Life is Hard : Come Home to Your Body
I can’t do it anymore. I can’t pretend that this new year season is just like any other, filled with expectation, hope, and energy. Not when I know it’s not for most people I talk to. Most people I talk to are dealing with big things and are depleted to the bone. Most people I talk to are run ragged. They don’t have a lot of reserve left for big goals or grand plans.
With good reason. Life continues to be a lot. You don’t need me to tell you why, you already know it and are probably tired of hearing about it. But let’s just remember that dealing with normal life things that are compounded by global challenges doesn’t leave much energy for dreaming.
I felt this acutely over the holiday season. We had lovely, covid-safe times with family. And thankfully, everyone came out the other side in good health. But in the midst of it, there were a lot of hard decisions to make: whether to go to big family gatherings, whether I could continue to teach yoga in public, whether to send our children back to school. The decisions and their implications left me feeling agitated and bereft. I was not at all in a space where I felt like I could choose a word for the year, much less make a business or life plan for all I wanted to accomplish.
COME HOME TO YOUR BODY
When life feels draining and it’s all you’ve got just to make it to the next day (and the next day is a friggin’ snow day and the kids are out of school) what can you possibly do that will make a difference? …I’m not talking about a difference in a global sense, but a small but tangible difference in how you make it through all that life is offering you.
The one thing that helps me right now is coming home to my body. The more I’m in my head, agitated, worried, or grieving, the worse I feel. The more I’m in my body the more clear, calm, and peaceful I feel (even while grieving).
Coming home to your body helps for several reasons. Your body is your original home. You were built and born in it, you’ll die in it, and you reside in it for your whole life. That means it’s a familiar place. One you’ve inhabited for so long that it knows you. It carries your you-ness in every cell.
In addition, your body is physically here right now. It’s present in this very moment. That means it’s always accessible to you. No matter where you are or what you’re doing, your body is there too. That means you don’t have to go out looking for it when you need to come home and find center, it’s already here. You just have to REMEMBER to come home.
It’s familiarity and presence are so important because it makes coming home to your body one of the simplest and most accessible ways to return to the present moment, drop anxiety or agitation and re-energize yourself when life has drained you.
Here’s a little caveat in this discussion: All of this talk of ‘your body’ makes it sound like you and your body are separate entities. It also seems to elevate the mind (you) part of the equation. I don’t believe in either the separation or in the hierarchy of mind over body. Closer to the truth is the idea of body/mind - an entity that is all one being. Coming home into this being draws you back to yourself, back to what’s here and now, and is deeply nourishing on all levels.
HOW TO GET IN
Most of us were wildly embodied beings as children. We lived in the world through our bodies until we were forced to forget them so that we could attend to other things - like schoolwork, for example. The good news about this is that the imprint for coming home is already there.
I feel lucky that I started coming home pretty early. I’ve had embodied practices in my life since I started dancing at age 9. Because of this, my path home is well worn and easily found - I hop on my yoga mat, or put on good music and I’m there. If you have a yoga practice or enjoy another conscious movement form and you’ve been feeling out of sorts, now is a really good time to return to it.
But if it’s been a while since you really lived in your body, you might not know your way anymore. Try one of these simple movements to start coming home:
IF YOU FEEL
Ungrounded: Try marching your feet and feeling them hitting the floor. Then stop and stand tall. Notice the sensations.
Contracted: Stand with feet close together and arms in, then step your feet wide and spread your arms. Go back and forth a few times. Notice how it feels to change your stance
Disconnected or lonely: Put one hand on your belly and one on your heart. Take 10 deep breaths and really connect with yourself.
Like you need comfort: Bring your hands to your opposite shoulders, wrapping yourself in a big hug. Squeeze tight and hold for 10 seconds. Repeat a few times. Notice how you feel afterwards.
Coming home to your body isn’t something you think about. It’s something you do. Being in your body is an embodied experience that can be calming, energizing, peaceful, or even joyful. But just imaging it isn’t going to do it for you., you’ve got to DO it.
I also know it’s really hard to stop the busyness long enough to come back home. That’s why I recommend keeping things short and simple when you’re first coming back. Doing it more often than you think you need will also help.
A SACRED PATH
It may help to imagine coming home to your body like walking a sacred path through an overgrown meadow. At first the path may be very hard to see. It may even seem like it doesn’t exist. But, the more often you walk the path, the more worn the it becomes. It gets easier to find, easier to walk, and more direct. Soon you could find your way by feel in the dark because the path has become so familiar.
I want the path to the door of your body to be well-marked and easily traversed because I know the peace and groundedness that a strong body/mind can bring. If you’re being pulled in a million directions right now - come home to your body. If nothing seems to make sense right now - come home to your body. If your heart is heavy and you can’t find peace - come home to your body. If you’re filled with joy and you can’t express it enough - come home to your body. Your body is your original home for this lifetime. It’s waiting to welcome you home to the peace, ease, and support that are your birthright.