try to visualize each area of your body as best as you can. For example, if it is your heart area notice whether there is any tension in your chest area…if so, breathe into it and release it. And, then, visualize it as your energetic center of love and inquire into – what shape it is, what color, what texture, what size?
3) An excellent way to strengthen body awareness is to speak to your body and journal its messages. Always start with a statement of gratitude, “Thank you for being here for me all these years. Thank you for supporting me. Now, what can I do for you? How can I allow my love to manifest more fully in the world?” See what comes for you and write it down. Whatever it is, incorporate it into your life practice. By being attentive to your body or specific body areas during the practice, you consciously influence where the energy goes. It leads to increased awareness.
4) Inquire into tension and pain and listen to their messages. You can regain sensations, strength, and calmness by focusing on a body area or quality that you’d like to strengthen. The energy blocks, tension, or pain you will encounter, are showing you the way. There is nothing wrong with you, but you can assume that there are areas where energy is blocked that you can learn to access and transform through body awareness.
Closing Thoughts
Embodied practices such as those outlined above are based on kindness with yourself. Every time you engage in an embodied practice, you make a choice of listening to your body and taking care of yourself. It is a discipline of self-care that, in my opinion, adds tremendously to self-confidence and overall health. Being kind to yourself is a prerequisite to being able to have empathy with others.
There is much more that can be said, but these are some examples of how to strengthen body awareness and lead a more embodied life. You can also make up your own practices and experiment with what works for you. They are not hard, it is just that most people do not have a strong enough commitment to leading an embodied life to stay with them.
Cultivate Body Awareness with a FREE Month of Neurodynamic Breathwork Online
The exercises in this article are a perfect adjunct to breathwork and the two together will allow you to create a deep relationship with your body. We offer 2-hour online breathwork workshops several times throughout the week so that people can take a deep dive into their personal growth with a consistent practice. If you would like to join one of our sessions, and partake in faster, deeper breathing to connect to your body and your “Inner Guidance Intelligence,” we invite you to register for free!
After your first free session, you will receive an email with access to a whole month of free online facilitated breathwork, up to 24 live sessions, which will allow you to continue your journey with the breath and sow the seeds for incredible and lasting change.
Click here to find out more about our online breathwork process.
