Maria Connolly, LPC
Sometimes, we want something to work so badly we end up overextending ourselves almost to the point of breaking. Some people call it bending over backward for someone. You’ve been there, right? At the time, the situation seems to demand that you keep giving just to maintain a semblance of peace.
Are you listening? Too often we’re so busy looking outwardly that when we try to tune in to our inner selves, all we hear is static. The good news is that you can train yourself to listen to yourself. How? Develop a deep awareness of your mind-body connection. This involves not only identifying physical sensations but also discovering how you feel emotionally about what’s happening at any given time. Don’t just live. Learn to experience your life moment by moment.
A somatic approach to wellness teaches us that your emotional, physical, and spiritual health are inseparable. The thing we haven’t been taught is that our emotions are experienced and stored in our bodies, and they’re manifested through body sensations.
When we want to succeed at something new, we look to experts to guide us and help us master new goals and techniques. But being told by someone what we should do doesn’t necessarily help because it’s too easy to forget the advice and revert back to old habits. So there has to be more to the story of knowing how to succeed at anything.
It’s so easy to fall into the trap of trying too hard — the more you try the worse it gets. That happens because your focus is on the error, which keeps multiplying it. It’s like the person skidding on a slick road toward a telephone pole. Because your eye is on the pole you unconsciously steer toward it, even if you don’t want to. But if you keep your eyes on where you really want to go, you’ll be more likely to come out of the skid.
In order to reach your goal what you need, beyond expert advice, is to master your own inner game. It has to go beyond just a mental effort. It must involve your body wisdom, too.
How to live in your body more fully, through a centering practice…
“If you are centered, you can move freely.” ~ Morihei Ueshiba
Do you really live in your body? Or are you so busy with life that you forget to connect with your senses and sensations? To cultivate more calm and presence, why not try a centering practice to reconnect with your body wisdom — to think, speak and act from your body, instead of reacting impulsively from mental chaos or confusion? Here’s what I mean…
“I can shake off everything as I write; my sorrows disappear, my courage is reborn.” ~ Anne Frank
Chris (not her real name) came to me feeling out of control. She described herself as always being in a hurry. She had to hit the ground running every day. Chris had minimal self-care. She had no time for deep relationships. She never got enough sleep and couldn’t remember the last time she sat down to eat a decent meal. A vacation? What’s that! And at the end of the day, she couldn’t say what meaningful things she had accomplished. She felt empty and lost. She needed to gain clarity of mind.
As we talked, I could see that her mind was ablaze with new ideas, which were quickly being extinguished by her many self-imposed obligations. She spent a lot of time just trying to retrieve information from her brain, notebook and computer files. She often didn’t know if she’d completed a project, because she was already on to the next. Then she’d have to retrace her steps and recreate mentally what had been done. Can you relate?