HEARING VOICES
I woke yesterday with a particularly stiff neck and general weakness in my arm which have been ailing me of late. I've not been doing much exercise over the Christmas break - deliberately to allow some time for my body to recover and I really wanted to do something today that I enjoy rather than just go and lift weights in a gym - ie. Yoga. My first thoughts on waking yesterday, were to stay at home and let my partner go alone to the yoga studio as it was a tube ride away, cold & raining plus my body felt a bit achey. This is my lazy weak voice speaking up. Luckily, the other thoughts kicked in that told me some light exercise, stretching and getting out of the house would do me good. My positive and motivational voice was the right one to listen to.
We all have this inner conflict – it's the same voices that tell you to stay in bed when you've planned an early start and the same voices that stops you making progress through fear, laziness and other negative thoughts. Thankfully, I've got a pretty strong sergeant major voice in me that gets me out of bed in the mornings and chides me when I don't set out to do the things I've given myself. This voice can also be a bit over demanding at times - so we have to listen to both voices and we then need to evaluate what they say in order to make decisions for our actions based on what we've learned before. I'd call this Wisdom.
I watched a documentary on the subject of Wisdom last night - a group of older actors, artists and people already respected for their achievements, talking to camera about what this word means to them. I know older people who think they have wisdom - I know younger people too....convinced they are right without having the experience or without really looking at what they are saying/doing or really analysing/storing the information to be in a better position to say they've learnt something.
So, I know from experience, that getting up and doing some exercise - even if, when I've not had much sleep, am hungover or just feeling below par - I know that raising my heart rate, warming my muscles, stretching, sweating and getting the endorphins flowing, is going to benefit me. And I know this because I've pushed myself to do something before when I know it will benefit me because I have already learned this through experience.
So I got to yoga - a new place (for me) called Good Vibes, which is in Covent Garden, London. It's a really nice, warm studio which has SAD lighting (great for a cold, grey wet Jan 3rd in London). The American girl teaching had a good positive energy and generally, it was clear that everyone in the room were feeling pleased with themselves that they'd made the effort to take the class! After just a few minutes of warming up, I found my aches and pains had already subsided and the confirmed benefits of doing yoga came flooding back to me - plus I felt chuffed that I'd won out against the negative voices again...why had I even considered not coming - had I doubted yoga's healing properties?!? No, I'd allowed some time to have a conversation with myself to weigh up the pros and cons of the situation in order to made a good judgement call. This was all based on previously learned truths gained through experience where I'd remembered the outcome of those successful decisions over time. This is called wisdom!
Here's the film Wisdom - should you wish to watch it - think it makes a good balance with the film watched the day before, The Power of the Heart - which talks about trusting your instincts - both available on iTunes.
After the yoga, I met an old friend, had a light lunch and discussed Wisdom, Intuition, being grateful for what we have and what it means to be Happy (just remembered there's another interesting documentary likely worth seeing that I started watching on New Years Day - I'll come back to this one after I've watched it in full at a later date). My partner and I then came back home for a bit, and went to the health shop to buy some coconut butter. I'll save the coconut butter for a later post, when I've had time to discover the potential benefits of using it as I've heard it's great for many things.
Afterwards, we took a sauna/steam in our local gym and had a massage at our fabulous chinese herbs, medicine and treatments shop called Herbs & Harmony. I'm going to go back for a series of massage treatments on my back, neck, shoulders & arms plus I've booked in for a consultation at 10.30 today with the doctor to see if some acupuncture could help fix my weak bicep problem quicker. Then it's another session of dynamic yoga followed by a steam & sauna to get me ready for work tomorrow - my first day back in nearly two weeks...
I'm not usually one to talk about or analyse dreams but I woke up this morning with a very strong recollection for a dream I was having about a tidal wave. I wasn't afraid in the dream - I'd managed to find a way to ride out the wave as it engulfed everything around me. So I looked it up. Interesting!
'Tidal wave and tsunami dreams remind us that if we don’t confront and deal with things that are out of balance in our life, then they will confront us first!'
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