I had this realization the other day that breathing is the most fundamental way to receive & release. With each breath in, you receive life, you say yes to this next moment. And with each breath out, you let go of what your body no longer needs inside.
When I was in college, I would ride my bike all around campus and through town & imagine I was breathing with my whole body. The wind was breathing me, I was breathing through my skin.
It was intentional; I decided to practice this whole body breathing. And also, once I allowed it to happen, it was so organic: a natural function of my entire being is to receive and to let go. Every ounce of you is participating in your life, every part of you is working to receive and release, in every moment.
Your body is really smart.
I am fascinated with the innate intelligence of the body. Even when it’s confused about what is safe, your body is always trying to keep you safe & healthy. The body knows when you’re ready to process something that happened. We cannot operate in a constant state of feeling everything intensely in real time all day every day. This is why we have these functions in our nervous systems to repress or shut down -- they allow us to move about the world in a way that feels safe to us. Of course, trauma, abuse, emotional neglect, upset, or harm may send your body into persistent states of shut down and your body may defend itself from perceived danger when it’s actually safe. This is true for other cases of difficulty -- any situation or relationship that causes distress can also imprint on the body in this way. And when a similar pattern or situation shows up again (because the universe will Absolutely serve you up the same lessons again and again until you learn), you can respond differently. Healing can happen when that same Hard/Harmful thing shows up and it’s actually ok afterwards. There can be a recognition that oh, this used to be really hard and unsafe and not ok, and now it is actually ok.
You can tell your body, hey, it’s ok. It’s ok to be exactly as you are right now. Thank you. You’re ok. It’s gonna be ok.
Thank goodness for these minds we have to figure out what these bodies are doing. What a great team.
So don’t be hard on yourself for suppressing or shutting down or closing off when you’re in a hard situation. You will be able to feel when you’re ready. Your body is smart -- it’s gonna let you feel it in time. One of my best friends died when I was a sophomore in college, and I didn’t feel sad about it for days. I went about my classes as normal and then finally, one night, I started uncontrollably sobbing -- my body was ready to feel it, then.
Recognition of internal states can set them free
What if tension is just the body storing unacknowledged feelings?
Shining awareness or recognition on our internal experiences frees them up to move through us. Instead of operating subconsciously (and often expressing itself in chaotic ways), the feeling/need/want is now conscious. Then you can make choices about what to do with it — feel it, take some action, push away or ignore. When you’re able to name what’s going on inside, you create some distance — you recognize that it isn’t you. It’s just something you’re experiencing. The state you are in is not you.
Hilary Jacobs Hendel, an AEDP Psychotherapist, says this beautifully: “Naming my fear diminished my anxiety. Physiologically, giving language to experience calms the brain. It’s neuroscience.” (from the book “It’s Not Always Depression”)
An acknowledgement of what is true then allows things to change, because once you’ve named it, it is free to move and dissipate.
Often, all we need when we’re having big feelings is for someone to see us.
I’ve been working with kids for years now and they have taught me this truth. When you are able to identify what a child is experiencing, it helps the Big Feeling move so much more easily. “Ugh I know you’re so sad! Your mom is working! You’re angry you can’t watch your show! You have to go to bed! That’s so frustrating!!”
Regardless of whether you think it’s ‘unreasonable’ to be getting This Upset over something, it’s real for the kid. It’s something they are legitimately feeling inside their body, and therefore it is valid and ok to feel.
I did this the other day with the toddler I take care of. We were out for a walk and she was getting very upset because she wanted something and I had no idea what she was trying to say. Eventually I understood that she wanted milk, and was able to empathize with her -- “Oh my goodness, you want milk! And we don’t have any! That’s so frustrating. I wish I had some for you right now!!”
Immediate calm. There wasn’t any milk so I couldn’t offer her a solution, but she didn’t even need one. She just needed to be understood - literally forgot about the milk three seconds later. She just needed her want to be recognized.
