The Movements of Life

Sometimes we lose ourselves in the movements of life. We then feel like a feather in the wind, tossed about by difficult emotions, our own desires, encounters with people or the demands that life places on us. Constantly in motion or even inner turmoil, without ever feeling like we have arrived.

Life means change. Constant change is taking place both in our inner and outer worlds. A coming and going of thoughts, feelings, sensations, encounters, conversations, situations, demands, actions, noises, images.

The Longing to Come Home

This constant game of life is wonderful, exciting and enriching. But focusing solely on continuous change is exhausting. It can feel like drifting around in a boat on the high seas without an anchor. Intense and turbulent. Sometimes disorienting. Sometimes confusing and threatening. Sometimes overwhelming and lonely. We lose ourselves in the movements of life. And then there is our longing for peace and tranquillity, for relaxation, for security and stability, for contact, for being – the longing to “come home”.

But how can we “be” in the midst of constant change and movement? How can we stand in the middle of life and be “at home” at the same time? By rediscovering our inner stability. By getting in touch with ourselves on a deep level. By recognising our dimension of being – the stillness within us that is always there. By embracing the dimension within us that is eternally unchanging and stable.

Anchored in the Silence of our Consciousness

Beneath our emotions, the thoughts and resistance of our mind, and through a deep letting go into our whole being, we can discover a quality that is silent and at peace with what life has in store for us right now. We can open ourselves to an inner space of silence that is not disturbed by thoughts, emotions or sensations. A space of stillness that embraces life. A stillness that feels like ‘coming home’ because it is part of us. Because we are stillness.

Experiencing this dimension of silence and inner stability can radically change our perception of life. We can embody this living silence more and more with our whole being. Then there is an alert presence here and now. A presence with what is. A wide openness to life. From a place of inner silence, we encounter the movements of life. Connected with a joy of being and anchored in ourselves.

The separation between head and body

We live in a culture in which the body plays an important role, particularly in terms of fitness and appearance. However, our relationship is primarily a top-down one. We are a mind that possesses a body.

‘I think, therefore I am.’ This quote from the 17th-century French philosopher Descartes represents the separation of the thinking self from the body as matter. It is still relevant today. We define ourselves through our thoughts. I am what I think. And I have a body.

As a result, we tend to feel that our ‘centre’ is in our head, and we create our identity through our thoughts. A story that describes who we are and where we come from. But in doing so, we separate our thinking, our head, from the rest of our body. We leave our body – our vehicle for our journey here on earth, so to speak – in order to dwell solely in our thoughts. In doing so, we give away the knowledge that we can draw from our body.

We cut ourselves off from a part of ourselves and ignore the language of our body. Feelings, emotions, sensations, movements. Like thinking, they belong to us, are part of us, our body-mind unity.

Cut off from a part of yourself

And so most of us live in our own ‘virtual’ head world, cut off from the rest of our body, cut off from the rest of the world, cut off from a direct, essential experience of being. This one-sided ‘being in our thoughts’ leads us to become alienated from ourselves and feel unbalanced and ungrounded. We do not feel complete, unpleasant feelings are threatening and we distract ourselves constantly in order to endure being ‘in our heads’ at all. And we search – mostly in the outside world – for the feeling of wholeness.

When we succeed in shifting our ‘felt centre’ from our heads to our whole bodies, our perception and our sense of being change. When we start living in our body-mind unity again, our thinking also changes. It becomes calmer, there is more space, and we connect more and more with our inner wisdom.

Feel the vitality within

I invite you to feel the vitality inside your body – in your hands, your feet, your whole body. And feeling this vitality inside our bodies brings us out of our heads and into the presence of the now. By feeling the vitality in our bodies, we begin to break down the separation between head and body. It brings us to BEING in the body and we deepen our contact with ourselves.

When we open ourselves to somatic perception, we take in the body, the feelings, the vitality within. And we begin to live fully in our bodies again, gradually approaching a feeling of wholeness. We become conscious and in doing so, we not only tap into the wisdom of our body-mind unity, but we also feel alive, centred in the moment and present. Space is created and we are less entangled in our thoughts. We feel more clearly what we want and what is good for us. We are grounded.

And so I invite you to get in touch with your body. To feel the vitality within you. Again and again. To be not just a head with a body, but a body-mind unity. For me, being fully in my body is like setting an anchor in this life. Being fully here. Present in my own life. Connected.

We enter this world with our first breath and leave it with our last. Breath is life. Without breath, there is no life. In many ancient cultures, the word for breath also means spirit. The German word ‘Atem’ is derived from the Sanskrit term ‘Atman’, which means the divine spirit inherent in everything. This divine spirit inherent in everything is our deepest dimension; it is the consciousness that underlies all being. It is the vibrating silence that permeates everything. Our breath carries this silence within it and can reveal it to us at the same time.

The Deeper Dimension of Breath

When we fully engage with our breath, allowing it to become fine and subtle, and relax into breathing, our breath opens up our deepest dimension. When we inhabit our breath, feeling it in the most subtle way, something sacred is revealed in breathing. Our breath then becomes a powerful tool that leads us into our depths, connecting us with our source, our primal ground.

Inhabiting Your Breath

That is why I invite you to feel your breath. How does it feel to breathe? Can you feel how your breath lovingly touches and moves your body, again and again? Can you let go of control and feel yourself being breathed? Can you surrender to the natural rhythm of your breath, letting it happen? Can you inhabit your breath and engage with its sacredness?

When I breathe with my whole being, becoming the breath itself, then breathing becomes a silent prayer. It becomes the gateway to my deepest dimension, the all-pervading silence of absolute consciousness.