On learning to hear what my body is screaming at me.
and working through the disconnect and fear of the physical.
Yoga, which is one of the most important (and, oddly enough, controversial) things for me, especially in the winter, has become super challenging for me. And not in a way where I want to stop, but in a way where I feel more persistent with it more than ever. My whole life I’ve been a flexible person. Not just emotionally and with people, but physically. It was one of my favorite attributes about myself. Whenever I gained weight, or was really pale, or whatever, I always thought “at least I’m flexible”. It was my party trick, it was a way to convince my ballet teachers I was better than I actually was, and it was a way for me to feel like I was the best in every yoga class. It never took a lot for me to get into positions— I just had a natural flexibility that worked. When I got pregnant, it was really important for me to keep stretching, keep doing all my pilates and yoga classes, and it was the hardest thing for me to not push myself for the six weeks before I got cleared by the doctor (also I had stitching which was awful to think about). But I was eventually cleared, and I had to work a wee bit to reacclimatize, but I ended up right back to where I was flexibility-wise. I was so excited. I never lost my split! That is, until I moved to Italy. I know I’ve spoken about this before, how I was so out of a routine and so out of touch with myself when I was there, but the biggest downside from our time abroad was that when we got back, I had completely lost my flexibility. Poof. It was gone. After Courtney died, I lacked a lot of my drive. I was always cold. Romeo was always awake and extremely needy. It was like my whole body went into a frozen shock for the remaining time we were there.
When we got back, and I did yoga for the first time, it felt like I was doing it for the actual first time. Like I had never done it before. It felt so good, but it felt so hard. I couldn’t even get my heels down in my down dog. I kept going at it for about a month, started to get more in tune with my body, but for some strange reason that I’m trying to use this post to figure out, I never got my flexibility back on my right side. I was telling my girlfriend about it and she said “why is this so challenging for you? What does your flexibility represent and mean to you?” I thought about this for a while, and I think it means my youth. It’s just something I always had, something I’ve always relied on.
I bring up this completely superficial issue because I’ve been spending a lot of time thinking about our mind-body connection. I did not grow up in a way in which we connected them as deeply as we are made to. Yes, we found movement important, but we never looked at the physical aspects of ourselves to help us with our inner selves. When I needed help, or needed space and time, I would go to the Blessed Sacrament and pray. I would cry. I would read. But I always remember getting achy in my joints. I specifically remember when I would go when I was in high school, I would sit in the back row so I could stretch out my legs. Sometimes I would sit in a center split, sometimes I would arch my back until all the cracks were gone. I never put together that our mind and our movement are symbiotic. Everything I did back then was separate. I danced ballet in the studio, I prayed in the church, I went to therapy in an office after school. One thing (out of four million) I hate about this country and this unhinged, made up Christianity that’s permeated our culture and churches is the disconnect between the body and the mind. The Christian faith is so terrified of ‘the body’ that we (I will use ‘we’ here as I still consider myself Catholic) have started telling people yoga is demonic. That it will open a portal. That you’re ‘praying to another god’. All that shows is that we know nothing about any other culture. That we’ve let this wormy puritanical bullshit seep into our brains for too long. It’s why we promote chastity talks and take our kids out of sex-ed. It’s why we are scared of girls and why we hate women. It’s why we are xenophobic and bigots because we only associate the LGBTQIA+ community with their sexuality, not with who they are as humans. We don’t see the full humanity in people because we are scared to. We have for so long separated the body and the mind that Christianity is unable to ever see them as a whole, and it’s disgusting. A really long standing wish of mine is that all the world religion leaders have a summit every year and they all participate in each others practices for a day. I think it would help a lot of Christians remove the stick that’s so far up their ass and it would help make us way more empathetic and open-minded.
Anyway, I have taken so long lately to tune myself IN. Is my lack of flexibility my body telling me something? If so, what is it? It has forced me to look at parts of myself I never have before. It has forced me to be easier on myself, work harder at some things, and rely on my left side more than I ever have. Is it all just the shock of a death and being in a new place and feeling lonely? Is it something my body is holding onto that I haven’t been able to access yet? There are so many changes that have happened since last year. I am growing into myself more and more, learning who I am and what I am capable of every single day. I am noticing what works. I am noticing what doesn’t work. I am trying different angles, different outlets. I am doubling down on the things that make me happy (LOTS of rugs and blankets). I am understanding that happiness is an active every day choice. I am creating necessary boundaries, I am putting myself out there in ways I haven’t, I am speaking up, I am saying “no”, I am taking my time with my responses, I am becoming patient, I am breathing.
In the physical sense, it is bringing me back to the basics. Now, when I hit a pose in yoga, it’s incredibly satisfying and it’s incredibly pure, because I got there from step one. In a sense, it took me back all the way to the beginning. To starting again. To working with limitations but not allowing them to break me down. To understanding the body is just as important as the soul. To treating them both with love, and tenderness. To understanding that things can be taken away in a heartbeat, to love what you have and where you are. To being open. To listening. To hearing. To healing.
… oh man, this caught me off guard 🫶🏼🤌🏼
every word, perfectly strung along,
into a something written so open, that it jumps out and bursts right into my chest!
Left me filled me with questions, about the world, about the power of our thought and intentions,
about my body
…and the world I’ve created to protect it.
Think maybe this is something my heart subconsciously was craving and needed to read.
Gracias 🫶🏼