You know, I started doing koga (which is mindfulness-based, inward-focused movement to music) for exercise. Yet, I got something so much more than just doing “exercise”.  I’m no longer checking some box out of obligation to my “good health”. No, I’m doing something that truly feels satisfying.  It’s actually a source of pleasure, because it feels good. Connecting to our body FEELS good. IF, and only if, we ALLOW it to be an exploratory and open *connection*.  Not a ‘should’. Not something that we read about and then go do because “science” says to.  The connection within ourselves is so much deeper and fundamental than that.

WE have all the information we need ALREADY to do it. Just explore what feels good. And let that be enough.

Let that be ENOUGH.

Enough of everything – everything you believe you need to start creating health and vitality in your body.

Koga gave me so much more than exercise because it brought me to mindfulness. True mindfulness. The experience of being IN the body AS the body. In that moment. Not a future one I am planning or worrying about.  Just now.

My body is a miracle. Yes, mine. No matter how much I’ve labeled it as broken or defective or not good enough – it is more than enough to be amazing. Not from the outside, but from the inside. To *experience* the miracle of this life. That is what mindfulness is. I read about mindfulness a decade ago – but never *got* it.  We are here for this experience, not to *judge* it, but to *have* it. 

After doing koga for so long, I started to actually *feel* the current of energy flowing through my body.  It is subtle, but it is there. Undeniably there. There is *something* there. We truly are electrical beings.  Consciousness… spirit… I feel like I’m tapping into all those possibilities.  I read about that our body is electrical – but never *got* it.

But now I’ve felt it, time and time again, when I was losing myself in moving the body As the body.  There’s a current of *something* that comes through our body – and our muscles and posture naturally are drawn *to* it, like a magnet. There is a force, or an energy, that felt like it moved the muscles a bit on its own, so I wasn’t ‘doing’ all the work…it was a form of energy.  And I felt a little crazy, because, well, I’ve been a proud ‘exerciser’ most of my life … if this was a part of me where had it been all my life? How had I been missing out on this? Why didn’t anybody tell me?

And you want to know what is equally fascinating and inspiring as *feeling* and discovering experiences within your own body? It’s then reading about something, that maybe you read a long, long time ago – that sounded interesting, but also sounded like a bunch of make-believe hogwash … and then realizing that THAT’S what you were feeling. That it is real. That you aren’t crazy and you weren’t imagining it.

Now THAT Is cool.

“Qi is our ‘life essence’ which maintains and nurtures our physical body and therefore also affects our mind and spirit. Qi is everywhere. It moves and changes quickly from moment to moment and can easily be replenished on a day-to-day basis.  The human body is a field of continually moving energy, circulating through cells, tissues, muscles and internal organs. […]  It is much easier to demonstrate qi than to try to measure or contain it and there are a variety of exercises you can do to get in touch with qi and feel its affect on your body. Qi is a real force, made up of electric, magnetic, infrasonic, and infra-red vibrations, which can be intuitively perceived and mentally directed.  Like the air that we breathe and depend on for our life and water than we take into our bodies, qi is the very source of our vitality.”

-from Yoga, Tai Chi, Massage, Therapies and Healing Remedies, 2002

That must be what I tapped into and discovered when going within into my own body experience! I gotta say, I find that pretty cool.  And we all have this inner world available to us.  And although it is sometimes hard to convince myself to go there, it always turns out more satisfying than binging on some stressful tv show.  To think, that “exercise” can be an actually enjoyable form of self-care rather than something grueling on our because-we-have-to list…   who knew?!

Science doesn’t have THE “right” answer on THE “best” way to exercise for your better health.

YOU do.