It seems like for most of my life I went about my business and my body did most of what I wanted it to without bothering me too much.  It’s possible that what I experience when I’m meditating has nothing to do with meditation and everything to do with just getting older.

Here’s what I’m talking about.  Almost without fail, my body talks to me as I’m sitting there.  I’m not just talking about a foot that falls asleep because my legs have been crossed too long.  I’m talking about aches that show up that I didn’t even know were there.  I’m talking about feeling like when I take in one of those deep breaths, it goes in deeper on one side of my body than another.  I mean noticing that there are places tensed that don’t at all need to be tensed.

Truth is, this is one of the things that carries over into everyday life in a way that can be very good and can be very obsessive.  The good part is it gives me important information sometimes – lets me know that I’m putting myself under stress for no good reason.  The bad news is, it is impossible to know exactly what is normal.  I don’t know what you might find, but for me I’m constantly getting evidence that the left side of my body and the right side are not the same – they don’t inhale the same, they don’t exhale the same, they don’t have the same range of motion.  Apparently that violates some expectation I have that even is better – another challenge in my quest for non-judgement and releasing expectations.