You+Your Body and God’s Plan
My thoughts recently have been directed to a gift we have all been given. The gift I refer to is one that houses our spirit/soul/intellect {choose your term} that being our body.
Bodies are getting a lot of negative attention lately. Body image is being blamed for depression, obsession and at the very least a target for ad campaigns specifically directed to women.
Why is this?
There is so much to unpack here.
For this post I would like to focus on seven points that feel true to me.
7 BODY TRUTHS ACCORDING TO KATHLEEN
Our bodies are a gift from God.
The only way to experience life on earth is within a mortal body.
Satan made choices, before this earth was created, that precluded him from having a body.
If our focus is primarily turned to what our bodies are lacking, we miss amazing opportunity for growth.
Being in a consistent battle with our bodies is equivalent to us being sucked into Satan’s misery.
Many of life’s lessons can only be understood through listening to our bodies.
Embodiment is the ability to bring body and soul together to experience life in the holiest of ways.
I understand that some of my points are based on theology that I embrace. I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That being said, many of my points are also accepted by other religious orientations.
Number three, however, as far as I understand, is unique to LDS theology. We believe that before we came to earth, we lived with God as spirits. We believe that God presented the opportunity for us to come to earth, receive a body and experience mortality. We understood that there would be lessons learned and opportunities for us to progress that would only be available in a mortal experience. One of the essential components of our experience is the fact that we would have agency to choose right from wrong. If we made choices consistent to God’s will, we would be able to return to live with Him after our mortal experience.
One of God’s angels, named Lucifer (aka Satan) suggested that he come to earth and mandate that every spirit make choices necessary to return to God. Because this plan would intercept our agency, it was dismissed. As was the author of this mandated proposal. Satan was not only cast out but was not given the opportunity to rec
I am not suggesting that Satan is responsible for every negative thought we have, but I do think it would make good sense that he would like us miserable in our bodies since he, in fact, was not able to get one! Misery loves company, I suppose.
Could not resist thinking of this SNL skit as I was typing this. Ha!!
God values our agency as primary to our progression. In order for us to be able to express our agency on earth and also be able to learn and grow from our choices, we needed a way to balance out our non-God like choices. (trying not to say good or bad here…purposely) This is where the need for a Savior arose. Jesus Christ offered to come to earth as a divine, but mortal being. Christ came to show us how to live and to atone for all of the pains, misery, illness, weaknesses of this world as well as each of our not so choice, choices.
I go into this only for you to understand why I believe that all of the negativity around bodies goes much deeper than commercial gains. I have heard people talk about how all of the beauty, diet, food corporations benefit when we are unhappy with our bodies. While this is true, I believe that our staying miserable in our bodies interrupts a greater plan; that being our mortal progression. I am just beginning to understand the scope of how our bodies are essential to our evolution. If we could really get “in tune” with our individual body sensations around nourishing our bodies, I believe obesity would not be a concern like ever. But the problem is we do not trust our own bodies. We trust the idea that a cookie is the solution for a down day or that changing the appearance of our body will make us feel happy again. Speaking of happy…and emotion.
Emotions, which may seem unrelated to our bodies, are in fact experienced as physical sensations (some call vibrations)within our bodies. Our bodies are amazing in its capabilities! Emotions of distress, which we tend to push away from because…life is all about being happy all the time, right? are actually warnings or sensations from our bodies trying to alert our minds that something is not right. For example, if we feel the sensation of anger stir within us, that is often a reaction to an injustice that we have experienced. Instead of focusing on the negative aspects of anger, if we could look at anger as our body warning us that we are going to need to exercise courage to stand up for an injustice we just witnessed. This type of thinking takes us away for reacting to an emotion and towards understanding and expanding our capacity to make a best personal choice.
The two examples of being mindful of body messages in relation to food consumption and how we experience emotion are merely a start in showing how our bodies have been underused and unappreciated. It’s like God sent us to earth to learn and grow and literally placed us within the most amazing tool box ever. Each of us have one that is uniquely designed for us and our experience. It is on the ready and with us wherever we are and in whatever circumstance we find ourselves. Trust your maker. Trust that your tool box has what you need. Listening to the sensations our body generates for us and then responding in a way that feels true to who we want to be is an illustration of bringing soul and body together. Embodiment is what, I believe, is the answer to maximizing our body/gift.
If you would like help being able to hear, trust, and translate the messages your body is sending you as well as how to quiet out messages that are not currently serving you, I would love to help you!
I am trained to help you recognize what messages are coming in for you and sift and sort and pick the very best that your mind+soul+body has to offer.
xoKathleen
