Remembering in the body

Remembering in the Body

The funny thing is,

I am never not spirit in a body.

I don’t integrate it.

I forget it.

And then I remember again.

It isn’t a matter of becoming whole—

it’s a matter of waking up

to what has always been here.

If I’m honest,

I tend to fall asleep to myself

when I’m being unkind.

Not loud unkindness.

The quiet kind.

The subtle withdrawal.

The tightening.

The small ways I abandon my body

while calling it discipline,

growth,

or goodness.

I confuse kind and nice.

I’ve been taught to.

So many of us have.

Nice says: If I behave, I’ll be rewarded.

Nice performs.

Nice negotiates.

Nice hopes to get what it wants

by staying palatable.

Kind is different.

Kind is truthful.

Kind listens.

Kind doesn’t always give the body what it wants,

but it never abandons the body either.

When I am kind,

something aligns.

My inner world quiets.

My choices feel cleaner.

Not easier—

truer.

Sometimes what the soul asks for

and what the body desires

feel like they’re pulling in opposite directions.

For a long time,

I thought this meant one of them had to be wrong.

That the body needed to be overridden

in the name of something higher.

But union doesn’t happen through rejection.

It happens through inclusion.

If the intention is union,

I move toward experience,

not away from it.

I listen more closely.

I stay.

Each moment becomes a chance

to practice surrender—

not collapse,

not force,

just willingness.

And when I forget—

because I do—

when I realize I’ve gone numb,

gone rigid,

gone asleep again,

I don’t punish myself.

I remember.

I offer it back.

Body.

Spirit.

Desire.

Confusion.

All of it.

The remembering is the practice.

And I get to begin again

as many times as it takes.