Skip to main content

Body Wisdom: Making Yourself Comfortable


Last night I had trouble sleeping. I was once again up during the late middle of the night. Something different happened for me this time though. My mind wondered off to yoga class--restorative yoga to be specific. 

Monday's restorative was very physical. It was more focused on the body than I am accustomed to. At first I didn't think I liked this different approach but then gradually it grew on me. Our instructor noticed the low energy in our group. Sometimes you just go to restorative yoga to relax and kick back. That is what most of us seemed to be doing. To remain in that state may well have caused our day to be static, low energy and to lack flow. Slowly but surely our teacher set about finding ways to energize us.

We got our blood flowing through flowing postures and moving meditations. I especially enjoyed eagle pose. It was a new challenge. Since I had broken my ankle I don't think I had stood on just that one repaired foot in ages. I felt accomplished.

What really resonated with me though was the wisdom within my body. Connecting my mind to my body to find out what my body wanted and what it needed brought about comfort. In restorative, often our teachers ask us to do what feels most comfortable. Sometimes that means bolstering ourselves with pillows, blocks and blankets but other times it means taking the postures deeper--challenging ourselves.

Last night when I had that trouble sleeping my mind immediately wondered back to Monday's yoga class. I checked in with my body to see what I could do to make it more comfortable. How should I lie down or did I indeed need to get up and walk around?

Listening to the subtle cues from my body I did get up and get the blood flowing well by walking around the house. I took an herbal supplement in the form of relaxing Valerian root, and then went back to bed. I focused in on how my legs touched one another and decided I needed to separate them at the knees with a pillow. I took mental inventory of how I was holding my hands, were my finger tips comfortable or were they in awkward postures that led to distress? How about my tongue and jaw? Were they holding stress from the day too? With the answer being yes to all of these questions, I set out to relax my jaw and tongue--taking it away from the roof of my mouth and creating a pocket of breathable space.

Immediately I began to yawn. In no time at all, I was returned to a very comfortable, deep and blissful sleep. Thanks to the lessons of the previous day's yoga practice I had licked insomnia and will continue to use those comforting practices, one day at a time.

Comments

  1. Hey Stephanie, I did not know that you were into yoga too.I realise after reading your post that I too end up unknowingly clenching my jaws throughout the day and hold stress there...I'm gonna be conscious of it now on.Thanks for the insight.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Oh yes Vinodini! I love it and it sounds like you do too. Sometimes those subtle shifts that yoga invites can be so meaningful and transformative.

      Delete
  2. I've never done yoga...sounds like a great idea! I didn't know it could give you energy, actually. I thought it was all about relaxation.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yes Stephanie, there are all different sorts of yoga with different purposes and ways of being practiced to meet your intentions. Restorative, which I was talking about in this post, is about restoring and healing the body, bringing it back to a healthful state so a combination of relaxation and energetic work is useful.

      Delete
  3. I always have a hard time falling to sleep. I guess I need to listen to my body more, but I have metal in my spine and it tends to have a loud mouth. haha I wish I could do yoga, but because of my back I can't move or do the poses that are required. :(

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Chrys, I do think as creative people our mind stays very busy. I hope your body cooperates with you most of the time. I have metal in my ankle and forearm and it plays up sometimes too.

      Delete
  4. Lovely post Stephanie, thank you. My late mother was a yoga teacher .. Hatha Yoga. I could tell stories! The body knows ...
    Garden of Eden Blog

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks Susan! What a lucky woman you are to have been raised by a yoga teacher--hatha of all forms.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Go ahead. Make my day by leaving a comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Gran Bwa

Gran Bwa is a lwa that helps you connect to ancestral roots or the spiritual home of Vodou. A friend of mine, who is an expert on Haitian Vodou, who has spent a lot of time in Haiti with the artists there, told me I had painted Gran Bwa when I made this spontaneous work out of walnut ink and sumi-ink on handmade paper. I had considered this painting a self-portrait. She now holds this piece in her private collection: Quite a few people are afraid of Vodou but it is an awe-inspiring tradition of bringing together plant energy with divinity, spiritual and personal energy. My friend who is very involved with Vodou, especially the art that surrounds it, is from European ancestry. She is light in spirit and bubbly, with a close relationship to nature and her garden.  Vodou affirms the relationships between cycles of life, trees of knowledge and spirit.  The Vodou vision of lwa , understands them as the intelligence of energy present in humans, nature and thoughts.  ...

Tree Whispers

Tree Whispers Shinrin-yoku is a complementary medicine modality, designed to up-lift sub-par health conditions, through lifestyle changes that involve immersion in nature, specifically the wildness, we call a forest, where the senses, including our intuitive sense and ability to heal ourselves through it, is ignited. Forest bathing, as Shinrin-yoku is popularly called, has come to our attention, at a time when the scientific community is abuzz about the ability of trees - be it in stands, groves, or forests, to build community. This, at a time, when we as humans, struggle hard to build and sustain healthy in-person communities, in the face of Online communications. Books like “The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate Discoveries from a Secret World,” (Wohlleben 2016) by Peter Wohlleben is a Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post bestseller. It makes readers privy to trees’ communication skills and social networks, that is, it helps us entertain...

Taking a Virtual Knee

Even though I'm an author, I'm basically without words today. Words can hurt a life time, like the first time I was called a Nigger as a little child. These words come towards healing: #BlackLivesMatter. Still, my heart is broken. Our collective heart is broken. America can and must do better. Remembering #GeorgeFloyd and so many others. Stop Killing Us! Photo by  Annie Spratt  on  Unsplash