Welcome to Day 5 of the 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse. Yesterday, you bathed your consciousness in the healing elixir of forgiveness . Forgiving yourself and others makes life sweeter. As it melts away bitterness and resentments, we feel better and care more. And we're able to contact the deep respect that defines today's agent of change—reverence.

You have spent the past four days deeply engaged in clearing your consciousness at the mental and emotional levels, and it is time now to turn your attention to your body—the outward manifestation of your consciousness. Releasing any habitual ways of looking at or talking about your body, I invite you to approach it today with reverence—valuing it and honoring it as the home of the divine, the resting place of the holy. When you know in your bones that your body is a sacred gift, you move in the world with an effortless grace. Gratitude and humility rise up spontaneously. When you treat yourself with the kindness and high regard that you would give to one of your spiritual heroes, your body becomes the epicenter of quiet joy rather than a battlefield for the ego.

So if you have been suffering with physical ailments or even a spiritual emptiness, I want to share with you what I know to be true: The more love and reverence you give your body, the better you will feel. The more attention you give your sacred container, the more divine power it will be able to hold. To step into reverence for your body, you must pardon yourself for all you have done and not done to care for it. You must bless what works and accept and embrace all you perceive to be wrong. You must bring your attention to the beautiful job it does each day to keep in the game of life. And bless it for the opportunity it gives you to evolve your soul.

Bless your body, and it will bless you back. This is your sacred task today.

Cleansing Ritual

Write a letter to your body asking for forgiveness. If you knew that your body was the holy container of the Divine, what do you need to say you're sorry for?

Soulful Action

Your Outer Goal: Today, identify one thing that you can give up for the next 16 days to increase your level of reverence. What habit, behavior, belief or self-talk violates the respect, dignity, honor and tenderness you have for your body?

Your Inner Goal: What could you do to evoke your inner feeling today? Take that action.

Soul Food: I revere my body as a sacred container of the divine.

Debbie Ford is the national best - selling author of The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, The Secret of the Shadow, Spiritual Divorce, The Right Questions, The Best Year of Your Life and Why Good People Do Bad Things. Her new book is The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse (Harper Collins) . She conducts workshops across the country. She lives in California with her family.

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