When body and mind are not in sync

When the mind is very active, this happens easily:

You do much more than is good for your body.

When I say good, what I mean is the ability to rest and recharge quickly from peak, high intensity phases. Healthy athletes know this.

Rest, recovery and base training are the building blocks of their success, not going in the highest intensity all the time.

When we do much more than is good for our body, sooner or later we get a message.

The body keeps the score, always. 

Sometimes life gives you lemons. You procrastinate on important tasks. You think, “I can do it tomorrow”. But then your flight on Wednesday is overbooked, they don’t let you fly, and you have to get to the airport the next day to pick up your suitcase.

You press many calls and meetings into your Thursday, instead of cancelling the non-urgent ones. You come home at 11 pm from the airport and need to get up at 4:30 am to catch the new flight.

On that evening, I felt it. This itchy, burning sensation in the back left side of the throat. “Oh no”, I think to myself. Too late. The message was delivered and manifested beautifully. I got sick.

Not resting was now not an option any more. So here I am, forced to rest.

Every time we have such an experience, it is a great opportunity to grow. Here are 10 questions I’m asking myself to learn from a week where I crossed my limits:

1. What am I running away from?

2. What am I running towards?

3. What’s the rush?

4. What’s the rush, really?

5. What are you scared of?

6. What dark side of yours are you avoiding?

7. Who are you serving by crossing your own boundaries?

8. If you do it, what do you win?

9. If you do it, what do you loose?

10. Imagine you were a bird having watched yourself the entire week. What did you observe?

Some of them can be very triggering and reveal parts of us that we don’t want to see. If something came up for you as you were reading, I suggest to say out loud:

“This is also me. And I embrace it”.

Only when we accept, we can move on without the weight of the past. And then, we can make new choices that help us ride the waves of life in a better way.

What choice in favor of your health and wellbeing do you need to make today?

There is only one body.
There is only one you.

Love,
Chris