How many of you woke up with a feeling of utter gratitude today?

More importantly, how many of you thanked your body today for helping you wake up to see and enjoy a new day?

Probably not many…. It’s understandable! Life is hectic and we are always on the run!

Ways We Take Our Bodies For granted

We are mindful of our social manners. We thank one another for every favor, big or small.

Likewise, we revel in soul consciousness! We thank God.

But we lack body gratitude!

We think it is given to us to serve us!

As a result, we use it mindlessly and recklessly.

We use it like a machine!

We cheat on rest and sleep to get more mileage out of it.

We consume a lot of garbage in terms of loading up on junk food, empty calories; drinking; having a lot of fears, worries and negative emotions.

We ignore the signs of stress and wear and tear!

We keep pushing it to the maximum!

 Eventually, the body breaks down!

It falls ill, gets hurt, bruised, maimed, scarred!

When You Don’t Take Care of Your Body, You Fall Ill…

 In fact, instead of body gratitude, body shaming is inherent in most cultures, especially for women. We need to be a certain size, have a certain body shape, skin color…

And we, as women, as soul sisters, start buying this standardization of

body!

We start abusing the body beautiful, the body divine!

We do so by starving ourselves, going on fad diets and torturous exercise regimes, by robing ourselves of rest and sleep, by giving into temptations and gorging ourselves silly at the other extreme.

The body then stops serving us…. Not because it doesn’t want to. But because it can’t do so anymore. It gets utterly worn out!

We think we would stay healthy forever, until we fall seriously ill…

In Illness as Metaphor, Susan Sontag opines:

“Illness is the night side of life, a more onerous citizenship. Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship, in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we all prefer to use the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.”

Even those of us who understand the value of gratitude seem to forget that our body needs to thanked, taken care of, nurtured, nourished, revered every day.

3 Simplest Ways to Thank Your Body Everyday

If you have been guilty of not taking care of your body enough, for taking it for granted, for not thanking the body enough, here are 3 simplest ways to start doing this from today on wards:

1) Thank Your Body

Start thanking your body everyday, in smallest of the ways. Just think of everything your body does for you: breathing, digesting, even defecating and farting. Just imagine if one, even the minutest of the bodily function gets messed up, how much discomfort and pain you would be in!

Thus, start thanking your body for the ability to revive you everyday from sleep, so that you can see and feel the light. So that you can move yourself around to fulfill your own needs. This body divine helps you fuel your ambitions and serve your highest divine purpose in life.

2) Nourish Your Body

Your body needs nourishment.

It’s not just a healthy diet but also hydration.

It is also exercising.

It’s also sleep.

This means that you need to:

• Choose healthier, natural and nutritious food.
• Drink enough water.
• Nourish your skin and hair with natural and herbal products. Don’t skimp on decent sunscreen and body lotions.
• Buy good quality, smart, sensuous exercise wear and lingerie and any clothing that makes you feel inside out.
• Take nutritional supplements in consultation with your doctor.
• Give your body adequate rest everyday in terms of getting enough ZZzz every night.
• Stop pushing your body in illness.
• Consult a Dr in illness rather than opting for self-medication.

Move Your Body

Our bodies are designed for being in motion: walking, running, exercising, swimming. This means putting the cellphone down, switching off the TV, getting off the couch and going outside. Hence….

• Go to the balcony or patio and sit outside, enjoy the sun or the stars, the breeze, the skyline and the water bodies.
• Go for a brisk walk around the neighborhood.
• Grab your partner and dance.
• Join an exercise group, learn swimming, do yoga or Pilates, even meditate.
  
  Do all this so that you are able to awaken your sense of full body consciousness and body gratitude.

The Take-Aways

We don’t take care of our body and thank it enough! We don’t realize the worth of our bodies until we fall seriously ill! Undoubtedly, we need to thank our body everyday. As shown above, we can do so by taking care of our body through proper diet, nutrition, rest and exercise.