We are not just a physical body. We have hearts, emotions, intellect, and spiritual centers. We are housed in this amazing thing called a human body filled with connective tissue, bones, muscles ligaments, blood & oxygen flow, and a myriad of other particles and such I can't remember from 9th grade Biology class. I learned a very important lesson from this morning's yoga session. If we only think of ourselves as a physical body, we fail to get an accurate and complete picture of who we are as humans. If we ignore an emotion, a thought, a signal our body is trying to tell us, we may miss some important information that will help us lead healthier lives. We can manifest physical symptoms that are a complete by product of what is going on in our mind and heart that is being shoved aside. We hold onto or compress our lives thinking that if we burn more calories, eat less food, force ourselves to do certain things that it will magically make our bodies do what is necessary to be tall, thin and beautiful. Let me tell you...that doesn't work. My body is a train wreck right now. I'm up 39 pounds, I have an immense amount of pain in my back, hips, jaw and neck. I have not been sleeping and have been binge eating more than my fair share of food. Why, you ask, am I blogging about this on the Internet for all of posterity and the universe to see? Because of lesson #2 I learned from a very wise woman who happens to be my counselor. If you have a negative tape that continues to play in your head, it will keep you from succeeding in the goals that are most important to you. I do have a negative tape in my head. It is that at 32 years of age, I still cannot get it right. I'm single and can't get a date to save my life, I have no career to speak of, I'm no longer teaching Pilates because I couldn't support myself financially, I'm up in weight and have only see goal weight from a distance. All of this to say, my life is not how I planned it to be when I was making my life plans as a 10 year old girl. All of this has been compressed in my body (segue back to Yoga lesson #1), causing a good deal of internal friction and physical pain because I would not admit what was really going on in my head and heart.
So where do I go from hear? Probably where we should all be marching towards....changing the script that dictates my life and how I function. Our bodies, minds and hearts are inevitably intertwined. If we begin to work on one area, it might change the script on the other areas. As I toddle through the learning experience of changing my internal script, I earnestly hope that my honesty will encourage a few people to change their script. It will be hard, you may fall on your butt (trust me, I plan on investing in butt pads for all the times I'm planning on falling), but at some point, things will begin to sync together. When that happens, our bodies will find a greater sense of health that will be liberating and joy filled.
