Give yourself a pinch. How often do you connect and feel your body each day? Our bodies are the container for our mind and spirit. They give us the messages we need for our physical needs as well as our emotional needs. Everything from letting you know that you need a glass of water to a hug. In this blog, I’d like to share some practical ways to take care of your body, and give you some new ways to connect that will bring more joy, presence and balance into your life.
Take a moment to think about your current relationship to your body. For me the body represents different aspects of ourselves. There is the physical where we are connected to our strength, energy and overall mobility. Then there is the feeling aspect of your body which sends messages through physical sensations (feelings) and emotions (sad, happy etc). These messages get sent to the brain and then create beliefs, thoughts, and actions. Lastly, your body is the container for your soul. Your body will let you know if you are in alignment with what your soul purpose is, and if you are off track.
Creating a New Relationship to Sleep
Sleep is fundamental to functioning and overall health. Making sleep a priority is key to having a healthy and balanced life. Consider some practical steps to shift your relationship to sleep, especially if you are having a hard time with sleep routines or with sleeping well.
- Priority – What is your relationship to sleep? How can you shift it to make it more of a priority?
- Letting go – What habits do you need to let go of that are getting in the way of you having a good night’s sleep?
- Connect – How can you connect with yourself before bed to help with winding down and getting into a restful state?
Using Sleep for Creating the Life You Want
Sleep is a great time to use the power of your subconscious mind to create the life you desire. Your subconscious mind is a sponge that doesn’t question what information it is given. It assumes the feeling state that you are in to be true, then acts from that place. For example, if you are feeling sad before bed and reliving something that happened to you in the past, your conscious mind will impress that on the subconscious mind. It takes these instructions and expresses them when you are awake. So likely the next day you will feel sad when you wake up and have dreams that were similar to what you were feeling before you went to bed.
Your subconscious mind accepts the feeling state as that which you are. Use this to your advantage at night for better sleep, shifting your beliefs, changing your outer world, and fulfilling your desires. If you use your imagination before bed and connect with what you desire and FEEL it, feel it so deeply like it already happened. Then your subconscious mind accepts this and with repetition it will act from this place. If you imagine yourself full of joy and connecting with others every night before bed you will engage with the world differently during the day.
Think about sleep as a date with a loved one. Use this as a special time and value the power of sleep to heal, transform and as the overall foundation for your wellbeing.
Challenge
- What would you like to create in your life?
- What do you desire more of?
- Pick one thing and use your imagination each night to visualize and feel it for seven days.
Getting Fit Never Felt Better
Connecting with your physical body is a wonderful way to be more present, aware of your thoughts, and helps you listen to what you need at any given moment. Ask yourself, are you pushing yourself too much with your workout routines or not pushing yourself enough? What’s your energy like? Do you incorporate movement that helps you with flexibility, strength, conditioning and balancing?
Exercise is an opportunity to play with energy and connect with your power. Try this: take a deep breath in and when you do breathe in excitement. When you breathe out, feel a sense of strength and power. Doing this can change your energy, mood, and increase your inner strength.
Take it a step further and now do that when you are doing a sport, activity, or even just walking. Visualize, feel and sense what you are doing. Feel proud and embrace the micro improvements.
Creating Connection Through Movement
- Pick an activity that you do everyday or often, ie. walking, weights
- For 5 minutes feel, visualize and connect with your energy while doing the activity.
- Take note of how this changes your physicality, how you hold yourself and how you feel. You might even notice quicker results with the area that you are working on, ie. muscles.
Fueling Your Body with Balance and Simplicity
Food is the fuel for feeding your mind, body and soul. Your relationship to food is similar to your relationship to your spaces. It’s a mirror reflection of what’s going on on the inside. If you are impulsive, likely you are impulsive with food. If you use control to feel safe, then it’s possible that you control your food intake and create many restrictions and eliminate numerous types of food. How are your eating habits a reflection of your beliefs about yourself, life and how you engage with the world?
The key is to have balance and simplicity when it comes to your diet. Following trends and changing your diet often creates imbalances in your system and overall well-being. Becoming aware and listening to what your body needs, literally, helps you create a better relationship to food. Keeping things simple means eating wholesome, fresh foods, getting your fruits, vegetables, healthy fats and proteins in, and having the type of carbs that energize you. That’s it! Don’t make it complicated. What gives you energy and makes you feel good? How can you use cooking as a creative activity to show love to your body?
Creating a Healthy Relationship to Food
- What do you want your relationship to feel like?
- How is your level of control over food connected to your past, your emotions? Is it used as a coping mechanism?
- What boundaries do you need to set around food? Ie. portions, types of food
- What habits do you need to let go of? Ie. eating fast food
- How can you shift your schedule and make food preparation a priority?
Taking the time to connect with your body and the fundamentals of sleep, exercise and diet will help you bring more balance and groundedness into your life. Trying these three activities will allow you to shift your perspective and also address deep- rooted patterns that throw you off balance
