Today was our first morning off in a very long time, and although I planned to spend this morning sprawled across the couch, I really felt the need to keep training. That is, my brain wanted to train. My body, on the other hand, was beat and didn’t want to do any sort of exercise. It would seem I was at an impass.
But that doesn’t have to be the case. The next time you’ve got yourself a serious, lazy rest day, do what I did today and exercise your mind! This goes beyond sitting and reading; this is supposed to be training, so we need a bit more effort and FUN! So what did I decide to do?
I set up shop in the super bright sun of my balcony today with a sketch book, a huge package of pastels, and my iPod. Right in front of me was our favourite tree, it reaches all the way up to our balcony. We live in a wind tunnel and this thing has been ravaged by the most ridiculous winds you can imagine, but our tree is incredibly resilient. An excellent reminder of what I strive for with my own physicality: strong and immovable, yet supple and able to bend. When the winds come whipping down our corridor, our tree is able to go with the flow. He’s had a yellow army man (whom we’ve named Jonas Blane) dangling by his parachute straps stuck in his branches the whole time we’ve been here. A more recent, yet equally immovable decoration is a pink ballon that said ‘To Jesus, From Miguel’. Our tree is awesome.
I dialed up some excellent music on my iPod (go with exactly whatever your definition of ‘excellent music’ is), and started to draw our favourite tree. We’ll be moving into our first house soon, and it occured to me that I’d love some drawings to remember our tree.
But I decided that, rather than straight up draw this tree, I would try to use both my right and left hands equally, so that my brain would get a real workout.
Now, does it matter if you don’t know how to draw? Hell no! Just go outside and try to put down on paper whatever it is you see before you. Then, get your non-dominant hand in on the action and enjoy the experience. Don’t worry that your non-dominant hand may render drawings reminiscent of your kindergarten days. You’re not doing this to show anyone, it’s just for yourself. It’s your daily training.
I found that the pastels were an excellent choice for this, because I could do lots of blending with my left hand. The lack of control with my left actually helped capture the rough, rugged terrain of the tree’s surface. My right hand tends to strive for perfection. My left hand is just kind of going with the flow. The combination of the two of them working together made for an excellent memento of our tree.
When was the last time your workout blasted both sides of your brain? Life is about balance, and if we’re going to devote a good chunk of time to keeping our bodies fit and ready for action, we need to make sure we’re taking the same care with our brains. Exercises such as this, a more colourful diet, exposure to classical music, even simply taking time to breathe deeply are all great ways to exercise our minds. The brain demands more than chicken breasts, egg whites, and protein shakes. If you want a vibrant, healthy brain, you need to feed it vibrant, healthy foods and exercise it daily.
Feed your mind!
The Body Temple Blog 