Each moment our body is sensing various stimuli and sending messages to our brain. If we stay alert and rooted in the present moment, we can become aware of these sensations. They hold vital clue as to how our body is responding to the environment. When our mind is floating to the past and future, we remain ignorant of this important information and thus our behaviour will not be situation-appropriate.
To illuminate this, let us consider a scenario: Manjula is a 30-year-old married woman who works from home. Her mother-in-law (MIL) is very socially active and has countless guests dropping in. Before raising her awareness, Manjula used to be at the beck and call of her MIL. She would be asked to entertain and feed and humour the guests. Even though she had countless other affairs to attend to, she would oblige (passivity - overadaptation). Consequently, her physical, mental and emotional health would suffer and she fell ill often. After Manjula started practicing moment-to-moment awareness, her behaviour changed. When she began paying attention to her physical sensations, she understood that she resented these intrusions upon her time and energy. Her shoulders were tense, jaw was clenched. As a result of understanding the needs of her body and mind, she established clear limits to the amount of time she would spend with her MIL's guests. It would be just enough to be courteous but not so much that it would intrude upon her life. She no longer felt like a Victim. She reclaimed her rightful power and hardly ever fell ill again.
When we ground ourselves in the NOW and are in touch with our body, we have access to the intelligence of our body. Our body becomes our friend when we respect its needs. And it will support us beautifully through life.
