Although I am not a religious Christian (if anything I’m Jew-‘ish’) I resonated with the following quote:
We are not so much human beings trying to become spiritual. We’re already inherently spiritual beings and our job is learning how to be good humans! I believe that’s why Jesus came as a human being: not to teach us how to go to heaven, but to teach us how to be a fully alive human being here on this earth.
Written by Franciscan monk, Richard Rohr, it reminds us that being alive is a uniquely spiritual gift - one that we often forget or take for granted.
I’ve compiled the following list to remind myself how I can be ‘a fully alive human being’:
Enable and enhance my ‘physical intelligence’
When I was 24 I spent a month in Tel Aviv. Every morning I would take the number 10 bus at 8.45am to get into the centre of town. Waiting at the bus stop I encountered the same white-haired, elderly man who traveled a short while on the bus with me. Reflecting on this now fills me with a warmth and awe for the way this chance encounter gently changed the direction of my life and profoundly impacted the way I relate to my life...
At the time I was an ambitious, stubborn and confused (!) documentary filmmaker. From the outside everything looked fine: I had a job making art history documentaries and I had time to pursue my own projects. But on the inside I felt very lost: I questioned everything I was doing and constantly compared my choices to everyone around me. I was obsessed with whether or not I was doing ‘the right thing’ in life, which left no time to enjoy it.
It was an exhausting and disempowering way to be. Meeting Uri - the old man at the bus stop - and eventually training with him to be an Alexander Technique teacher was transformative. The practice with him enabled me to quiet and control my paralysing overthinking. It allowed me to return to a wonderfully embodied state of being through the release of built up muscular tension, better breathing and ease of movement.
Very early on in my training I discovered that I could access what I call my ‘physical intelligence’. This ability to re-balance, heal and re-energise was facilitated by the hands on ‘work’ or touch of a teacher. Over time, it gradually opened me up to myself and the incredible physical and intuitive senses that exist within me (and every human being). My experience of simple moments such as walking down the street or sipping a cup of tea were no longer mindless but colourful sensory experiences. I became wonderfully curious and observant of the different sensations within myself. This ‘physical intelligence’ also taught me to become acutely aware of my physical boundaries, which in turn led me to create emotional boundaries in my life. Doing so has been essential for maintaining balance and vitality. Instead of giving away my energy to people or places that didn’t feel worthy of it, I started to protect and contain it, allowing me to be far more efficient, intentional and alive!
Create more than you consume
One of the biggest gifts my mother gave me was her encouragement to explore my creativity. This has taken many different forms: making up games with my siblings, filmmaking, dancing, making paper-dolls and scrap-booking. For me, teaching has also become a creative practice. Whether I’m leading a yoga class or collage workshop or private bodywork session, I enjoy the opportunity to deliver ideas or experiences in a way that feels individualised and uniquely me. I have been amazed to see that practicing something formally associated with creativity, like collage-making, has profound healing effects. But being creative doesn’t look the same for everyone: one of my best friends channels her creativity through the way she dresses, my parents-in-law create the most delicious and cosy family meal times, and one of my sisters finds the process of finding thoughtful and personalised gifts a fulfilling expression of her creativity.
In Hebrew, the word for ‘healing’ shares the same root as the word for ‘creation’. I have experienced and witnessed that living in alignment with our creativity opens ourselves to healing on many levels.
Practice contemplation
For me, contemplation is a way of listening with my heart instead of relying entirely on my head. It is a state of being in which I can trust my intuition and have faith that taking action from a place of alignment rather than force leads me in the right direction. The different bodywork and creative practices I have collected over the last decade are crucial tools for my ability to be contemplative. They allow me to be here, now. Instead of living in the regrets and nostalgia of the past or the hopes and fears for the future, relaxing and letting go allow me to enjoy and be open to my life as it is in this moment. From my experience so far, this feels like pure freedom.
Community
A balance of being alone and being with people is absolutely essential for my well-being and vitality. Having time on my own to tune inwards, reflect and relax is restorative. But communing with friends and family (and over the last year complete strangers who are new mothers like me) is energising and at times life-affirming.
5. Sit in the dark
Estelle Frankel, a psychotherapist and rabbi, explains in her book ‘Sacred Therapy’ that:
‘All life moves in cycles from darkness into light, from contraction into expansion, brokenness into wholeness.’
As a young adult I was terrified of my darkness. I felt embarrassed and ashamed of the parts that felt messy and unresolved. I wanted to escape my confusion and avoid the challenges that could expose my vulnerability. As a new mother I recognise a tendency I have to protect my daughter from difficult experiences - imagining her suffering causes me overwhelming pain. But I want to find a way to teach her that in order to understand the light, we must also understand darkness. We cannot have one without the other.
‘There is no greater light,’ quotes Frankel from The Zohar, a mystical Jewish text, ‘than that light which emerges out of the greatest darkness.’