Moving the muscles with calculated innocence
In our home, if a neighbor happens to visit , we would be talking politely for sometime with the neighbor. We would expect him to leave anytime. Till the time he leaves we would be suspending our normal activities. More the time he spends would be anxious when he will be leaving so that we could resume our normal activities. Interestingly if our family members are around we would be carrying out our normal activities as without any hesitation or being anxious about others. The difference between visitor and the family member is the acceptance. Acceptance to how long they can be there. When we come to the acceptance that they can be as long as they want we resume our activities without anxiousness.
Anxiousness or worries gives focus to the work we do in a fairly automatic mode. It makes us conscious of what we do and possible mistakes. Anxiousness and worries slows a bit but certainly helps us to inspect our movements carefully.
On the other hand acceptance puts us back in the automatic mode of functioning. Acceptance relieves us from the worries and anxiousness with the acknowledgment of what we are doing is OK.
All our activities are essentially movements and more specifically movements of muscles. Paying close attention to the movement of muscle we could notice how anxiousness and relief plays. Such a close inspection reveals how we could bring a healthy change to ourselves the way we move and the way we live.
We are a bunch of muscles that moves for conditional changes in the heap of memory. Body serve like projection screen for the theater of the mind. All shades of emotions are projected on the body. Hot and warm felt by the body is perceived by the mind as fear and pleasure which in turn effects the movement.
In short for any movement, go or no-go signal for muscles come from mind in the form of emotions.
When we move or bend, two sets of muscle pull and counter pull to maintain balance and protect from over stretching. All excess movement or stretching causes physical pain and additionally triggers emotions such as fear. These additional emotions though helpful to prevent overstretching, but also forms a hurdle or stiff resistance for strengthening the muscle.
It is for this reason, in yoga when the pain is accepted we stop generating the fear.
