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“If you’re willing to pay attention to and dialogue with what’s happening inside of you, you’ll find that your body already knows the answers about how to live a full, present, connected, and healthy life.” - Hillary L. McBride, The Wisdom of Your Body
Several years ago, I went to a weekend-long workshop for women who wanted to deepen their connection to themselves. It was powerful and transformative and decidedly out of my comfort zone.
I remember one activity, in particular, where we were encouraged to feel an emotion that women are more often told to tamp down — our anger. The workshop facilitators created an incredibly safe space for us to let our rage flow through us, to flow out of us, but I couldn’t connect to it.
I limply swung at gym mats with a wiffle bat. I held a pillow to my face to help muffle my screams, but nothing more than a squeak came out. I put boxing gloves on and threw weak punches toward the pads held by one of the workshop leaders.
At that moment, I wondered: What do I even have to be angry about?
But I knew I’d felt anger before. Knew I’d chewed at the inside of my mouth to keep from saying what I really felt in arguments with my ex. Knew I’d scream-sung Korn lyrics in my car on my long commute home. Knew I’d balled my hands into fists, digging my nails into the soft flesh of my palms, while listening to male politicians legislate my body. Knew I’d likely grind my teeth down to sharp nubs every night from the anxiety of it all were it not for my mouth guard.
The feeling of anger was in me; I just didn’t know how to do anything with it but bite it back; grinding it down into what seemed like nothing.
“Your embodiment is always telling a story. Learning to listen to, interpret, and work with this story is central to connection to wisdom, an integration of what we sense and how to make sense of it.” - Hillary L. McBride, The Wisdom of Your Body
The practice of embodiment has been coming to the surface for me again recently.
And I suppose it makes sense — if something keeps growing and expanding, even as you try to push it down, eventually it will overflow out of its container.
That’s not just anger for me; it’s every feeling I’ve been told is wrong to feel. It’s fear, it’s sadness, it’s judgment too. It’s every single emotion I’d tried not to experience (and even the ones I had, like back in that workshop) suddenly coming back up and demanding to be felt. And it’s that feeling part that I’ve been exploring — what I sense in my body; how I inhabit my own physicality.
The thing is, I don’t know that I’ve ever felt completely “at home” in my body; that I’ve fully understood or trusted it as a harbinger of information. Because of experiences that I explore often with my therapist (and will perhaps, one day, explore here too) — and also because of our collective experiences of gender scripts, cultural and religious ideologies about bodies, and the oppressive systems that value some bodies over others — disassociating from my body became commonplace a long time ago. Instead of trying to understand my physicality and feeling whatever wanted to be felt within me, I’d move up into my head, into my mind, where things felt logical and controllable and safe from the chaos outside of and within me.
But as I shared last week: “I actually want to be in communication — in communion — with my body; so authentically attuned to my own needs and knowing that I not only know how to nourish myself, but I actually care to. I want to.”
So, nourishment then. Care. Somatic (meaning “relating to the body”) practice. That’s where my mind (ha!) has been lately.
It was on an episode of the “We Can Do Hard Things” podcast with therapist and writer, Hillary McBride, where I first heard the phrase “authentic attunement”. That instantly struck a chord with me. I knew it was that awareness of and connection to my physical self — and that integration between my mind, body, and spirit — that I needed to explore next in my own personal growth.
“How can we know how to care for ourselves if we’re not in communication with the very body that’s carrying us around?” I wondered. “How do we know what we need if we don’t stop to pay attention; to ask the question of ourselves and listen for the answer?”
What if self-care isn’t just hot baths and reading a new book in stolen moments — though I am a big fan of both of those things — but rather a more intentionally somatic practice; a reconnection with our literal sense of ourselves as we move through the world?
How would I care for myself then? How would you?
Pull out the Learning Journal you started a couple of weeks ago (or use the Notes app on your phone or start a conversation with a close friend - it’s up to you!), and use it to answer the following questions — or to journal on anything else that comes to mind when you consider this topic:
What is your relationship to your body? How do you talk about it or to it? What messages do you hear? And what messages do you send?
Until recently, this relationship would have felt pretty non-existent for me. I could stay glued to my computer and “forget” to eat until my stomach was literally growling. I’d ignore signs of fatigue or an oncoming headache until they knocked me out. Though I’m not always great at it, now I try to slow down, to pause and give my body a chance to speak before it has to scream, to notice sensations and just sit with them so they have the opportunity to communicate what they need to.
How do you currently consider care for yourself; for your body? Do you do it because someone else (like a loved one or a medical professional) told you to? Do you do it so you can get something else done (like having energy to run around with your kiddos)? Do you do it to look or feel a certain way — and if so, what way is that?
How would you describe your internal mother? How has she cared for you up to this point in your adult life? Is there any way she could care for you better?
I talked about this a bit in last week’s newsletter; about how I saw my internal mother as ambitious and successful and driven, and how I thought that was the ultimate form of care — that it meant she was reliable and worthy. And in many ways, she was — that type of nurturance supported me through a lot. But, as I’m learning, the type of care I need now (and perhaps always needed in addition to my own striving) is slower, softer, and more intuitive; it’s led by what I need to feel cared for in mind, body, and spirit.
Think of someone you love deeply. How would you nourish them? How would you care for them if they got sick? If they were sad or scared? How would you encourage them to care for themselves? And how can you do the same for yourself?
