"Take care of yourself. Take care of others. Purify your mind."
I felt my lungs fill with air. I held it there, conscious of the stretch in my lungs. The sensation was calming, as if my body was thanking me. I stood, waiting. I knew I was facing the wall even though my eyes were closed. Intending to turn. Intending to turn. Intending to turn. Turning. Turning. Turning... I felt my heel rise, my weight shifted as I rolled to the ball of my foot, then my big toe. I lifted my toe off the ground, turned my foot 45º, and placed it back down as intentionally as I lifted it. After repeating this six times, I knew I had turned completely around and now faced the other side of the room. Intending to walk. Intending to walk... Air is filling my lungs, air is leaving... Thinking... Thinking... Intending to walk... I felt my core tense as I lifted my foot, slowly. Walking...
The soft voice of our new friend signaled the end of our meditation practice. We settled on our cushions, orienting ourselves so we could each see him. His eyes are peaceful, content. Lines from laughter and smiles outline his face, appearing and disappearing as he speaks, reminding us to enjoy life. "This body is all we have," he says, "so we need to take care of it." This idea is one many cultures hold. But what does that look like to take care of yourself? What can other cultures teach us about taking care of ourselves? My time in Thailand provided the space for me to explore exactly that.
For our monk friend, taking care of oneself looked like awareness. That is, awareness of where you are, what you're feeling and thinking, and what is happening around you. It is recognizing the past and the future, and in so doing, bringing yourself back to the present. Further, it is the allowance to do these things. We allow ourselves to feel whatever it is we are feeling. We allow our mind to wander. But by recognizing our actions, our thoughts, our feelings, our state of being, we simultaneously bring ourselves back to the present and permit ourselves to be where we are in that moment.
Meditation equipped us with a way to recenter, something so desperately needed in the crazy, noisy, busy world we live in. It reminded me of the importance of internal peace, and health, the necessity of re-centering, and the freedom in acknowledging and allowing yourself to feel and be.
During my time here I also learned about physical self-care. I know you're thinking, "Yeah, yeah. Eat greens and all that stuff." Well, actually, while "all that stuff" is important, that's not the only way to take care of your body, your being, yourself.
In America, when we think about health, our culture focuses on the achievement of an ideal. We don't acknowledge or allow ourselves to be where we are, and we constantly strive, envy, or yearn for something different. Further, because we don't allow or acknowledge where we are presently, we don't often always take care of ourselves until we reach our ideal.
Just as every culture is unique, in Thailand it's different. There, they focus on physical self-care as well as mental. One of the most cultural things to do is a massage. We thoroughly enjoyed taking part of this aspect of culture as much as we could in a single week, and while that was rather gluttonous, it proved to be a valuable learning experience. It showed us the importance of taking care of ourselves where we are now. Just because you might not like the way you look doesn't mean you should neglect yourself.
Here's my proposition:
Take a more holistic view of self-care. Recognize where you are right now. In this moment. Find joy in the gifts of your senses, intellect, and spirit. Allow yourself to feel happy, sad, angry, everything at once or even nothing at all. Chase rabbit trails in your head, reminisce on the past, and dream about the future. Because wherever you are, you are exactly where you're supposed to be and everything that implies. So, allow yourself to be there. And while you're there, take care of the one thing you will always have during your time on this beautiful planet we share.
Salaam,
Anna
