There are many times the universe sheds light on important matters in unexpected ways.Our bodies are meant to move, my friend Meg Dellenbaugh, a bodywork and movement therapist, always told me. They are machines geared toward movement, with joints and ligaments the pistons and gears and the heart and lung the engine.
They are not meant to sit in front of desks and screens day and night.
Yet this is the culture we built. And then all of us wonder why we are literally "sick and tired."
At the "cancer cathedral" this week for my partner's penultimate treatment, talking to the doc about fatigue.
She repeated something she has said several times: in order to have energy, you need to fill up the tank. And the way you fill up the tank is to move. It is to condition your body. While this also expends energy, it fills up the tank in a way that is absolutely required.
And so it's a Catch-22, my friends: when in pain - move. When tired - move. This is when it is both most difficult and most necessary.
I think, in the way we have built our culture, that most of us need to be re-conditioned! This is just one of the many reasons why our fishermen do not want to give up their way of life. They move all day, living in their bodies on the water. Is it also destructive of these same bodies? It can be. We wear out. But what the hell are we saving ourselves for?
I am so lucky for the dogs, for long walks every day, for a childhood of sports that taught me to love gyms and bikes and movement.
I hope you are, too. Go out and wear your body out today. Use your body up. That's what it's here for.
#bodymechanics
#movementismedicine
#reconditioning