The same is true for adults. Aren’t we all just children who need to be recognized? Humans who need to be understood and seen and heard, by someone else. A genuine recognition of what you’re experiencing is LOVE.
Okayness.
Things can be hard and sad and still ok. Being ok is not the same as feeling ok. It’s the difference between ‘it’s ok that you are feeling this way’ and ‘‘you’re feeling ok, you’re ok right now.” These are not the same things!
Because maybe you don’t feel ok at all! Maybe you’re a person who uses “I’m fine, I’m ok” as a shield and what you need is to actually accept that you are not ok at all and that something needs to change, as soon as possible. Oftentimes, the “oh, yeah, I’m fine,” is a cover-up, a defense -- you’re actually not fine. You’re actually really fucking angry and heartbroken and confused and don’t know what to do next.
But! You can be angry and heartbroken and confused and that can be ok. Whatever you are experiencing here in your body is ok to be feeling.
Nothing that feels bad is ever the last step.
(this is Eugene Gendlin, an experiential therapist who talks about processing emotions to completion).
“nothing that feels bad is ever the last step,” Gendlin says.
(That’s it!!!) (Feel it through! Let your body feel it! It will shift!)
It’s ok that you’re feeling this way; if it wasn’t ok you wouldn’t be feeling it. So accept that you’re feeling this way so it can pass through more quickly and not create stuckness. (And it will pass through more quickly if you can name what ‘it’ is).
Most of us grew up in this society where we aren’t taught how to feel big feelings, & also perhaps were taught that it was not allowed or acceptable to “act out” or “cry too much”. So naturally it may feel scary and dangerous to feel really sad or cry or be angry. Most of the time, it is not dangerous, it’s just hard.
Unless, of course, you’re in an actually dangerous situation and are in actual danger of being harmed - emotionally, physically, psychologically, materially/financially. You actually do not have to subject yourself to danger. This includes damaging conversations where maybe someone in your life is being cruel or invalidating your very existence and THAT, people, is incredibly harmful. Violent, even.
It’s ok to be how you are right now. It doesn’t mean that you are ‘fine’ or ‘good’ -- but it is ok to be exactly as you are, whatever you are, right now.
Maybe you aren’t feeling ok right now, but it’s ok to be feeling this way.
Musings
What if tension is the body resisting letting go?
What if tension is just the body holding on, not knowing what to do, not having awareness of what’s going on.
What if when you feel stuck, you stop resisting the stuckness, what if you just let your body be stuck and tense? What if by doing that, you gave your body permission to release it? What if letting yourself feel stuck actually allowed you to get unstuck?
You don’t have to force awareness. It will come when you’re ready.
What if you just let your body be here, in this moment, exactly as it is. And what if that was exactly how it should be. What if you let it show you the way, in every moment. Again and again and again.
Thank you for reading. I don’t have anything figured out, but I have a whole lot of thoughts about it all. I’m sensing that I’m about to pivot to talking about something new, so that’s exciting.
xx maggie
I like Jen's take here. And I really like this in the context of my meditation practice. My favorite meditation teachers talk of a call to equanimity; a state of 'okayness' in Maggiespeak. Shit will happen, it always does. And when shit happens that we are powerless to control, we need to be aware enough, calm enough, and wise enough, not to resist it. I think everyone could benefit from this message of listening to the body as it communicates to us the extent that we are resisting now or have been storing resistance from the past. Feel it. Sit with it. Let it be and let it go. Thank you.
this came at a great time for me! I was just recently ignoring my body and Feelings on a particularly busy weekend. Sunday night, I felt that my back was crunched and crooked, and realized how much stress id been holding. So much so that it’s literally changed my posture— W I L D ! I took this as a sign to listen to and care for my body more the next day, and was able to process through a lot of the Things that’d been weighing on me, while simultaneously remedying the back tightness through sitting with my body and listening to what it needed to feel better. Thank you for this dear ✨