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!

What building is your body?

You know the saying “my body is my temple”? Well I’ve been thinking about that lately, given that it’s the New Year and high up on many people’s resolution lists are things like “I want to drink less”, “I want to work out more”, “I want to eliminate my love handles/beer belly/[insert relevant body part here]”.

So I was in the gym today (NOT due to a resolution) and started thinking about that saying. I started looking around and wondering who actually considers their body to be their temples, versus who considers it to be their not-good-enough, need-to-fix, not-quite-perfect thing they live with?

But we live everyday of our lives IN this vessel, just like the house we sleep in every night. This magnificent container holds all of our emotions, mental thoughts, belief systems, and physical matter. But do we regularly view it as one of the single most important things in our lives? In many cases, no - we take it for granted.

So as I was thinking this, I was staring out the window at a church spire. Then I caught a glimpse of a smoke stack. “Interesting juxtaposition,” I thought. Both tall thin structures, yet one is holy the other is harmful. I’m 5’11’ – I could be either a spire or a smoke stack, depending on my personal perspective of my temple. But I don’t want to be either…I want to create my own building.

My building would be tall but also wide, showing its strength. It would be soft but have a solid foundation in the earth, and lots of skylights connecting up to the stars, sun, moon, etc. It would have a fire burning everyday on the inside and the glow from the fire would shine out through all of the windows (lots of windows!). I would have a waterfall on the inside, constantly flowing and moving. At the centre there would be plush chairs, maybe some satin, and a cozy warm coloured carpet. There would be some soft curtains that could drape over the windows, but I would decide when to keep them open and when to close them. There would also be balconies to reach out to other buildings.

But my building is not static. Buildings constantly change – as we choose to invest in them and improve them, or neglect them and let them fall apart. At one point my building may have had a few nooks and crannies, but I’ve recently done some renovations and decided it’s much more enjoyable to have an open concept living area, so I can move freely around.

I’ve also opened up the attic, and made it more of a loft, because I found myself spending a bit too much time up there and not enough time down on the ground floor. And finally, there are touches of gold and intricate detailing on the façade, so that when you look closely you can appreciate the complexity.

So that’s my building. That’s what I envisioned in my 30-minute elliptical session. Not focusing on time, calories burnt, distance achieved, but rather the magnificent vessel that was propelling me.

Now in keeping with this metaphor, I thought wouldn’t it be great if the next time we find ourselves saying negative self-talk, we could go back to that image of the building that we created. Would we say the same thing about our body if we spun it into a metaphor?

Would my gassy stomach be so bad if it was simply a bubble machine inside the living room? Would my cracking knees be so embarrassing if they were simply the beautiful hardwood flooring of my bedroom?

What areas in your building do you tend to focus on and what areas do you neglect because they aren’t “pretty”? How can we begin to appreciate the whole building?

And my final question is, where do you find yourself residing most often within your building? Do you spend most of your time standing at the window, gazing out but not opening the door and walking into the garden? Do you love decorating or paying attention to the ground floor, the social areas, and the feeling areas, the cozy living room where you can warm up with others but sometimes forget about the rooftop patio that connects you to the sky and your own solitude?

As I said, I have in the past spent a lot of the time in the attic – in my mind. And while the attic is really fun, it can get lonely and cold, since it’s far away from the feeling of the ground, the fire and everyone else around it.

So would spending a bit more time focusing on the lower floors - my emotional body be so scary if it was simply another inviting room in the house to explore?

Probably not.

The next time you find yourself making resolutions or opinions about this temple that is your unique body, I invite you to first imagine your beautiful building. Ask yourself how you view each physical body part, and how you view your other bodies (mental, emotional, spiritual), and how do they manifest in your building. Then look at the temple that you are, the places that you go to inside that temple, and maybe what areas could use a little more love and care. Then go there! ☺