Making Changes After Noticing
Welcome to Day 1 of the Body Theme in Spiral Three.
Ironically, the #1 way to calm anxiety is to get into your body, yet it is the last thing people with High Functioning Anxiety want to do. There are a lot of beliefs and messages that keep people with High Functioning Anxiety from attuning to our bodies. We have talked about many of them in previous lessons. We suffer better than others, we are superhuman, and we need to justify our pain or fatigue. Society has supported and fine-tuned these beliefs, rewarding us for pushing too hard and getting a lot done.
Throughout Self Loyalty School, we have talked about the process of rewiring our relationship with our bodies and building more self-loyalty. Using baby steps to move our relationship to caring for our bodies as the vessel that it is vs. the machine we want it to be. It requires two major steps. First, we need to notice our bodies. In Spiral 1 and 2, I talk about the importance of understanding how our bodies feel and noticing when we have pushed too far. In Spiral 2 of the Body theme Week 1, Day 5, I give three scenarios where I ignored my body’s signs of anxiety. I was oblivious to my lower back pain and had pushed past it until I could hardly move by the end of the day.
I ignored my body’s need for water—not until I lost my ability to concentrate did I realize my water glass had been empty for hours.
I block out my Monger, chiming in that I can’t push myself physically the way I used, and that makes me pathetic. When I finally noticed her voice, I built awareness of how it felt in my body when she was talking.
So we have built a lot of noticing NOW, what do you do about it?!?
Well, the 2nd step after noticing is lovingly making changes—practicing A.S.K. taking a break, drinking more water, doing some stretches, and being kind to yourself. Taking action is intuitive when we have spent time in the noticing step, part 2.
For most of my life, I reversed steps one and two. I would notice my neck hurting and immediately shame myself that it was hurting, and I didn’t notice it sooner. Then, rather than being curious and lovingly making changes, I would figure out the hack to fix it. This method didn’t help me build a more loyal relationship with my body. Now I know the key step is to linger in the noticing and get curious from there.
I notice my neck is hurting, and I get curious about why my neck is hurting and when it started hurting vs. when I noticed it.
The Why and the When are being kind and curious. Then, after the noticing is over, it is about taking action. What can I do to help my neck now? What can I do to help it in the future?
It is a complete reversal of how we have seen our bodies up until this point. Building loyalty to our bodies, working with them, and trusting they know best is a radical shift from the idea that our bodies need to be pushed and hacked.
Over the next three weeks of the body theme, we look at the subtle ways we can be more loyal to our bodies.
See you tomorrow!