The Body-Mind Connection : The mind’s physical expression is what you call the body. Change the mind, and you can change the body. That’s why your face changes when your mind is happy. It glows. People don’t see your mind, but they see your face. When your mind is unhappy, don’t they say, ‘Hey, what’s wrong?’ Why? Because the face expresses the mind. Every cell will listen to the mind and get changed according to its moods. That’s why when you are in a very depressed state, you can’t even get up or do anything. You say, ‘Oh, I can’t do a thing today. I’m so upset.’ Getting upset is in the mind. But the body and mind are interconnected. If one falls sick, the other will also fall sick. That is why we have to take care of both. -Swami Satchidananda
I came across this excerpt from Swami Satchidananda’s teachings. As the title suggests, there is a connection between the body and the mind. One affects the other. Taking care of them is vital to our well-being.
People often have opinions about others, from politics to economics, we can comment on just about anything under the sun. It’s easy to judge people and have a view about things as long as they are not us. It’s definitely a lot harder to reflect on ourselves. But what we really should be doing more is to look at ourselves, not our friends, not even our loved ones, just ourselves as individuals.
Why is that important? Well, everything starts from within. We should pay attention to our mind and body, maximise their potential and understand their connection. The primary objective should be to work on ourselves as much as possible. Once we have satisfied this individual aspect, we would then be more equipped to serve others.
Serving others from a place of strength and stability is powerful, no one really wants to deal with someone who is ‘not quite there yet’. It seems clear that working on our body and mind should be our primary goal.