The Secret Wisdom of a Woman’s Body: Freeing Yourself To Live Passionately and Age Fearlessly
by Pat Samples
Summary
Pat Samples counters America’s fixation on youth with a revolutionary approach to midlife and aging. She teaches women how to love and listen to their aging bodies—as libraries of their lifetime of experience—so they can draw upon the emotional and spiritual wisdom available there. By appreciating and learning to trust the body as a teacher, women can find healing from grief, stress, anger, addiction, and other painful issues. Featuring practical exercises and fun activities, this remarkable guide to body wisdom will also inspire self-exploration, spark creativity, rejuvenate your spirit, and ease the fear of aging.
Excerpt
Every Friday morning, I gather with a group of women in their mid-forties and older for a creative dance session called Free Motion. Guided only by my occasional prompts and ethereal melodies from a CD, we all swirl, sway, bend, roll, and tumble wordlessly in our own way, luxuriating in the pleasure of our bodies moving freely. The experience is meditative and playful, relaxing and refreshing. When we’re finished, we sit silently in a circle, still in a somewhat dreamlike state after slipping away from our thoughts and letting ourselves be moved by our bodies. We try to put into words something of what has happened for us.
Recently, Cecilia—a newcomer with long, stringy gray hair and a deeply wrinkled smile—spoke slowly into the silence: “Right from the beginning, when we were just lying there on the floor and starting to move, I thought to myself: where have I been?!” She added, “Everything in me kind of shook loose.” It was as if she had left home for a long time and finally found her way back—to her body, to the home of her spirit. After a moment of quiet, she sighed deeply and continued, “We’re so busy all the time doing so many things that seem so important, and they aren’t really that important.”…
What does it mean to live in your body? How does it feel? How do you know you’re alive?
Knowing starts with the simple act of paying attention. We routinely pay attention to our body in certain ways every day. We bathe, fix our hair, and trim our nails to keep our body clean and looking attractive. We eat to stave off hunger, ideally eating what is nourishing. Many of us exercise to keep in shape, and we schedule a massage now and then. We may take medications and supplements or follow other procedures to deal with specific health problems. So far, so good. That covers basic body care and maintenance—even some all-important self-nurturing activities.
But how alive do we feel as we go through these experiences? How conscious are we? How present are we?
Check this out for yourself. Do you hurriedly grab a bite to eat? Do you use the speakerphone so you can set up an appointment or share gossip while brushing your hair and putting on your makeup? Are you rushing through your body care as a necessary chore so you can get on to other things? Or are you fully, consciously, lovingly present when you’re tending to your body? If you’re like many people, you may give your body only passing attention when you’re taking care of it. And during the rest of the day, you may barely be aware of living in your body at all. What about right now? Notice your experience of your body at this moment. Are you “in” your body as you read this book? Or are you completely unaware of your sensations, your urges, your vitality?
Reviews
"will help readers tap 'the emotional brilliance' of the aging body" Publishers Weekly body
"truly inspirational" The Phoenix
Author's Biography
Pat Samples is a writer, speaker, and transformational educator on conscious aging, body wisdom, and creative living. She has given more than 400 keynote and workshops, helping people discover and make use of the wisdom within themselves so they can have peace of mind and experience a sense of freedom.