There are lots of ways of approaching the subject of caring for the human body, some more helpful than others. It’s not an enemy, you know. The body is more innocent than we realize. Physically speaking, we can think of the body as the embodiment or expression of thought. It’s like a canvas upon which is projected the best and the worst of what we accept as influences in our lives.
This could explain why the seven sins of anger, lust, greed, sloth, gluttony, envy, and pride are considered so deadly. They wreak havoc on minds and bodies. Whereas studies show that patience, purity, generosity, joy, balance, gratitude, and selflessness are influences that tend toward better health. We shouldn’t be surprised to see that bodies improve through the kind, gentle means of upgrading and spiritualizing our thoughts.
During marathon training in 2009, I lost sight of something important: that my body is innocent and highly obedient to the images I project upon it. We tend to think that it’s the body acting up when actually the body is naturally responding to whatever we’re allowing to influence it. Latent fears of injury, of weakness, of limited capacity, made me approach my body in a very unstable fashion. I was increasingly treating my body like a disobedient child. I was either too hard on it, or I would give up and let it run the show. Consequently, I started to be plagued by aches, pains, limitations, and injuries that were taking away from the joy of training.
Then I had a revelation that completely changed my approach, ultimately freeing me up to fulfill my potential as a runner. It was quite simple.
Man’s true body is spiritual and not divided up into parts—with some bits cooperating and others not. When I said earlier that the body is innocent, I wasn’t speaking of the compilation of material substance commonly thought of as body. Body, approached spiritually, is a divine concept expressing the thoughts of God toward His creation—including freedom, grace, animation, activity, and joy that never change or end.
When chronic knee pain arose, which appeared to be the result of overtraining and unbalanced workouts, my first effort to readjust my schedule, take more breaks, and add more cross-training (biking, walking, and so on) did little to help. Running wasn’t fun anymore. So one morning I prayed to rediscover my joy and to know if I should stop training altogether. As I prayed, I realized that I had let certain fears about my capacities get the better of me. My workouts were fear-heavy and joy-light. I felt responsible for forcing my body to behave and was going to extraordinary lengths to control it through food intake, sleep, and demanding training.
The idea came to take on a more spiritual view of body, and to talk to it as if it were a child. It was funny really. I was really talking to my “self.” But I did turn to those knees one morning and say, “Come along kids! We’re going running today! Every aspect of my body loves to do what comes naturally, and today it’s natural and normal to have a happy, joyous run!” That morning run saw the end of the knee pain, a problem which never recurred again during the rest of the marathon training.
A child doesn’t become innocent and obedient through abuse and control. Both innocence and obedience are natural in children, and the tender encouragement of what comes naturally is much more effective in helping them bring it out. It’s not so different with the body.
In her textbook on spirituality’s impact on health, Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “Mind, not matter, is causation. A material body only expresses a material and mortal mind. A mortal man possesses this body, and he makes it harmonious or discordant according to the images of thought impressed upon it. You embrace your body in your thought, and you should delineate upon it thoughts of health, not of sickness. You should banish all thoughts of disease and sin and of other beliefs included in matter. Man, being immortal, has a perfect indestructible life” (Science and Health, pp. 208–209).
The Apostle Paul also offered an insight into righting an imbalanced, limited sense of body when he wrote to the Romans: “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Rom. 12:1).
Embrace your body and lift it up through the holy influence of spiritual concepts. Recognize it as essentially innocent and the product of your best spiritual thoughts which originate in Mind, God. Instead of mentally or physically beating down the body, let spirituality reform your sense of body. It can. As a loyal expression of your spirituality, your body can be protected from negative, morbid influences. Go after the thoughts, fears, and behaviors that would limit your expression of body, but don’t accuse the body of being self-acting when it really is not. Accept your body as obedient. See the human form as merely a symbol of all that is right and good and permanent in your expression of God. Then you’ll no longer think of it or treat it as an enemy.
