Imagine opening your car’s gas cap and filling the car with a squirt bottle of sunscreen. Or a roll of dimes. Pickles anybody?
Of course that’s not the fuel our cars were made to accept. Our vehicles are machines that take us anywhere we need to go and since we rely on them so much, it’s wise to give them exactly what they require to run smoothly for a long time to come.
It’s dawned on me recently that the same exact thing can be said for our physical body. Our body is a vessel and is a gift to us. It also takes us anywhere we need to go and we rely on it for everything we want to experience in our lifetime. It helps us to carry out the purpose of our life. Therefore, wouldn’t it also be wise to give it exactly the fuel and care that it requires so it will “run smoothly” for as long as we need it?
I have long realized that the numbers on my scale were slowly increasing. Ever since I started eating ice cream every night when I was pregnant, it’s been on the upswing. I have wanted to take care of it, but somehow it always seemed overwhelming to focus on. So I kept putting it off.
Now I am studying a path of spiritual self-development, which is about improving oneself but not for the sake of oneself. It’s not so much about mastering desires (though that is a large part of it) as it is about fulfilling your own potential. Mussar teaches that everything we encounter in our inner world is an aspect of the soul. Emotions (and emotional eating), patience, desires, etc. It is a process of changing your intuitive responses to situations, “making the heart feel what the intellect understands.” (Rabbi Eliyahu Lopian, 19th c.) The task is to try to free ourselves from our primitive natures and have our higher self, the soul, lead the way.
For example, it’s become a habit for me to read in bed before I fall asleep at night. I almost always munch on Cheerios or M&Ms as part of this. All my weight gain could have come from just this one practice as far as I know, because I don’t tend to make terrible choices otherwise. So changing these external actions is part of it. The more physical changes you make, the more likely it is to become habit. (So my new habit is chewing gum while I read.) There’s also a process of changing from the inside out, but I’ll skip over that here for now.
In every decision and choice you make, there will be a moment of choice. Do you react with instinctual anger or do you pause and respond patiently? This is true with eating, of course. We can choose to go the way of the higher self or the lower self. We can have the salad or the hamburger, and as long as we are making the choice from our higher nature, there is a time for each.
So I’ve started Weight Watchers, but I’m also examining my habits and tendencies as a way toward change. Losing this excess weight should not be in some vain attempt to look better or receive more praise. It should be an exercise in wholeness. It’s yet another way I can empower myself to change my life for the better. (I will have to remember this when people begin commenting on how much better I look.) I wish to focus on my own inner dignity and self-esteem. The focus is on a soul-level, not so much a body-level. There should be no judgement of myself or of others. There should be no separation of the mind, body, and spirit, for all are part of our soul.
In this spiritual curriculum, being aware of the physical seems just as important as the emotional. I am paying attention to how I treat my body just as much as I am focusing on my measure of humility or compassion. They seem linked… emotions affect our bodies and vice versa. I wish to be grateful to my body that it does all the miraculous actions it performs every moment. Our bodies are our connection to earth and a key part of our experience.
Please share your own thoughts on this. Do you think of your body as part of who you are as a whole or as separate?
You’ll find more of my posts about Mussar here.
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