so NOT bootcamp…7-28-22
I love historical novels. Just finished The Dictionary of Lost Words by Pip Williams chronicling the decades long effort that created The Oxford English Dictionary. In addition to the mix of fact and fantasy, it was a language exploration, how words are derivative of experience but also shape our experience. Dictionary definitions—spring boards into a huge language pool. I often use them in writing to illuminate how our interpretation of each word is shaped by our unique experience of a constantly evolving reality. It’s a miracle we can communicate this way at all!
So take the definition plunge with me. Today I’m curious about how our needs for self-care change over the decades. Consider the word care:
1) provision for the health, welfare, maintenance, protection
of someone or something
2) to have feelings like concern, responsibility or love
for someone or something
Many of us are quite skilled at bestowing care for others. Pointing the finger right at myself. But what happens when we personalize this meaning:
Concern for and taking loving responsibility for my
health, welfare, maintenance and protection needs.
There are so many ways self-caring might manifest. In the best of all possible worlds, we minister to the needs of our vulnerable hearts, tangled minds and wild spirits. But you know where I’m headed: caring for our tender bodies is foundational and naturally opens the portal to all these other realms.
Some examples of how NOT to care for a tender body:
some habitual drill we latched onto when that first owie desperately needed attention years ago
some routine drilled in ad nauseum by a personal trainer in the last century
a latest and greatest internet guru series
a pre-fab list your medical provider handed you as you walked out the door
fill in your own version
Here’s what I know from direct experience, with my own body and a virtual multitude of bodies: our needs are super-personal and our needs change. This is just plain common sense. Each new body trauma reshapes us and begs for re-calibration of care. As does the passage of time. I so very often work with folks on the brink of a decade change intuitively sensing this. They come in with an almost instinctual need for a shake up in self-care. What we need in our thirties is very different than what we need in our sixties.
So after Labor Day when you’re ready to rededicate, recalibrate, restore, renew…and receive, come for expert guidance. I’m returning to Ritual (the old It’s All Yoga) on 6 Saturday afternoons for live-in-the-flesh classes that help you suss out what you need. Limited to 12 participants for optimal spacing and personal attention Six exploratory chapters: tender, gentle, pleasure-filled. Each session filmed for supported home practice. Tending Your Aging Body: stay tuned, enrollment link active soon.
It’s all about the shoulder lately in Roll, Release, Align. You can be there on line this Friday morning to feel, breathe, move, change. What the heck is a latissimus dorsi? Did you know this power house muscle connects your pelvic bowl to your arm? Look at this big boy…amazing:
And this Sunday morning is literally the last dance…until after Labor Day. Majica and I share the mixing, back and forth to offer up two waves on the fly in the garden. After we move together, let’s eat together. Come out of your cave…bring a potluck offering…feel the joy of connection, the support of community. It’s a good thing.
Grateful for all our tomorrows and the human way we are able to rededicate and renew….❤️Bella