Matter.

I did weights this morning.

Even as I say that I notice a part of me coming up to say “What? You hate weights?”

It’s an old part of me and I notice another part coming up alongside it, stepping in front to say “I didn’t hate it today. Actually I enjoyed it” There’s also a part popping up to add “They were tiny weights, you can hardly call that doing weights.”. She’s old too, but beside her, inching forward is another part saying “I didn’t say I did heavy weights, I did weights today and I didn’t hate it and it felt good and I’m looking forward to adding more next time”.

Acknowledging all of these parts of me, the old ones and the new. I listen to them, I love them. I know that the old ones are just as important as the new, more positive ones. Without them I wouldn’t be here today, I wouldn’t have done even tiny weights this morning. I wouldn’t have enjoyed it. They were there to protect me during a time where doing weights was not what my body needed me to do. They kept me safe, they kept me connected to what my body did need by being so sure and so strong about what it didn’t.

Rest. Reflect. Repair. Restore. Replenish. All come first. Before we can stretch, strain, stress, in order to strengthen. Without the R’s the S’s can do more damage, more harm than good. Especially during certain seasons of our lives.

So the question is, how do we know? When we are in a time of rest and repair? And when it’s time to shift over into strengthening? Until today I didn’t know with certainty, I simply trusted and I believed that my body would tell me, if I could just stay with it and keep listening. Today it showed me that that is true, that my body will tell me. and that I can trust my body to tell me again in the future that it is time to go back to a phase of rest.

So then the next question is how can I even know what my body is saying or telling me, asking me to do?

I learned how during the long phase of deep rest and repair that I’m in the process of coming out of. When we surrender to listening more to our bodies than controlling or questioning them. When we spend more time being in and with our bodies than doing with them. That’s where we get to learn their language, to slowly get to know what and how our bodies are communicating with us. So that we can notice when the body starts to say ‘Hey you have space and capacity for more now, why don’t you give this a try?’ When the resistance is gone and the things that your body has been saying no to start to get a yes from inside. When stressing your body a bit in order to strengthen it starts to feel good and easier, when it no longer requires force or willpower or ‘mind over matter’.

When we spend time putting matter over mind there’s less and less need for mind over matter. There’s less and less need to override the body when we are able to listen to, work with and honour it instead. Then we start to feel aligned, we start to experience flow towards health, strength and overall wellbeing.