Hello September

As the seasons shift and I slip on a jacket for the first time since July, it makes me aware of changes. Things are shifting all the time, but in our absorption with everyday life, we might not take the time to become truly conscious of the shifts. Thus, when I first heard the cue in a yoga class to “arrive in your body,” I thought it was a bit off-putting; I already am “in” my body. However, the longer I practice yoga, the more I have grown to embrace this sentiment of “having to arrive.”

Instead of awareness of our entire body, we most often experience individual places in our body. We notice aches and pains, drawing our attention to a certain spot, or we feel pleasure and contentment in a sensation, much like savoring a flavor or color. When we feel hunger, we eat to alleviate the sensation in our stomach or head. When we feel tired, we rest in order to replenish our energy. We rarely think about movement until discomfort forces us to pay attention to a specific part of our body. Even when that discomfort fades, the area remains in our awareness.

Additionally, we experience our body through attitudes. Much of the time, these include tension or caution or aggression of pushing ourselves to keep up. Life demands this. While there are times for leisure and letting go, daily life requires stamina, endurance, and unpleasantness, like taking out your own garbage.

Yoga, however, is a practice of inclusivity; we must consciously move our mind into our body-all over and with a different attitude-in order to expand our experiences of ourselves with others. We must “arrive in our body” and discover not just the familiar places but also the unfamiliar ones, the areas we’ve neglected because we haven’t felt them. This exploration isn’t about enduring discomfort; it’s about cultivating curiosity and discovery.

As we do this, the act of arriving becomes an act of growing into more facets of ourselves and prepares us to better understand and interact with others.