I've discovered Virtual Skipping…

Picture this: I’m standing in front of the microwave, rubbing my lower back as my porridge oats start to cook.

I admit, yesterday I overdid the sitting-in-front-of-the-computer-working thing for waay too long.

So I’m trying to get rid of the back pain. My fault, I know. But here’s the funny thing: as I’m standing there, the 2 minutes counting down until the oats are just cooked, I think: "Why not jump up & down on the spot instead of just rubbing your lower back?".

And this is where it starts to get a bit funny (or just plain wierd if you were an on-looker, if I’m being really honest): I suddenly realise, that instead of just jumping up and down, I could do a skipping exercise instead:

Scissor my legs back and forth, alternately, hold my arms out and shape them as if I was holding my skipping rope, and then move them in time as I jump with the scissor leg action. So I did this, fitting in 200 jumps (or skips?) by the time the porridge was cooked.

Virtual skipping.

Two things:

1) If you’re a gym-regular, or you have a fitness coach, you might be thinking: "Huh? That was discovered decades, if not centuries ago, what’s he so excited about?!"

2) If you’re not into exercise much, you might be thinking: "Very entertaining, but you’re just wasting my valuable time".

Here’s the point I’m really wanting to make (apart from it being a quirky story): When you’re absorbed with an attention-grabbing or all-consuming experience (in my case annoying lower back pain), just be prepared for new thoughts and ideas to flow in to your mind.

Don’t let the experience you’re in the middle of prevent you from ‘hearing’ your subconscious mind from surfacing its thoughts. This can be quite exciting once you develop in to a habit: you never know when a new creative thought might pop up, giving you a solution to something you had been stuck with for some time. Also, in your conversations and daily sensory experiences, be prepared to listen in a deeper way to what’s coming in to your mind.

There are often ‘hidden’ insights waiting to be learned from what you are experiencing than just the primary experience alone.

My belief is that you can regain that child-like wonder you had when you were very young, when you were experiencing everything for the first time. So why bother with all this? Many reasons, some of which are: contentment, peace of mind, a sense of newness, a degree of excitement, gaining a new and richer perspective on your circumstances…. I could go on, but you get the idea.

Try it out. And add your comments below to let me know how you get on. I’d love to hear your story.