What are you recuperating FROM?
And where are you recuperating TO?
What is your natural self-nourishment go-to? When you need to recharge, what do you usually do?
Do you go for a run or do some gentle yoga?
In order to truly tap into your innate recuperative super powers, it’s important to know what you want to recover FROM, and what you want to recharge FOR? (As in, “I am nourishing myself in order to do ________ [insert chosen activity here].”)
Predictability is a comfort
There is something so comforting about watching a TV show you’ve seen dozens of times, isn’t there? It’s predictable. You know how it’s going to end. You know the conflict will be resolved by the time the credits roll.
We crave resolution. We are comforted by patterns and predictability.
And yet.
A resolution of a dissonant musical chord is only so sweet because we experienced the dissonance that preceded it.
A luxurious yawn-sigh-stretch feels yummiest when we’ve been sitting in one position for hours without much movement.
So, we actually need the dissonance in order to fully appreciate the resolution. We need the moments of grip and stuckness and low energy in order to fully appreciate the experience of ease and lightness and aliveness.
These extremes and contrasts are what provide a wholeness of experience, and make us whole.
Recuperation encompasses a wide range of activities, because you as a human embody a wide range of states of being and every-changing needs. Instead of thinking “I need to calm down,” consider why it makes sense that you’re in the state you’re in, experiencing what you’re experiencing right now, in order to decide what you need next and what to do to achieve it.
Noticing where you’re at and what you need
We often associate recuperation with relaxing and calming activities like deep breathing and gentle stretching. The term “self-care” is often used to describe the activities that help us recover from the typical state of being in Western culture: overstimulated, over-worked, and stressed-out.
(I’m speaking in very general terms here. I recognize that not everyone will fall into neat-and-tidy columns of “calm” or “jazzed.” It’s more likely that many of us find ourselves somewhere different on the calm-to-jazzed spectrum at any given moment, while also noticing that we have a default energy base most of the time. What’s yours?)
If you spend your whole day teaching people new skills and solving problems, you may need to just BE for a while, without learning anything new or pushing the boundaries of your comfort zone.
If your day is full of quick-thinking and fast-moving, you may crave slowing down and feeling your body. The movements you choose and the sounds you make will reflect this.
Recuperation doesn’t always mean calm and quiet and slow
Recuperation can cover a wide range of activities, not just calming ones. It just depends on where you’re coming from and where you’re heading next. Knowing what you need and how to support that need is a big part of taking care of yourself.
If you’re about to go to sleep and you’re feeling antsy, you’d probably be more likely to do some mindful breathing or watch your favourite TV show than go for a jog or do some jumping jacks, for example.
If you’re pumping yourself up to give a motivational speech or teach a voice lesson, and you’ve been lounging on the couch all morning, you might jump up and down a few times or walk briskly around the block to get your blood pumping and wake yourself up.
You can know what you need in these situations, so you can choose the recuperative activity that will best support you.
Sometimes you need to recuperate from lethargy or a lack of energy. These are the moments when there is so little going on, so little stimulation in your day-to-day, that it’s difficult to predict what’s coming next (#lockdown). And so you feel stuck.
Lack of variety in your daily activities can create a stagnation that no amount of meditation or relaxing bubble baths seems to budge. What your system might crave in these moments is stimulation, something to ignite your curiosity and mobilize you to take action.
The “low tone” energy state requires a different sort of recuperation than when you’re feeling overstimulated, stressed out, or over-worked. In these moments you may find recuperation in a vigorous activity like jumping jacks, punching the air, or jiggling, combined with short, sharp exhalations of breath. Again, the movements you choose and the sounds you make will reflect what you need in these moments.
Listening to your body’s wisdom
Learning to tune in to - and decode - the signals your system is sending you takes time and practice, especially when the dominant culture around you may not place value on your preferred pace and the time and space experiential knowledge requires. (Western culture, for example, tends to value intellectual knowing and cognitive processes over embodied/experiential ways of knowing.)
Your body is constantly communicating your current state of being and needs. Muscle tension or low muscular tone, for example, can alert you to where you’re coming from, and what you might need (a massage or a jiggle, respectively). Cue listening to “monkey mind” and “brain fog” signals, too.
Your breath is a barometer for how you’re doing at any given moment. Long, slow breaths can tell you that you are calm or relaxed or sleepy. Short, shallow breaths can be letting you know that you are unsettled, while heavy, full breaths could be an indication that you have just exerted yourself.
At any given moment you can attend to what you’re experiencing in the moment, and make a clear choice about what you’d like to do next, based on what you need, rather than what some external source is telling you you “should” do or feel.
To experiment with first-hand, lived experience of the range of recuperation, you can explore the self-guided Constructive Rest course, or attend the live 4-part Breathing Series group classes.
Special thank you to Babette Lightner for her wisdom, and Maureen Batt for her collaboration. 🦄
