Day 12
I’ve spent the better part of my life ignoring my body. I can’t tell you when my mind decided that it was safest not to reside here, not to create too much awareness, but it’s the only way I knew how to live. I did not listen to my body. I was not interested in what it had to tell me, nor did I feel equipped to even understand in the first place.
This dissonance really came into focus a few months into working with my first therapist in St. Louis. I was really comfortable with her, I thought. But on this day, I was particularly cold for some reason and my body was shivering. She asked me if I wanted to put my jacket back on. But I told her no, because it was a rain jacket and it made too much noise. She offered me a blanket. But I said no, because I think something about a blanket felt too vulnerable, too intimate; and I wasn’t ready to show myself in this way. That memory strikes me as pretty typical for the way I moved through the world. My body was an annoyance, and I was forever ignoring what it asked of me, in favor of the expertise of my mind. It took me three years, two therapists, and a yoga practice to finally find the beginnings of connection.
My awareness really started on the mat. Practicing yoga offered me a way of entering into this relationship with my body, that didn’t feel as exposed or vulnerable as somatic work with a therapist did. Practicing yoga prepared me for the work that my therapist would eventually offer me. On my mat, I am able to practice acute awareness of what is happening in my body. I am changed because of the precise instruction from my teachers, and because of the ways that they have made entering into my body accessible and often full of delight. I love meeting my body on the mat. I love seeing where it is at on any given day.
From yoga, my somatic work has expanded. And my belief in the necessity of dropping into my body, and of knowing what is going on, is absolute. This awareness has been transformative for me.
When my mom was robbed at gunpoint during my junior year in high school, my body began to believe that I was in constant mortal danger, especially at night. That anyone I encountered between my parked car and the door of my apartment could take my life in an instant. I didn’t even realize what was happening in my body until it started impacting my relationships and interactions with other people. In therapy, I began to give my body space to work through that trauma and to change the narrative that I had written about my safety. It has taken me almost a decade to begin to move through this visceral experience - sometimes I am still in it. But I believe we can be transformed by learning how to drop into our bodies. I believe we can be transformed by cultivating an awareness of how our body reacts in certain situations; and wondering if what we have internalized on a somatic level is actually true.
We intellectualize racism a lot. We cite statistics in the hopes of creating an emotive response from other people. But the experience of racialization – of ascribing characteristics based on perceived racial identities to other people – is somatic. It’s something we have been taught, and it has been internalized on a somatic level. Racial violence, especially police brutality, happens on impulse. The body feels something. The body repeats an old story. And then someone is murdered. Because the body felt fear, and the person decided that fear pointed to a truth about their safety. White minds convincing white bodies that black bodies are inherently dangerous.
I believe that awareness can transform the ways we move in the world. I believe that it begins with the practice of learning how to pause, to slow down, to notice what is happening before we choose to react.
A Practice for Today:
Today, I offer you a body scan and body map, some of my favorite practices from Yoga and a dear friend. Quickly draw the outline of your body on a piece of paper. It does not have to be perfect or anatomical or symmetrical. Next, find a comfortable position for your body, and set a timer for five minutes (or more) for a body scan. Begin by noticing the floor or your seat - whatever is allowing you to feel grounded, and travel upward to the crown of your head. Notice your sensation along the way. Breathe. And move on.
Once you have observed the areas of you that were accessible at this moment, make note of it on your sketch. Draw the feelings. Describe your observations.
This exercise is about fostering greater awareness. You cannot do it wrong. Just begin. Once you’ve finished mapping, write some reflections about the experience of dropping into your body. How did it feel comfortable or not? Familiar or not?
