No zombies were harmed in the writing of this post

Sometimes when we think about the mind part of mind-body exercise, I think we imagine some sort of Zen-like trance thing happening.  If it does, cool beans.  There is, however, more to the story.

Mindful exercise isn’t just about breathing, although if we are not breathing, we certainly shouldn’t be exercising (Zombie workout, anyone?).  It also isn’t necessarily about relaxing.  We need to remain alert and aware of what our bodies are doing, which parts are working, which parts are holding the tension necessary for stability, and which parts can, in fact, chill out.  We need to hold our intellectual understanding of what is supposed to be happening up against what we are experiencing so that we can bring the knowing and the doing into harmony.  This process also works backward; sometimes what we experience allows us to correct our thinking.

There is a fancy word for this that I learned back in the nonprofit days:  praxis.  Praxis is the place where theory meets reality and both are enriched and changed.  We learn things, we try them out, we see what happens, we adjust what we know or what we do, and we repeat the process.

Let’s put our theories into practice and grow both.