Body Awareness
When told to be aware of my body, what comes to mind is ‘I should be aware of what I eat,’ or ‘I should exercise more,’ but from what I have derived from the handout ‘Body Awareness,’ I do not think I am quite aware of my body. The module explains how we are seldom aware of our body parts unless we think about them since we are actively engaged in other activities. For instance, as I typed this on my computer, I was seated on a park bench. I had not thought about where my legs are or where my neck was. The moment I thought about these body parts, I immediately became aware of where they were. I discovered that for the past 20 minutes, I had crossed my legs to the point of getting cramped. Additionally, my fingers were doing the typing on my keyboard, letting my thoughts flow away without my awareness of where each of my fingers was. The reason being that I was so focused on typing the answers from the assigned discussion on this essay, that my mind filtered out every other possible sound and image that was not relevant to my present activity.
During yoga class, I have undoubtedly noticed my inner voice. Sometimes the instructor will introduce a new pose, and as I stretch along, it will keep criticizing me. I hear things like ‘You cannot do it as well,’ ‘Come on, you are no expert at this kind of thing, what are you trying to do?’ Or sometimes, when I feel like giving up when a stretch has been going on for quite a while, the voice will encourage me. I will hear things like, ‘Do not give up so fast, you can get through anything, including this!’ Sometimes my inner voice will speak out crappy stuff into my head, making me develop some anxiety and fear. However, it does encourage me too occasionally, making me want to engage in more poses. Over time, I have learned that the authentic voice in my head exists deep down. It encourages, not criticizes me. The rest of what I hear is just an amplification of my fear and doubt, that which prevents me from achieving the most challenging poses in class.