Communications

Categories: Blog Jun 28, 2015

Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to celebrate my wedding anniversary. My wife and I have been married for 18 years. It's been a good journey, one of many, many "ups" and a few "downs." But all in all, it has been completely wonderful.

My anniversary sparked a thought in my head: Having a healthy marriage parallels having a healthy body. You need a solid foundation in both, if they are to be strong. Believe it or not, that solid foundation is the same for both the body and a marriage: communication.

I bet your thinking that we always say reflexive strength is what gives the body its solid foundation. You're right, reflexive strength, or reflexive control, is the solid foundation of our movement and strength. But our reflexive strength is built through the communication that happens between our bodies and our brains. If we do not move, our bodies don't really communicate well with our brains, nor do our brains communicate well with our bodies. In fact, if we don't move the way we were designed, our bodies and brain start "mis-communicating." The wrong signals start to get interpreted, or given because ongoing communication hasn't really been happening.

Marriage is much the same way. If a husband and wife don't communicate regularly, the lack of communication can be interpreted and wrongly assumed information. Lack of communication can give the "wrong signals" between a couple and the information, or lack of information, can be misinterpreted. Lack of communication between couples can ultimately lead to false assumptions, misplaced imaginations, and distrust. This can destroy a marriage.

In the same way, when the brain doesn't trust the signals the body is giving it, it may send faulty signals back. For example, if you sit all day and do not move, you have robbed your brain of information. If you do this day after day, your brain will start to "assume" you no longer need to move and it may start shedding vital connections needed for expressing mobility or strength.

Just as a husband and wife may feed off of each other's conversations, the brain and the body feed off each other's conversations as well. This is why movement is so very important to our health. Movement integrates our entire body with the conversation between our brain and body. To not move, to not engage in movement, is like separating the brain from the body with silence. Silence, lack of information, can erode the best of foundations; in the body, or in a marriage.

I haven't always been the best communicator with my wife. But I've learned over the years, the better we communicate, the more we know each other and the less assumptions we make. Good communication builds trust and it removes false information. As a result, our marriage grows stronger. Likewise, I haven't always been a graceful "mover" either. But once I remembered to move like a child, a conversation happened in my body that restored my health.

Good communication is what builds a foundation of trust in a marriage and original strength in a body. That's the good news. The bad news is that good communication isn't just "good" because you communicate. It is the deliberate consistent engagement that refines, clarifies, and enables good communication. In other words, you have to overcome apathy, distractions, pride, laziness, and anything else that may try to convince you to sit in silence.

Don't sit in silence. Learn to communicate, in your relationships and in your movements. The more you engage, the better the communication gets and the more solid your foundations become.

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