Lightness switch

I pick up my bag and put it on my shoulder. It's so heavy that I have to concentrate to stand up straight, at times veering off to the side.

By the time I really get into my walking say, five or so minutes later, it feels different, lighter.

I've noticed my body has adjusted. Some kind of alteration changes it from too heavy, to just a tad unwieldy when I take corners or break into a run. When I'm ambling along it can feel barely there.  

In the wake of this and a bit distracted I recently climbed to the top deck of the bus. It halted suddenly and I fell forward before I'd reached the top of the stairs landing on my side. My bag got trapped in the stair rail stemming the impact a bit but still, I hit the ground with a bump.

There was no fear on being lurched asunder. None of that shaken up feeling you can get from a sudden upending, there was no scare.

If you think I'm alluding to weight gain, I suppose there is that. There was a conversation about the weight of large breasts the other day.

One has to be careful. I don't wish to undermine the fact that they can be cumbersome to the point of causing physical degeneration. But I have to admit, I stumbled over the fact a while back that this this capacity, invoked by changing the way I though about my breasts to a more neutral or positive attitude, profoundly altered the way they felt.

I hasten to add, I'm quite broad shouldered, which might make a substantial difference. I do though remember how I used to feel. Whereas I got to the point of feeling like I hardly noticed them, in comparison to that.

A good well fitting bra adds to the effect.  

The basis of this alteration is definitely tied into this physiological capacity to adjust, sometimes it is a bit like a light flashing on. It's literally an altered state of physical consciousness, of physicality.

What prompted this more was how much this might be the basis of how stress can affect our bodies and health by changing the way it functions. I think there's a mental/ emotional version of this adjustment, perhaps its all a part of the same intermingled process.

I'm sure there are difference depths to it, leading up to pronounced states of pleasure, but this seems to me an early or lesser stage, I wonder if towards its other end point is certain kinds of chronic pain conditions.

I think it is protective of us and when we are overburdened, our bodies cannot make the adjustment. 

We start from a deeper place of this and I sense that it can be breached as well as eroded overall. Whether from traumatic, stressful and threatening environments, or in part the way our moods work, individually.

Its not always so much what is happening to us, its what state of consciousness we are in or out of when it occurs. When we are processing the implications of it, emotionally, intellectually and so on. 

The more we are exposed to being outside the soft pliable flexible state, the more of a chance even everyday stresses and tension have to wreak havoc on us.

I definitely think what seems to be a growth in neuroses. The elevation of rationality-or what passes for it- as the only acceptable metaphysics means increasingly the conscious mind is taking the lead.
The idea of being in control of your biology, via being in control of your eating is part of  this. There are others too and that plus the spread of misguided interpretations of atheism and secularism are putting more and more unnecessary pressure on a part of our mind that wasn't designed to operate like a marooned island.