The Wisdom of your Body

Your body is a field of intelligent wisdom that is speaking to you all the time, and yet if you are like most people, you don’t live in your body so you can’t hear its wisdom.  Here are some of the key wisdom areas in your body:

Wisdom of your Heart
Until the 1990s, we were taught by science that the brain sent information and commands to the heart but now we know that it works both ways.  In fact, the heart’s complex intrinsic nervous system, the heart brain, is an intricate network of several types of neurons, neurotransmitters, proteins and support cells, like those found in the brain proper. Research has shown that the heart communicates to the brain in several major ways and acts independently of the cranial brain.

One important way the heart can speak to and influence the brain is when the heart is coherent – generating a stable, sine-wavelike pattern in its rhythms. When the heart rhythm is coherent, the body, including the brain, begins to experience all sorts of benefits, among them greater mental clarity and intuitive ability, including better decision-making.

When we experience sincere positive emotions, such as caring, compassion or appreciation, the heart processes these emotions and the heart’s rhythm becomes more coherent and harmonious. This info is sent to the brain and impacts the entire body neurologically, biochemically, biophysically and energetically!

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive. – Dalai Lama​

Wisdom of your Gut
Our guts have such a rich capacity for registering right and wrong. You've heard the phrases 'trust your gut', 'gut instinct', 'gut feelings'?  Well we do have a brain in our belly and its an equally potent metabolic force!  As it turns out, gut thoughts and feelings are not a fanciful notion but a physiological fact. Science recognises that we have two brains - with the lesser known one being the digestive tract. The enteric nervous system (ENS) is a rich and complicated network of neurons and neurochemicals that sense and control events in other parts of the body, including the brain. Amazingly, when scientists finally counted the number of nerve cells in the gut-brain, they found it contained over one hundred million neurons – more than the number of nerve cells in the spinal chord. This is another huge source of potentially untapped intelligence!

What’s fascinating to note is that researchers have observed a greater flow of neural traffic from the ENS to the head-brain than from the head-brain to the ENS. In other words, rather than the head informing the digestive system what to eat and how to metabolize, the locus of command is stationed in the belly.  So next time, you have a gut instinct, don't override it, use the wisdom of your gut!

Wisdom of your Bones
The ancient Hawaiians believed your mana, your life force, was held in the bones.  They believed each bone held wisdom that could be useful in addressing pain or dis-ease in your life.  Considering the adult human skeletal system consists of 206 bones, that is a lot of potential wisdom! 

Bones can be considered a dynamic energy structure charged with sacred and symbolic power and functioning, each with its own need to be present, its ‘own’ dream. Bones are the most solid part of us; our skeletal structure gives us form and structure.  You could argue that it is our very foundation.  Here we can find the wisdom of support, protection, movement, storage and building reserves (if we but listen). When everything is in synchrony, the ‘sound’ is crystal clear and the bones speak of a more profound healing.   Our bones have a clarity of communication whose voice is often not really heard.

Wisdom of your Head
Wisdom is our individual ability to think, understand and act using experience and insight to make rational decisions. Wisdom is NOT an inborn ability. In order to gain wisdom, we must nurture some specific skills and accumulate experience over the years. 

Increased attention allows us to consider more aspects of a complex problem leading to a wiser decision. Practising the skills of attention over time, resisting distraction, holding goals in mind, and controlling what we attend to, can help all of us make wiser decisions.

Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won’t come in.” – Isaac Asimov

Wisdom of your Feet and Legs
​It is our legs and feet that reflect our feelings about our own direction, and whether it is the right one or not. When the direction we are going in is uncertain or fraught with conflict, this can be seen in the movement we make as we walk. There is a big difference between taking small uncertain steps and taking large confident strides; or one person may trip and stumble as they go, while another may move purposefully and gracefully.

Take some time to listen to the inherent wisdom in your feet and legs so that you can “put your best foot forward” as you step into the world with courage and confidence.

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