Our bodies never lie.=========================================================
Day 22 Activities:
1) Mantra meditation
2) Minimum 30 minutes of calorie burning
3) Write down everything you eat and sketch your Balance Chart
4) Continue to remain aware of your speech patterns
5) Cut Cords
6) Create your personal meditation for stress relief
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Another stress-busting tool for your yoga toolkit:
We each have unique personalities and physical appearances, so it make sense that we each manifest stress in a different way.
What is not different about us, is that our physical bodies "act out" from our mental/emotional stress. For example, chronic tightness in the lower back, pursing lips, clenching knee caps, nail biting, picking at skin, grinding teeth, headaches, etc.
Our bodies mirror our mind's stress (usually by tightening). So as most of us know, when we relax our minds through meditation....often the body will follow and become more relaxed.
And conversely, if we relax our bodies (through yoga, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, massage, etc.), our mind will follow.
So for today's activity, identify how your physical body behaves when you are stressed. In my case my jaw tightens and moves over to the right and my right shoulder hunches up toward my ear.
You may already know exactly what your body does when it is stressed. Or you may need to tune in throughout next couple of days and consciously observe your body's behavior.
Once you are aware of your body's stress response areas:
1. Meditate on your stress areas by continuously relaxing those areas. You can do this in bed to help you fall asleep at night or any other time you can set aside for 10 minutes. Let your entire awareness come to each area that gets stressed, one at a time. Let the area relax. It will probably tense up again and again...this is the practice...each time it tenses up, just let it go, without any judgment or analysis. Optional: If it HELPS, you can coordinate the intense relaxation moments with your exhales.
2. When you are in an acutely stressful situation (i.e. argument with partner, tense meeting at work), do your best to interrupt the madness by taking 2 seconds to notice your body and try to let go of the gripping. It can help to take a long exhale (try doing it when someone else is talking and no one will ever notice).
Your stress areas may shift over time or from situation to situation. So whenever you do this meditation, be very conscious of where your body is actually carrying the stress rather than where you expect to find the stress.
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