I’m in my head. A lot. It gets chaotic up there, thoughts swirling around, creating beliefs that aren’t even true. A wise man recently told me that “these are windy times” and that the last place you want to be during a storm is “in the treetops. You want to come down to the trunk where it’s solid.”
He was talking about moving from the head down to the body. I’m learning to listen to my body; I’m learning to physically soothe my body to relieve neurotic thoughts. The same man told me that thoughts are formless and they go past us like waves. When we focus on a thought and attach a belief to it, that thought collapses and turns to form, manifesting itself in the body. We can notice this when we feel a physiological response to something we make up in our mind.
For example, your boy/girlfriend is late coming home. For some reason, you start thinking he/she is with someone else, cheating on you. This thought, that became a belief, has now lodged itself in your body. Where do you feel it? Did your chest constrict? Did you heart rate rise? Do you feel sick to your stomach?
A technique I’ve been taught and am putting to practice is soothing the part of the body that has responded to this belief (that you can’t know is true). If my heart rate increases, I will place my hands in a gentle and soothing way over my heart. I don’t even have to think anything. Just focus on soothing my body with my hands and giving it loving attention.
I was in the bathroom, performing one of the many amazing functions that our bodies do, reading a book called “Trivia for the Toilet.” Yes, it’s a bathroom reader, those things with completely random trivial facts. This one in particular struck me:
Humans shed and regrow outer skin cells about every 27 days — the equivalent of almost 1000 new skins in a lifetime.
This is crazy. We are refreshed almost 1000 times throughout our lives. We are constantly shedding and recreating. We are constantly renewed.
Do you thank your body? Do you ever close your eyes, take some deep breaths, and thank it for allowing you to do whatever you do? Or do you, like me, take your body for granted? It’s time for gratitude. Here are ten more interesting facts about our bodies:
- Testicles manufacture 10 million new sperm cells each day.
- A matchbox-sized block of bone can support 9 tonnes; this is as strong as granite.
- Each kidney contains 1 million individual filters. They process an average of 1.3 liters of blood every minute, and expel up to 1.4 liters a day of urine.
- It takes only one minute for a single blood cell to circulate the entire body.
- When you sneeze, all your bodily functions stop, including your heart.
- Women blink nearly twice as much as men.
- Our eyes can distinguish up to one million color surfaces and take in more information than the largest telescope known to man.
- When we touch something, we send a message to our brain at 124 mph.
- If you yelled for 8 years, 7 months and 6 days you would have produced enough sound energy to heat one cup of coffee.
- We take about 600 million breaths during our lifetime.
What amazing things about your body are you grateful for? 
Sources: Listverse, MedIndia, Cafe of Life
Feature photo: sgt fun
About the author
Carlo is a Managing Editor at Matador Network and co-founder of Confronting Love. He is not a trained therapist, but he's been divorced and has thought about and discussed love and relationships extensively. He is human and alive, qualifying him to continue the conversation. He currently calls Nelson, BC his home. Like him on Facebook and follow him on Twitter.
