Homeostasis

by Meabh Spillane | Oct 11, 2021

Homeostasis is the tendency of the body to auto-regulate and maintain the internal environment stable. The body’s way to maintain optimal functioning…or so we think.

On a random Thursday after yoga and a swim at Life Synergy in Mexico, I was discussing ‘resistance to change’ with another yoga teacher. We discussed the need to gently coax the body to improve flexibility through the use of breath and repeated practice. I highlighted my experience working in weight loss, where a person’s weight tends to plateau when he/she either tries to gain or lose weight, and that this often needs a little ‘jump-start’ to get moving again. Similarly, with the mind, I have learned the same lessons repeatedly since my yoga teacher training, particularly around how I label many feelings such as sadness and anger.

To improve flexibility and patience an ongoing practice is required. To shift excess weight, maintaining a healthy lifestyle is needed. Through ongoing meditation, mentorship and awareness, I am slowly realizing that I can change my thought processing. When I say “I am annoyed”, “I am pissed off” or “I am angry”, usually I’m not. My mind labels many feelings as anger as this was the more accepted response growing up, or so I had learned. I buried the real emotion and realized that in the past I often reacted in anger. I didn’t allow myself to feel other emotions and slowly lost touch with these, and even the ability to recognize these. I also realized that, my anger quick-fired responses were hiding, to me and others, the true emotion beneath.

Life is getting busier and busier. As that same yoga teacher said on that random Thursday afternoon, ‘there is so much we can’t control, the only thing we really have control over is our thoughts and how we chose to react’. The importance of being surrounded by others with a similar mindset, even if only for a few days has been emphasized to me at Life Synergy retreats. It has given me time to get back to a regular yoga practice and to have the headspace to question my thoughts and what my auto-pilot settings are telling me. I have had the chance to evaluate my current homeostasis settings. A chance to slowly, gently reset the emotion dials a little more and allow myself to feel a little more.

Homeostasis

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