Body Language

On Mondays I sit in on a class taught by the epic human being that is Ken. He's a gushing geyser of raw, weighty bits of wisdom, and today one such bit was this: "Tension is our body asking for attention. Listen.. the body doesn't lie."

I started thinking about our bodies as ever-honest entities. When we hurt, it's our body talking. I wish I was fluent in its language, but unfortunately I don't speak aches and pains. The vocabulary of the body is skin condition, headaches, muscle tension, energy levels, digestion.....

Don't revolt. Listen, and respond. Don't ignore or minimize or rationalize your body's voice, it's one of the most powerful voices you can be attuned to. For the record, I am speaking to myself when I say this, but perhaps you can resonate while listening in?

Of course there are tons of physical conditions that we cannot control, like genetic diseases or allergies or cancers... but often, the physiological burdens we frequently tolerate are the body's way of saying we're not being very good caretakers.

I'm imagining if the body never spoke to us.. though I'd love never to have pain or fatigue or any of the other symptoms I frequently experience, silence of the body would foster insidious harm. If I was never notified that things weren't ok, I'd never learn how to take care of myself..

So as much as I hate it when my body seems to be screaming at me in the most uncomfortable way, I'm thankful that it vocalizes needs, that it tells me what it can and cannot handle, and that it speaks the [sometimes brutal] truth.