As a student of A Course in Miracles I sometimes use the phrase from the Workbook that says "I am not a body. I am free." to soothe myself away from overidentification with the physical world including my body. I have come to understand that the body is not bad or good but it has no meaning except the one we give it. It can be used for 'holy' or 'unholy' purposes. In other words it can be used to extend love or uphold the illusion of fear. It's our choice.
At the same time I am part of several growing online communities of women who value the divine feminine highly and who approch spirituality through a divine feminine perspective. In these groups the body is often looked to as a highly intelligent spiritual temple that should be celebrated and that can introduce us to our true selves if we listen to its messages.
I have found it hard to reconcile these two perspectives but after thinking about it I have found that they are very closely connected, only expressed in different ways. The Course teaches that the body can be a "beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion is". The balance is to try to not go down one of these two paths: overidentification with the world/body or denial of the world/body. Neither is useful. The former creates stress in the body that it is not built to carry and keeps us from realising who we are. The latter keeps us from expressing our full potential in this world and from extending love through the body since we deny the usefulness that the body can have if it is used for these purposes.
So how do we know if we have gone too far into one of these extremes. It says in The Course that "The ego separates through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches through it to others". The Holy Spirit meaning our inner divine guidance system from beyond the physical world that connects us with our divine selves or God. If we ask our inner guidance system, or intuition, how we are meant to use our body for the highest good, guidance will come often in the form of impulses or inspired action. It may also come as emotions, which can be felt physically. This is what listening to the body's messages mean. These messages originate from beyond the physical but is interpreted by our physical body as emotions and sometimes physical sensations.
I had an angel reading last year and the woman who did the reading told me that I need to come into my body more fully. There are different reasons why many people might shy away from fully embodying their physical bodies and fully feel through the body. They might be afraid of the repressed emotions that can come to surface if they allow themselves to be fully in the physical body. Or they might have a misguided view of spirituality that views the body as bad. She told me something along the lines of 'You are not fully in your body because you don't want to feel the feelings of being fully in a human body. Your soul is very harmonious and peaceful but you did not come here to be a lightbody. You came here to show up as a powerful being, or you would not have come here, but you need to actively engage your energy body. You need to allow yourself to ground into your body.' I had been mostly in the state of denial of the body but I know I have also experienced overidentification at times as well as balance.
Marianne Williamson refers to the balance of navigating between the physical and metaphysical worlds as 'Allowing ourselves to dwell within the illusion but carrying with us wisdom from beyond'. In other words, grounding into the physical and being fully in ones body while still knowing on a deep level that I am not of the body. The more I experience that balanced state the more I realise that there is no contradiction in honouring the body temple while still saying "I am not a body. I am free."
