Taking Care of The Body

How do I take care of my body? Whatever I do makes him happy? Is it me or my body that is happy?

Are our bodies and us separate? Although it is sometimes difficult to answer this question, the body has its own language and its own characteristics. It’s not just healthy eating, exercise or sleep. These are my needs and his needs.

The body definitely needs to fall asleep and rest in sleep, but we do not allow much opportunity for rest when we collect all the burdens and go to bed.

We don’t do the body any favors when we move just to look slim, look young, or be cool and eccentric.

Who knows if we eat healthy food, trying to follow what we are told in a world where what we are told changes almost weekly and many trends appear only as fashion.

I started yoga at a time when I didn’t know what I could do with my life. When my children were growing up, I embraced yoga with all my heart – to keep myself busy. I came across a lot of teachings and teachers. I realized that the body has its own needs, just like my children, my friends, my parents. I realized that it spoke a different language than me and that I did not fully understand this language, and that loving him does not mean making him do what I want and shaping him the way I want.

I realized that when he said “I want to stop” I didn’t stop, when he said “it hurts” I said “come on, honey, you have to continue too”. However, the body is a friend, a lover and my integrity that shares with me all my pains, joys, sorrows and worries and embraces, surrounds and includes me in all these moments.

I’m not a mechanic, I’m not a doctor, I’m not a psychologist. I am a translator  and a yoga teacher who tries to understand my body just like a person speaking a foreign language and find out how I can accompany it. I think that translating is the ability to convey what is said as it is rather than interpreting it, just like my psychologists translated the contents of my mind to me in the therapy sessions I received. I am trying to explain to people that their bodies can move more comfortably, easier and healthier this way, not this way.

Take a new look to your body, try to establish a friendship with it, get to know it, learn what it likes and dislikes, and understand what it wants to do and how. Look at him with compassion, be able to accompany him in sickness and health.

Namaste.