Getting into the Right Relationship with My Body
Tracing the history of my relationship with my body, finding the disempowering patterns, releasing them, and inviting empowering patterns to take their place.
“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.” — C.G. Jung
I’ve been exploring shadow work recently — the process of making the unconscious conscious and integrating it. I’m presently closing one chapter of my life and about to start a new one. I am committed to making this transition graceful and easy. To that end, I wanted to get into the Right Relationship with everything and everyone that’s most important to me. So I started writing.
I ended up creating a process — I’m calling it the Right Relationships Process. You can use this process to get into the Right Relationship with your parents, your finances, your friends, your health — anything or anyone that matters to you.
Being in the Right Relationship with someone or something allows grace and ease to enter into that relationship. Otherwise, there can be unconscious patterns that govern the relationship, causing constant friction and tension.
In this newsletter, I will apply the process to get into the Right Relationship with my body. I will trace the history of my relationship with my body, find the disempowering patterns, release them, and invite empowering patterns to take their place.
The History of My Relationship with My Body
I start by tracing the history of my relationship with my body from my childhood to present. In doing so, I keep an eye out for patterns of behaviour and notice how I feel as I recall and write. This can be an emotionally draining process, so if you’re doing it, take plenty of breaks and go easy on yourself.
Please note that this is a heavily redacted version. When you do your own process, go into as much depth and dirty detail as possible.
From birth to the time I moved out of my parent’s place to go to college, my body wasn’t really my own — I didn’t really have a sense of my body as sovereign and separate from the larger body of my family. I’ll start with an account of those early days…
I was sick often when I was a kid. I was hospitalised thrice with malaria. My dad believes that there is a spiritual dimension to these physical illnesses. I remember my parents praying over me quite often during those days.
I also used to have nightmares as a kid and was afraid to go to bed. My parents gave me a metal crucifix the size of my forearm and I kept it next to myself in bed. They also taught me to recite Psalm 91 every night.
“HE will keep you safe from all hidden dangers and all deadly diseases…”
I had also discovered my sexuality quite early — I have written about it previously.
By the time I got to high school, I used to have regular colds. Eventually, I’d wake up almost every morning with a cold.
I wasn’t really into physical activities or sports. The only thing I remember being good at is kho-kho. I played a little bit of basketball and football.
Even after I started living on my own, I was still a slave to unconscious patterns. Here’s an account of my relationship with my body from my college days to the present. I look at my relationship with my body through the lens of my food, sleep, substances, sex, appearance, exercise, and relationship with the outside world.
Food: Growing up, I mostly got to eat simple home food. In college, I finally got the chance to try more varieties of food and eat out more often. But then, I didn’t have a lot of pocket money. So I always craved more food than I could actually eat. In later years, eating out often combined with all the stress I was under led to issues with my digestion. I had to go to the toilet 3-4 times a day and I often felt bloated and uneasy. This affected my mood and mental health in a major way. It’s only in this past year that my relationship with food and my digestion have significantly improved.
Sleep: I’ve almost always slept well. 7-8 hours. There were times when I was depressed and I slept more. But mostly I’ve had good sleep patterns.
Substances: When I went to college, I started drinking alcohol and smoking. I smoked for almost 8 years. My body was already going through hell and I just made it worse. I quit smoking in 2018 because I realized that it was making me constantly sick. I started smoking occasionally after my rebirth experience in October 2021. I have quit alcohol for good in 2022.
Sex: <redacted>
Appearance: <redacted>
Exercise: I started exercising regularly in 2020. For the first ~27 years of my life, I didn’t do much apart from cycling and a lot of walking. After year one of Project 52, the intensity with which I exercise has dropped. But then again, this year has been emotionally and mentally heavy. Despite that, I have kept up some amount of exercise. I want to get back to exercising more.
My body in the outside world: Visits to my grandma’s farmhouse and the field trips we went to from school every year helped me get a sense of my place in the physical world. I always wanted to go camping and have adventures and I got opportunities for the same only later in life. I learnt how to ride a non-geared bike only recently. I am yet to get comfortable driving a car.
As mentioned, this is a redacted version. Now, I will elaborate on the disempowering patterns of thoughts and feelings that came up for me as I wrote the above.
Finding the Disempowering Patterns
As I write these words, I am noticing the shame I feel about my own body. There is a feeling of inadequacy — of not being good enough. There is a subconscious thought that’s surfacing — “I hate my body.”
I know that I am conventionally good looking. But my hatred for my body is still there. I didn’t like my body so I escaped into my mind. I became too cerebral.
This year of Project 52, the second half of my intention is to increase embodiment. I have transmuted my core traumas and I can feel that I am landing into myself. But as I do that, I am noticing how I have unconsciously treated this body. I am noticing a resistance to accepting and loving my body as it is.
“We are simultaneously gods and worms.” —Abraham Maslow
“No tree can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” — Carl Jung
In order for me to embrace and step into my God-self, I have to embrace my worm-self. For me to create heaven on earth, I need to confront my personal hell.
I have been having trouble doing that. I’m noticing feelings of disgust, shame, and hatred in my relationship with my body. Landing into this vulnerable sack of meat and bones that is my body feels too much. Incarnating into this meat suit feels like a task.
But I’m clear that I want to do it. So it’s time to release the disempowering patterns and invite empowering ones to take their place.
Releasing the Disempowering Patterns
In Mother Nature, For Father Future. By your grace and with your blessings…
I release all feelings of disgust, shame and hatred I feel towards my body.
I release all tendencies for careless, reckless and abusive behaviour.
I release all feelings of inadequacy and insecurity about my body.
I release all feelings of desperation and lethargy in my body.
I release all toxicity, sickness, and poison that’s accumulated in my body.
I release all fears and doubts about the abilities of my body.
Inviting the Empowering Patterns
In Mother Nature, For Father Future. By your grace and with your blessings…
I accept and embrace my body as it is. I hold space and make time for my body to rest and heal, bloom and grow. I take care of my body — I treat my body with love, patience, kindness, and respect. I consume consciously and abstain easily. I experience pleasure effortlessly — every cell in my body is saturated with the ecstasy of aliveness!
I trust in the innate wisdom of my body. I listen to the whole of my body and I am in tune with the holistic functioning of its systems. I carry my body with grace and ease. I exude courage and confidence, presence and awareness. My body is pulsing with vitality and well-being!
Tathastu!
That’s it — that’s the Right Relationships Process.
But while the process is done, the embodiment of the empowering patterns is just beginning. So the next step is to anchor in the new patterns by reminding yourself of them every day. This can be done by simply reading them out loud as a prayer.
Over time, you will purge all of the old patterns and become a brand new person!
Nice. Good habit of healing