Coming Into the Present Moment Through Feeling the Aliveness in the Body

Our centre is usually felt in our head. By feeling the vitality inside our body, we shift our ‘felt centre’ to our entire body. This changes our perception. We feel alive, centred in the moment and present.

The separation between head and body

We live in a culture in which the body plays an important role, particularly in terms of fitness and appearance. However, our relationship is primarily a top-down one. We are a mind that possesses a body.

‘I think, therefore I am.’ This quote from the 17th-century French philosopher Descartes represents the separation of the thinking self from the body as matter. It is still relevant today. We define ourselves through our thoughts. I am what I think. And I have a body.

As a result, we tend to feel that our ‘centre’ is in our head, and we create our identity through our thoughts. A story that describes who we are and where we come from. But in doing so, we separate our thinking, our head, from the rest of our body. We leave our body – our vehicle for our journey here on earth, so to speak – in order to dwell solely in our thoughts. In doing so, we give away the knowledge that we can draw from our body.

We cut ourselves off from a part of ourselves and ignore the language of our body. Feelings, emotions, sensations, movements. Like thinking, they belong to us, are part of us, our body-mind unity.

Cut off from a part of yourself

And so most of us live in our own ‘virtual’ head world, cut off from the rest of our body, cut off from the rest of the world, cut off from a direct, essential experience of being. This one-sided ‘being in our thoughts’ leads us to become alienated from ourselves and feel unbalanced and ungrounded. We do not feel complete, unpleasant feelings are threatening and we distract ourselves constantly in order to endure being ‘in our heads’ at all. And we search – mostly in the outside world – for the feeling of wholeness.

When we succeed in shifting our ‘felt centre’ from our heads to our whole bodies, our perception and our sense of being change. When we start living in our body-mind unity again, our thinking also changes. It becomes calmer, there is more space, and we connect more and more with our inner wisdom.

Feel the vitality within

I invite you to feel the vitality inside your body – in your hands, your feet, your whole body. And feeling this vitality inside our bodies brings us out of our heads and into the presence of the now. By feeling the vitality in our bodies, we begin to break down the separation between head and body. It brings us to BEING in the body and we deepen our contact with ourselves.

When we open ourselves to somatic perception, we take in the body, the feelings, the vitality within. And we begin to live fully in our bodies again, gradually approaching a feeling of wholeness. We become conscious and in doing so, we not only tap into the wisdom of our body-mind unity, but we also feel alive, centred in the moment and present. Space is created and we are less entangled in our thoughts. We feel more clearly what we want and what is good for us. We are grounded.

And so I invite you to get in touch with your body. To feel the vitality within you. Again and again. To be not just a head with a body, but a body-mind unity. For me, being fully in my body is like setting an anchor in this life. Being fully here. Present in my own life. Connected.