Body Integration & the One Minute Workout: Learning to Love the Body You're In

Yoga doesn’t have to be hard. And fitness doesn’t have to be a grind. In fact, "yoga fitness" can be one of the most pleasurable and ease provoking journeys of your life.Yes, certain poses (asanas) are more difficult than others. And yes, doing the work to refine your health requires effort. But poses alone are Not yoga. And effort in itself doesn’t necessarily result in health.Body Integration simplifies all this. The yogis who bend their bodies into a pretzel with little effort are far fewer than those of us who desperately need relief from life’s most basic source of suffering — Residual Tension.And comparing ourselves to those yogis only serves to deflate motivation, inspiration, and generally results in false narratives in the clients I work with. In fact, the myth that “I can’t do yoga, I’m not flexible” is by far, the one thing I most often face when working clients who are looking to implement this practice of integrating body awareness and movement in their lives.The reality is, this practice is designed to work with any-Body in Any condition. My dad was one of my lab rats in the early versions of the program. He’s confined to a wheel chair 99% of the time and has a partially severed spinal cord between the C4 and C5 vertebra. The refinements are instantaneous. From struggling to stand one moment. To taking a moment to integrate the body-breath connection the next and begin to stand, and transition himself from the bed to the chair the next. The results are immediate. Guaranteed every single time.Trauma that has been locked in the body, and the corresponding emotional static, is the single biggest source of suffering in the world. This theory is designed to be specific to your body. Your trauma. And move you in the direction of your freedom.As a synthesis of yoga, tai chi, and exercise physiology, The Theory of Body Integration acts as paradigm of mindfulness endeavoring toward enhancing your emotional resilience. A shift in Your relationship with Your body. It’s about learning to love the body you’re in, and listening to the wisdom the body is offering you for your shift into a healthier, more fit, more integrated way of living. Emerging out of my practice of body-awareness through movement, to aid in recovering from the trauma of childhood sexual abuse, the aim of this theory is designed to facilitate both a release of residual tension, and an increase of nascent joy. If you consider that all the pain points in your body, are your body’s way of calling your attention to the areas where you can benefit from a release of tension, Body Integration is a way to integrate that release into your life. Generating willingness toward developing compassion for yourself is a prerequisite in this integration. This method allows you to move more fluidly in the inherent emotional intelligence your body possesses. Compassion is the classroom in which this movement occurs. This method teaches you how to listen, and increase your awareness of all the ways you can better embody a more refined state of integrity in your breath, your body movements, and thereby your life.