“The mind is like the wind, and the body is like the sand. If you want to know how the wind is blowing, you can look at the sand..”

- Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen

Moving Matters

On Monday morning, I joined a yoga class - always the best way to start my week. As we lay circling the knees, the teacher used a lovely cue that made me smile and sigh, and I’ve been whispering it to myself all week.

“Motion is the lotion,” she said.

It sure is. Because moving is vital. Movement is vitality.

Mental Health Awareness Week is coming (13th-19th May), and I’m excited about this year’s theme, ‘Movement: moving more for our mental health’. It aims to promote the positive effects of movement. Unsurprisingly, a recent survey conducted by Active Lives among 170,000 adults found a strong correlation between life satisfaction, happiness, and well-being scores for those who are active.

Move your Body, Move your Mind

I often wonder, as a population, how much our collective lack of physical activity contributes to overall unhappiness. It’s something many overlook for their mental health, where therapy and medication might be the first or only go-to’s. To take care of our mental health, we mustn’t neglect our physical health. To deal with the minds ill at ease, we ignore the body at our peril.

We should remind ourselves that we have a whole body, not just a mind. Our bodies possess innate wisdom, which we frequently underestimate. Our living, breathing vehicle carries as much intelligence as our mind... maybe more🤔 Since minds are not as reliable and truthful as we imagine them to be, they often lead us astray with fiction, fixation, and bias.

What would happen if we got out of our heads and into our bodies more?

The Body Holds the Score

For the body speaks loudly. It’s where the interpretations of the mind project into flesh, manifesting like monsters or fairies. The body is a vast canvas of possibility where each emotion, memory, and experience imprints like words from an eternal typewriter, etching the pages of our personal storybook.

A fear, a judgement, an embarrassment; stamp, stamp, stamp.

An insecurity, a disappointment, a legacy; stamp, stamp, stamp.

Love, heartbreak, loss; stampety, stamp, stamp, STAMP.

I've been thinking about movement and the mind from a yogic perspective, specifically the concept of samskara.

Samskaras refer to imprints, memories, or residues that drive our habits and actions subconsciously. In yoga philosophy, these psychological tendencies are often described as deep mental impressions that can also get stuck in the body due to the bidirectional relationship between body and mind.

“In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way their body interacts with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.”

- Bessel A. van de Kolk (The Body Keeps the Score)

Exercise or Exorcise

These impressions can be problematic for our mental well-being, trapping us in habitual patterns. I see physical movement as a useful way to access these indelible marks beneath the level of our subconscious, which may otherwise be inaccessible to the level and manipulation of our thinking minds.

Movement is one intentional way of embodying ourselves and connecting with our unique forms, imprints, and messages of the body.

If parts feel stuck, we can loosen them through energetic motion, helping us understand that we are able to move in different directions. In those who have been disturbed, agitated, or paralysed by stress or trauma, the right movement can help reinstate a relationship with the body that builds trust, relaxation, and pleasure.

Perhaps...

By understanding our bodies better, we can learn more about our minds.

By recognising that sedation arises not only from drugs and alcohol but from being sedentary.

By moving our bodies more, we can unstick our minds from inertia and rigidity.

By challenging our bodies, we may also challenge our beliefs.

Motion is the Lotion

Some yoga practitioners see their techniques as a means to cleanse the body and mind of samskaras, both positive and negative. I like the idea of using yoga’s moving tools to untangle and dissolve sticky imprints and apply lubrication that makes our journeys a little smoother, physically and mentally.

How we move matters, too. Unfortunately, we sometimes move in a way that punishes and diminishes, which actually reduces well-being - perpetuating suffering by creating further samskaras, if you will (we have enough of those as it is).

As we contemplate movement for mental health, let’s fully appreciate its powerful ability to heal the body and mind. And remind ourselves to move in a way that brings joy and not punishment, encourages self-esteem rather than comparison, and promotes choices that build confidence and safety.

"Motion is the Lotion."

Ready to move?

Let’s practise.