Why not include some compassion and curiosity in your gym bag along with your hot pink tennies?
Approach your body with compassion and curiosity to create changes you never thought you could realize. Set off a cascade of energy that enlivens and releases blocks. Explore inside and connect with the tissues surrounding every muscle, bone, and organ. Get more out of every exercise or workout by changing your intention.
Sound farfetched? Today, most of us would likely agree that we create our own reality. The concept first surfaced in 1963 in a Seth channeling by author Jane Roberts and became part of the New Age movement, gradually edging into mainstream. What our minds focus on we draw to us or at least become more aware of its presence.
In a similar way, we can also control the effectiveness of our workouts…
or exercise sessions by the intention we set as we work. Where and how we put our focus at each moment shapes what our bodies experience. Working very slowly helps hold the focus and allows the body to adapt and accept incremental changes as they develop.
Today, high percentages of men and women are unhappy or even loathsome toward their bodies.(1) With image, size, function, or pain underlying their feelings, approaching exercise with compassion could work wonders.
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
–Dalai Lama
In Organic Stretching®: bodymind movements the body is always in contact with itself, i.e. a hand or foot moving slowly along the opposite arm, leg, or the trunk. This hand or foot can transmit the energy of compassion through heat, pressure, and intention. The result is very powerful, even emotional. With practice that energy becomes quite strong and grounded.
Other forms of energy exercise using slow movements (but with less of the contact) include Qigong, Tai Chi, and some yoga programs. Slow weight training proves effective, in part due to the increased focus on form and breathing that slow work encourages.(2)
Imagine the atmosphere in a gym where everyone was sending compassion and love to their bodies!
The Renaissance genius Leonardo da Vinci lived by seven principles, according to Michael Gelb, author of How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci. Bringing the first of these principles, curiosity, to bear on our bodies as we move, noticing in detail what is happening inside, encourages the awareness we need to make changes. Sensing a reaction far away as we reach a limit in movement in one area lets us see the connections across the length of the body. Explore that limit in tiny, slow motions to find all the edges of the limit and gradually soften the limit, noticing the changes to the rest of the body as well.
Being completely aware, curious, and compassionate can gradually unlock blocked tissues surrounding joints, muscles, and organs, relieving pain and permitting freer movement.
Explore some of the ways Organic Stretching®: bodymind movements can provide this experience through sample videos and information on the Organic Stretching YouTube Channel. Subscribe while you are there! Or check out the programs offered on our website. This link takes you to our new online program, and you will find more options under “Programs” in the navigation menu. Organic Stretching was derived from pain management therapy movements to provide a personal movement program designed and created by your own body.
Next time you go to the gym, be sure to pack your bag with “compassion and curiosity” right next to those hot pink tennies to get the most out of your workout.
References: (1) https://www.dosomething.org/facts/11-facts-about-body-image
http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/06/02/why-do-women-hate-their-bodies/
(2) https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/body-sense/201007/slow-movement-awareness-better-exercise
