When I was in my early 20’s I got my first place and moved out of my parents home. The independence was great, no more being told to pick up dirty socks off the floor or being berated for being too loud coming in after a few drinks. It didn’t take too long for me to realise that liberation came at a price and whilst not being told to do the dishes was exhilarating the downside was that if I didn’t do the dishes no one else did either. Very quickly my lovely new bachelor pad resembled a cesspit and became a rather unpleasant place to live. Another realisation was that the longer I left between cleaning sessions the more the rubbish built up making the task so huge it appeared impossible. Things became so bad that I eventually sold the place and got married!
Although most of us appreciate that keeping our homes clean and clutter free is an essential part of making them pleasant places to be very few of us pay the same consideration to our own body. Just like with a home without regularly maintenance and house keeping our body will quickly become a very unpleasant place to be and the longer left between spring cleans the more crap will accumulate. It is alarming the amount of people I meet who do not like to live in their own skin and scary the number who actually hate it – and as the world spins quicker the number of those dissatisfied with the own internal environment is increasing at an epidemic rate.
In the outside world we appreciate that if rubbish and filth are allowed to accumulate disease will follow, but the only time most of us even pay the slightest attention to the world inside ourselves is once disease has taken hold. Only once our body becomes uninhabitable do we give any thought to taking care of it – up until this point it’s ‘party time’ 24/7!
Disease (‘dis-ease’) does not target the strong; it doesn’t look for a tough fight. Like any predator it targets the weak and vulnerable looking for an environment it can grab an easy foothold in before attacking. So in order to prepare ourselves for the fight we need to give our body a fighting chance by ensuring that it has a strong foundation from which to defend itself. But like with my old flat, once the filth has piled up beginning the cleaning process starts to look like mission impossible… which is why the task needs to be broken down and tackled one room at a time.
With my clients, some of whom have multiple serious conditions, I help them break down the task of ‘cleaning house’ in order of importance to make things managable and bearable. Quite often the first room that needs cleaning is their mind – breaking down the habits, addressing the patterns they’re not happy with and looking at ways to systematically work through their issues. All too often people fall into habitual routines that unless broken make it impossible to achieve long lasting healing. A common one I see is people will say something like “My body is aching and feeling like death warmed up…. So I’m going to wake it up with a heavy session down the gym!” which to me is like saying, “My house is a pigsty after that party last night… so I’m going to have another session tonight to forget about it!” And all that results from this mega session down the gym is a total crash in a couple of days time as the body reaches the point when it has to shut down everything else down so it can tidy up - que the colds, flu, joint pain, bad backs, depression, etc, etc that then move in for the kill once the body is busy trying to sort out the mess!
When the body is a clean and tidy having a party is fine and actually enjoyable, but I see so many people who ‘party’ just to forget that how unpleasant a place their body is to be. I think it really is a shame when someone doesn’t enjoy living in their own skin and see the martial arts as being a wonderful tool to ‘clean house’ - but when abused they are also a great way of increase the rubbish we load our body with. Look at your training and make sure it is making your body a pleasant place to be… once it is the parties get even better!