Mind, body connection: 7 easy steps to maintaining balance

Usually when I awaken, my mind is fuzzy. A cottony tangle of sleepy remnants harvested over the previous seven hours. Yesterday morning, however, the synapses knitted together a single thought: balancing the mind-body connection. I could ask myself why I attempted to make sense of a topic that begs deeper scrutiny at any time other than 4:15 in the morning. But if I were to venture a guess, I’d say it’s because my sub-conscious was trying to get my attention to validate: I’m out of balance! This led me to check in with Google, which turned up these seven steps as a useful check-and-balance system for re-establishing and maintaining a mind-body connection: 1) take time each day to quiet the mind and pray/meditate; 2) eat a healthy diet; 3) exercise every day; 4) prioritize restful sleep; 5) release emotional toxins (i.e., let go of past hurts, disappointments and anger); 6) nurture loving relationships and 7) enjoy wholehearted laughter at least once daily.

How do you maintain mind-body connection?

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

Stuffing it in

[Image credit: digitalart]

Today’s post came to me as I reflected on how, from the outside, my injured ankle seemed ready to sport a pair of my “big girl” shoes (a.k.a. hot heels), as well as resume working out.  But below the surface, the muscles and tendons and ligaments were (and are) still healing, preparing my ankle to support my weight (in fashionable pumps and while performing lunges).  And I started thinking about how many of us are like that with our hurts and disappointments.  On the exterior, we appear to have it all together — nice home and car, good kids, decent marriage and career — but in reality, many of us are habitually stuffing our hopes into the far recesses of our minds to collect cobwebs and possibly die off altogether, while disguising the cracks in our shells the best we can.  Maybe it’s easier that way because we don’t want to make waves, trigger strife or hurt the ones we care about, or we’re afraid of change, it’s too much work and so on.  Or perhaps we’re in the exact place we’re supposed to be for a given season in order to prepare for the day when we can finally reclaim our dreams of happily-ever-after, dust them off and fully live in the moment we’ve been waiting for.

Do you hide your true self by stuffing it in, or go after what you want without looking back?