Why fill your space?
As far as we know, we are the rarest thing in the universe, self-conscious life. We are the astonishing triumphant of the body, mind and spirit, each one of which is more of a miracle and mystery than the last one. These combine to create living beings through which spiritual beings are actually able to interact with the real, physical world through their mind-body. It is this spirit that animates us, it is the mysterious something pulling the ends of the strings that creates the happy illusion of life through the puppets of our bodies. It is up to you, how you play with your toys, the gifts that you have been given, it is in your control how you move, hold yourself, smile and even dance, you can amuse yourself or entertain others. However like all toys, after a while they tell a story about the owner and become a reflection of their character.
Some people, play ruthlessly with their toys and with reckless abandon, they bash them about and suck every piece of pleasure they can from them. Others cherish them, play carefully, maintain them and ingrain them with love, appreciate the wear and tear from years of good use. These are choices and in your control, there are no right and wrong answers, though your judgement will become more obvious to others as time passes by, there is no hiding these decisions which are dictated to by your character and choice of actions. Sacrifice used to be synonymous with making a choice, not giving up something, making a meaningful choice between actions that had different consequences. When we make one choice, we sacrifice the other choices but even being passive and letting life decide things for you is a choice, life will make your sacrifices for you.
There are some useful guidelines for simple choices and ways to increase the joy that can be derided from our use of our mind-bodies. Of course, the more aware you are of your body and mind, the greater your control is over it and the more information it gives you, so much so that it can fill up the entirety of your attention and awareness, if you wish it to, and ultimately if you ever give it your full awareness, it will give you enlightenment. Whilst that would be a wonderful destination, that does not mean that each incremental increase in your awareness is not worthwhile in and of itself. Just because you do not run the marathon does not mean that is not worth going for walk.
Being aware of how your body reacts to food leads quite naturally to eating better food, how you feel after eating a doughnut compared to how you feel after eating a bowl of vegetable soup is quite different. The comparison differs depending on whether you are aware of how it feels in the moment, or if you are only aware of how it feels before and after. Your level of awareness is a choice, you can be unaware at every moment of your life and instead merely listen to the commentary that your mind and ego gives you. However if you chose to be aware, it can be quite surprising, for me, I found the idea of eating a doughnut almost always feels better than actually eating of it (it is actually too sweet for me, even if the idea of it can still appeals despite the reality of my experience), and in contrast the bowl of vegetable soup always ends up making me feel better afterwards than the doughnut (though given the right circumstances, for example when I am very hungry and in need of lots of quick energy releasing food it can be amazing and joyful, which is why infants love sweet thing, they need that type of food, and how we have the memory and association that they taste so good whilst no longer being true, we just want that feeling so we try to eat ourselves there).
Though it is probably unsurprising that awareness is a good thing, you do not drive a car without paying due attention, it would be like taking your hands of the wheel, singing at the top of your voice and looking out the back window, though you always have the choice to do so. Whilst in most cases people live their lives in exactly this manner, though you have the choice to start driving and taking control over your life at any point, we have been blessed with the mind-body that have always had the self drive option, but it does not have built-in GPS to get you to where you want to go and if you do not tell it the direction you want to go, it will just go around in circle, and even worse without due care and attention it will in time break down unless you chose to cherish it.
And the best way to cherish it, is to fill it, not just with good energy, natural healthy food, but to fill it with space. It requires animation for your spirit to fully inhabit it. You can start the process, whenever you like, with a single breath through your nose and which will then naturally expand your diaphragm, you can then follow that expansion through your whole body like a bouncy castle being inflated. Your breath never has to stop with just your chest, your entire body can loosen and breathe, you can relax every muscle, let your body return to its natural state.
When you do not fully breathe, like the half inflated bouncy castle, you have creases in your structure, you have compression and tension, your muscles are contracted, your head will not be balanced in the cradle of your neck, you need a balanced body to have a balanced head. When you feel your body, your space, everything is where it should be, the body is working, your stomach will relax like a boiled egg into the egg cup of your hips, you come into balance, when you walk you start using your stomach muscles, you are stronger and this has a feed back loop into the mind it reflects the body, as the body reflects the mind, so when one is balanced the other one follows and when one is tense and under pressure, the other feels the same. And once you have it, presence with a state of grace, ease and joy, you start to see how other people tense and compress their bodies, you get to learn from them, when you notice how other hold their bodies, use that as a cue to notice your own body, it is amazing to see how many people have their shoulder pulled forward like they are hiding from the rain, their stomach are stiff, fixed and stationary, instead of breathing and pumping the lungs.
Awareness opens up a whole world of information to you, and most especially about yourself, whether that is a trap or blessing, depends on whether you are aware of it, as once you are you are able to control and use it, you gain a power that few process. When you are suffering from low energy, your body will reflect that but it is also opportunity to change it, just by stretching or taking the body for a walk, you change your energy. By taking a full breath, by fully expanding to your full space, you change your attitude, feelings and demeanour, you change your body language, and unlike words, it can only truthfully reflect your true state of mind. When you fill your space, you instantly send the message that you are happy and at ease, and other people cannot help but interpret that as confidence. That is what it means after all, that you are happy in yourself.
Inhabiting exactly the space that you are intended to occupy means that your body is able to work in exactly the way is intended to, your body is no longer trying to walk as a fully inhabited space whilst actually being compressed into a smaller space. It does not know how to walk whilst being smaller than it should be, but as soon as you return to your natural shape, your movement are able to be naturally flowing, you are able to find your natural grace, ease and joy in moving and it is delightful. You find that the body is perfectly designed to push down against the ground that is pushing up to support you, if you put your two hands together with no force they slip against each other easily, but when you push them gently together, they naturally grip to each other, and that is a gift that is given to us. The entire planet supports as and pushes us up, while our bodies pushes against it in perfect balance, they are capable of living in equal pressure between the world around it and our form, the space that is ourselves, but only when we fully occupy our space.
