We live in such a cerebral culture that I find myself wondering if at some point we collectively left our bodies to hang out mostly in our heads. I was reading about the people of Sardinia who grow their own food and live by the rhythms of the earth and their own circadian rhythms. They are generally very healthy and happy and many of them to live to be 100 and beyond.

Most of us are not going to move to an Italian island in the Mediterranean Sea, yet I think that many of us are practicing certain habits in order to come back to the present, to the body. Yoga, meditation, and even stopping to take few deep breaths can help silence the mind chatter that is our nemesis. Exercise, a healthy diet, getting still and allowing feelings to flow through us, goes a long way to embodying our best lives.

Trauma, societal pressure, well-worn habits, and the examples that were set before us can all contribute to us leaving our bodies, repressing (let me count thy ways!) and over-thinking (a real addiction!)

Of course using our mind is important and cherished, but it is so easy to forget that our best thoughts, ideas and solutions come to us – through us – when we are not stuck in our heads.

We are human beings, not machines, and our bodies hold our memories, messages, intuition. It takes a conscious effort, a daily choice on my part, to remember this and to try to live accordingly. I am so very far from mastering it, but I am recommitting to trying my best. I do believe that a continual coming back to the body, where the heart dwells, holds the key to clarity, wholeness, to nearly everything.

Happy Monday!