Living in Your Design
Apr 19, 2021
Children become good movers because they live in their design. In the first few years of their lives, they spend their days exploring their bodies. They move and learn, then they learn and move. When they get hurt or injured, they “reset” their nervous system by going right back to moving and exploring their bodies. That’s why they are so resilient and that’s why they often heal so fast from accidents and injuries.
Adults, on the other hand, typically vacate their design. They spend a large majority of their days ignoring their bodies. They don’t move and they unlearn how to move, then they unlearn how to move and they don’t move even more. When an adult gets injured - whether from an actual physical injury or an emotional or anxiety-induced injury, they don’t reset themselves and they continue compensating in movement patterns long after the injury is “healed.” This is why it seems like adults become fragile as they age and it’s often why it takes so much longer for them to heal from accidents and injuries.
Think about it. A child spends all their time learning how to move. If they get injured (falls, breaks, bumps, etc.), they go right back to moving where they can. Try telling a child to “rest and take it easy for a few weeks while you heal.” Good luck with that. They keep moving, they keep resetting and restoring their bodies. They heal and they “move on” in strength and health. What’s interesting also, is children don’t seem to get too emotionally lost in their pain or injury, they can deal with it and it doesn’t consume all their thoughts.
But an adult spends very little time moving. They lose many of their foundational movements and much of their foundational strength. Maybe this causes them to get injured. Maybe they can’t let emotional triggers or anxieties go and this causes an injury. But when adults get injured, they are told to rest, don’t move, or take it easy. And even if they are not told that they do that. And often, the injury gets into their heads - they may spiral into an “I’m broken” state of mind or fear my grab hold of them. But eventually, the adult’s injury will heal, but they will often retain a memory of the injury in their body; Maybe through pain that continues, or through movement alterations and compensations (like limping), or through fear of re-injury. Many adults don’t really “move on” in strength and health, they just continue down the path of “aging” or fragility.
There are some things we should never outgrow. There are some things we can’t. We cannot outgrow our design. We can ignore it, but we can’t outgrow it. We shouldn’t outgrow the ways of a child, either. We should move often and we should explore our bodies - learn from them, learn with them, pay attention to them and be aware of them. Children are masters at this. And we are meant to be Grand Masters at it. We are meant to move on in strength and health throughout all the years of our lives, in our bodies, and our minds.
If you want to enjoy your life and all that it has to offer, return to your childish ways. Spend time relearning and remembering how to move, how to breathe, how to laugh, how to smile, how to forgive, and how to forget. This is the path to freedom for the WHOLE of you. Press reset on your body and your mind. Get on the floor and roll and rock and crawl. Go outside and walk with friends and tell jokes.
A child’s energy and resiliency are not found in their youth. It’s found in how they live. And they live in their design. We should, too.
Move. Frolic. Heal. Live.
Comments (0)
Please login to comment.