When the sky is blue and the road is clear, nature has a way of making magic happen. This past Saturday, I was friend-napped by a motley gang, thrown into the back of a car, and *ahem* forced to put on a big ol’ floppy hat. As a landlocked denizen of the city who travels nearly exclusively via bipedal locomotion, getting into the back seat of a car and heading a few hours out of town feels as rare as snow in July. As rare as finding real magic in the world.
A bit of hocus pocus (and a few hours) later, a car full of big brims and bigger grins arrived safely at the beach.
The weather was clear, the drinks flowed, and the mirth was so tangible you could swaddle yourself in it. In fact, that’s exactly what I did. I fell asleep on Saturday night listening to the sounds of the ocean and my best friends’ laughter.
I was aware that my my energy and mood were both beginning to run a bit low, but it wasn’t until I was able to fully peel back the outer petals and become “me” again that I realized how wilted I was before we left.
Yes, this week I’m fresh as a spring green, rejuvenated, and wholly healthy. It strikes me as amazing what taking yourself just a short distance away can do for… well, everything. My shoulders had hunched, my jaw had tightened, and my brow furrowed previously– but now? A tall stalk of Michael.
I can see clearly now the before and after. There is a term for this sort of awareness. It’s proprioception.
Proprioception is the sense of self, sometimes called the “sixth sense”. Don’t get it little-boy-and-Bruce-Willis twisted, there isn’t any voodoo in this sense. Its all very real, and very well designed.
We have proprioceptors all over our body that constantly give us feed back about our body’s relationship to space. The little inner receptors, like the golgi tendon organ and the muscle spindles, are what give us the information about how tense our muscles are, how our limbs are angled in space, and really, our general spacial relationship to the world around us.
These adequate stimuli receptors are there waiting to be used, and we do so without any real congnizance quite frequently. How frequently? Like, every second of every minute of every day. However, when we bring cognitive recognition to both the stillness and the actions of the body, we’re able to get a feeling of how and where we are in space that can be so enriching it borders on profound.
Just as my trip to the beach allowed me to bring awareness back to the self, I would encourage each of you this week to take some time and listen to your body. Ask it questions, and see what it says. Be patient as you listen for the answer. In the silence, your body will speak to you, and part of a strong yoga practice, I dare say an advanced yoga practice is listening in the silence for the body to whisper its subtle cues.
It can be something as simple as questioning “How straight is my arm?” or “Am I stretching the skin of my fingers?”
Then of course, you’ll have to listen for the answer.
As I got a taste of my bliss in a slow, sun-drenched beach town, I couldn’t help but wonder if the “sixth sense” went deeper. Is this very sort of awareness, this practice of questioning and listening, capable of bring us closer to something more profound?
Can we hear our inner, authentic self if we learn to question and listen?
I think so.
What does your inner self have to say?
- Team Beach!
