You are not your body

It is through your personality that you identify with your body. You experience its activities through thoughts, which you locate in your head, and your personality reasons that since he identifies with your body, you áre a body. I describe your inner Self as an experience which is not specifically located somewhere in your body. Now what are you really then?

To your personality, identifying with a body is the ultimate way to establish its basis for existence, which is: being separate from other people. This starts with the evidence, which is very convincing in his opinion, that since your body can be perceived as a separate identity, this proves that you are separate from other people. Now it is hard to doubt this, since it matches the input you get from the senses of that same body. So this leaves the way open to project all kinds of things on this body, like needs, laws, what you should feel, what is necessary to be healthy, how it should look, etc.

Given to your personality, he will use your body for a start to create a self image. So this means that looks are likely to become an issue for example. It also has to survive, so issues like health, safety, etc., become interesting as well. The body thus inspires all kinds of do's and don'ts, fears, ideas of vulnerability etc. It is very easy to use the body as a source of fear, guilt or anxiety, you will always fail to live up to some of the issues that you considered to be good for it. Thus allowing your personality to jump in to "rescue" you.

Let's attempt to enter some doubt into this seemingly tight evidence. What if your body were in itself a neutral piece of equipment. Equipment does not have a life of its own, it is used by someone or something. Like always, there are two possibilities, who uses it and what for. When you give it to your personality, it will be used to maintain and uphold the idea that you are a separate being, trapped in a body. When you offer it to your inner Self, it will be used to release you from this idea.

Your personality is very good at reversing cause and effect. He can make you believe that a need or lack can arise from the body, like the need for a cigarette, and convince you that this need has to be met. Now consider what it would mean to you when this need would have been introduced in your mind by your personality, and that your body only obeys this thought by expressing the appropriate signals.

And if this were true for the idea of a need, why shouldn't this apply also for physical issues. Why would the pain in your back or head nót have been mentally created first and then projected onto the body. This idea may be hard to accept since you cannot imagine why you would want to hurt yourself in the fist place. On the other hand, a body with a life of its own is a nice way to avoid responsibility with regard to this aspect. Being sick, being in pain, is unpleasant, and this allows your personality to use almost all your attention in order to deal with it and come up with appropriate solutions, while giving all this the highest priority. This makes sure that there is none or almost none attention span available to even suspect all this and try to find the actual cause. In another column here on the site I have written more about sickness as a defence against the process of growing awareness, and in various other columns you may find this idea to be in line with the characteristics of your personality. It is one of his more extreme ways in which he protests against having to give in to your increasing awareness of your inner Self, and trying to convince you to put him back in charge again.

You may notice that your personality strongly limits your awareness when he does this. Even in minor situations like getting an appetite for something. Next time you find yourself getting an appetite, notice how your awareness seems to be limited to the extent where you only seem to be able to focus on fulfilling the need. Only once you have done so, your full awareness is restored and you are likely to feel more or less guilty, since only then you become fully aware of all the arguments why you should have certain experiences again and you will entertain them as usual, whereas it seemed until the need was met that they somehow were not valid or interesting enough to deal with.

Once your awareness on these things increases, this is also becoming increasingly unpleasant for your personality, since now one of his important tools to restore the balance in a way that fancies him, is now put to question. So be not surprised to find yourself facing huge feelings of guilt, anger and such, in a last attempt to try to turn the tide of your increasing awareness in his favour. Put your mind at ease by realizing that this is not about blaming or guilt, but it is about becoming aware of the real basis of whatever happens in your life and its principles. Whether or not you are ready to fully let go of applying this principle is not interesting in itself, this will naturally follow from your understanding, which is likely to increase step by step.

Your personality likes to assign "causes" to something outside himself, like labelling some ingredients as toxic or addictive. And yet: the one person gets sick from smoking, the other person does not. One person recovers from a certain illness (this may be even in a miraculous way), another person doesn't. One person can eat all they want without gaining weight, the other person becomes thick from drinking water. Now is this chance, exceptional, or is it less of an inexplicable situation than your personality would have you believe? Your personality has made and accepted a belief system which is based on averages, this allows exceptions to occur without shaking the vestiges of the thought system they violate. However, when something is universally true, it is true always. When only one person demonstrates that what was to be believed a truth in itself can be changed, then it is not a universal law. However, this would imply that your personality is wrong on the subject, which is likely to cause immense counteractions.

You can practice to become aware of the goals for which your personality uses your body. Simply ask yourself regularly: what am I using the body for right at this very moment. Do I use it to strengthen the idea that I am a personality, a separated being. Or do I use it to become aware of that and to let go of this idea. Remember this may be such an alien approach to your regular thought system, that it is likely to take quite some time and effort in order to really accept this idea.

When you find yourself dealing with a bodily issue, do whatever you believe you have to do on the physical level, however, also use it to become aware of the way in which your personality uses it for his own strengthening. No longer believe that this is a truth in itself. It is not "wrong" to use your body for personality purposes, not only is "wrong" an interpretation and therefore a personality tool, this is what personalities do. This is not about preventing these situations from happening, it is about using them for becoming aware as described here. You can learn to see it for what it is, find that it does not bring you what you are really looking for, and allow the alternative to enter your awareness.