Exercises to Connect to Your Body

Who is your closest friend? You might think of the people coming in and out of your life when answering this question, but maybe your best friend is always with you on this journey.

Personally, I consider my body to be my closest friend, my best buddy, since it is always there for me 24 hours a day, never apart for even a second. It is my greatest asset in life.

While my soul is my substance, my body is the precious vessel containing that soul. Without bodies, our souls cannot affect material reality. It is because they have bodies that our souls can interact with other people and things—experiencing, feeling, expressing, creating, and growing. The body is truly the partner of the soul.

We are always enmeshed with our bodies, but how much time do we spend concentrating solely and entirely on them. Most of the time, our consciousness is focused outside of ourselves or immersed in our thoughts. Countless bits of external information enter through our eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and skin, constantly stirring up thoughts and feelings. Our ability to focus on the body drops as busy thoughts whirl around in our heads.

Why is connecting with the body important? Our soul exists in our body—or, to be more precise, in our chest. To connect with the soul in our heart, our mind must come into our body. And if we don’t have good communication with our body, it’s difficult to hear our body’s voice telling us what it needs to be healthy.

Connecting with the body means calling our awareness into our body by focusing entirely on it. There are many different methods for doing this, like walking or exercising by consciously moving the body as in yoga, tai chi, or qigong. Even during such practices, however, it’s easy for your mind to look outward; you look at the scenery or other people, or think about this and that. It’s an important part of the practice to catch yourself and recognize where your awareness is focused. Once you do, you can bring it inside the body once again. Focusing on the body’s feeling while exercising, either physical or energetic sensations, helps keep your attention inside you.

I’ve devised many training methods and movements for connecting with the body. Two I consider the simplest and most effective are Toe Tapping and Belly Button Healing.

These movements are so simple that you can learn them in a minute, but within their simplicity are hidden profound principles. For both of these exercises you repeat simple motions, creating a frequency. Nothing is more effective than vibrational frequencies for calming a brain filled by continuous, buzzing thoughts, and for calling awareness into the body.

You have probably experienced this in your daily life. What do you do to put a baby to sleep? You hold it in your arms while bouncing it gently up and down, pat it rhythmically on the chest with the palm of your hand, or rock its cradle. Those repetitive motions create comfortable vibrations that eventually put the baby to sleep.

And this works for grown-ups, too. Have you ever sat in a rocking chair, your mind gradually growing calmer as you rocked back and forth? Or sometimes, when your mind is anxious and impatient, you shake your legs without even realizing it, or stand up and pace back and forth. Such repetitive movements help relax your tension and release your anxious thoughts and feelings. Amazingly, our bodies do these things automatically. That’s probably because we were created so that our bodies and brains are automatically relaxed by comfortable, repetitive vibrations.

Toe Tapping and Belly Button Healing have another thing in common besides repetitive vibration, and that’s breathing. Vibrate repetitively for a while, and before you know it you’ll find yourself exhaling through your mouth. By repeatedly tapping your toes or pressing your belly button, you’ll discover that you’re continuously exhaling the energy that had stagnated inside you, stifling you—the energy of thought and emotion.

After driving out your body’s stagnant energy this way, you replenish yourself with clear, clean energy by controlling your breath, making it smooth, even, and deep. It’s amazing how comfortable and deep breathing becomes through these exercises. Thoughts and emotions grow calm, and you start to feel life itself through your breath.

Toe Tapping

1. Lie in a comfortable position with your legs straight and the insides of your heels touching.
2. Bring your feet together so that the inside of your big toes tap each other.
3. Then use your entire leg, up to your hip, to swing your feet outward in an arc until your little toes tap the floor. Try to keep your heels together as you do this.
4. Repeat these motions. Find a comfortable rhythm.
5. As you do Toe Tapping, keep your awareness on the sensation of your toes.
6. Exhale any tension you have out your mouth.
7. Try at least 100 taps, but you can do Toe Tapping for five minutes or more.

Belly Button Healing

1. Use a tool or your fingers to repeatedly and gently press your navel over your clothing.
2. Relax your shoulders and abdomen as you press. You do not have to press in deeply.
3. Focus your awareness on the sensations in your abdomen.
4. Press more gently if you experience some pain or discomfort. Simply rub your abdomen or press around instead of directly on the belly button if it’s too painful.
5. Practice at least 100 presses or for five minutes or more.

Practicing either or both of these exercises daily will help you experience what it means for your mind to stay completely in your body. I especially recommend doing them after waking up and before going to sleep.

Next week, I’ll show you how to connect to your soul through meditation. Sign up for my newsletter below if you want this information sent directly to your Inbox.

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