Remembering We Have Bodies

Surprisingly enough, it was in the process of staying faithful to the spiritual journey that I first began to face my profound ambivalence about life in a body. At the ripe old age of thirty, I could no longer ignore the fact that I was tired, lethargic and somewhat depressed. Thinking that my lethargy and lack of enthusiasm for life were psychological or spiritual problems, I went to a psychologist who was also a spiritual director.

To my surprise, some of our initial conversations had to do with my physical condition: my eating patterns, how much sleep I was getting, whether I was…