You are NOT your mind.

You are NOT your emotions.

Your are NOT your spirit.

It all started about a year ago, when my daughter went through her potty-training process. I was contemplating how one can teach his daughter to give up the comfort and ease of pooping in her diaper, and poop in the toilet instead. How can I explain to her, in terms a 3-year old can understand, to become aware of bodily sensations and take the appropriate series of action that would lead to the desired result?

Here's the strategy I chose - I told her to "listen to her body". I told her that her body can speak to her - not in words, like she speaks to me, but in sensations. I told her to pay attention to the signals her body sends her. She liked this concept of "listening to your body".

As time went by, I began to like the concept too. Instead of asking her if she is hungry, I asked her if her tummy is telling her its wants to eat. Instead of asking her if she's tired, I asked her if her body needed rest. Instead of asking her if she's in pain, I asked her if her body is telling her something's wrong.

She got that. She hadn't been conditioned yet to identify her body as herself, so it was easy for her to accept the idea that her body is something external to her, which she can listen to, respect and befriend.

But think about it... If at this age she is learning to listen to, respect and befriend her body as an external element - what's coming up next? The next phase is all about learning how to listen to, respect and befriend our emotions! And the phase after that is all about learning to listen to, respect and befriend our mind and our spirit...

Originally I wanted to call this article "We Are All Pinocchios". Pinocchio's nose would get longer every time he lied. Think of Pinocchio's nose as a representation of all the indicators, gauges, warning signals, control lights and LED panels that we got to indicate and gauge and warn and signal how a certain action we take may impact us. Our body is constantly sending us signals: Our stomach aches, our heart rate increases, our breathe becomes shallow. Our spirit and the Universe around are also sending us signals all the time. There is no wise old man with a white beard that watches over us and sends us a text message when we're about to make a mistake. The Universe is designed and built and wired just like our body - system upon system, interconnected and interdependent. All we have to is learn how to listen.

What ever you choose to call that "thing" - Soul, The Universe, God - that "thing" already knows. And it is sending us infinite signs, and warnings, and signals, and messages, and sensations, and emotions, and people that deliver messages to us.

But we weren't taught to listen to, respect and befriend our body. We weren't taught to listen to, respect and befriend our emotions and our mind and our spirit!

We were taught math, and bible, and physics and history and geography. We were taught how to operate any and all the tools and technologies in the whole world except for the one that matters the most. And then we were taught that if our body does not look like the bodies in the magazine and commercials, or if we don't wear the right clothes, shoes, sunglasses or haircut, then WE are not good enough. We are taught to eat fast-food and drink power drinks and smoke cigarettes and consume products we don't need to keep the economy going.

What a wake up call!

Imagine you're driving a car on the freeway. You just now realized for the first time in 35 years that you didn't know how to operate the car, you didn't know how to use all of its different buttons and features, and you didn't even know the rules of the road! After all these years you thought all these accidents, and broken relationships, and disappointments, and pain were random, or coincidental, or other people's fault, you finally realize - you simply don't know how to drive! No wonder you got into all these accidents!

So - wake up people!

Math, and science and business, and law and physics and marketing and architecture and banks and cars and roads and USPS and airports and laptops and the Internet are not only amazing, they're critical to sustaining the artificial monster structure we call civilization. We may be able to survive without it, but we won't have time to read and write articles like this one. So don't forget WE created that artificial structure, and it is supposed to serve US - not the other way around. Modern science and the Internet and the industrial revolution and nano-technology are there to give us the freedom and the comfort to ask the question and discover the answers that really matter.

So, do yourselves a favor. If you haven't yet - please learn how to listen to, respect and befriend your body, your mind, your emotions and your spirit. You will get into less accidents and make the world a safer and friendlier place for everybody. And even more important - teach this to your kids - you will make their lives so much easier.