Let’s face it our minds and bodies are at war with each other. They are disconnected from each other yet are lost without the other.

The mind grabs for outer knowledge in hopes to find the answer.

The body grabs for fleeting pleasure in hopes to find comfort.

But neither worldly knowledge nor outside pleasure can ever give them what they need.

So the war continues between our ears and under our noses and we act like nothing is happening.

When I first started a sitting practice, I discovered first-hand the depth of the animosity between my mind and body.

This conflict is visceral, which is why sustaining a consistent practice is so hard at the start.

This war is the first thing you notice and you’ll want NOTHING to do with it.

What’s worse is the war inside is far more intense than any war you're having in your outer life because it’s ongoing. It follows you everywhere you go, 24/7. There may be a sense of relief in focusing on the dramas in your outer life but it's only temporary.

On one side of the boxing ring, my mind detested my body...

1) physically - there are too many features to list on what my mind hated about my body but it included being too short, too weak, too slow, to name just a few

2) emotionally - feeling anything was unacceptable…there was no time for it…for years, I rarely cried. And anger...out of the question

3) viscerally - any sensation felt too intense so I avoided anything that put me outside of my comfort zone.

It seemed easier for my mind to deny all this by cranking up the volume on its inner chatter and drowning it out with the noise in her outer world.

The busier the better was her modus operandi (m.o.).

My mind was a busy bee moving from one thing to another without taking the time to pause because that would mean I’d have to feel things.

Feeling was a dangerous sensation for my mind so running and floating away as far as possible from my body seemed like the better choice.

On the other side of the ring, my body withdrew from my mind because my mind had made a career of dragging my body through life with a complete disregard for what it needed.

My body was a slave to my mind and my body was NOT happy.

She was pissed.

Then I found out I was unable to have children.

Everything changed.

My body finally got my mind’s attention.

I was faced with the harsh truth that I had abused my body through years of neglect, disrespect and denial. My body was inferior to a mind that believed it was the centre of the universe.

Then I made a different choice.

Stop. Pause. Shut up. Sit still. Listen.

When my mind and body came together through a quiet practice for the first time, it was explosive.

My mind was so loud and relentless, rambling on and on about everything and anything.

It was verbal diarrhea.

My mind had grown so used to being the centre of attention, it didn’t yet have the humility to take a step down from the stage and let something else take the lead.

My body was just as unforgiving with its accumulated tensions from years of stress and neglect, so it wasn't going to let my mind in that easy.

My body was in a constant state of contraction because it had learned to shrink away from life, never feeling worthy of any attention.

There was a wall between them.

But I kept at it.

Little by little my mind would get quiet and my body would soften.

Then the brief moments when the fireworks would stop and I’d enter into the space between the raucous.

These moments of quiet were very rare at the beginning and they didn’t last long, sometimes only a second or two, but that infinitesimal moment was a sensation I'd never felt before.

My mind and body found their way to each other.

No longer separated on opposing sides of the ring.

The wall started to crumble.

And there was something else but difficult to capture in words...

I was overcome by a feeling of Love, different from the love with another person.

It was internal and and external at the same time.

It was like falling in love with myself, my mind, my body and everything around me.

It was unconditional. It was effortless.

Nothing in me and in my life needed to change.

It was all far from perfect yet I loved it all the same.

Those moments are the flicker of inspiration that bring me back to my practice again and again.

Today those moments are expanding…finding their way into my daily life.

My mind is becoming a reflection of my body. My body is becoming a reflection of my mind.

So that has ignited the love affair between my mind and body.

Like any love affair, they still fight but they always find their way back to each other to “cuddle” in my quiet practice.