Points covered:
Exercise as meditation
Strength and coordination build in parallel
Make it a fun lifestyle, and don’t over do it
When we have great sleep and a nutritional diet, our bodies will beg us to move, rewarding us with amazing emotions, vital chemistry, and mechanistic processes. Exercise is more than just the motion of our bodies. Optimally, it’s a form of meditation, an expression of soul. Exercise directly connects our Signature-Frequency Set (our body’s HOC) to those other Sets we share our bodies with (our LOB). As the primary interaction with our Lower-Order Bodies, movement is as much mental as physical. “Flow” is a state of harmony between body and environment. To reach this state, we turn off the default-mode network (imagining mind), and turn on our executive network (doing mind). This means we’re focused on the act of moving our bodies, with little to no internal dialogue or distraction. Counting reps is likely to cause distraction, not nearly as useful as simply focusing on feeling the movement itself. Mindfulness bridges us, the Higher-Order Conductor, to our LOB’s feedback (interoception) through these rehearsed movements– each rep of each exercise, an AST (Attention Schema Theory) model, forged and refined through practiced, intentional awareness.
What bodily movements we make when exercising isn’t as important as the technique we use. Strength and coordination build in parallel. As HOC, our job is to observe how accurate our intended model of motion is. As we feel confident in the accuracy of motion, increase the effort, careful to avoid injury by overdoing it. It doesn’t matter how hard we exercise, or even if we exercise, only that we find what joy we can in moving our bodies. Respecting and valuing this foundational relationship– our mind-body continuum– has no equal, and there’s no better venue to experience it than directly, through movement. So, when we’re “not feeling it,” perform a few, controlled, hyper-mindful movements, call it a day, and try again tomorrow. This is a long-term relationship with other minds who know their limitations better than we do. Listen to them, and work with them. Then, feel the burn, as a body’s motion is united through a mind’s intention.
Read our philosophy and TOE to better understand our Owner’s Manual.
