Tag: bodymindsoul

All Dressed Up with Nowhere to Go

I started this entry way before Lockdown, noticing that I was very happy to not have any social obligations and get “all dressed up” just for myself. You know…to do that Self-Care stuff like:

  • Getting out of my pajamas and putting on Big Girl pants
  • Then “putting my face on” without checking, “Am I actually going to see anyone today?”
  • Taking time for that Siesta without first railing that it should be “mandated.”

As you may notice, my bar is pretty low. Pedicures, retail shopping therapy and massage weren’t even on the main menu, waiting for an upgrade from Frivolity to Need. That’s why my nose wrinkles at my Mind’s insistence that I don’t feel a wee bit pathetic about the resolution.

Self-Care? Really?! my Body says. You wouldn’t know it if it bit you in the ass.

Yes, it’s another new buzz phrase that the Mind has comes up with, like Mindfulness.

It’s a little bait-and-switch game that my brain is still running, teasing my Body into believing I’ll figure out what the rules to put it into my regimen to make things all better. Shoulds like:

  • Scheduling a break or nap into my day
  • Going to the ocean to soak my feet (Damn, forgot to do that today)
  • Being “gentle” with myself and going with the flow

The beta version of this game was a disaster. I felt like Chicken Little with the sky falling all the time. Like I just wasn’t getting it.

Turns out what my Body wanted was a more human structure for my life…instead of a steel rod, a skeleton with joints and mobility and fine motor skills. Now that’s a concept. And then instead of allowing my spine to stiffen into itself, to keep noticing and allowing myself to go with the flow. Backbone and then all those subtle things my Body felt and my Mind couldn’t wrap its brain around. So I brain-hacked Descartes: I feel therefore I am.

I didn’t even get to the social retardation piece but I’m done for now. “That,” a good friend had the habit of saying, “is for another piece of paper.”

Hey I’m Walking Here!

Body, Mind and Soul, that’s the phrase. But it’s become more the joke than reality of my be-ing.

My body has been screaming, “Hey, I’m Walking Here! I’m Talking Here! I’m trying to walk the talk.”

But The Mind has been too busy, yes Too Busy and between looking up and asking,”What did you say? I didn’t hear you,” it says, “There there, have a seat and we’ll talk about it in a bit. I’ve got something important to finish up first.”

And then Body nods off, forgets and wakes up the next morning stumbling about and a bit in a panic over the sense that something didn’t get done.

“How about if we talk the walk instead?” it says sweetly and pseudo-soothingly.

That’s the repeating scenario day after day. My noisy, overbearing mind has taken over and programmed my body to Shut the Fxxk Up, dragging it along kicking and screaming.

Rita Harrison, developer of AYM

Okay, my brain’s survival plan has gotten me Here, past scrapes and even battles. But my body’s taken to sitting in the corner pouting, refusing to Walk the Talk or even Talk the Walk.

My Brit friend and therapist Paul says that The Problem all started with that doggone “I think, therefore I am” bollocks (his favorite word which I’m loving and fast-adopting). It’s comforting to notice that this Mind dominance is not only mine but a societal tendency, to “think about it,” “think it through” until there is so much information in our noisy heads that we are hitting a wall…big-time.

Even our meditation is called Mindfulness when it should be Mindless enough to allow the Body to feel again, to express itself in its own language. And then, only then, can the broken connection between Mind, Body and Soul be repaired.

Come to my AYM sessions to explore for yourself the:

  • Sounds that resonate with your body,
  • Movements that clear out the heaviness and boost your joyful energy, and
  • Stillness in Movement and Movement in Stillness that calms.