My Trip to Being Aware

In the last two months, I spent a lot of time in San Francisco, repeatedly parking on a street that looks something like this:

I began to notice that when I got in the car I felt an irritation on the inside of my left leg close to my pelvis. But I had other, more important things on my mind. Besides the discomfort was momentary. The irritation didn’t affect my walking, my sleeping, or anything else.

But I was doing a lot of errands — picking up grandchildren, going to the grocery store, driving to the beach. I was in and out of the car much more often than usual.

And every time I got into the car, I felt the irritation. Finally, I recognized that it wasn’t going to get better if I don’t change something. And of course, this is right up my alley. Teaching Balance consists of helping people figure out what small actions they’re doing in daily life that are hurting their bodies.

So, hello, Jean Couch. The most Balanced way to get in the car is to open the door, turn your backside to the car seat, hinge at your hips, and sit down. I knew what to do. It was easy enough, even with the added complication of the hill. But damn – my awareness kept showing up seconds behind my busy life.

Over and over again I would be in the car saying, “Ouch!” because something weird was happening in my hip. So I resolved to change my behavior. I swore that next time, I would be aware, turn around, and back into the car.

It didn’t happen.

So I thought of a couple of things to do that would give me a better chance to be aware. First, I would simply slow down. I don’t know about you but the quickest way for me to get behind is to hurry up. As I rush I get tense physically. I drop things, the jacket takes twice as long to get on, and it takes twice as long to find my phone and my keys.

Second, I started to  visualize opening the car door, turning around, and sitting in the car seat. In the moments before I fell asleep, I would see myself slowly walking to the car, opening the door, turning around, and sitting.

I can’t report it worked magically. Far too often I would find myself in the car feeling the irritation on the inside of my left thigh. But I knew that if I didn’t stop making this move, the irritation would magnify. I almost had to laugh at my choices:  wake up and change my behavior or face the future with an injured thigh.

Here it is, early December. I’m happy to report my awareness is catching up with my life. Even though I often begin getting in the car the wrong way, most often now, I wake up, stop myself, turn around, and get into the car in Balance.

So look, it isn’t easy to change our habits and the ways we have always done things. But what’s our choice?

The cost of injury is too high. Instead, we need to take responsibility for our own bodies. First, we owe it to our future selves to understand the healing alignments of Balance (Original Alignment). And if we don’t already know that, to take classes and get educated. We also owe it to our future selves to wake up to our habitual movements, and to change any habits that are harming us.

Balance offers us our best chance to be well and age well. These fundamental Balanced alignments allow us to have some power over our health, our strength. This is  how we “take care.”