Today I feel my age. Or perhaps I feel what I imagined it might be like to be 47 back when I was in my 30s.
My lower back is tight.
My sciatica is acting up.
My right shoulder has been bothering me for over 2 weeks.
My ankle caved on me yesterday and I’m hobbling around the house.
My immune system took a dump last week and while I’m back to about 85%, I now have a hacking cough that’s keeping my wife up at night.
Okay, maybe I feel more like twice my age.
The state of my body this week has caused a bout of mild depression because I haven’t been able to be as active as I’d like and I find that I’ve been more aware of pain rather than vitality.
See, I’ve been consistently doing a daily routine of cardio for almost 6 months now.
It’s. Been. Freakin’. Awesome.
I’ve had tons of energy.
I’ve gotten my six-pack abs back (those disappeared for about 10 years).
I’ve been able to keep up with my young boys when we’re horsing around, and I can’t tell you what a boost it is to have them see me and my fitness as a model for them as they step into greater body awareness.
I’ve built consistency and a rhythm into my life around being more aware of my body, which has grounded me in a deeper way in each day.
And now this. A week where my body keeps throwing a wrench in my fitness plans. It’s as though it’s trying to get me to slow down.
So I do. I slow down. I sink into stretching and yoga.
I slow down and feel the tightness in my hamstrings – feels like I can almost play a bass run on those bad boys.
I slow down and put my consciousness into the parts that are aching and create space around them to release the tension or pain.
I slow down and realign my body in a way that stretches and elongates what has become collapsed and compressed.
I slow down and in the stretching and releasing I also become aware of how my body is holding fear and anxiety in my life right now.
By slowing down I connect with my sacred body in a new way, one of gratitude and compassion. Gratitude that at 47, I’m still capable of pushing it to new extremes and places. Compassion for the fact that yes, I am mortal, I am getting older, and that I need to balance the active with the passive. The daily workout is having serious positive impacts, yet I’m also aware that I need to intersperse it with more stretches and opportunity for resetting and recovery.
And I begin to see where I probably need to do that in other areas of my life … balance the active and the frenzy with time for reflection, introspection, and connection. Connect with and create space around the fear and anxiety so that I can address it and release it. Find the places in my life where I have collapsed things or taken on too much and slow down, reset, and recover.
Our body is our greatest gift, the temple in which our consciousness resides and through which we are able to wander through this precious life. Our body has so much wisdom and information held within it if only we slow down and listen to what it has to share and to tell us.
Our relationship with our body is a direct reflection of how we are living our lives.
I hope that you’re treating yours as the gift that it is.
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