Mind and Body
Listen to your body, not your mind.
Your body knows itself. It is more aware of what you actually need than we often give it credit for.
Conversely, your mind is deceptive. It often lies to you more than we give it credit for.
Having the discernment to understand the difference between the two is instrumental in your growth. There are so many aspects of my life that have improved the more I’ve learned to work with my body rather than against it.
How to know what you’re listening to can be tricky however. Should you push yourself? Are you overdoing it? What is healthy and what is obsession?
In my personal experience oftentimes the thing I don’t feel like doing is coming from my body - aka laziness rather than moving my body, and the thing that I feel like I can’t do is coming from my mind - aka telling myself I’m not good enough at something.
Obviously for individuals this will look different. Your body is different than mine. And this doesn’t mean your body and mind are always at odds - sometimes they’ll both agree that you need action and sometimes they’ll both agree that you need rest. Using discernment here is crucial.
So how do you learn to discern the difference?
Here are some of the questions I ask myself to try to help:
When is the last time I moved my body?
How will I feel if I skip?
On a scale, am I leaning further towards the lazy end or the obsession end?
God’s design to put our souls within bodies is not accidental. Our bodies are yet another opportunity for us to learn more about who God is. There is so much about the way he created us that we regularly disregard. How would our lives change if instead of viewing our minds and bodies as separate we learned to recognize just how interconnected they are?