If you were to stop right now and ask yourself, “How can I care for myself through this?”, what would your answer be? Can you offer that care to yourself in this moment?
Pick one area of your life where you will practice providing care for yourself; nourishing yourself in ways that feel authentic to you, to the realities of your life, and to the realities of the world we live in.
I’m choosing to allow myself to feel both the excitement and joy for a celebratory week ahead in my little world, as well as the anxiety, sadness, and fear I’m feeling about both personal circumstances and the state of our country and the world right now.
I don’t always allow myself to hold contradictory emotions, but I’m working on acknowledging that that complicated nuance is the very definition of what it means to be human.
“As you nourish yourself, you will gain more clarity, and that is liberating . . . As you come home to yourself, you can more clearly hear and honor the voice within.” - Thema Bryant, Homecoming
You don’t have to go to a yoga retreat or practice breathwork or even meditate every day — though word on the street is all of those practices can be very helpful for attuning to yourself — to care for yourself and connect to your body.
You can actually start very simply — and that’s something many experts will encourage you to do if embodiment practices are new to you! Here’s just a few activities that can support you in better supporting your own body:
Pay attention to your body, by doing a body scan 2-3 times a day. You can set an alarm on your phone as you’re first starting out to remind you to pause and spend a few minutes “scanning” your body from head to toe throughout the day. The exercise is exactly what it sounds like — pay attention to each part of your body for a few seconds, noticing and breathing into areas of tension, lowering your shoulders from your ears, and relaxing body parts that may feel uncomfortable. Just being present with your physical self for a moment is the practice.
Begin practicing interoception, which Hillary McBride describes as “the ability to sense what is happening inside your body and to know yourself from the inside out”. Body scans (mentioned above) are a great example of this, and she suggests practicing noticing physical cues such as hunger, temperature, and your heart rate to stay in closer connection with your body. Notice what you sense instead of trying to think about what you feel.
Create a “Care Package” for yourself: What activities, resources, places, or people make you feel the most cared for; the most known and nourished by yourself? Make a list in your Learning Journal or on your phone — anywhere that you can return to when you’re feeling overwhelmed, unseen, or uncared for, so you can easily remember how to care for yourself.
“When we consistently begin to pay more attention to being in our body, we can begin to make intentional choices to help regulate its different emotional states. This is how we cultivate emotional resilience, giving us the opportunity to have a feeling without reacting or behaving in ways that don’t serve ourselves or our relationships.” - Nicole LePera, How to Be the Love you Seek
You know the drill — there’s no actual tests here; just some questions to help you reflect on and evaluate your progress along the way.
“I encourage you to take a sacred pause and say, ‘What is the truth revealed by how I treat myself, in how I honor or dishonor myself?” - Thema Bryant, Homecoming
Here’s a few questions to guide your own reflection:
How do you define self-care? What would it look like to care for yourself in the way that you do for others, whether those in your circle or in the wider collective?
What is your relationship to self-trust? Do you trust yourself to offer the care and nourishment you really need? If not, what can you begin to do to repair that relationship with yourself?
In her book, The Wisdom of Your Body, Hillary McBride says: “Healing happens as we invite our bodies back into the narratives of our lives.” How can you invite your body back into the narrative of your life?
Books
The Wisdom of Your Body by Hillary L. McBride
Hillary’s book offers tangible, immediately implementable ways to reconnect with, as the title says, the wisdom of our bodies. (Chapter 3 is a treasure trove of action items!) She’s also a beautiful writer and the personal stories she weaves throughout the text are vulnerable and relatable.
You can listen to her audiobook on Spotify if you have a premium account! Might I also recommend purchasing a physical copy as well, so you can highlight every single word? (Speaking from personal experience.)
Homecoming by Thema Bryant
As the title suggests, Thema’s beautiful book is a roadmap for coming home to ourselves. She focuses on all of the ways we may have disconnected from our own inner knowing and authenticity — and why, including many of the Big and little T traumas we’re all familiar with — and offers discernible suggestions to help you move out of survival mode.
Thema also speaks to the importance and interplay of self-care and community care: “I am not going to wait for other people to give me permission to nourish myself, but I will also seek out community that is nurturing.”
How to Be the Love You Seek by Dr. Nicole LePera
I’ve just started Nicole’s book, but I’ve appreciated the breadth of her writing in the past and love how she — like Hillary and Thema — offers realistic, concrete ways to start putting healing into practice. This book is a bit more focused on relationships, but Nicole’s angle is that being in healthy relationships requires being in a healthy relationship with yourself first. Agree!
I haven’t read these yet, but they’re on my required reading list for this topic too:
The Self-Care Prescription by Robyn L. Gobin
Discovering the Inner Mother by Bethany Webster
How We Heal by Alexandra Elle
“Connection to our bodily selves allows us to internalize a sense of safety and connection that tells us who we are, what we long for, and how to be most fully alive.” - Hillary L. McBride, The Wisdom of Your Body
I know I’m just scratching the surface of what care can look like — and how our care for ourselves can be amplified with even greater impact within our communities and global collective (something we seem to need now more than ever).
But we all have to start somewhere, so! Here’s your extra credit assignment: Share with me in the comments!
How will you care for yourself this week?
What kinds of activities feel most nourishing to you?
What would be included in your “care package”?
I can’t wait to hear from you, and I’ll be back with more of what I’m learning next week!
Love the idea of a personal care package ♥️