Treating the Body Like an Elder
A meditation on the wisdom of the body
Nietzsche said, “There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy.”
I believe that. I believe our bodies are naturally connected to the spiritual and physical realms in ways that our brains just aren’t. But it’s difficult to tap into this wisdom. At least it is for me.
I’m hard on my body. I expect a lot of it. I often feel I need to choose between taking care of it and taking care of myself in any other way. I’m often embarrassed by my body. In other words, I have a very human relationship with my body, especially living in late-stage capitalism.
I write all this to say that what follows isn’t from a “master” of the wisdom of the body, but from someone who is actively working on how to better listen to and learn from the body.
A while back, it struck me: what if I treated my body like an elder? What would change in how I approach it and listen to it? Here’s a little of what it looks like for me.
There is more wisdom in your body than in your deepest philosophy
Nietzche
1. Treating your body with affectionate respect
Since we live with our bodies 24/7, it’s useful to think about it as an elder that you have a very intimate relationship with, one that leads to a sort of affectionate respect.
Some of you might be lucky enough to have (or have had) relationships with elders that feel this way. People whose presence is physically comforting to be around and with whom, you have nurturing access to their bodies, and vice versa.
I haven’t had that for a long time. Long enough, that I can’t remember what it felt like. So for me, it’s a useful exercise to imagine what kind of affectionate and respectful relationship I’d want to have with an elder. I imagine a sense of safety and awe in their presence. I imagine mutual care and joy. Then I reflect on what it would take to build this kind of relationship with my body.
Reflection questions: What does affectionate respect look like to you? How an you honor your body as you would an elder?
2. Tempering expectations with compassion
For me, one of the lessons that separated childhood from young adulthood was really understanding the fallibility of people I love and respect. I stopped expecting them to be perfect, but I didn’t stop loving or respecting them. (This isn’t true of abusive elders.)
I know I’m not alone in having more compassion for others than I have for myself. This is very true of my body, as well. I place expectations on it that I wouldn’t place on someone else’s body. In this way, personifying my body as an elder helps me cultivate more compassion for it — a means of nurturing self-love.
Reflection questions: What would you expect an elder that you love to be capable of physically or mentally? What would you judge them for? What would you not judge them for that you tend to judge yourself for — especially your body?
3. Interpreting the wisdom of the body
The best mentors or teachers don’t tell someone what to do. They offer guidance to help us make better decisions for ourselves. To best learn from elders, we have to internalize their guidance and allow it to change our perspective. But we also have to decide what’s most useful and relevant to us — we have to keep our agency and not just blindly follow someone else’s guidance.
Our relationship between our mind, heart, and body is a lot like that. They offer a chorus of desires and opinions to consider together.
I think it’s quite easy to misinterpret what our bodies are trying to say. It’s like anything else: interpreting a sacred text, tarot cards, a message from a lover — it’s easy to read into it what we want.
Understanding its wisdom requires deep listening and true contemplation of its language and its connection to the world.
Reflection questions: What signals does your body often give you and is there another interpretation? What would deeper listening of your body look like to get beyond the normal noise of the day-to-day?
Our Bodies as Connections to Our Ancestors
The meditation I’ve been writing about is a creative exercise. But, Lama Rod Owens takes it a step further in his book New Saints. He writes about how, on a physical level, our bodies connect us to our genetic ancestors:
My body is ancient. Not ancient as in old but ancient as in my body holds countless lifetimes of data in the form of DNA traced allt he way back to the earliest organisms and even further back to the stars all organic beings descend from. My body is more ancient than any system of violence created to tame it. How do I trust my body’s ancient intuitive wisdom? I pray to my ancestors, as well as the sacred earth called the Mother and the sacred sky called the Father to hold me as I make this journey back into my body to excavate the care and to free my body from imaginations of violence.
I recommend the full chapter on the body in which Owens talks about giving the body the resources it needs to “partner with us to do liberation work.”
Related Resources
My podcast episode with Tristan Taormino on Cultivating Intuition
Tara Brach’s podcast episode Awakening Our Body’s Awareness
Join Us for Midwest Love Fest
If you’re near Indianapolis in August, I’ll be joining Bianca Alba, a.k.a. Venus Starfruit, to present on how to be spiritually polyamorous. We’ll also be leading an interactive session about spiritual intimacy, including a reflection on the body as an elder. Learn more and get tickets here.
Painting by MikeBaut27
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