When is it *not* right to listen to our body? When should we look to the intellect instead?
We are at the beginning of October, the wheel moving towards the end of the year, and in JoyRide, we are speaking of overwhelm. We are speaking of that amorphic fog that so easily consumes us, that removes us from recognizing what action we should take, or beyond that what actions are available to us at all.
We are speaking of caregiving, and time, and tiredness. Of stuckness and stickiness. Of desire to be with our horses, and a present that currently might keep us far away from that place.
We are speaking of real life. The one that is not easily spoken to. The one with the unsure questions, and the one with the not-straightforward answers.
The one that’s often kept hidden away.
And within that, we are speaking of the tensions that we feel, the understandings that we don’t follow through on.
That, perhaps, we *know* on some level ‘what to do’ and yet our body communicates to us something different.
We know how to look after ourselves. We know that movement is necessary. We know, we know, we know and yet our body does not conspire with us.
We know, we know, we know, but we don’t *do*.
What do we listen to? Our body, who tells us it’s tired, not to move, not today? Or our mind pulling us in a different direction? How to reconcile the different parts?
And the answer is, as all good answers go…. It depends.
We are experiencing a cultural shift, where the wisdom of the body is being elevated as a source of knowing, and this is of course true. But wisdom is not always what is being communicated.
Sometimes, what our body is expressing is patterns.
Sometimes, it’s expressing a nervous system stuck in shut down and collapse, where what ‘feels’ right in the moment is not the most healthful option overall.
We have to use discernment, a delicate and tender interplay between bodily communication and the insight of our intellect to decide the right way forward; a balance between honoring the moment and moving towards a bigger sense of possibility available to us.
A skill, like anything else, that is learned.
There are times when exhaustion is present, or circumstances around us are untenable. Where the body is communicating a very real reality, and it is not the inside of us, but the outside of us that needs to change.
There are times when the body’s dominant expression is one of collapse or conservation of energy mode, an expression that is no longer matching its present reality. In other words, the body is ‘stuck’ on a channel from the past. In these situations, we have to find a gentle way between enough activity, enough sensory input to allow the nervous system to change, without over-burdening a system that’s already treading water.
This is hard. This IS willpower. This is making choices for yourself that goes against what your body is expressing. Choosing to listen to a different part of yourself.
There are times when lethargy might be present that is the result of lack of activity. It presents the same way as tiredness, and yet we find movement increases energy instead of depleting it.
It all depends. On the person in question. On the specific set of circumstances.
An ongoing process of ever-increasing discernment.