Week 4 - Tuning Into the Body
Jude-Martin Etuka
? jude-martin.com ? OD Professional ? Mindfulness Practitioner ? Transformational Leadership ? EI ? Speaker ? Lecturer, PhD Candidate, Notre Dame ? I bring calm to people using simple mindfulness practices.
“The body is not just a vessel; it is both a boundary and a bridge. The outer body moves through the world, while the inner body feels, listens, and responds. To be mindful is to inhabit both fully.” - Tara Brach
This week, we return to something so close, it’s often overlooked: the body.
We can spend hours (or days!) living in our heads, lost in thought, planning, striving, or simply getting through.
But the body?
It’s always here…
It doesn’t wander off. It’s a steady presence, quietly holding our experience in every moment. I love the quote by Jon Kabat-Zinn on the body:
“You take your body with everywhere you go”
It’s a bit of a mind-bender when you ponder on it: Do you remember places you were when you were two-years old? Five, ten, twenty years of age? You may remember some however I strongly suspect you can’t remember all. Guess who was there and remembers it? Your body! It took you there. Indeed, you were only there in the first place because it took you…
When we bring our attention back to the body — doing so gently, curiously—we return to the present. Tara Brach puts it beautifully:
“The body is not just a vessel; it is both a boundary and a bridge. The outer body moves through the world, while the inner body feels, listens, and responds. To be mindful is to inhabit both fully.”
This week’s meditation is a simple body scan practice:
We take time to tune in, moving attention slowly from the head down to the your big toe, not needing to change anything at all, but noticing what’s there.
·???????? Where is there ease?
·???????? Where is there tension?
·???????? What can soften?
Often, we find the body holds things the mind isn’t ready to speak about — and yet, by gently noticing, we create space for release, for balance, for a quiet kind of wisdom. For equanimity.
Next week, we shift to exploring attitude. Not just what we notice, but how we notice it. For now, may this practice bring you home to your body, again and again and again…
#Mindfulness #Meditation #Body #MBSR
Go well...