When was the last time you asked your body how you were feeling? I don't mean doing a physical scan to notice aches and pains or other maladies, though that is good information. I mean asking your body how you are feeling. Feelings, those things that precede emotions and become emotions if they are not felt in totality. Would you know your body's answer if you asked? Do you still speak your body's language?
Some holding patterns become do deeply ingrained that you are no longer conscious of them. It takes intense focus to notice they are there. Sometimes it takes someone else's touch or eyes to see them and guide you to feel them again. I noticed that I was holding a very heightened energy around my heart center. A tight and anxious energy. When I deepened my breath and I asked it to relax, I experienced the feeling of fear. My ego did not want to feel the feeling of that release. This told me it was a protective mechanism. My body was storing a wound there and to release it would create a vulnerability. Since injuring my SI joint and having to take a new approach to my yoga practice, I have been learning how most of us, including myself, walk around outside of our bodies as if we are a big giant brain. Even those of us with physical practices do it. Our bodies become a side note to our goals, an afterthought to our obligations, or at worst, that thing in our way. This relationship to our bodies is reinforced by our western culture. Yes, people are praised for having a certain type of physique, but are we really allowed to celebrate any body? Are we really allowed to experience the body as art? If I wanted to make a video of me spiraling my hips and ribs to my favorite song while standing in goddess pose, could you celebrate movement with me? Could I let go enough to make such a video? Our bodies often times are either shamed, characterized, made into a commodity (in regards to athleticism or physical disciplines), or over sexualized. You're not this or that enough, therefore you must be ___. "Ooooh, I saw some side boob. Damn, she might want some." (I'm not saying that having a biological physical response to someone's body is a bad thing if that person is an adult. I could write a whole post on this topic alone, and I may someday. It's how you process those sensations that matters.) These aspects of our culture leave most of us unsure of how to safely inhabit our bodies. Then, the microaggressions we meet on the day to day in regards to our bodies can cause us to begin to disassociate so that we are not so sensitive and raw all the time. That person didn't mean anything by that after all. (ex. "Gosh, you're so skinny.") Add to that the acute experiences of trauma that some of us will experience, and there is a whole other level of needing to leave our bodies to survive.
This pattern allowed me to continue to be functional despite a lot of daily physical pain. It was useful in that sense. Yet, when I began to place certain types of aspirations over the effects it was having on my body, I entered dangerous territory. It resulted in my injury. We often wonder things about our bodies like - Why doesn't sex feel as good to me as everyone else acts like it is? Why do I want to eat the whole box of Little Debbie cakes and not just one? Why in the world does my back hurt like this? Why do I feel overwhelmed every time I am out in public? Most of the time, we can't answer these questions. Even our doctors, often, cannot answer them. But, our bodies can, if we can learn to trust them again and listen. As I laid there in savasana, I kept trying to get that stuck feeling energy to move out of my heart space. I could feel it engulfing the entire area. The tightness crept into my neck and shoulders. My abdomen felt fluttery. Every time I told myself it was ok to let go and I felt an inkling of release, my ego jumped in and said - NO! When I asked myself why I couldn't let it go, ego told me that I didn't want to feel lonely. What would my identity be if I actually allowed myself to experience the loneliness my body feels? Could I continue along this beautiful path of discovery I am on undaunted? Could I continue my work? Or, would I be paralyzed with the emotion of it? It was that I do not want to be interrupted by whatever it would mean to feel that feeling. I will be doing the work around this topic in my life on my mat and through my means of sharing. It is more uncomfortable and difficult to process the dis-ease that develops in our bodies when we ignore their cues.
In July, I will have completed a certification program in Embodied Healing as credits for my Yoga Alliance certification. I am continuously fascinated by what I am learning and that it was an injury that began to close the door on the body abuse I was inflicting upon myself and provided me with the tools, through what appeared to be a lost practice, to find a depth of practice I had never experienced. My plans are to write, develop workshops, and possibly to begin podcasting and doing videos. If you are interested in seeing some of these things from me, I'd love to know as I am feeling things out.
Blessed be! ~Sat Nam~
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorKelli Hansel Haywood is the mother of three daughters living in the mountains of southeastern Kentucky. She is a writer, weightlifter, yoga and movement instructor, chakra reader, and Reiki practitioner. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|