Midlife Wisdom
As we enter midlife, external and internal forces are hard at work, calling us to wake up and live more authentically, truthfully, emotionally, and physically healthier. As we reach midlife, life starts to compound: chronic stress, busyness, emotions we have yet to deal with, loss, grief, aging parents, anxiety…the list goes on! Even the long-time hatred and negative thinking about our bodies, the old beliefs we’ve held onto for so long, continue to hurt us.
Our bodies are deeply affected by our constant running around, and we don’t always pay attention to or deal with what’s happening inside of our bodies, because our present-day lifestyles encourage us to live from the neck up. When we don’t pay attention to our emotions, we often turn away from our feelings and our body awareness. Without the space for healing or time for reflection, without an opportunity to surrender, we begin to completely disconnect from the authentic self, and even more so, from our bodies.
Our midlife bodies don’t stay silent. Over time, they begin to speak our busyness, our stress, stored emotions, wounds, loss, and the grief that we’ve kept stored up for another day, or another time. Years of suppressing these issues find their way into the body. For some of us, our bodies decide it’s had enough, and it begins to call out to us in stronger ways. When you hear your body calling out to you, listen! Connect with your divine body wisdom.
Are you disconnected from your body?
The first signs of body disconnect come when our body sends us symptoms and signals: overtired, irritation, tension, lacking energy, diets and supplements stop working, illness, inflammation, chronic illness that won’t go away, and more. For women, sometimes our body signals to us with intense hormonal upheavals. Maybe you’ve tried everything to heal from your physical issues, but you keep finding that nothing works.
The second sign of disconnect is when we feel separated from our bodies. Oftentimes, we live in our thoughts – and those thoughts are based on judgments, reasoning, plans, and speculation. But the mind doesn’t have the capacity to experience! Experience is a FEELING quality, not a MIND quality. If too much is happening in the mind, and the body itself is not living or feeling, we may feel alienated or out of touch with ourselves. We might have a sense of the body, but we don’t experience being inside the body.
Without the experience of being inside our bodies, we may feel lost, purposeless, and disconnected from others. Our relationships begin to suffer because we’re disconnected from ourselves. We rush from one thing to the next, instead of taking a break. Instead of taking a moment for breath.
Connecting to your body’s wisdom is a practice. The effects of this practice won’t be realized over one simple night – this is an ongoing relationship with your body!
The first step in our practice is to connect with the wisdom of our bodies.
We don’t like negative sensations or feelings. They can be scary, and oftentimes, we might find ourselves trying to ignore them. But sensations, negative or positive, are signals the body sends us to help us heal. We must accept what is being offered by our bodies.
If we fight the feelings, symptoms, and sensations, we’re fighting our own healing energies. You can connect to your body’s wisdom, and allow that wisdom to heal you once you’ve accepted and experienced your feelings as they are, without trying to change them.
All of the answers we’re searching for are inside of our divine body wisdom. Our essence lives in our bodies. When we disconnect from our bodies, we disconnect from our divine essence.
Healing is wholeness
As we age, we can learn to sit with and accept all that is present for us in our lives and our bodies: what’s hurting us, what is present in the here and now, is the answer to our healing.
We can learn to love our bodies! As we live out our midlives, it’s more important than ever to love ourselves as we are. The world puts an extreme focus on the body. Some of us have a dislike, or even feel that as we age, our bodies are abandoning us. Maybe this is because we can’t do all of the activities we used to do, or illness and chronic issues have caused us fear and frustration. Maybe your body feels like a burden, rather than a joy. Maybe you have abandoned your body because it’s experienced trauma, or wounds that are too painful to connect with. But we must remember: we can never leave our body behind.
Your body is a part of you. It holds all of your memories, wishes, hopes, and dreams. It also holds all of your hurt, loss, and wounds! Some religions talk of transcending the body – leaving it, not associating with our physical form – but while we’re here, on Earth, the body is the home of our soul. It’s the home of our connection to our intuition, our divine gifts, our wholeness. Connecting with our bodies is the first step in connecting to our healing, our souls, and our wholeness.
I learned to abandon my body a long time ago. I ran from it. I was frustrated and mad at my body, but through this practice, I have discovered a way to allow it to be here, in this present moment with me: I ask my body was it needs; I treat my body like I would my child, and this has allowed me to access the root of my issues. I can feel and sit with whatever arises, and be present for myself in a way I never thought possible.
When we connect to our bodies, we find the healer within. We find our wholeness and our divine connection. Your body carries your past, envisions your future, and grounds you deeply to the present moment. Your body is your whole experience; your body is your whole life.
Our relationship with our body is experiential. Unless we’re alert, responsive, and establish a genuine understanding of our bodies, we’re not sufficiently rooted. Body empowerment can take years, even decades to develop. A true spiritual and feminine living is rooted in a dedicated journey of embodiment, and that embodiment requires openness and vulnerability, which asks us to be open, aware, and present to our emotions.