'Out of the body' in a different way

In my post ‘Vegetable, Animal and Human People’ I spoke about the importance of gaining greater awareness of your soul. Today I’m contemplating how many of us (oh ok, me) need to be more aware of our bodies.

In the series of meditations I’m doing at the moment (I’m using Headspace), there is an emphasis of staying aware of the body as much as possible while awake. At the moment the meditation is requiring only that I am aware of my body whenever I go from sitting to standing, or vice-versa, or from movement to stillness. I have been trying to do this for over a week now, and haven’t succeeded even once.

A few days ago, my close friend and yoga teacher, Lorraine, advised me to check, just before I got out of bed each morning, which nostril I was breathing the most strongly through. If it were the left, then I should put my left foot on the floor first; if the right nostril, then the right foot first. She advised this would help to keep me aware of my body throughout the rest of the day as well.

I’ve not succeeded in even managing that yet either!!

I am so unaware of my body generally that, when I take my clothes off each night I always find new bruises, and have no idea how I got them. And I’ve nothing against physical exercise, except I find it so boring, unless it involves dancing, or is yoga, where you have to use your head as well. (The fibromyalgia is ruling out such exercise at the moment anyway.)

Spiritual advisers often tell us that we should pay full attention to what we are doing, including physical tasks, and I do understand why they say that. It is spiritually good practice to 'stay in the moment'. But I dislike doing any sort of housework or manual work unless there’s something absorbing on the radio, or I can follow a particularly interesting train of thought, (in which case, pen and paper have to be nearby as well.) I could not bear the tedium of such work otherwise. I know that other people manage to train themselves to get satisfaction out of feeling their muscles working while doing such tasks, or take pleasure in the finished results. I’ve somehow missed out on both.

However, we are embodied creatures, not just brains moving around with our bodies hanging beneath us, as Ken Wilber once said. I have a feeling this might be something he knows about, as a philosopher, i.e. a worker with his head. He advises all to include physical exercise in their daily spiritual practice.

I wonder if singing counts?