Note: This article was initially published as “A Lesson from the Mountains” over on my Your Health, Reprogrammed website in July 2020. This post came from an experience I had climbing one of my favorite peaks. I published it over there as the ideas for Upward Slopes were brewing in my mind but before Upward Slopes came to life. Here, I add to the article concrete practices based on my experiences over the past year and publish it on the platform that sprang forth from these initial thoughts.
The Question
How do we understand what the next healthy decision is for each of our own selves?
This is the question that kept coming back to me as I witnessed person after person drowning in a sea of information overload while struggling to find answers as to what can best serve them.
As I had come to understand, the problem was not that we needed to uncover more answers as to what we should do to be healthier. It is no mystery what makes our population so unhealthy, and it is no mystery as to the many things we could do to be healthier.
The true challenge is finding the information that best serves each of us and acting on it.
What is holding us back?
There is a long list of reasons why human beings are lacking the ability to take action to be healthier. In this post, I want to focus on one key idea describing what has gone amiss.
I’ll state it for you plainly from the get-go:
A significant part of the problem seems to be that us modern humans have become disconnected from our bodies, choosing instead to live inside our heads day in and day out.
Thoughts.
Logic.
Reason.
Willpower.
That’s where we live.
While living inside the human mind comes with some wonderful experiences (learning from others, solving difficult problems, enjoying different forms of entertainment), there are problems that arise when we do it all the time.
One such problem – we lose the ability to listen to our bodies and, in turn, miss out on an important source of information that can serve to help us make decisions that support our own unique health needs.
Instead of listening into what we each need, we opt for approaches focused on a 2-step approach: learning information that others tell us is right (e.g., eat this diet; exercise with this routine) and implementing this information as specific action (i.e., they said do this exact thing so I will do this exact thing).
Then, when it comes to results, we use criteria that others have deemed important (e.g., you should look this way; you should weigh this much).
Here’s the thing – it’s not that we need to ditch this method of learning and implementation. It can absolutely be useful to read what others have to say and try it out.
The important piece here is, if we want to achieve a life supported by a healthy body, we need to add another step to this process, and it starts with being able to understand clearly whether what we are doing is healthy or unhealthy for our own selves, mind & body.
That’s the key here – what is healthy for your own body? Not for anyone else’s, and not for you based solely on what others tell you.
This is all about you and your own body.
Of course, this isn’t an easy goal. It’s not something that I can give you a solution to that will solve the problem overnight. Rather, I like to think of it as a skill developed over time as we get in tune with our bodies, understanding how to listen to what they have to say.
Let’s take a look at how this can be accomplished.
The fastest way to get in tune with your body
If you really want to get in tune with your body, here’s what to do:
Put your hiking shoes on, get in your car, and go find a mountain. Pick one that’s in your skill range but definitely out of your comfort zone. It helps if there’s some good exposure – some risk involved if something goes wrong. Something like this one I did this beautiful morning in July 2020:
If you do this, here’s what you’ll go through.
As you’re scrambling along an exposed ridge, you’ll be looking for places to place your feet (and hands, if necessary). This you’ll be doing consciously – you’ll be making informed judgments based on what you believe to be the safest surfaces. This course of action will guide most of your placements.
And then, on occasion, something will happen – that hand placement that you thought would be perfect – well, it turns out you actually grabbed the hold just to the right of it.
Choose that solid rock that looked perfect for a foot – nope, actually, that foot is headed to the one behind it.
Decide on a path forward and take a few steps only to realize… Woah, nope, you’re headed this other way!
At least, this is what I have found to be the case throughout my many mountain climbing endeavors.
As I’m making my way along a tricky course, I find myself consistently in this dance with my body. I’m always consciously looking forward to the next series of moves as I automatically adjust based on strong signals I get from inside of me to do so.
These strong signals that arise from inside ourselves – these are what we need to be able to tune into if we are going to make decisions that support our own bodies.
Moreover, this dance between making conscious, calculated decisions and making decisions based on what the body wants – this is what we must learn if we are going to make choices that are the healthiest possible.
Because the miracle that is living as a human being is that our bodies contain the information that is needed to survive as a happy and healthy individual:
- if you’re on a steep mountainside with a need for careful foot placement, your body can take charge and guide you
- or, if you’re working to figure out whether you should go for a run or easy jog, your body can guide you
- or, if you are trying to figure out whether to eat more meat or whole grains; cookies or broccoli – your body will help guide you to what is healthiest for it
What it takes is a willingness to release that tight control that we’ve been taught we need to always have.
From here, it takes a simple willingness to listen in to the one place that receives so little attention: Our own bodies.
When it comes to health, the path forward is to learn to make decisions that best support and nourish our own bodies. We do this by developing the skill that is tuning into the needs and desires of that very source. That is, we learn to tune into our own bodies for answers.
Once again, to develop this skill I could suggest that you go find yourself a mountain (or something that challenges you physically and mentally). The important point is that you take yourself out of your safe space and add some pressure.
No, don’t do anything stupid! Don’t put yourself in any real danger if you don’t have the skill and experience to be there. Perhaps you could choose something with higher consequence but low risk (this means that if something happens, the consequences are bad, but the chance of that happening is so low that we could essentially say that it won’t happen).
“Ok, Katie, sounds all cool and whatnot – I’d LOVE to go experience some rad climb out in nature, but I can’t go do that right now. What else can I do?”
I’m glad you asked. Here’s another option for you.
Yoga
Yoga is, in its most basic sense, a philosophy with practices to help any individual tune in with their own selves – body and mind.
It can be as complicated or as simple as you like it. The key, as with everything else I teach, is to embrace it in a way that meets you where you are, allowing it to direct you to where you need to go.
To get started, you may want to keep it simple. You can try this out:
Practice
Take a moment to find a quiet space and have a seat, preferably upright with your feet planted on the floor. If need be, you can lie down.
If you’re comfortable with it, close your eyes. If not, find an uninteresting spot in front of you and soften your gaze at it.
Now, your task is simple:
To just be.
Yep, that’s it.
Just be. Here. In this space.
Here in your body.
If you’d like something to do, turn your attention to your breath. You can find it as air enters in your nose and out your mouth. Or, you can find it as your rib cage expands and contracts. There’s no right answer – just pick any physical sensation in your body based on what feels right to you.
Then, just sit and watch your breath enter in and flow out.
Do this as you just sit and be. Here in this space. With your body.
That’s it.
–
Whenever you are ready to dive deeper, here’s what I recommend:
First, go find yourself a pretty yoga mat. (Yes, a mat that brings you joy is an important piece to this. Trust me, it’s from direct experience).
Head to YouTube and find yourself a yoga sequence that appeals to you and works for your skill level.
Now do the sequence. The whole thing. All 30 or so minutes of it.
Then, repeat, all week long.
As for exactly what you’ll find, I’ll leave that for you to discover. What I will say is that it is close to the same thing as you would’ve found on the mountain – a dance between you and your body; a stream of communication as you learn what your body needs while you push it to do more.
This is the communication that is necessary if you are going to make your way through life making healthy decisions – those being the type of decisions that support your own body as it takes on the absurdly complex task that is keeping you alive and well.
