Use Your Body to Get High
Tonight I find myself struggling with writing. I don’t really feel like I have anything to say, but I challenged myself to write daily and so don’t want to let myself down.
It would be easy to blow this off and instead do anything else. Discipline in the face of boredom, emotions, confusion, life — is something I am only sometimes good at. It’s been something I’ve thought about a lot recently and a topic I’ve discussed more than once with my girls when they are struggling.
It’s so much easier to be wise when giving them advice.
Don’t want to clean your room? Make it a game. Feeling depressed and don’t know why? Emotions are there to give you information, they don’t need to drive what you do. Get up and move around, let’s run up and down the street together or dance, you’ll be feeling better in no time.
Why isn’t it just as easy to take my own advice? Last night my youngest was feeling blue, so I danced with her in the kitchen. I had her laughing in no time and realized in the midst of it that I felt great, too. She bounded off happy and laughing.
A couple of hours later, she was down again. I told her the bit about emotions serving to inform us and shared ideas about how physiology plays a role in feeling better, that’s why the dancing worked. I then asked her to throw on some boots, and even though were were in our pj’s, we ran up and down our block in the cold weather at 10:00pm. It was fun, uplifting and invigorating.
Know what gets me moving most of all? Music.
This morning I loaded up Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin and was in a state of total bliss in the car on the way back from dropping Ashley off at school.
Lyrics of track 1 — The Song Remains the Same
I had a dream. Crazy dream.
Anything I wanted to know, any place I needed to goHear my song. People won’t you listen now? Sing along.
You don’t know what you’re missing now.
Any little song that you know
Everything that’s small has to grow.
And it has to grow!California sunlight, sweet Calcutta rain
Honolulu Starbright — the song remains the same.Sing out Hare Hare, dance the Hoochie Koo.
City lights are oh so bright, as we go sliding… sliding… sliding through.
That song, along with just about every Led Zeppelin song makes me feel so incredibly high. I can’t even get started on this because my love for Zeppelin will take over this post.
The important thing is that music makes people feel better. There is an article from 2013 in The New Yorker about How Music Makes Us Feel Better and there are countless others.
In my former life, I started a music school because I believe in the power of music so much. It teaches us about ourselves, inspires us, provides an outlet, it can teach you about business, history, culture, science, math. But for now, I’ll settle on the idea that moving your body is easier to do to a good beat.
So I’m going to get up and put on some music and dance tonight so that I keep moving, going forward, disciplining myself to do what I need!
Your Next Moves
- Get up and move your body for at least 2 minutes in any way you like, jumping jacks, running around, dancing — anything!
- Notice how you feel. Write it down, remember this feeling.
- Commit to adding more movement to your life — set a SMART goal and go!
Fear Update
Yesterday I conquered my fear of leaving up my highly personal first blog post on Medium. Check.
Today I conquered my fear of being social by doing three social things.
- I accepted an invitation to go out tonight after initially rejecting it.
- I asked someone I care about to have dinner with me and he said yes.
- I replied to an introduction to a fellow entrepreneur by requesting a meeting to see how I could get involved.
Tomorrow I will tackle something else!
Post your fear conquering achievement in the comments and share in the adventure with me! Be someone who feels the fear and does it anyway!!
Gratitude Journal
I have done gratitude meditations and journals in the past and always found them to be a helpful way to clear my mind of negative baggage. Now I am following in the footsteps of Ethan Levy by posting three things I am grateful for at the bottom of my posts.
Today I am grateful for:
- Running in the streets with Ashley.
- Seeing the holiday lights on 34th Street.
- Michael Hyatt’s body of work, — he’s a great inspiration and I think often of being like him in my professional life.
