I read a really interesting article in a Wellbeing magazine.  It was about pole dancing.  And if you are a regular on my Facebook page, you would know that a year ago, I decided to step right out of my comfort zone and take up pole dancing at the grand old age of 48.

I fell in love with pole dancing.  Seriously, don’t ask me about it because I will just enthuse about how much I love it and that I think everyone should do it! What I think is interesting is that I have never played a sport because I was brought up a strict SDA (purchase my award winning story here).  As sports were always on a Saturday, I couldn’t play.

When I was younger I started to do swimming training but mum took me out because she didn’t want me to get big shoulders (yeah, I know… don’t ask). This is about all I have ever done.  At school for PE I played a bit of hockey, volleyball and basketball.  I always took part in the athletics carnivals and when I met GG I took up golf but for me it was more a hit and a giggle rather than playing it competitively.  To be honest I think I only ever played in one competition and blitzed it! LOL

Whoops, I have digressed, so back to the article about pole dancing! 🙂

For me pole dancing has not only been great for my health but it’s a serious work-out. It is also a great form of meditation.

What? I hear you yell, how can pole dancing be a meditation?

The reason is when you do pole dancing you can’t think about anything else but the move itself. What is your body doing?  What are you going to do next?  Are you holding it right? Are you going to slide off? Maybe I’m holding it too tight?  Because all of this is going on, you have to quiet all the chatter that is normally going on in your mind. You can’t be learning new moves, or practicing old ones, and wondering what to cook for dinner.  When I mentioned this to a teacher in training and another classmate the other week, they both agreed – when you’re doing pole dancing you can only think about pole dancing.

So, not only is it a good physical thing to do, it’s also a good mental thing to do!

This isn’t just about pole dancing.  It’s not even about doing a sport.  What I’m wanting to do here is to show you that meditating doesn’t have to be sitting crossed legged in a quiet space for half an hour, chanting ommm.   I know a lot of people, me included, struggle to do this type traditional meditating.  For me personally, it doesn’t work.  However I also know that it’s really important to learn to shut off the mind chatter that we all have to just let our brain rest.

So, what do you do that’s meditative? Do you garden and just go into the ‘zone’?  Maybe you focus solely on house cleaning when you’re doing it?  Maybe for you it’s sitting down and reading a book, or mowing the lawn?

How you meditate isn’t actually the point.  The point is that you need to just shut off, even if for 5 minutes every day you just focus on one thing and nothing else.  A time when you shut off that chatter and give that poor mind of yours a rest.

When we focus on our health most look at the physical side of things, but the emotional/mental side is just as important if not more so.

Make sure you find that thing for YOU which clears the chatter and your mind.

Katrina-Jane x