Speaker 1: Us will studious. Welcome to the Stillness Journal. I'm Maya,
Speaker 1: and today I want to talk about something we often overlook,
Speaker 1: the quiet wisdom of the body. We live in a
Speaker 1: culture that prizes the mind. We celebrate the clever ones,
Speaker 1: the quick ones, the ones who can think their way
Speaker 1: out of anything. We are taught from a young age
Speaker 1: that the mind is the seat of truth, that if
Speaker 1: we can just figure it out, just understand it better,
Speaker 1: just name it with the right words, we will be okay.
Speaker 1: And so we keep thinking, We keep analyzing, we keep
Speaker 1: trying to solve our way into peace, and sometimes, after
Speaker 1: years of this, we realize we have thought ourselves into
Speaker 1: a corner. But there is another kind of knowing. It
Speaker 1: does not come from the head. It does not come
Speaker 1: from the words. It comes from somewhere deeper, somewhere older.
Speaker 1: It comes from the body. The body knows things the
Speaker 1: mind has long forgotten. The body remembers what it felt
Speaker 1: like to be held. The body remembers what it felt
Speaker 1: like to be safe. The body remembers what it felt
Speaker 1: like to breathe without effort. And if we can slow
Speaker 1: down enough to listen, the body will tell us things
Speaker 1: we have been needing to hear for a long time.
Speaker 1: Settle in, Let your body find the surface beneath you.
Speaker 1: Let it soften into wherever you are. Let your shoulders drop,
Speaker 1: even just a little, Let your jaw unclench, even just slightly.
Speaker 1: Let your hands open, even if just a fraction. There
Speaker 1: is nothing to figure out here, nothing to solve, nothing
Speaker 1: to understand. Just this breath, and the next one, and
Speaker 1: the one after that. The mind is a wonderful tool,
Speaker 1: but it is not the whole of who we are.
Speaker 1: It is one layer. It is one voice, and when
Speaker 1: it is the only voice we listen to, we miss
Speaker 1: the others. We miss the quiet whisper underneath the noise.
Speaker 1: We miss the way the chest tightens when we say
Speaker 1: yes to something we mean no too. We miss the
Speaker 1: way the belly softens when we are finally in the
Speaker 1: right place. We miss the way the shoulders round up
Speaker 1: to protect us when we are afraid. The body is
Speaker 1: always speaking. The question is whether we are listening. I
Speaker 1: want to invite you, just for a moment, to drop
Speaker 1: below the mind, to let the thoughts pass through, like
Speaker 1: clouds across the sky. You do not have to stop them,
Speaker 1: you do not have to chase them. Just let them move,
Speaker 1: and as they move, notice what is left underneath. Notice
Speaker 1: the sensation in the chest, Notice the weight of the
Speaker 1: body on the chair, Notice the temperature of the air
Speaker 1: on the skin. Notice that you are here, that you
Speaker 1: have always been here, That the body has been carrying
Speaker 1: you home to this moment, even when the mind was
Speaker 1: somewhere else. The body keeps a record that the mind
Speaker 1: cannot access through thinking. It keeps the record of every
Speaker 1: moment we held our breath, every moment we braced for impact,
Speaker 1: every moment we pretended we were fine when we were not.
Speaker 1: These moments leave traces. They live in the muscles, in
Speaker 1: the posture, in the way we move through the world.
Speaker 1: We do not have to remember them consciously for them
Speaker 1: to shape us. They shape us anyway. They show up
Speaker 1: as tension we cannot explain as fatigue that has no
Speaker 1: clear source, as a sense of holding on that does
Speaker 1: not seem to have a beginning or an end. And
Speaker 1: yet the body is not just a record of what
Speaker 1: has been. The body is also a record of what
Speaker 1: is possible. It is a record of what healing feels
Speaker 1: like in real time. When you breathe slowly and deeply,
Speaker 1: the body begins to remember that it is safe. When
Speaker 1: you soften the muscles around your eyes and your jaw,
Speaker 1: the body begins to remember that it is allowed to relax.
Speaker 1: When you place a hint over your heart and stay there,
Speaker 1: the body begins to remember that it is held. These
Speaker 1: are not small things. They are the body's language, and
Speaker 1: every time we speak them, we are giving the body
Speaker 1: permission to do what it has always known how to do.
