This article provides the nuts and bolts of a solid mind-body healing routine to incorporate to stay connected and decrease pain.
A side note on learning new stuff- adding new routines and actions to your life is building skills. The great news about building skills is that we can do it until the day we die (YAY!). The part that is important to recognize and keep in mind is that it feels awkward and hard when we first learn anything new. If we can keep that in mind, we can stay curious and open to our experience of learning, as well as be kind to ourselves while we move through the part that feels all weird and contrived. After a while, it feels like second nature. That is the beauty of our brains.
The very first thing I do in the morning is 5 minutes of stretching and deep breathing in bed. I do a quick scan of my body, and do some deep breathing into any parts of my body that feel sore or not so good and offer those parts of my body some appreciation and love. Sometimes, I "sense" clear messages from those parts of my body, sometimes not. I then do a few stretches. This practice is a quick way for me to connect with my body, first thing. It sets the tone for my day. If I don't make this happen, it can often lead to a day gone awry.
Next up is a mind dump for 5 - 10 minutes. I spend time writing, free-form, whatever comes up in my head. The writing it down part is critical for me to catch the ongoing stories that I tell myself about who I am and the world I live in - often I find that the stories are connected in some way to the pain in my body (in fact, a lot of times the pain I may be feeling in my body will dissipate dramatically during my mind dump). It's the negative thoughts and beliefs I'm concerned with - the stories with lots of "can't", "should" and "have to's" thrown in. This gives me lots of fodder for changing my stories through The Work.
A side note on learning new stuff- adding new routines and actions to your life is building skills. The great news about building skills is that we can do it until the day we die (YAY!). The part that is important to recognize and keep in mind is that it feels awkward and hard when we first learn anything new. If we can keep that in mind, we can stay curious and open to our experience of learning, as well as be kind to ourselves while we move through the part that feels all weird and contrived. After a while, it feels like second nature. That is the beauty of our brains.
The very first thing I do in the morning is 5 minutes of stretching and deep breathing in bed. I do a quick scan of my body, and do some deep breathing into any parts of my body that feel sore or not so good and offer those parts of my body some appreciation and love. Sometimes, I "sense" clear messages from those parts of my body, sometimes not. I then do a few stretches. This practice is a quick way for me to connect with my body, first thing. It sets the tone for my day. If I don't make this happen, it can often lead to a day gone awry.
Next up is a mind dump for 5 - 10 minutes. I spend time writing, free-form, whatever comes up in my head. The writing it down part is critical for me to catch the ongoing stories that I tell myself about who I am and the world I live in - often I find that the stories are connected in some way to the pain in my body (in fact, a lot of times the pain I may be feeling in my body will dissipate dramatically during my mind dump). It's the negative thoughts and beliefs I'm concerned with - the stories with lots of "can't", "should" and "have to's" thrown in. This gives me lots of fodder for changing my stories through The Work.
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