As I talked about previously here, our experience of the now is an amalgam of the many stimuli that we receive continuously. The mind is constantly bombarded with thoughts and images. The body is affected by what we eat and what we have it do. Although it might seem like an impossible task, it is possible to turn down the noise. Once we do this, it is easier to see our current situation more clearly and be less reactive. Once we are not simply reacting to life, we can take steps to get things under control.
Suicordium is about being in alignment with your heart, which is about cultivating self compassion and love. If we are not caring for our bodies then we are not expressing self love. We must take the responsibility to care for ourselves and look after and nurture our bodies. The ascetics would curse their bodies considering them to be a lower, animalistic portion of themselves that only served to tempt them away from the divine. Nothing is further from the truth. In fact this is such an insidious lie, that has become entrenched in the modern narrative, that we see it spilling out into a form of global asceticism where everything that man has achieved is labelled as bad and harmful to the planet.
We all know about exercise. If you are not exercising as part of your routine, you are doing your body a disservice. Although there are many opinions regarding what the optimal level of exercise might be, what is absolutely clear is that some is better than none. If you currently are not taking any exercise at all, your immediate goal should be to incorporate at least some exercise into your daily routine. This might sound daunting, but you can achieve wonders with the minimal amount of time. 15 minutes a day could literally transform your life. I don’t recommend it, but try doing Burpees for 15 minutes straight to see just how exhausted you can get in a short amount of time. One of the immediate benefits to exercise is that doing something challenging with you body makes worrying about other things difficult. Also, once you’ve overcome your difficulty, i.e., finished doing the exercise, your body will be flooded with endorphins and other feel good hormones. It is also more difficult to worry when your body is telling you that it is happy.
Apart from exercise, there are other things that you can do that will help both your mind and your body. There are several ways that you can get your body to be more relaxed and feeling good. I started using “Tapping” over 10 years ago. Tapping, or Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT), is a simple technique that I have personally used in “crisis” situations. Although these situations may not have been literal life or death, there were times when my body really couldn’t tell the difference. By using this technique I was able to bring my stress levels down quickly enough that I could remain in control. I started using tapping at a time in my life when I was in danger of getting into an emotional downward spiral. I was abruptly out of work and entirely unprepared for how that would affect my self esteem. I started taking refuge in food and alcohol which was further driving my anxiety. I stumbled across Tapping whilst watching a YouTube video. Since it is something that you can try by yourself, with no equipment, I immediately gave it a try. I was amazed at the immediate impact that it had on me. If we were to describe anxiety levels on a scale of 1 to 10, I found that what I would have described as a 7-to-8 was down to a 3-to-4 after a couple of minutes of tapping. Although I had improved literally nothing regarding my situation, I was able to look upon it in a different way. Firstly, I was able to see just how much stress and worry had accumulated within my body. Before that moment, I hadn’t realised that my body could worry about things just as easily as my mind could. Sometimes it is the smallest step of realisation that can make all of the difference. By finding a technique that could help my body regain its composure, it would help free my mind enough to allow it to become proactive again. As I said earlier, I have used this technique many times since. I have found it so useful that I have taught it to my children. It has become a staple during exam time when maintaining a clear head through the nervousness is vital.
Another non-exercise tool that I have used for a long time are cold showers. I have been taking cold showers for around 10 years. There is much literature regarding cold showers and how they reduce inflammation, improve circulation and increase metabolism. While all of those are worthwhile, they are not what motivate me to take cold showers. My main motivator is that once you are done, you feel amazing. It is like going through a whole body meditation. If the water is cold enough, your mind isn’t flipping around “worrying” about things at all. Now I can take a cold shower without any apprehension at all, but it wasn’t always that way. The first cold shower that I took was for 30 seconds, and I thought that I was going to die. What made it worse was that I was planning on working up to 5 minute showers and that just seemed impossible. Every fibre in my body was telling me that the cold was killing me and that I needed to get out. I kept telling myself, “If this is 30 seconds there is no way you can do 5 minutes!”, but once I was out, the screaming subsided, and I felt amazing. For the rest of the day I basked in a feeling of warmth, calmness and wellbeing. The next day, the 30 seconds of torture never came. Although I still found it very uncomfortable, it was just that; discomfort. I wasn’t panicking with my mind racing, I could just recall that I made it the day before, and I would make it again. I also discovered that the feeling of wellbeing post shower wasn’t directly proportional to the amount of suffering. Once again I basked in the warmth, calmness and wellbeing for the rest of the day. By the end of the week, 30 seconds was easy. I subsequently moved to 1, 2, 3, 4 and eventually 5 minute showers after several weeks. If someone would have told me 10 seconds in to my first 30 second cold shower that one day I would be comfortable with 5 minutes, I honestly wouldn’t have believed them.
In this post I have purposely not provided links to the things I talk about. I am a firm believer in doing your own research. I also believe that seeds only germinate in fertile soil. If you are on this page looking for solutions to challenges that you face in your life, you will be motivated enough to find out for yourself. If you aren’t ready to do the work, then all of the links in the world won’t motivate you to do so. Heartfelt beliefs can’t be changed by rational arguments.
Feel free to ask questions in the comments below.
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