nonsensical ramblings!

Proprioception.

The therapeutic quality of water is that it stimulates the brain by providing it with so much feedback. I'm not basing this on anything scientific, I'll look it up later, so I could well be making this up. But experience is pretty authoritative. Not ultimately. But pretty.

When you lie on your back, knees bent and legs placed in a particular position, there is a sensation that courses through the whole body when you press down through the centre of the feet. The movement sings through from the bottom of the feet, inviting each of the parts of the spine to join the fluid dance on its pilgrimage to the crown - the centre of the top of the head. Except it isn't really a pilgrimage, because the movement is so instantaneous, that it's more of a celebration of unity that courses up and down this 'line', feet to crown. All from a push through the feet.

And although not the same as what I hazardously described above, immersion in water provides a similar kind of delight. The feedback of water comes from millions of molecules of hydrogen and oxygen in their mysteriously wet (and unified) incarnation pressing up against the skin, creating an image in the mind of an outline of the limbs, an outline of the self. This outline is something the mind and the body delight in, because it reminds both that they are a unified entity, a whole. If the body loses this sense of wholeness, and starts to compartmentalise and isolate movement ('leg forward', 'arm swing', instead of the whole body engaged in this inexplicable propulsion forward that springs from the core). For instance, my arm is prone to movement that is dislocated from the rest of the body. It jars, swinging in a rigid arc that is angled out from the body. There's no fluidity. My Feldenkrais practitioner refers to this as it being 'isolated out in space'. A good initial redress for this is simply by rolling - in water, on the ground. Both give the mind good feedback, but the emphasis of this is to anchor the movement in the spine. The mental image to sustain here is of your spine being a steel rod, running from coxic to crown, from which your legs and arms twirl. On the ground, keep the mind off the arms, and just repeat the movement until the arms are engaged fully in the movement of the spine.

I was listening to Dr Levitin, who was saying that movement and music are wired into our brains to be unified. Dance and communal movement as a response to music and sound and celebration is in our physiological makeup. This is part of my 'profound' revelation last week, and I really ought to unpack it more but I want to let it unwind itself a little more before I voice it.

I've taken up Tai Chi! I'm embracing the hippy within; no longer does she lie dormant! In other news, I'm moving to a commune. It's great.

But seriously, I ordered a home Tai Chi DVD on the recommendation of my OT, and have taken to moving like a loony whenever I'm listening to music. When I'm at the gym it's more methodical, for sure - but in my room it's full-throttle mayhem of the highest degree of ridiculousness. I've even taken to 'grooving' on the train. I use inverted commas there because I've never been a dancer - this condition has made me more reluctant to move because I'm self-conscious of my inability to move fluidly and as a whole self - but the truth is I never really 'got' dancing. Like, I could do it. But it never came to me intuitively like it did to other people, girls particularly. I was always very coordinated, and could follow instructions for choreographed dances, but freedancing? Let's just say I was too self-aware or lacking in creativity with my body to do so comfortably. But screw all that. I just want to move, I want to live my life as a whole self - I want to respond to the sensory input of everyday interactions of life with body and mind and soul unified. For so long I have been over-exerting my mind-self and stunting my body-self - poor, neglected temple! - at the expense of the whole self. The body isn't merely an instrument - we ARE body, we ARE mind, we ARE soul. All three. And when one is neglected, the other two are retarded because they take on roles that don't quite fit - they feel overburdened, or a bit awkward.

The revelation I had a few weeks ago (this is the summer for revelations!) was about life being about enjoying God, and enjoying all that He has created - relationships, people, senses, food, nature, art, EVERYTHING - so that He would be glorified, and so that we would all revel in His glory all the more, enjoying Him, and enjoying what He has done and made ... cycling and perpetuating and intensifying the enjoyment and delight, and magnifying His worth.

It made sense in my head.

Anyway, so the conclusion that I arrived at was that I want to take care of myself so that I can enjoy all those things more. I wanted to be physically healthy. Now I've always sought to be healthy. But the difference here is that I actually WANTED to be healthy - for a reason outside myself to motivate me.

I resolved to pursue fitness again because when I don't exercise the chemicals in my head have some sort of backlog and I go crazy. If only I were joking. And that affects the way I think, and the way I see myself, which affects me emotionally, which retards the way I relate to people. I often just want to stay by myself. Which is toxic!

So, I've been exercising more. Also, the great thing about exercise, is that the brain switches into a very kind of primal gear. The momentum of movement turns the cogs of the self so that you can process stuff. Well, not really - I mean, it can be that active, you certainly can think through all the situations in your life. I used to pray through particular friends and circumstances in a very ordered sort of way in my gym routine in 2009. But I don't really do that anymore. I've taken to letting my brain float around while I exercise now. It's very liberating.

Because I used to be motivated by a manic manifestation of guilt, a desperate, feverish mind cyclone. It was a frenzy to not waste a single second. Which I don't despise - I still do not want to waste my life! I still do want to leverage myself for what matters! The difference now is that I see value is loosening the metaphysical muscle of my mind, and engaging a different part of my self. Re-acquainting myself with my physical self. So that I can function better as a whole self.

And the best way to go about doing that is to breathe a sigh of release of control over the mind. Not switching it off. Just letting it wander and react however it will.

It's delightful.