Will My Body Just Tell Me When It Needs To Move? (#2 of “x”)
Can I just learn to listen to my body? Well.. the simple answer is yes, our bodies are amazing and they tell us what we need. The longer answer is.. well, it’s complicated.
Your body speaks a language that tells us exactly what it needs. And from a young age, we learn to ignore it. As a toddler, when your body needed to run, you may have run wildly with reckless abandon.. and that may have been met with disapproval. By the time you went to school, you were likely told to sit in a chair at a disgusted time, to move only at allocated times, and maybe even to urinate at very specific times. If you responded to your body’s need to move, you may have been ridiculed or punished. If you engaged in repetitive movements to calm your nervous system like rocking, you may have been told to stop. If you engaged in movements labeled as “exercise”, you may have been given formulas of which types of movements were appropriate and how much you needed. You may have had coaches, PE teachers or fitness professionals who determined how much you of a specific movement you could do or needed to do. In order to listen to your body, there’s a lot of unlearning to do..
Imagine dropping into a place where everyone spoke a language that you did not understand. Most of us would not immediately know or speak that language. Even immersed in a new language, it often takes adults 2-3 years to fluently speak a new language. Even immersed in your body, it may take a while to learn and understand the language it has been speaking. That’s ok. It is a journey. It is not about getting it perfect. The purpose of language is for people to connect and communicate relationally. Part of this process may be developing a relationship with your body. Relationships take time and effort to be sustainable.
The idea that our body will tell us if it and how it needs to move may bring up a variety of emotions. It may bring up a sense of fear terror... wondering if we’ll lose activities that are important to us or fearing what our body will look like. It may trigger a sense of relief at being free from a set of rules. It may bring a sense of shame.. “if it’s so obvious to a young child, why don’t I already know how to do it”.
If it triggers shame that you “don’t know how to do it”, please realize that you may never have had a chance to develop that language. Please realize that there have been many messages that have countered the idea that your body is something that should be listened to. Please know that it is a journey that many people are on. If you would like community in this journey, join us Tuesday nights at 7:30pm for Journey to Joy in Movement!
