Ideally I don’t have a mind and a body. I have a self--or a bodymind--where it is all integrated.

Ideally, I don’t have a mind fighting body or a body fighting mind. I don’t have a body saying “I’m hungry” and a mind saying “Fat pig--you’d better not eat that.” Ideally I experience hunger and look for food that answers the needs of my body. All elegantly coordinated.

The brief times I worked with people in prison, I was most struck by the mind/body split. The denial of having been angry or hurt or having sexual feeling--and the crimes that had been committed that were evidence of anger, hurt, and sexual hunger run amok.

Ideally, my bodymind is my friend, my way to experience life fully. When I am friends with my self, I can live without undue hurt to others and without self punishment. I celebrate my self--my senses--that I can see and feel and smell and taste and hear. I celebrate my thoughts whether they are kind or evil or stupid or smart. They are there and I acknowledge them. I celebrate my dreams--the scary and the beautiful. I celebrate my sexuality. I celebrate my skin, my appetite, my confusion, the damaged, the broken, the healthy. I dance with myself.

I am kind to my self--and when there are hurts, I pay attention to them--I don’t push them back.

I want an observant self, not a shut-down self. A quiet self is a friend. A shut-down self is a prisoner. It is deadened; it is locked up waiting to escape in unaware ways.

I can be the most generous when I’m selfish. Most effective. When I am selfish in this way, I am least likely to hurt others because I am aware. When I am selfish, the light in me can burn most brightly.