The Clarity of Movement
Map of Shambala by Lola Lonli
How do we find and sustain mental freedom and clarity in a world that continues to place more and more demands on our attention span and our bodies?
If you believe the beautiful posts online (ironically coming from one of our primary sources of mental overload), you simply need to take a deep breath, or build a morning journal practice, or meditate and you will feel instantly clear. If you’ve tried these suggestions, though, you might find that it’s more likely you still feel the same, walking away with a sense of shame that you just can’t free yourself from the mental cloud of distraction.
Taking a deep breath, writing things out, and meditating can all make a difference in our mental clarity, but like most things require a consistent practice to make any impact. The piece that is missing for so many of us in gaining cognitive sharpness is hiding in plain sight, and might surprise you. Rather than being a symptom of a lack of regimen or routine, a congested mind is frequently a product of a congested body.
The key to caring for, cleaning, and focusing our minds lies in our physical bodies.
Take a moment right now to observe your how you feel. When was the last time you took note of your body? Start with your general mood - what is it? Notice any muscle tension - do you have none, some, or perhaps pinpointed tension somewhere like your shoulders or low back? If you had to label your current physical state, how would you describe it? You might feel clear, foggy, heavy, tingly, light, tight, slow, buzzing, or any number of other sensations.
Can you find any correlation between how your body feels and what your current mental or emotional state is? I feel a little foggy today, and my sense of my body isn’t cohesive. I’m unaware of my lower half, slouchy, and tense around the neck and shoulders. If I make a point to feel my feet and let my weight sink down, it’s easier to stack my spine and head, relieve some tension and feel clearer. It feels like work, even though I know it helps.
Our experiences are unique - only you know what it feels like inside your body and mind - but a little sleuthing shows us immediately how connected the two are. Another way to consider this is what happens to our playing when we really get the physical aspect of making music right. The music pours out easiest when our bodies are uninhibited by tension and misuse.
Somehow, though, it remains counterintuitive that we must free the body before our minds will get in line. Our distracted nature might actually originate in the unnatural way we carry ourselves through our days, rather than in our overwhelming consumption and frenetic use of media.
It’s an untapped opportunity to consider addressing the things that cause us distraction and stress from the inside out first. We can’t change the world - the news, a friend we are disagreeing with, or not faring well in an audition where we played our best is all out of our control - but we can change ourselves.
My inspiration often comes from yoga, meditation, and myofascial release - things that I am trained in and a practitioner of because I know the tangible difference they made for me. They are all excellent ways to explore how we move, how it makes us feel, and how to use movement to influence our feelings. There are many other disciplines that can do the same: breathwork, massage, running, weight training, walking, biking, swimming, Tai Chi, etc.
If you are a runner, you can probably appreciate the way going for a long run seems to clear your mind. I tired to be a runner for a moment, and although it never stuck for me, I still managed to experience some of those brain-clearing benefits. For me, that experience is more easily tied to the time I spend on the yoga mat. After tuning into my breath and movement and doing my best to notice without judgement I always feel clearer.
It’s not just feeling-based, either. There is science to all of this. When we move our muscles and breath we create and rewrite pathways in the body, we release materials, fluids, and toxins that are stuck in the body, and we build or calm our energy. Recent research has taught us a lot about why yoga and mindfulness work, and what happens to our brains when we care for our muscles and body.
The real challenge is figuring out how to harness this knowledge and apply it to your unique experience. In our modern culture, the brain is boss. We’re not taught to value or listen to the cues that our bodies give us, meaning the first step to incorporating movement into our life is to learn how to feel what our experiences are.
Earlier I asked you to take a moment to observe how you were feeling. Doing this often is critical to knowing what your bodies needs as well as gaining a sense of trust in your physical body to support you during tough times.
Taking time each day to carefully observe how you feel before getting out of bed, in the middle of the day, and before bed can be enough to make an impact. By getting in touch with ourselves at regular intervals we become much better at recognizing what we need. Maybe a few deep breaths, maybe a stretch or a little bit of walking, a nap, or perhaps your posture needs re-aligned.
As you get used to checking in more often, you’ll become better at understanding your tendencies and the cues your body is giving you, allowing you to head off habits that aren’t helpful. If you know that you tend to slouch while cooking, you’ll become better at staying mobile as you work. If you know that you lock your left shoulder while you practice, you can begin each session with movement around that joint, and maybe even include some movement as you play, allowing your focus to rest on the music rather than on a sense of limitation.
Although these changes seem small, they add up to something meaningful. Developing movement practices that genuinely help overhaul our mental clarity doesn’t require an elaborate routine, and often is more sustainable in small doses easily applied throughout each day. You don’t need to have a lengthy and demanding morning practice of journaling and yoga or a dedicated meditation space or be a marathon runner to benefit from what our bodies have to teach us. Through the implementation of small, helpful habits and observation we can connect the body and mind and create the calm and clarity we desire in our lives both on stage and off.