Body Talk and Listening Skills
Does your body talk to you? Do you listen?
Our bodies require a good amount of daily care in order to function well. Exercise, clean food and water, quality sleep and good hygiene are necessary maintenance. My body is high maintenance and also needs regular chiropractic and massage treatments to stay in shape. Because of the pandemic a lot of us have had to skip some of the vanity maintenance (nails and hair - though I know many who consider these essential) and some of the necessary maintenance (dental care and doctors appointments).
Due to maintenance shortages my body has been talking to me. The pandemic has been hard on my body. Teaching online and sitting at a desk for hours at a time is new to me. I underestimated the importance of support maintenance - in this case an ergonomic desk chair. I know my current chair isn’t great so I stacked my laptop up high and taught some of my zoom sessions while standing. Even so, I’ve been spending too much time slouching in my unsupportive chair. My lower back has been stiffer than usual and my neck felt like it had a bit of a kink. So my body was talking to me but I wasn’t listening. I was constantly rubbing and stretching my neck and back looking for relief but hadn’t been to the chiropractor or for a massage.
In addition to the physical maintenance issues my stress level, like most of us these days, has been high. It has been a challenge reinventing my business and I feel a lot of pressure to both serve my clients and stay financially stable. My frustration tolerance was at an all-time low and I knew I really needed to take a vacation. My mind was talking to me, too, but I wasn’t listening.
I got the warning signals but I kept soldiering on. So I guess it isn’t much of a surprise that my body decided to yell. One false move, the proverbial straw, in this case picking up Sydney with poor form, and down I go.
Perhaps you’ve experienced this before. The sharp shooting pain and then the muscles of the back spasm and seize up. You have the immediate and dreaded realization that you are going to be in serious pain and flat on your back for days and it will be weeks until you are back to normal. This has happened to me a number of times before. You can blame the straw but I don’t think that tells the whole story. I know it is a sign that I need to take better care of my body and get some rest. I just hope I can learn to listen to my body before it has to yell at me from now on. I’ve had the last 8 days to ponder this thought as I decided to take a week off to rest and recover instead of working through the pain. I am better now and I am hoping I am also smarter.
Does your body talk to you? Do you listen? I know a lot of people who like to push hard. They don’t like to stay home when they are sick, they don’t want to rest when they have an injury. I figure I’m going to need my body in the best shape possible for a long time so I’m going to try harder to listen. What is your body saying to you?
