A Blog for Your Month

More Than Just a Body ~ A Way More Woo Woo Blog*

I keep telling myself that I am not a body. But I’m having a hard time believing it. According to A Course in Miracles most of our problems come from identifying too closely with our physical selves and not identifying enough with our spirit selves. I like to think of our spirits as ambassadors from another plane. (Plane and planet are pretty close as words...interesting.) Anyway, I think of our spirits as here to spread love. I picture us, in this other dimension where we’re not bodies, saying “me, me! I’ll go! I just know I can remember that I’m made of love this time!” Then we get here and we get schooled in the reality of being a body. By the time we’re two we can tell everyone what our name is, who our mommy is, how big we are, and where to find our nose and our toes. We are taught the curriculum of the physical world.

I once went to a psychology lecture where the instructor said “without an ego you can’t get on the bus.” Our physical, bodily selves are necessary for moving around in this world, so I don’t want to discount them. But somewhere along the line in life we lose the knowledge that we are more than physical. We lose the knowledge that We are the thing that animates the physical, the Life within. I think our physical lives would flow better if we identified more with the non-physical.

You could call it Presence. I’m in a Covenant Group studying Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. This will be the third time I’ve read it. I keep rereading it because I keep forgetting about Presence, the same way I keep forgetting that I am not a body. If I really focus on being still for a moment and feel the breath coming in and out of my nose, I can fleetingly sense the Presence within and beyond my body.

This is good news when it’s not going so well with the body. My husband was up quite a bit last night, in pain, and my sleep was affected by my awareness that he was in pain. We have discovered that our sleep is often marked by tension. I hold mine especially in my jaw. I know I’m not alone in this. As we age, the stresses of life seem to accumulate and our bodies hold it all. When I wake up in the morning and feel the effects of tense muscles it helps to know that I am more than just a body. When my husband is in pain, it helps to know that he is not just a body. It helps me, anyway. I'm not sure he would agree. But if I can remember that I am not a body and I can click into being that ambassador of love, I believe it helps him, too.

(*this blog is especially for the clients and friends who like to explore the bounds of reality with me)

Quiet and Happy

I live in a quiet house. My husband has a vocal cord disorder that makes it difficult for him to speak for any length of time. For years I've been thinking of this as temporary, but recently I've begun to think of it as a disability, something that you live with and adjust your lifestyle around. We've definitely made adjustments over the years. We write letters to one another. He brings a notepad to the dinner table, and he's gotten very good at miming. Even though I speak just fine, it's weird to have one sided conversations, so I find myself keeping quiet, too. I'm basically an introvert, which turns out to be a good thing.

Other people I know have had to make concessions for maladies that have come with age as well. My sister is living with impaired vision. My brother-in-law has MS. Another sister-in-law lives with almost constant pain. And they simply carry on with their lives. I am inspired by people's ability to live with disability. When you find ways to carry on, you take back your power. You're only as impaired as you think you are. 

My husband used to resist accepting social invitations. Now he just comes along and brings his notepad. It's fun to see how quickly people respond to his thumbs up/ thumbs down manner of interacting. One family decided that they were going to write on notepads, too. Even waitresses get into the spirit of reading his order from a pad. And he's gotten very expressive with his gestures. His natural sense of humor comes out in his mannerisms and his written notes, which I'm very grateful for because I love his sense of humor.

I guess the one thing we can't do is have long philosophical conversations. But how many people do have long philosophical conversations after 24 years of marriage? I tell myself that when he retires he may be able to talk to me more because he won't be using all his voice power at the office. That's something about old age that I can look forward to. There is a sweetness about how we are with one another, what we appreciate because of what we don't have. Life is funny that way. Age makes you lose things, by definition. And as you lose the advantages of youth, you don't take life for granted in the way you used to when you were young. I'm finding that what made me happy then is different from what makes me happy now. But I'm still happy. And I think my husband is, too.