After Waking Up, you will want to take care of your body-self differently. Once you realize what a difference it will make to your health, happiness, performance and relationships with other, you will pay a different kind of attention to your body. You will want to listen first to what your body needs and re-prioritize your self-care routines to include what you have discovered. It might not work any longer to stand up while you eat, or text message while you exercise, or skimp on your rest. When you truly take care of your body’s basic needs, your body can be there fully for you and the things you want to do and accomplish. One of the ways to address your self care is to balance the elements of rest, play and work in your daily/ weekly life. what does this look like now? Make a list and see what you do for play and rest as well as the activities that you do for work. Does your list seem balanced or is it weighted towards one side leaving the other two hardly addressed at all? Many people forget that rest and play can seep in during the “between moments “. For instance, in between your car and your office, the very manner in which you are walking can feel playful with your attention gathering in the natural world around you…this can be very restful. Rather than being an automaton, you can benefit from practicing awareness in your “between moments” can help a busy life find some balance.
Of course, scheduling “appointments” for play and rest is every bit as important as the work schedule you keep. In the long run, you want to cultivate your most valuable “work” commodity by making sure you are taking care of your body. Remember, without your body, your mind is nothing!

Change Your Internal Dialogue. Before you can change your internal dialogue, you have to be aware of how much self-talk you engage in throughout the day. It would be interesting to keep track of the things you say to yourself and write them down so you can see what your body/mind hears. You are programming yourself over and over again with these words and phrases. Even places of affect (emotion) that you return to habitually will shape the way your body feels and lives in the world. I would love it if you sent me your phrases and words and I would then (anonymously) use your internal dialogue or self-talk to highlight some of the unconscious messages that you (and others) send to their body/mind in a constant stream.
Once you have your pet phrases or repeated emotional state identified. Imagine that you are address or beaming this energy to a plant or child or pet. What effect would this have on the vibrancy, well-being, self-esteem, and success of something that is sensitive and alive? Well , this is the effect that your words have on you! Waking up means becoming aware of the internal dialogue, being conscious of its background and effect, and changing it to positive dialogue. This will take time and habit are hard to break. But, as psychologists and cell-biologists and other scientists are discovering, negative self-talk has a very deleterious effect on your body chemistry as well and your energy level as well as your self-esteem. It also is self-fulfilling. What you say to yourself over and over becomes who you are and determines what happens to you both in your internal world and in the external world.

Learn How To Relax. One of the first tasks when I start working with people is helping them discover how to relax and be fully awake at the same time. Tuning into the interior space of your body and inviting your breath to move unimpeded through the tissues (muscles, skin, organs) and joints (bones) is a powerful way to initiate an experience of relaxation. Just sitting at your computer, take a minute to feel your breath moving your belly and your back. Take another minute and let your body tension soften to see if there is more breath you can exhale. And more interior space to take a fuller inhale. You have taken the first step in learning how to relax a little more. This is something you can practice anytime you are sitting reading, watching TV, having dinner, etc. And learning how to relax is something that everyone can use in these time of go go go and informational overload, and multiple layers of non-stop stimuli. The first two cuts on my CD: BodyBreath: Three Guided Meditations (available on my website) will be enormously helpful in your quest to learn how to truly relax!

Paying Attention to Tension. OK, let’s start right here and now…As you are sitting, reading this blog, scan through your body and log in the areas of tension. Could some of these areas be positional? In other words, are you sitting evenly on the base of your pelvis or are you off on one side or is your leg crossed or are you slumped or are you leaning forward on to one elbow. Change you position to have both feet on the ground and your spine supported over your pelvis. Imagine that your body is like a building supported by a foundation that is balanced on the base of your pelvis and your two feet …kinda like a tripod. And that the top of the building (ie your head) is perfectly balanced so that your eyes can look easily out of your face with out strain.
Now, the question arises if some of your areas of tension are due to your environment. In other words, does your chair need to be higher, your computer screen at a different angle, the keyboard need to be lower? Check it out. Do is your place in front of the computer ergonomically supportive of you and your body dimensions? This could be a place where you spend a lot of time and it would be beneficial for the longtime health of your muscular and skeletal structure as well as your organs and eyesight to make sure your “work station” is properly designed for your easy body mechanics.
Once your mechanics and body position are lined up to accommodate a relaxed (not tense) posture, it is time to look at your habitual or residual body tension. Do you notice a habit or holding position in your jaw, shoulders, butt, or calves? Scan through your body and simply register where your muscles feel contracted or squeezing. Experiment with letting these habitual places soften and relax. If you have a favorite place of holding, it can offer a real challenge to get underneath the habit and let the muscles relax. But, if you stay after it, you can free up a whole lot of energy and help your body stay enlivened and aware of the present moment rather than the habits of the past. For the next few weeks , see if you can monitor your favorite “holding pattern” and discover what it has to tell you.

