FINDING PEACE
WITHIN MOVEMENT – DAY 7
How much mind-bandwidth do your thoughts take when you are doing your daily exercise? And how much bandwidth is designated to how your body is performing the exercise?
When you run, cycle, lift weights, swim, or even do yoga on automatic pilot, these habitual behaviours provide fertile ground for thinking. Thinking comes with a feeling-tone, emotion or ‘mood’, which manifests in the body. But when we are engrossed in thinking, we may not notice the body taking on the thought-mood.
Next time your mood is low, I invite you to notice if the body sags. If when you are angry it tenses or braces, or when you are happy it has a natural uplift. These shifts in posture play out off-radar. The body is literally embodying the mood and thought patterns.
The good news is that we can use the loop in reverse! If we change our posture, running gait, depth of breath, release hunched shoulders, or soften the jaw or gaze, this feeds a sense of wellbeing back through the body. It soothes the mood and placates the mind (although this sometimes backfires, but that’s for another time).
Today’s mindful movement invitation is to become aware of how you are enacting your exercise. Engage mindful awareness to notice how you are moving, lifting, pushing or swaying. The position of your spine, whether you are leaning forward (into the future) or backward (resisting the future), sagging (under the burden of life) or bouncing (a spring in your step). These are only suggestions, so be as curious as you can with you own experience. Only you know how you are feeling, both in terms of mood and body sensations.
If – more like WHEN – you notice your mind jump to self-condemnation, or the old stiff-upper-lip of ignoring, is it possible to use a gentler voice (see the 7-day mindfulness course ‘Finding goodness in the midst of difficulty’) to allow yourself this learning experience?
In this way, daily exercise becomes a mindful movement. It’s an opportunity for us to make choices about how to move which enhance our wellbeing, rather than re-entrenching old patterns.
Wishing you many happy moving moments.
Inspirational Poem
Gil Hedley: Living testament
Your body
is a holy book,
a scripture-
the pages
of your flesh
are marked
in exquisite detail
with the finest hand,
inscribed by spirit
with the poetry
of love,
lessons of mercy,
miracles,
angelic hosts,
and the story
of your life
perfectly told,
an illuminated manuscript
of a sacred writing
epic in scope,
majesty
and grace.
Every hair
on your head
and line on your face,
every rushing tide
of wind and wave
moving you
from within
this living testament
bear witness
to the truth
layered
within you—
Study this text
with conviction then,
reflect with care
upon its meaning,
and enjoy
the divine
inspiration.
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