Let Your Body Breathe You
With mindful movement, we learn to connect with the breath, the very foundation of the body. The breath is the one constant, appearing when we emerged into this world and with us until we depart. We learn to savor the breath, to be soothed and comforted by it, to let it guide us back home; back home to the body, the only true home we’ve ever had.
We let the breath initiate the soft, slow movements of a yoga practice, savoring the openings, the stretch. We allow it to carry us through challenging postures. We train it to support us. And the body responds. It gets stronger, more balanced, and flexible. We start to trust the body more and more. And in return we feed it nourishing food, water, and air. We allow the body to breathe us and sustain us. We listen to its murmurings, the gentle guidance that bubbles up. And then we know the wisdom of the body.
We can acknowledge that sometimes we wish the body were different, but that wish is as useless as wishing a cat were a dog or a birch were an elm. So we practice self-compassion toward the part of us that painfully longs for it to be different, wishing it were so because we believe it will make us feel more secure, or more comfortable, or more loved to be in a different shape. Back on the mat, we remember to let the body do what it does and the portal to the soul is once again open.