Get Moving to Get Moving: Where Physical Exercise Fits into the Soul Journey

While there are not many of us that would dispute the benefits of being fit and healthy, how many of us incorporate regular exercise into our lives? And perhaps the more pertinent question is why?

When I left the corporate arena nearly four years ago, I had been working in a highly stressful, sedentary environment for over two decades. The contradiction in that is well understood from a health perspective.  Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline coursing through us are great if a high level of physical exertion is involved, but if theses have nowhere to go, the effects are quite damaging.

But with a baby and toddler at home, there was barely time to make sure we were all fed never mind thinking about regular exercise, I made do with the mad dash from the ferry terminal to the office each day.

To be honest though, physical exercise has not been high on my agenda for a long time. In fact, it’s been about thirty years since I really took it seriously. There have been moments in there where I played at it for a while, but nothing stuck for the long haul.

When I first left the office environment my priority was to figure out who I am, from the inside out. I stopped having massages for tense, aching muscles, I stopped going to the osteopath for treatments and I avoided any kind of painkillers or other medication. I wanted to get a sense of the real picture.

And over the last few years as I started to write and get clarity about what is authentic versus what I’d adopted through misguided beliefs, I have also started to get clearer about the role our physical body plays. It’s usually the last aspect of our being to reflect our inner state and intention.

Although I consider myself to be generally quite healthy, there are some aches and pains and annoying minor (yet chronic) conditions that have crept in over the years. I guess I could say my body has become stagnant and, like any body of stagnant water, that creates an unhealthy environment for my wellbeing.

Recently I had to take my daughter to the osteopath, and I felt an intuitive nudge to book in for an assessment myself. I figured that, after all the inner work I’ve done, and all the insights I’ve gained, it’s now time to do some work on a physical level.

This has been neatly spurred on by labouring in the garden lately. While it’s been gratifying, by the end of each day my physical body is hobbling around with a back that keeps getting thrown into spasms. It’s definitely time to get moving.

Growing up I tried out several sports: I did gymnastics for a while, swimming, board diving and even cross country running. Then I got more serious about swimming and, before I knew it, I was training for over an hour in the pool every morning before school and then every evening before bed, in addition to the weight and gym training that supplemented it.

After five years of dedication to that way of life, I felt I’d swum all the miles and I’d done all the training I ever wanted to do and have hardly been near a pool or gym since.

There were other sports I tried briefly: mountain biking, climbing, orienteering and hiking, but nothing really stuck. Life got in the way and I spent years of working in desk-bound jobs. So it wasn’t until my mid thirties - after a number of failed pregnancies – I decided to take my fitness seriously again.

I employed a personal trainer and my core muscles screamed in indignation at the drastic reintroduction to being worked out again; it was not an enjoyable experience. I really hate doing repetitions unless they relate more to something meditative rather than excruciating.

If I compare repetitions in a pool to repetitions in a gym, I definitely prefer the feeling of my lungs being expanded and strengthened, as I take a breath in between strokes, than the feeling that my head wants to explode from the way my body responds to squats or pushups.

Yet I still didn’t feel compelled back to the water, though I may have if there had been a decent pool locally. Instead I found yoga. Of course there are many forms of yoga, ranging from the more strenuous, repetitious types that remind me of squats at the gym, to the forms that hold poses for extended periods; I prefer the latter.

The yoga I do is great for stretching out the connective tissues and maintaining flexibility in the joints. So while I had found something that, like meditation, serves my wellbeing and has now been integrated into my life over an extended period, it still doesn’t get my body moving.

When I was at the Osteopath’s for the assessment and she said “what do you do to raise your physical vibration?” I responded meekly that I take a few walks on the beach and a do a physically low key yoga session each week.

Her reply was well aimed:  ” I think your body would really appreciate an opportunity to move, to let each cell breathe and increase its vitality.” That made a lot of sense of course.

We talked then about the options, and I divulged that I had been thinking about taking up swimming again for a while, I just hadn’t yet felt compelled to act. “I think even after just one session in the pool we will see a difference” she said. So right there was my nudge to action.

No longer am I getting in a pool to train for anything competitive, it’s about giving this physical body a chance to move and to replenish itself; to flush out the old and bring in the new. It seems fitting at a time where I feel poised for action on my journey, to get moving: I just have to get moving.

Like anything in life, the signposts appear when we are ready to see them. If you’ve been drawn to read this, it may mean that you also needed a bit of a nudge towards physical exercise beyond it is good for you.

Frankly, our soul’s journey in this realm is experienced through our physical body, so if we want to live in it long enough to feel satisfied that we’ve made a difference, we really need to pay as much attention to that level of our wellbeing as any other.

If what you read here resonates, you might enjoy reading:
When Did We Become So Oblivious to What Our Bodies Are Really Telling Us?
What is Your Body Telling You?
Is More Leisure the Antidote?
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