What size life do you live?

By that, I mean what dimensions, contexts, situations, environments, etc., are you able to move within and through.

How would you define the size of your life? Wherever you go, is it basically the same life? Do you have one life that you carry with you everywhere, as if you were an astronaut in outer space, packing your well-controlled environment with you? Is it a one-size-fits-all life?

Or does your life expand or shift shapes to include more variables, more possibilities, more ideas and ways of living than one?

How does the size of your inner life compare to the size of your outer life?

That's something of the bigger picture from which you might consider health, wellness, fitness and similar terms. I'm still exploring the "life-size" metaphor and what it might mean for me.

In class the other day, we talked about these quotes from Katy Bowman's new book, Rethink Your Position:

"I am more resilient now and am better suited physically to a wider variety of environments, i.e., my adaptation to my pillow does not keep me at home or require I haul a pillow everywhere I go."

"The point is to learn to adapt physically to different scenarios (which is one measure of physical fitness) as opposed to tolerating only a narrow range of physical experiences."

Could this be a fruitful way to consider one's fitness, resilience, and health? The range of conditions or environments which one is able to tolerate, be comfortable enough in, or perhaps recover from. 

Think as broad and deep about those conditions as suits your needs and goals. Consider not just the physical aspects, but the mental and emotional. 

We also looked at this definition of addiction from neuroscientist Andrew Huberman:

"Addiction is a progressive narrowing of the things that bring you pleasure. Happiness is a progressive expansion of the things that bring you pleasure." 

One might quibble with some of the terms there, but suppose you combine it with Katy's quotes. Perhaps health or fitness is the progressive expansion (ar at least the maintenance) of the conditions or scenarios that you can tolerate. And illness or poor health is the narrowing of the conditions or environments in which you can function well, within reason.

Something like that. That's very general and there are countless factors involved, but it might begin to point you toward perspectives, perceptions, and actions you might want to play with.

For instance, what is the temperature range which you can tolerate? What is the range of foods you can eat? What is the range of surfaces you can walk across, climb, or descend? What is the auditory range you can sense and make meaning of? How about the visual? And all the other senses? What is the range of breathing "modes" you are comfortable with?

When that range narrows, we might need external supports to help us maintain that range we can live within. These might include shoes, clothes, glasses, chairs, pillows, HVAC, even medications, hospitals, and other forms of community and institutional support. And necessarily so.

We talked in class about the term "dependency." What do we depend on to live our lives? And how does this move us toward healing and health, or move us away from it? 

It's complicated and there are no easy answers. I think about my dad on this Father's Day. In his last years, he depended on being near enough to a dialysis clinic to maintain his life. But it did for years beyond what he would have been capable of on his own. And he drove himself there and back for almost all of those days. So it's for each of us to determine, given what's available to us. Ultimately, that's our yoga. 

One thing I've become a big believer in is joint mobility. balance, breath work, and emotion skills. Those are small, often hidden but powerful levers we can pull to expand the range of conditions in which we can act for our own advantage. They might not be all that one needs, but they are a big part of developing and maintaining one's resilience and capacity to tolerate and move through the scenarios life will inevitably present to us.

I think they help determine the size of life we live. I hope yours fits you.