embodied

Something has been happening. It’s been percolating for a long while now. I returned to therapy about a year ago and right off the bat, this felt different. I knew what I was looking for and approached my intake call with those things in mind. I needed to feel that the person on the other side could hold all my beliefs and curiosities with openness, I wanted to explore somatics and parts work (and this practitioner was trained in them), I wanted to get deeper and focused. Talk therapy and CBT had played massive roles in my development in the past, but I was ready for more.

What has most surprised me is just how impactful getting into my body has been. The somatic side of it all. One massive barrier that kept presenting and I wanted to look dead in the eye, was how much I would intellectualize my emotional experiences to the point where I no longer knew anything for sure. More than half the time I talked myself out of permission to even have whatever feelings were there. Acknowledging and noticing what was actually happening in real time in my physical body and really being in that present real experience has been nothing short of revolutionary.

I truly thought that I was someone who embraced all my big feelings. Encouraging it in others and sharing openly about how I love a good cry, my mental health stuff, and generally all the heavier stuff hasn’t been something I tend to shy away from. It’s actually my favourite to go into the real real. It’s not easy to have short form conversations with me. You’ve been warned.

Little did I realize that I was missing this vital piece of the emotional puzzle: the physical sensations that were living in this here meat suit. The tension, the contractions, the openings, the aches, the twisting, the spaces of ease, where I was breathing or holding, how it experienced temperature and texture, what I permitted, what I policed and all the endless opposing unconscious rules I subjected it to. The wealth of information that I had been avoiding by swirling up into my mercurial default or checking out with books, scrolling, pot, endless to do’s and any number of alternative stimulating side quests. All along I had everything I needed to understand, right here.

And landing in it, oof. It’s no wonder I had found so many ways to pop back out. Body stuff is LOADED. Something that I’m taking in though, is that we need dichotomy. If I shut down my ability to land in the harder sensations in my body, then it also becomes equally as harrowing to get into the more euphoric or even simply pleasant potentials. And so often these places of tension are seeking acknowledgement above all else. By acknowledging, noticing and breathing into where I feel my anxiety, fear, judgement or sorrow, I am able to look at what it wants to say. I am able to see that it is hard and real and doesn’t need validation to exist. It just is. I am able to explore and notice with less moralizing or justifying. I am able to be in curiosity and compassion with what is there.

Within those sensations lives the past, present and even future potentiality. And you know what? It turns out that the clarity I sought for so long through intellectual avenues was in these sensations I’d been avoiding through any and all means. This served a purpose and was protective and necessary at some point. And now I get to make new choices with new awareness.

I find there is less hesitation between the information my body gives to me and speaking it into being or taking actionable steps. I’m noticing I feel more grounded in what my values are and how to embody them in real ways. I have more access to what I find pleasurable and my desires and dreams. I find myself craving movement and ways to meet my body where it is, instead of my brain using it’s force of will to varying degrees of success. I feel less self-conscious about my many imperfections and foibles. And less afraid of looking directly at the patterns I’ve outgrown.

It's not every second of the day. It’s a practise. For me, this has been revolutionary and yet isn’t this our birth right? To fully be in our bodies and have permission to feel them in all their beautiful, heartbreaking sensory extremes? To know ourselves deeply and not override this profoundly intelligent vessel we have the brief privilege of living within? It’s fucking harrrrd, but also in some ways the most innate thing in the world, no?

And you can do it right this moment, if you so choose.

Invitation:

Settle into a comfortable position. You can sit or stand and sway or whatever feels available in this moment. Take a nice deep inhale and exhale slowly. Put a hand on your heart or belly or anywhere that wants a little attention. Close your eyes if that feels safe. Now simply notice. What does that feel like? Is anything coming up? Where do you feel it in your body? Can you take a breath into that area?

Notice if there is any place in your body that feels more ease. Can you draw your attention there and breath into that space? Take your time. Can you maybe go back between a space of tension in your body and a space of ease? Breathing as you go. Take as long (or as little time) as you need.

When you’re ready, open your eyes. And take a clearing breath. Maybe shake out your wrists. Notice anything? It’s ok if nothing has shifted too. It’s only about noticing.

There. It can be only a moment. Nothing complicated or profound. It’s not about that at all. It’s about only what is right here now, in you. In me. It has a whole lot to tell you if are ready to listen.