“What does movement therapy mean to me?”
By- Dr. Akanksha Mahajan (MBBS, Govt. Medical College Amritsar)
As a kid, I have always been a bookworm or more of a person who hated everything that used to take me away from my books, be it sports, dance, yoga etc…, etc. Why? Because due to certain reasons that can’t be explained here as it will be beyond the scope of this article, I used to find a great deal of solace amidst those pages, while staying confined to those walls. Although, there are some reasons that I don’t really mind sharing that caused my hatred towards all sorts of physical exercises to aggravate; for instance, despite having an environment for extracurricular activities at my school, our instructors whether they were teaching sports, yoga or dance, they simply focused on finding perfectionism in the students instead of promoting the idea of fitness because at the end of the day, they simply required the best out of the best students to create teams that could be flaunted at district, state or national level, the students who could get them awards as well as that fame for being their instructors and so much more. So, people like me who have a physique that is not quite meant for such stuff used to get to hear a great deal of words that I really wish I could unhear, words that really transform your self-esteem into a question mark.
So, physical activity was something that started making me feel overwhelmed and anxious knowing that it was something I could never be good at or something that my mind could never understand while understanding books was something that seemed really natural because those pages never commented on my physique or flexibility. However, I believe that most educational institutions simply focus on students who are naturally good, whether academically or in extracurriculars. If you are good at either of these, you will somehow survive school otherwise you will end up hating everything your life can possibly teach you considering yourself to be the dumbest of all humans, leaving you with absolutely no clue how you desire to live. Anyways, it’s a discussion for another day.
So, moving on to how I learnt about the idea of movement therapy. Like many other academically inclined students in our country, my academic scoring was all I had to let myself know that my existence on this planet wasn’t meaningless after all, but you must be aware of the fact that when you depend on something else to define your self-esteem, you start to depend on that for your very existence. If you aren’t on top, you are no one. So, like most of the academically inclined students, I was a chronically stressed out person. At the same time, after a certain point, I developed severe issues related to my body image, which sort of forced me to begin exercising. When something stresses me out, I have always had a tendency to overdo things that might offer the possibility of being a solution. I took up rope skipping, running, cycling, yoga and swimming because somehow, due to my upbringing I had a strange mindset, you can’t get good results without completely burning yourself out.
As a result, as I grew up further, I manifested various mental health and physical health related issues in my life, that ended up being chronic. I will be very honest; medications never worked on me. Nothing worked. I was absolutely lost.
That’s when I got to know about various holistic healing modalities like- yoga, qui-gong, dance therapy etc. In Spite of already being aware of these techniques, this time, it was different. I came across several coaches online who also had somewhat of a similar health condition like me. I learnt something from them that really helped me put my mind at ease.
“You don’t have to be perfect, nothing in this world, this entire existence was ever supposed to be perfect, imperfections are natural and how can you possibly hate nature, which is all-in-all a miracle itself.”
You donot need a flexible body to do yoga. Your postures don’t have to be perfect to benefit you. Yoga is a modality which can be done using various props for supporting the parts of your body that hurt or are stiff due to any sort of a condition. Your ultimate goal is to connect with your body and your mind. Your ultimate goal is to be at peace with your body irrespective of your shape. Your ultimate goal is to be at peace with your mind even if it wanders to a thousand different places while you try to practice pranayama.
This holds true for all the other practices as well, whether you consider qui-gong or dance or even sports. Because you don’t have to dance like a model, you don’t have to play like an athlete. We already spend countless moments of our loves to be good at our profession but we donot have to practice that perfection when it comes to our health. You donot need a perfect shape to dance or practice yoga, you simply need the zeal to truly have fun while you find solace within your own body during these practices.
“You don’t have to exercise to STAY IN SHAPE but to STAY HEALTHY”.
And exercising for fitness doesn’t have to be something that burns you out. You don’t have to spend hours in a gym. It’s okay if you have some health issues that prevent you from running, you can go out for a walk. It’s okay, if you can’t walk fast enough, you can walk like a turtle and even that movement will serve as a medicine when it truly lends comfort to your body as well as your mind.
MOVEMENT THERAPY CAN ACTUALLY SERVE AS AN ELIXIR THAT TRULY HELPS YOU FIND YOURSELF AND LOVE YOURSELF.