Bodyfulness

​An easy misunderstanding to fall into with mindfulness is to see it as purely (or mainly) psychological in nature. Its emphasis on embodied awareness offers a large clue that it’s as much an education in physicality as it is in mind and thought. In this regard, mindfulness-based approaches are an uneasy fit with mental health paradigms that prioritise what happens from the neck up.

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Participants on mindfulness courses in clinical settings, for example, quickly discover that ‘practice’ involves spending lots of quality time in a universe of bodily sensations and energetic formations that are habitually overlooked or disregarded. Inspired by their eight or nine weeks of training, many go on to change their lives in ways reflected in what they do with their bodies, and how they treat them. 
 
Walking the Walk
 
What we call ‘mindful living’, as loose as that term might be, is actually all about embodiment. It is the cultivation of an ongoing, uncomplicated sensitivity to what is happening here and now – perceptions, sensations, hedonic tones, impulses, cognitions, actions – all of which are arising in a world that is continually seeking a response. 
 
There is, in fact, little about mindfulness that you could not learn, outwardly at least, from a dog or a cat. Animals are perceptive, receptive, attentive and modest. They are humble and naturally self-contained. Unconcerned with past and future, they dwell effortlessly in the immediacy of their experience, retaining a knowledge that humans easily forget, something the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau put neatly: “Thus our earthly joys are almost without exception the creatures of a moment” (Reveries of The Solitary Walker, 1776 – 78). 
 
Balancing Act
 
Fortunately, us humans are not entirely divorced from the natural wisdom of animals. Since the time of Hippocrates (460 – 370 BC), the so-called ‘father of modern medicine’, the psychological benefits of fresh air and exercise have been well understood. What we put into our bodies affect our minds and vice versa. Even just a few minutes a day of aerobic exercise changes how the body regulates stress hormones. On some level we all know that when we trade time being active outdoors for time barely mobile and peering into screens, we are taking risks with our emotional wellbeing.
 
Spending quality time in and with our physicality is also an act of kindness. Contact with nature and activities devoted to moving the body are vital to human welfare. Unlike animals, humans are prone to overlooking such a simple truth. For most of us, sustaining healthy behaviours requires wise attention and effort. These mental qualities of wise attention and effort entwine with the cultivation of embodied awareness to strengthen the foundations for a mindful life. 
 
Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes
 
I have found the simple act of running around parks and fields to be an important education in body and mind. When I am running and alive to the presenting moment, I am as connected to what’s happening inside me as to what’s going on around me. My body moves as a seamless whole, an incredible system of interrelating parts in communication with each other and their environment.
 
At such times, I might become aware of how breathing regulates itself while maintaining its delicate correspondence with the viscera and skeleton. Sometimes I notice how muscles seem to harmonise with each other, and how the posture adjusts itself so finely to the forces of speed and momentum.
 
If I can fully relax into this and the thinking mind quietens, tensions I didn’t even know existed often spontaneously come into awareness and release themselves: joints stop clicking, muscles unclench, limbs free up, feet land softly and gracefully on the ground. In these moments, my animal nature come to the fore. It is bursting with life.
 
Knees and Toes
 
At other times, when the mind is preoccupied with its stories or resistant to the physical exertion, I experience a lingering sense of disconnection. The sense of self feels strong and fixed. Like those dissatisfying mental health paradigms, I become the one who is interested only in what is happening from the neck up. A hardness invariably creeps into my running experience. Everything starts to grate. Body parts feel out of sync with each other. The feet meet the ground with a thump. The smash of thoughts inside my skull can feel just as unyielding.
 
Through mindfulness and its associated qualities, I can pick up on this, hold it in mind – perhaps just long enough for a sensitive response to become possible again. If so, in comes a newfound receptivity to whatever is showing up. Self-absorption eases up. There is less struggle and grabbiness. If I invite or encourage attention into my lower legs, ankles, toes and soles of my feet – the further away from the skull the better! – often I will rediscover the simple joy of taking just one step. New relationships open up within the body and there is a brightness of contact with the grass, the air, light and shade. The world comes alive. The body swings back into rhythm and I am a humble, happy animal again.

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