Self Care
It is important to be able to care for our own bodies. The first step in that journey is be able to listen to our bodies.
Preferably when it is whispering about some minor discomfort rather than screaming in pain.
These are a few of the things I share with my clients to help them participate in their own healing.
...in just 5 minutes a day.
This excercise is simple and easy and only takes 5 minutes a day. Too busy to take five whole minutes in a row. Not a problem because this is divided into five 1 minute segments. Here it is.
Five times a day for one minute at a time,
stop whatever you're doing and...
- Check in with your body
- Feel any tightness or restrictions. Let them go.
- Consciously relax.
While this is a simple excercise it is still a very profound practice. It works because it does three things.
First, it breaks up the unconscious momentum of your day. Many people begin their day and proceed to work on their daily tasks until the end of the day when they find that their shoulders are up around their ears.
Second, it gives you an opportunity to practice being aware of your body. This awareness is a skill you learn and as such requires practice to develop.
And third, it gives you an opportunity to practice relaxation, which is also a skill that requires practice.
As with all skills, the more you practice the better you become.
If you can do this excercise on a regular basis you will profoundly change your relationship with your body and along the way gain greater focus and efficiency along with an increased ability to respond to your body's needs before it gets painful.
All in only 5 minutes a day.
You only need to pay attention to two things.
Your solar plexus and your pubis symphesis(the hard part of your pelvis in the front).
Bring those two points further away from each other and you activate your core musculature creating space in the lumbar area, allowing your shoulders to naturally line up with your ears and your head to stack on top of the spine.
An important thing to keep in mind is that this is a relationship between these two points rather than a position you put your body in when you demonstrate "good posture". Feldenkrais talks about an act-ure instead of a posture to illustrate that postural alignment is an important factor of a properly functioning system. While you are in action you need to be mindful of your postural alignment. With this in mind, whether you are sitting, standing, walking, or dancing, try to remain aware of the space between the solar plexus and the pubis symphesis. Keeping this space actively lengthened helps the rest of the structure find it's way sytemically to proper alignment.