Is Your Body Really Letting You Down?
-Help your body feel safe enough to release pain
John Legend mentioned in a recent interview that his voice fails him sometimes.
I just want you to consider this use of language for a moment…
If he is requesting his voice to sing beautifully for hours and hours night after night in front of thousands of people, then actually he is asking his voice to do more than the average voice, so is his voice really letting him down or is he pushing it when it ‘fails him’?
Now, mirror this in your own life-
How many times have you said- your body was working against you or letting you down?
It’s not!
Your body is always working to support you, are you asking too much of your body? If your body is ‘performing’ fitness-wise, energy-wise in a way that makes you feel let down, consider what else you are asking your body to do every single day. Pick up your child, care for others, walk your dog, drive people around, remember things, organise things, worry, clean, work… etc etc.
The word ‘homeostasis’ comes from the Greek words for ‘Same’ and ‘Steady’, meaning your body wants you to be safe and steady so that it can survive and adapt to the conditions around it and forces put upon it.
Tension is your body adapting to your life
Tension is your body (or your nervous system controlling your body) adapting to your life.
Tension is created by the body because it doesn’t feel safe, supported, grounded in some way. There is usually a lack of stability and or strength, caused by movement avoidance. Your body avoids certain pathways of movement due to a past injury, emotional holding or other stressor.
If you are in pain, it is incredibly important to know that your body hasn’t ‘let you down’ (as most people tend to feel), your body has actually been pushed to a point where it doesn’t feel safe and so by berating it you will make it feel even more unsafe because of the large amount of stress hormones released when we receive beratement. Whether from others or ourselves, this negative talk has the same, stressful effect on the body.
Thinking in this way also takes your power away. By assuming the body has let you down you allow a disconnect to happen, where there is less communication between you and your body and when we limit this communication, we are less able to have influence over how the body (including nervous system) behaves.
Instead, learning to be inquisitive about the pain can help us to feel less afraid of it, less afraid of feeling it and more likely to move areas which once caused pain.
This is the freedom we all seek - the ability to move without expectation of pain.
Sometimes it is the expectation of pain that causes that pain
…and if you’re not listening to your body you won’t be able to know the difference between expected pain or experienced pain.
In his interview, John Legend then goes on to explain that in order to maintain his transcendent voice and stop it from’ failing him’, there's a lot of protocols that he has to have in place, such as he doesn’t drink alcohol on tour, he drinks water, and he prioritises sleep and rest, all these things require maintenance and a team of people dedicated to making sure this maintenance happens. Now of course, he's talking about looking after his body so that he can get what he wants from it.
Now mirror this in your own life…
And I’ll leave you with two questions:
What protocols do you have in place to support your body so that it ‘doesn’t let you down’..?
And where in your life can you ask for support?