Speaker 1: There is a kind of intelligence that lives in the breath.
Speaker 1: You do not have to think about breathing for it
Speaker 1: to happen. You do not have to understand the anatomy
Speaker 1: of the lungs for them to expand the body knows
Speaker 1: how to do this. It has been doing it since
Speaker 1: before you had a name. And this kind of knowing
Speaker 1: is older than language. It is older than thought. It
Speaker 1: is the kind of knowing that does not need to
Speaker 1: be proven, because it simply is. When we get stuck
Speaker 1: in the mind, we forget this. We forget that we
Speaker 1: are more than our thoughts. We forget that we do
Speaker 1: not have to figure everything out. We forget that some
Speaker 1: things are solved not by thinking harder, but by being still,
Speaker 1: by letting the breath do its work. By letting the
Speaker 1: body unwind at its own pace. There's a kind of
Speaker 1: healing that happens when we stop pushing, and the body
Speaker 1: is the one who leads us there if we let
Speaker 1: it so. Today I want to invite you to listen
Speaker 1: to the body. Not to fix it, not to change it,
Speaker 1: not to make it different from what it is, Just
Speaker 1: to listen. Notice what it is telling you right now
Speaker 1: in this moment. Notice where it is asking for softness.
Speaker 1: Notice where it is asking for movement. Notice where it
Speaker 1: is asking for stillness. Notice where it is asking for warmth.
Speaker 1: Notice where it is asking for breath. The body is
Speaker 1: always answering these questions. We just have to be quiet
Speaker 1: enough to hear. And as you listen, I want you
Speaker 1: to remember something. The body is not the enemy. It
Speaker 1: is not something to be overcome, optimized, controlled, or disciplined
Speaker 1: into submission. It is your oldest friend. It has been
Speaker 1: with you through every joy and every sorrow. It has
Speaker 1: carried you through every chapter of your life. It has
Speaker 1: held your grief when no one else could. It has
Speaker 1: celebrated your gladness when no one else knew. It is
Speaker 1: worthy of tenderness, It is worthy of kindness. It is
Speaker 1: worthy of your attention, not as a project, but as
Speaker 1: a relationship. One of the most powerful things we can
Speaker 1: do is simply be in the body, not to escape it,
Speaker 1: not to transcend it, not to rise above it, to
Speaker 1: be in it, to feel it, to let it be felt.
Speaker 1: So much of our suffering comes from a kind of
Speaker 1: exile from ourselves. We live in our heads, we float
Speaker 1: above our sensations. We dissociate from the simple fact of
Speaker 1: being alive. And the body, in its quiet way, keeps
Speaker 1: calling us back. It keeps saying, here, here is where
Speaker 1: life is happening. Come back, Come home. There is a
Speaker 1: moment in the middle of a long exile when the
Speaker 1: body lets go of something it has been holding. It
Speaker 1: might be a thought, it might be a memory, It
Speaker 1: might be a pattern. It might be nothing you can name.
Speaker 1: But something shifts, something softens, something releases, and in that
Speaker 1: moment you might catch a glimpse of what it feels
Speaker 1: like to be free of the thing you have been carrying.
Speaker 1: That is the body's wisdom and work, That is the
Speaker 1: body's quiet teaching. I want to leave you with the
Speaker 1: practice for the days ahead. Several times a day, when
Speaker 1: you remember pause, drop out of the mind. For a moment,
Speaker 1: let the thoughts pass, and ask the body, what do
Speaker 1: you need right now? Not what do I think I
Speaker 1: should need, What do you the body actually need, And
Speaker 1: then wait, listen. The answer will come. It might be water,
Speaker 1: It might be movement. It might be rest. It might
Speaker 1: be a slower pace. It might be a hand on
Speaker 1: the heart. It might be a walk outside, It might
Speaker 1: be a long breath. The body always knows. We just
Speaker 1: have to ask. And as you go through the rest
Speaker 1: of your day, I want you to remember this. You
Speaker 1: are not just a mind in a body. You are
Speaker 1: a body that happens to have a mind. You are
Speaker 1: a living, breathing, feeling creature. May of the same stuff
Speaker 1: as the trees and the rivers and the stars. You
Speaker 1: are part of the natural world and you belong to it.
