The Things That Empower Me
Before we dive into 2024, let’s talk about empowerment. Knowing what empowers you is a valuable key to leading a good life. So, let’s try to recognize when you feel empowered and why and build it into your 2024 routine.
Before the end of the year, I received my routine chiropractic treatment to prepare for the year-end and New Year events. However, after the New Year, the cold of winter and a lack of exercise brought changes to my body. I started to feel stiffness in my neck.
Avoiding the crowded streets, I had been immersed in making T-shirts, a recent hobby of mine, at the end of the year. Furthermore, on the day my sister visited my house to make New Year’s cards, I spent the time until my usual gym session diligently working on the project. However, I missed the last gym visit of the year due to shortened business hours, and felt disappointed that I couldn’t complete the final day of the gym 2023. However, it is a good thing that I was able to support the creation of satisfactory New Year’s cards.
From New Year’s Eve to the third day of the new year, I was busy with a thorough cleaning of my parents’ house, preparing traditional New Year’s cuisine, shopping with my nieces and nephews, and playing card games. There was also the annual “calligraphy training” session with my niece. While time spent with family was enjoyable, I felt a significant stiffness in my neck, which I hadn’t experienced in a while.
On the 4th, when the gym resumed its regular operations, I attended my weekly Thursday yoga class. Since it was the new year, there were only three participants. The instructor provided more personalized adjustments than usual, incorporating many poses that involved arching the back. With the teacher’s guidance, my shoulders, which had been rolled inward, returned to their normal position, and I could feel the tight muscles starting to release.
After yoga, I further awakened my muscles using the strength training machines and then thoroughly soothed my body in the gym’s hot spring. I noticed that the stiffness in my neck had completely disappeared, and I felt a deep sense of joy.
The cold must have unconsciously made me tense up my neck and shoulders. I was surprised at how much my body had changed simply from not going to the gym for six days. What surprised me even more was the significant effect of the instructor’s adjustments. I experienced a sensation of surpassing my body’s limits and a sense of release, something I couldn’t achieve with online yoga classes.
Through this experience, I re-realized how much strength daily exercise and bathing provide me. Without these, my body becomes irritable, and my performance decreases. It seems not only chiropractic care and massages are important, but also a combination of aerobic exercise, bodyweight training like yoga, and warm baths.
Additionally, I was poignantly reminded that surpassing my own limits often requires the support of others.
And for me, maintaining my body is also about creating a self that is always ready to support others in a good mood.
What empowers me is this daily routine. What empowers you? It’s not something given from the outside, but something you create for yourself.