LOVING YOUR BODY # 2

The most important aspect of this is LISTENING TO YOUR BODY. Believe me, it talks to you constantly. It is only our deafness, which is lack of attention, that make us deaf to it. I think I have already said somewhere that our bodies are like infants that need to be attended to the same way. Even as I sit at my computer scribbling here, my back is screaming and wants me to get up and stretch it, which I shall do shortly. If I were a truly good mother, I would get up in mid-sentence. But it is only because I am not a good mother that I am so focused on what it takes to be one. Though I am not getting out of my chair this minute, having made myself comfortable in it to the point where it has stopped screaming, I want to mention a few ways in which I am trying to make myself more attentive. The biggest way lately is this: I am allowing myself short naps throughout the day. The season is changing and I can feel winter in my bones with the passing of the monsoon high up here in the hills. I generally come down with a chest congestion this time of the year, but by nurturing my body I hope to skip it this time. I'm also drinking lots of hot drinks -- my favorite these days being a big pot of water in which I throw some crushed ginger, cloves, cinnamon sticks, the dark Indian elaichi or cardamom which I haven't found in the US, and some pepper corns. I simmer it down about 10%, cool and store it in the refrigerator. I drink at least four cups of this during the day, some with green tea, some with green tea and soya milk, or just plain.

Naps or simply stopping and doing nothing for a while is a new things with me. I am stupid enough to think I have to be doing something all the time. I have mistakenly thought that I had to do something during the time I am doing nothing -- like reading, or playing that addictive backgammon on the iPad.
Both of these can give me headaches. I can sense in myself the need to be different now. I shall keep you posted on the how.