Why did I choose the chapter title “Waking Up”? Strange as it may seem, even though you may be walking, talking, reading, and, seemingly, wide awake, when you tune in to the fullness of your body’s potential, you are probably pretty much “asleep”. Most people take their bodies so much for granted that they are deaf to its communication, blind to its guidance, and oblivious to its deep wisdom. “Waking Up” means “coming into your senses”. It means listening to your body, understanding its unique language, and hearing its communication. It means seeing and living your life from the inside out rather than the outside in. It means giving highest priority and credibility to the information that your body is transmitting. It means following and trusting the guidance of your body. But first, you have to wake up! Some simple ways to begin to awaken the hidden wisdom of your body are:

Pay attention to tension.

Learn how to relax.

Change your internal dialogue.

The book will elaborate on all of these suggestions and flesh out the picture with facts, true stories, and simple exercises to help you begin to truly know, access, and enjoy waking up to a full life in your body.

I am excited about how my book, Body Wisdom for Life, will help you discover the many ways to help yourself and become “body wise”!  Just consider the chapter titles:

• Waking Up which includes a Body IQ Test
• Tend to the Basic which highlights what your body really needs
• Stress and Relaxation information and strategies to manage a complex world
• Injury, Illness, and Healing
• Emotional Embodiment
• Intimacy and Intuition
• Body and Spirit
• Finding Body Wisdom

I am sure some of these titles pique your curiosity.  Your enthusiasm for learning more will help my book find its publisher!

Another way your body can help you in times of challenge and change is through your breath and the simple, anatomical function of breathing. This is what it might look like:

Feel where your body moves as you breathe…If you calculated the interior volume of your breath, is it possible that you are only using a fraction of its potential? Quieting your mind and body for a couple of moments will help you focus on your breath and enable you to perhaps feel more space for each inhale and exhale. Feel your belly/ back/ collarbone/ sternum and make sure these are open for the natural, automatic expansion and contraction of your breathing. Tuning in to your breath will help you anchor yourself in the present moment and feel the pace of life as your body knows it. This pace is “body time” and will calm and focus you anytime you need it.

For more guidance on anatomical breathing check out the audio “Relax Your Breath” on my website: www.BodyWisdomForLife.com or my CD: BodyBreath: Three Guided Meditations (also available through my website).

I am excited about how my book, Body Wisdom for Life, will help you find many ways to help yourself. Just consider the chapter titles:

• Waking Up which includes a Body IQ Test
• Tend to the Basic which highlights what your body really needs
• Stress and Relaxation information and strategies to manage a complex world
• Injury, Illness, and Healing
• Emotional Embodiment
• Intimacy and Intuition
• Body and Spirit
• Finding Body Wisdom

I am sure some of these titles pique your curiosity. Your enthusiasm for learning more will help my book find its publisher!

Another way your body can help you in times of challenge and change is through your breath and the anatomical function of breathing. This is what it might look like:

Feel where your body moves as you breathe…If you calculated the interior volume of your breath, is it possible that you are only using a fraction of its potential? Quieting your mind and body for a couple of moments will help you focus on your breath and enable you to perhaps feel more space for each inhale and exhale. Feel your belly/ back/ collarbone/ sternum and make sure these are open for the natural, automatic expansion and contraction of your breathing. Tuning in to your breath will help you anchor yourself in the present moment and feel the pace of life as your body knows it. This pace is “body time” and will calm and focus you anytime you need it.

I am preparing the book proposal for my first book, Body Wisdom for Life. I have written this book as a manual for anyone who seeks greater health, happiness, creativity, and fulfillment in their life. This time in history holds incredible stresses and challenges as old ways are giving ways to new…in the social, political, environmental, economic world around us. Many people feel that their lives are in flux. This inevitably disturbs the status quo, bringing up dormant feelings of fear and anger and frustration and grief and regret which have been safely tucked away in the body. Such situations are always portals for change, healing and transformation. If everything around us is changing, to ride the wave we must find ways of changing our selves. Paying attention to the body will give you an avenue for insight and intuition that can guide you through these times of unknown. If you learn to listen to your body, it can tell you what it has known for eons and eons and these baselines never change!

Let’s explore a couple of ways that your body can be helpful when confronted with the challenges of change and the unknown. Just to begin with:

Feeling your feet on the ground will give you a sense of support and grounding and confirm your “place” on the planet. Feel the full impression of the sole of your foot. Imagine that you are met by an equal and opposite touch from the ground under your feet. This is a relationship that humans have had as long as they have walked the planet.