The Tale of the Mind and the Body

I hear people say all the time listen to your body. Honestly I wasn't quite sure what that meant. There were times in yoga the instructor would remind us to listen to our bodies and let it guide our practice. So I did what I thought. I took it easy when I was tired or out of breathe, and only stretched as far as I could before I pulled something. I was listening to my body, right?

All the sudden I had a shift in perspective and a deeper insight into what that means as I was sitting against my wall, rolling a lacrosse ball over my shoulder blade. For the most part, my body takes care of and heals itself. I don't have to consciously think "Please send all my healthy white blood cells to this new burn I have to heal it right up, and when you're done, please regrow new skin over it so I don't have an open wound. Thank you!"

Luckily, our bodies do almost all the work for us. It pumps blood, keeps a steady heart rhythm, sends oxygen to our muscles, converts oxygen to carbon dioxide, grows, breaks down nutrients, stores fat and converts it to energy, the list goes on. And the good news for us, we don't have to think about every single process that goes on internally. (Because that would be A LOT!!!) It leaves my mind completely free to wonder about other, albeit less important, things.

I've found it's so easy for me to listen to the voices in my head... anxious thoughts, stressful conundrums, thinking about what's for dinner, or next on my to do list. And then my shoulder tenses up & my back is full of knots. It's my body trying to tell me to relax, take a step back and breathe, loosen up a little. But I get so caught up in my damn monkey brain, my body has to get louder to tell me what it wants me to hear. Because I ain't listening until I have knots in my back I can't ignore.

Or have a cold. I see a lot of people get colds, myself included, when we run ourselves into the ground and don't stop until we physically have to because we're sick, stuck the couch. I couldn't even begin to tell you how many times I've tuned out my body. Its like when I'm listening to music on noise cancelling headphones at the airport and someone's politely trying to get my attention. Good luck. Especially when it comes to working out. It's so easy to hear what I want to hear and listen to the thoughts saying it's too cold outside, I'm too tired, I don't have enough time, it's too hard, I can't do it, or whatever other excuses my mind produces and convinces me of. When really my body is fully capable. (But who can hear it over the loud music and noise cancellation?)

Our bodies are amazing communicators. In sales we look at body language to read between the lines. We look at their eyes, where their hands are, if they lean back or come closer, etc. I never really thought about looking at my own body to see what it's trying to tell me.

I don't give my body enough credit for everything it does. It's always looking out for me and I forget to listen to it because the thoughts in my head get so loud and drown out all the other noise. But my body is incredible, a true hero, a temple, capable of so much more than my mind could comprehend. Yet, I still find myself listening to my mind over my body. Time to turn down the volume and listen to my body.

This is the real me.

Yours truly,

Jessica Riggin