Listening to the Body

I was just thinking that I must be slipping into another depression -- I've been tired and listless and haven't been keeping up with any of my interests. But that's not actually the most likely explanation. I'm sick! I think I've been fighting this off for at least two weeks, maybe longer.

I've been trying to do some work with learning to listen to my body more. The original intention was to help me to cope better in our diet culture, but the lessons of Bear (the totem who has shown up to help me in this work) extend to other things as well. For instance, learning to realize that just because I'm not sick does not mean that I am healthy. Or learning how to tell the difference between real limitations which I need to respect, and limitations which I have created and which I would do well to push through. There is really very little that we do that isn't rooted in the body, whether we acknowledge it or not, so this work is much more far reaching than I initially realized. I suspect that I listen to my body far more than most people, who seem to view the body as something to conquer, yet I am slowly seeing that I am not nearly as adept as I could be. If I was, I would eat fewer baked goods, spend more time singing, use more aromatherapy, and spend more time crafting (and yes, I think that everything on that list is something my body wants).