Many inquiries for Breitenbush retreat, the One Year Inquiry program, and the upcoming June teleclasses! So excited to meet and be with all of you who are coming to in-person programs, including those of you flying thousands of miles to attend. I so LOVE that you are coming.
At Breitenbush, we will look deeply at our relationship to our own bodies, every part of it we don’t like or are worried about…and how this relationship expands out to our relationship with life, death and the universe.
Speaking of the body and difficult parts, I was reading recently of the phenomena of great pain in the body occurring long after a traumatic accident occurs.
I had to re-read the text, in this fascinating book entitled Mind Over Mind by Chris Berdik, to make sure I understood what was being said.
YES…people feel ongoing pain or itching or weird sensations that feel like its coming from parts of their body that are no longer there, or that no longer work.
Apparently, over time, many scientists and physicians and psychologists have tackled the problem of “phantom” pain.
Then a neuroscientist called Vilayanur Ramachandra created a process of making the mind “see” a pretend whole limb and voila, the pain or weird sensations subside for some people.
He calls it Mirror Therapy.
The way it works is that a mirror is held up to the whole, complete, un-lost or un-injured looking body part using a mirror. The mind sees a healthy, complete body part, where it was NOT perfect before, and the pain diminishes, or in some cases is gone.
They don’t really know why, they said in the book, and the results are not definitive….but as I read this, I considered self-inquiry on the body and the way a change in perception of what is can change the way we feel.
So what changed first when I did inquiry; my own mind and what it expected to see…or the actual body part I was looking at with disdain or upset?
Because regularly, throughout my life, I’ve had a few stressful thoughts about the body and what the eyes are seeing.
It happened again the other day, as a matter of fact.
I’m walking along the beach, happy as a clam, thinking about my friends, my clients, all the people I hear from on email, and the pretty weather, and the bulbous clouds, and hearing the sounds, and feeling the space of being on vacation and having no real plans…and then….
I glimpse at my reflection in the bungalow office window and immediately see nine things wrong with my image. And I could probably find more if I spent sixty more seconds thinking about it.
- tank top does not match skirt–where’s the color chart!
- feet are peeling and ugly and unfeminine, and these flip-flops are pretty ugly and worn out
- thighs should be thinner, stomach tighter
- jiggly butt, not firm enough, should be pure muscle
- hair color too orange, especially in this bright light…covering the gray is not exactly working “naturally”
- facial skin too wrinkled around the outer lips, like the cheeks are drooping to Texas
- same exact earrings since I left town…which by the way do not match the tank-top OR the skirt at all
- vein on left side of neck is huge, as usual since I first noticed it around age 19
- couple back on beach having wedding pictures taken, bride in pink and white, looked young, glorious and beautiful…those days are pretty much over for me
It used to be that these kinds of speedy images were very serious. I would then start in on solving these problems, or feel discouraged.
With a vengeance.
Time for Basic Training! Make a plan! Exercise More! CHANGE THE IMAGE IN THE MIRROR through doing stuff.
But since I’ve done The Work and questioned my thinking and very perception of this kind of stuff, and reading about this mirror therapy idea, I know the mind can change completely…the response to what it sees can change completely.
Eyes open, eyes closed, it doesn’t matter.
Who would we be if we didn’t believe the image truly meant something bad? What if we could allow the mind to look, and keep looking, and not turn away in horror or disappointment… but to let it wait and really look.
What if we just added a wee tad bit of an open-hearted, accepting attitude? Like we were listening to our best friend say how ugly she felt that morning, and we looked and saw only absolute beauty, even if yes, we agree that she has more wrinkles than she had twenty years ago.
Maybe we’d get used to this body and the images our mind apparently sees, and the feeling of being against what we see might subside.
What if you came from another planet and you didn’t know what a “perfect” body part was supposed to look like? What if you never learned about wrinkling skin being horrifying, or mis-matching apparel?
When I think about who I would be without the thought that any of those speedy quick images MEAN anything….wow. It would all be a big mumbo-jumbo potpourri of creative and changing pictures.
And the pictures would be fun, interesting, fascinating, intriguing, beautiful, ugly, and it wouldn’t matter…it’s just not that freakin’ serious, or real.
Then, you would be someone who lives without believing the thought that you need to change anything about your body in order to be deeply happy.
“It’s helpful to realize that this body that we have, this very body that’s sitting here right now on this shrine room floor……and this mind that we have at this very moment, are exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, and fully alive.”~Pema Chodron
That means THIS body, with the big neck vein and the growing facial lines and jiggling areas….and the body that got cancer, is exactly what I need to be fully human, fully awake, and fully alive.
Turning it all around, I see the flash of images, in my head or in the mirror, and hold them all in my mind instead of brushing them aside and I LOOK….and everything that once seemed alarming now looks beautiful and sweet….or neutral.
Even the huge scar on my leg from removing a tumor.
So here’s an exercise for us all: try staring at something you think of as ugly or awful, and see what happens. Especially if you decide to bekind (hint: this is the turnaround)…you might be surprised.
You might see yourself as not so ugly….maybe gorgeous. Or at the very least, you will see what you are thinking about your appearance with clarity, and you can question it more completely.
Later, looking at myself in a mirror as I entered the bathroom to brush my teeth, I was startled to see how cute, attractive and appealing that image in the mirror looked.
What a cute smile! What an adorable person! That’s ME!
I guess, somehow, it’s what my mind expected so BOOM there it was…after questioning my thoughts of ugliness and decline.
If you’re ready to do inquiry, and do your mirror therapy, starting with this body you have, then come to Breitenbush. Last chance to register! We gather together in only one month!
Love, Grace