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Areas › Your body › Posture and how you carry yourself
Complex trauma teaches people to leave pieces of themselves at the door, and a yoga mat is an easy place to carry on doing exactly that, particularly with a mirror in the room or anyone watching. So say the welcome out loud rather than assuming it is understood. Being curious about what turned up, instead of passing a verdict on it, is the whole of the move.
Your generous Lord, who created you, shaped you, proportioned you (Quran 82:7). The body you would rather leave at the door was proportioned by someone generous.
الانفطار
ٱلَّذِي خَلَقَكَ فَسَوَّىٰكَ فَعَدَلَكَ
your generous Lord, who created you, shaped you, proportioned you
Qur’an 82:7read it in the library
Translation: M.A.S. Abdel Haleem, The Qur'an, Oxford University Press, 2004.
In a cross sectional study of 671 university students, the link between exercise and wellbeing was statistically explained by body image and self esteem rather than by fitness. How people feel about their own body seems to sit in the middle of that relationship. Being cross sectional it cannot tell you which came first, but it does suggest a practice that quietly worsens body image is unlikely to help anyone.
Shang Y, Xie HD, Yang SY. (2021). The Relationship Between Physical Exercise and Subjective Well-Being in College Students: The Mediating Effect of Body Image and Self-Esteem.. Frontiers in psychology doi
Strength of evidence: one line of research. A single study, or a theoretical account.
Shame shrinks when the thing you were hiding turns out to be allowed in the room.
When you start paying attention to your body, things wake up. More feeling, a deeper breath, memories arriving sideways. That is the practice working, not the practice going wrong.
Calm is only half the training. Plenty of people are more frightened of stillness than of adrenaline, because stillness puts the guard down.
Picture a cat getting up from a nap. One side lengthens and reaches while the other side curls in, then they swap over. Do that. Add breath and sound if you want them.