Life is Experienced through Movement
I’ve been working through some thoughts on why I put so much emphasis on movement for our ability to live fully…
Life can only be experienced through movement.
Without movement, there is no sensation:
You only notice the sensation of touch when you feel movement. That’s why we’re not constantly feeling and aware of the clothes on our skin - when they don’t move against the skin, we become accustomed to them and they feel like nothing. Or room temperature air, without a change in the air and a breeze, we don’t feel anything.
You feel something with your hands when they move in some way, with friction or the exchange of energy when the heat from a hot object transfers to colder hands or vice versa.
Movement creates the awareness of sensation.
Your eyes see because light moves to them and creates a reaction in the nerves of the eyes.
Your nose senses smell because chemical particles move through the air to interact with your nose.
Your ears hear because sound frequency moves through space to interact with your ears.
You taste when food or liquid moves against your tongue…
Have you ever held something in your mouth a long time? It tends to lose the distinct flavor.
When a sound is constant and unchanging - it becomes “white noise” and we lose perception of it. And when the sound stops? That’s when you realize it’s been there all along. Think of when a fan gets turned off and you perceive a deeper silence.
When at first you walk into a room with a distinctive smell, think of how, after a couple minutes, you might forget the smell is there.
Or when you’ve lived with the same landscape in the background for many years… you might lose appreciation of its beauty…
In order to deeply appreciate life and to experience your senses fully I believe we need movement in all the things that give us sensation…
This is why one of the best things we can do to bring up our mood and energy, as well as to regain focus and mental clarity… is move! Take a walk, do some exercise, or simply change your body position even while sitting. It’s what we need to awaken our senses.
And this includes another sense - that of movement itself:
Within the body and all the parts down to the individual cells that make up the body, there is a kinesthetic sense - the internal sense of movement. And if the body is not moving, its sense of aliveness becomes dulled, numb, or even disappears. It is through movement that all parts of us are awakened. Consequentially, it is through movement or the lack of movement that all the cells of our body will either be nourished or will prematurely die off. It’s as if the sensation of movement itself is what brings life into the body…
What parts of yourself are you aware of in this moment?
What parts of yourself are have you lost contact with?
Sometimes the parts you’re aware of are asking for more movement (aches, pains, etc.) because they haven’t been moved well for a while. Sometimes we may discover that there’s certain parts of us that we don’t even recognize as having sensation.
I suggest spending some time finding ways to move even the smallest parts of us: from our toes, the individual joints in our feet, our fingers, our face muscles and even to the spaces between each pair of vertebra in our spines. Find what resists movement, and find ways to mobilize it - your senses will come alive and your body with thank you with more easeful movement and less pain…
Whole body movements are great, but to get the smaller parts working well and all working together, it’s helpful to learn some principles of alignment. Knowing how our parts align helps us realize where we move easily and where we are stuck.