Speaker 1: The body is not separate from you. It is not
Speaker 1: something to be managed. It is you, and it has
Speaker 1: been trying to speak to you, kindly, patiently, for as
Speaker 1: long as you have been alive. I want to speak
Speaker 1: for a moment about the kindness that lives in the body.
Speaker 1: Not the harsh voice that criticizes, not the punishing voice
Speaker 1: that says you are not enough, but the gentle voice underneath,
Speaker 1: the one that says you are tired and you deserve
Speaker 1: to stop, the one that says you are hurting and
Speaker 1: you deserve to be held, the one that says you
Speaker 1: have been brief and you deserve to rest. This voice
Speaker 1: has always been there and has never gone away. Even
Speaker 1: in the darkest moments, even in the most exhausting chapters,
Speaker 1: this voice has been whispering, you are okay, You are
Speaker 1: going to be okay. You do not have to do
Speaker 1: this alone. The body is patient in a way the
Speaker 1: mind rarely is. The mind wants resolution now. The mind
Speaker 1: wants the answer, the plan, the next step. The mind
Speaker 1: wants to know how the story ends. But the body
Speaker 1: understands that some things unfold at their own pace. Some
Speaker 1: things heal in their own time. The body does not
Speaker 1: rush the seasons. It does not rush the breaking open,
Speaker 1: It does not rush the mending. It simply moves at
Speaker 1: the pace of life itself, which is slow and steady
Speaker 1: and deeply wise. There is something I have come to
Speaker 1: believe more and more as the years pass, that the
Speaker 1: most important conversations we have are not the ones we
Speaker 1: have with other people. They are the ones we have
Speaker 1: with ourselves. And these conversations are not just in the head,
Speaker 1: there in the body, there in the breath. They are
Speaker 1: in the way we move through a room. They are
Speaker 1: in the way we hold a fork, or a pen
Speaker 1: or another person's hand. Every gesture is a sentence, every
Speaker 1: posture is a paragraph. And the body is writing all
Speaker 1: the time the story of who we are and who
Speaker 1: we are becoming. So I want to invite you, in
Speaker 1: the days ahead to read your own body the way
Speaker 1: you would read a beloved book, slowly, with curiosity, with reverence,
Speaker 1: with a willingness to be surprised by what you find.
Speaker 1: You may discover that the body is telling you something
Speaker 1: you did not know you needed to hear. You may
Speaker 1: discover that the body has been holding a wisdom you
Speaker 1: have been looking for for a long time. You may discover,
Speaker 1: in the simple act of listening that you are not
Speaker 1: as alone as you did, that something in you has
Speaker 1: always known the way, that something in you has always
Speaker 1: carried you home. As we close today, I want to
Speaker 1: leave you with this image. Imagine the body as a
Speaker 1: kind old friend, someone who has known you since you
Speaker 1: were very small, someone who has seen every version of you,
Speaker 1: the joyful one, the grief, stricken one, the lost one,
Speaker 1: the brave one, the tired one, someone who has never
Speaker 1: once left your side. Imagine sitting beside this friend in
Speaker 1: a quiet place, with nowhere to go. Imagine resting your
Speaker 1: head on this friend's shoulder. Imagine letting this friend hold
Speaker 1: you in the way that only the oldest, deepest kind
Speaker 1: of love can hold. That friend is your body. That
Speaker 1: friend is here right now, waiting for you to come back.
Speaker 1: So come back. Come back to the breath, Come back
Speaker 1: to the heartbeat. Come back to the weight of your bones,
Speaker 1: the warmth of your skin, the miracle of being alive.
Speaker 1: Come back to the body that has been trying to
Speaker 1: speak to you, kindly, patiently all along. Let it speak,
Speaker 1: let it teach, Let it hold you in the way
Speaker 1: that only it can. And as you carry the rest
Speaker 1: of your day, know that you are not just in
Speaker 1: mind at war with itself. You are a body, a soul,
Speaker 1: a whole human being held together by something older and
Speaker 1: wiser than any of your thoughts. The mind is one voice,
Speaker 1: the body is another, And when you learn to listen
Speaker 1: to both, he began to live in a way that
Speaker 1: is whole. Thank you for being here, Thank you for
Speaker 1: letting yourself be still. Thank you for trusting the quiet
Speaker 1: wisdom that has always been yours. I will see you
Speaker 1: in the next stillness.