Listening to the Body
Listening to the body
Sometimes when it's a busy day and you feel the beginning of a cold, pain or migraine, it might be easier to decide to deal with your symptoms later so you can continue on in your day. While it's easier temporarily, you may feel that you pay the price later on. How often do you need to override symptoms before you begin to assess and take care of how you feel?
Think about it this way- your three your old self is inside of you somewhere. What would you want for a child who feels ill? Should they push on when they are weary and need a rest, or might it be better for them to rest with plenty of fluids in order to recover sooner? It would feel criminal to allow a child to struggle forward while feeling ill. Any intelligent child or animal finds refuge when they are injured or ill and stays away from others. I suggest this- when you feel ill or symptomatic, decide to take care of yourself as you would a small child. Make your favorite foods, allow yourself rest and add adult activities that may help like meditation or very small and gentle Feldenkrais movements.
When else do we tend to ignore the ancient wisdom our bodies provide for us? For me it may be when I am stuck in a conversation with someone who has no intention of following through with what they're saying and the conversation has lost all productivity. The person may be enjoying listening to themselves, but may have forgotten who they are talking to and why. An old, ancient voice from deep inside often says "if you cut them off and leave you will be rude!" But another voice from my intuition says, "think of all the lovely work and lovely things that we could be doing right now. let's make that transition as nicely as we can". (This can be a great practice of separating out our gut feelings from the things we have taken in from others).
I'm happy to say I'm getting better at listening to my intuition and my body. It takes a lot of time of tuning in and really feeling that connection to my body and myself. Feldenkrais, Qi Gong, meditation, quiet showers, and soft music are things that help me to "get back there".
The biggest thing? Acceptance. Accepting that my body has the wisdom. Accepting that I may have to lose a bit of time working to take care of me, and that I will get more time back because I listened early. Accepting that the more in tune I am with who I really am and what I really want, the easier it will be to feel good about just about everything.
What helps you listen to the eternal wisdom in your body? What practices enable you to feel versus know what's needed at any given time? I'd love to hear your responses
Katie :)
