Knowing Our Body

I woke up this morning and had incredibly sharp pain in my right upper back and lower right shoulder. I then realized that I was having a dream where I was being stabbed over and over in the back while I was asleep! The pain, however, was the impetus for the dream. Hmmm... or, was the dream the cause of the muscle spasm to occur...interesting. (Mind and Body...)

Michael and I work out together at NYSC each Friday morning as he works from home on Fridays. I know my body so very well. I just knew that if I went to the gym and completed my normal hour-long weight training workout I would feel better.

I completed my regular stretching routine and headed out to the gym with Mike.

It certainly was difficult to get started. Even driving the one mile to the gym was painful as I turned the steering wheel and put my seat belt on sending my upper back into spasms. I started to doubt my decision to work out this morning. Was I nuts?

The first few sets with the weights were difficult and sent my body into spasm. However, each set began to relieve the spasm and the pain was becoming more manageable as time went on. By 15 minutes into our workout, I was doing fine and the spasm was less painful.

I am now sitting here in my office and am not experiencing any spasms. I do have soreness and I have an acupuncture appointment this afternoon and a massage appointment tomorrow morning with Jennifer (L.Ac.), and Lea (L.M.T.)

Of course, this sent my thoughts towards awareness of an interesting metaphor. So many times, tasks can be painful and arduous, but, if we trust ourself and know ourselves well we can tolerate a bit of pain so that this task becomes less difficult.