Posted by Patti Digh on her blog 37 Days.
Author Susan Piver and I are hosting “The Week of Inward Looking”during this week between Christmas and the New Year. It occured to us that this inbetween week is a time for examination, a time to build a bridge to a peaceful, joyful, creative, and wildly successful 2012–whatever success means to you.
So we invited five extraordinary thinkers to join us in creating a 7-day journey, starting today.
You are welcome to join our Facebook group to connect with others participating in The Week of Inward Looking, or not.
You are welcome to post your answers on that Facebook page, or not.
You are welcome to journal in your private journal, on your blog, anywhere you’d like–the questions are simply put into the universe for you to consider as we move in this week toward 2012. Share as you would like.
Each day will have a different questioner, and a different theme. You’ll hear from me, Susan Piver, Jonathan Fields, Ken Robert, Andrew Mellen, Jen Louden, and Seth Godin. I hope you’ll join us in this exploration.
Topic: Body (Bendiness)
Question: Where have I learned and lived in 2011? In my head, in my body, or both? What would living more fully in my body in 2012 bring to me? How can I embody life and learning as I move through this liminal space between now and next? How can I more fully learn from the neck down in 2012?
In our hyper-intellectualized disembodied world, we sometimes allow technology to take the place of our bodies, don’t we? We sit, with only our arms moving as we type. We’ve even begun to distrust what our bodies say to us. Instead, we learn from the neck up, when learning from the neck down and fully embodying life will provide us with such greater riches. What do you allow yourself to really feel in your body, without the need to clarify, intellectualize, provide proof, capture with data, or block? What can you allow yourself to really feel in your body in 2012?
My answer:
The “new” house has stairs, lots of stairs. You can’t get anywhere without at least one flight, but to go to sleep or get a sweater, you have two. What were we thinking, in the beginning of what will be our middle age, when we bought a house with so many stairs? For the first month that I live here my knees ache all the time. I try to consolidate trips so that I’m not ascending and descending as frequently. And the yard is steep, so mowing it is tantamount to a scramble on a mountain slope.
But I notice that little by little, my knees don’t hurt quite so much, and I can sit on the porch and admire the green expanse of the lawn without feeling totally winded. I add in a half hour of yoga each morning. At first, I hate it because I’m stiff and my body is unfriendly. Then I love it because I feel like my muscles are unspooling. Finally, I am habituated to it. When I don’t make time for yoga, I feel out of sorts, my body rebelling in subtle but noticeable ways (especially those knees).
More importantly, yoga is teaching me to pay attention to my body. During savasana at the end of each session, I listen closely to what my body is telling me. I notice that I am often holding the muscles of my chest and upper abdomen clenched, that I am actually folding inward much of the time. I try to isolate what is happening there. Breathe into it (as the disembodied yoga voice keeps saying). As those muscles relax, I feel my shoulder drop towards the floor, my ribcage realign, and I can see in my mind’s eye that my sternum is spreading and my heart opening. Honestly, I can actually feel this. The first time it happens, I start to cry, tears leaking backwards into my ears. It feels good to be this open. Expansive. Porous. Wind-shriven.
I start paying attention more often to my heart, my chest, my shoulders, the tilt of my head and neck, the way that I’m carrying myself. As I drive into town, I practice opening my heart, that same relaxation and realignment that I feel during savasana. When I’m working on an unpleasant project or dealing with a difficult person, I sometimes catch myself folding up in some sort of origami muscle memory. I say to myself, gently, open your heart. Physically.
I remember to do this often, but not often enough. I find that I crack open wider when I’m outside alone under the sky. When considering a word to center 2011 upon, I listened for resonance, listened for a bell that might remind me to be more human: open. A good word, an embodied word. There will be stress, pressure, and difficulty this upcoming year as there is every year, but I will try to greet it with my shoulders relaxed, my head gently raised, and my chest and heart open.