How Mindfulness can help you SPEAK UP!

Have you ever thought of your body as a chat room? Have you ever thought about the thousands and millions of conversations that your body hosts in every given moment?

Your body is like a huge conference centre and there are ongoing panel discussions between your physical body, your emotional body, your mental thoughts, and your spirit every single second of the day.

This is something I’ve been learning in my yoga practice. In yin yoga we hold poses for up to 5 minutes each, giving us an opportunity to feel our physical body, hear our mental thoughts, and notice our emotional responses.

We say, “listen to what your body is saying to you, and listen to what your mind is saying back to your body”.

But who’s talking?

If you can imagine for a moment that you are in an intense leg lunge, and you’re holding it for 5 minutes. Here’s what might happen…

Speaker #1 (physical body) says, “Oh man, my hip really hurts, it feels quite stuck”. It puts that statement out there for all the other panelists to respond to. Speaker #2 (the mental body) might pipe in with it’s opinion first. It might say, “Well, my hips are always tight and they always hurt and there’s no point trying to stay here any longer because nothing will ever change.” To which, Speaker #3 (emotional body) might say, “This is making me feel really frustrated, I hate being in this pose, I’m getting really irritated and want to be doing something fun instead. This sucks!”

This dialogue shows us that in the blink of an eye, we could be having all sorts of conversations amongst multiple speakers that we’re not even aware of.

This brings us to the foundation of a yoga practice. The word “yoga” comes from the root, “to yolk” or “union”. This means that we come together.

However, to me, it also speaks to what one of our life goals should be – oneness with ourselves.

So why is this helpful?

When you start to get comfortable listening to this "conference" dialogue, you get clues as to the general TYPES of conversations that YOU tend to have. Once you know this, in an everyday life situation, you can become a better moderator of that discussion.

Here’s an example:

Imagine you’re at a table with a bunch of loud, outspoken, and over-powering people (for example, a meeting with big-wig clients or dominating co-workers, at dinner with a bunch of extroverted friends, or at a huge gathering with your entire extended family). Everyone at the table is going back and forth loudly giving their opinions but not leaving much room for anyone else to speak.

You try to butt in but no one listens. You start to feel frustrated. Maybe you start to feel hot in the face, maybe your chest clenches a bit. You want to chime in but no one is listening. You keep wanting to open your mouth but there’s no point.

This is a major conversation going on inside your body.

Here, your mind might be saying “No one is listening to you, your words aren’t worth being listened to, don’t even bother”, your emotions might be saying “this makes me feel like I’m a 5 year old again and no one is listening, I’m frustrated and sad and don’t want to be here”, and your body might be saying “ya, you’re right, I can’t relax, I need to clench my chest and close off my heart”.

What do you do?

If you KNOW this conversation is going on, if you KNOW because you’ve experienced this pattern in a safe space before (e.g. on a yoga mat, meditating, or elsewhere), then are better able to shift it. You can see that it’s not what’s going on outside that's making all of this happen, it’s the dialogue that’s going on inside.

As moderator you can change gears.

In this example, you could first change your mental statement to – “I AM worth being listened to, my ideas and opinions ARE great, and I AM confident in my voice”.

This then forces your emotional body to respond with a different emotion, “Oh, you are? Ok, well in that case, I feel a bit better. Actually I feel kind of good. Yah, I totally feel worthy of being here”. And then your physical body might say, “Well you guys seem to be doing alright, I guess I can relax a bit now”.

And so, in my opinion, it’s really important to start listening to this dialogue, because no matter what the situation, can always step back and take a look at what your speakers are saying, and which one is directing the conversation and shift it.

It’s important to love all of these speakers, but then guide them in the direction that you desire when things get a little off track!