A humbling experience
Image by Jasmine Fitzwilliam of Let’s Frolic Together
You are not a meat suit.
Neither am I.
I reminded myself of this last week.
It was Wednesday morning. I woke up. Outside the wind was HOWLING. And I don't mean howling. I mean HOWLING.
The trees – massive west coast evergreen trees – were whipping around like shoots of wheat in a prairie field.
And you could hear the rain pelting on the windows.
It had been some time since I had experienced a storm of this calibre.
Interestingly, my inner experience was doing much the same.
My thoughts were spinning in my brain. Terrible, doubting and self demising thoughts. My heart was beating fast. I was having trouble focusing on the steps needed to get the coffee pot going. And my adrenals were hard at work pumping activating hormones through my veins.
Anxiety. A lot of it.
"No!" I thought to myself. "Not today. 😩"
I was in the middle of a 5-day mini course. Not a big deal in the grand scheme of things but for me, it was a big deal. And I had shit to do to prepare this morning. I wanted to look over my plan for the days teachings and finalize some details.
As the coffee maker pronounced its readiness, and I sat down with my journal. I knew I needed to work through what I was feeling somehow but I couldn't even focus enough to get my thoughts on paper.
They all seemed so real and true. And they broke my heart.
"I can't do this today!" I thought to myself. "I have to get things done."
It was then that I realized what I was trying to do.
I was trying to bypass my body.
I wanted to ignore what was happening in my body, power through the feelings and GET TO WORK.
And thank goodness I caught this age-old pattern.
I stopped myself right then and there.
As a coach, I'm well aware of the importance of "feeling the feels." It's what I walk my clients through whenever they're in a similar boat.
But I’m a human. And feelings are challenging. For all of us!
I knew what I had to do.
I cleared out what was around me (I happened to be sitting on the floor. It's one of my favourite writing spots), put a bolster horizontally behind my mid-back and lay down.
Arms outstretched in a T.
I began to internally converse with my body.
Yep…I’ll repeat that. I conversed with my body.
"Hey body" I said with lovingly.
"I see you're having a hard time this morning. It's totally fine. I got you. You don't have to do ANYTHING you're not feeling up to. Let's just lie here for as long as you need to."
I told myself we could cancel everything if we needed to. I meant it. And at one point I think I remember one of my hands coming to support my heart.
It was a total act of surrender. A surrendering to the feelings. An act of acceptance for what was going on inside of me.
Did my feelings make sense?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Do feelings have to make sense for us to care for them?
I think that might be the more important question to answer.
Suddenly, no more than 5-minutes later I felt a very palpable shift inside of myself.
And that shift just so (wonderfully) happened to coincide with the shift of the storm outside my house too. Which felt so powerful.
It was honestly like stepping into a completely different experience. It's a moment I will NEVER forget. It was so incredibly profound.
What it did was perfectly exemplify the value of this work.
I'm used to pressuring myself forward. I'm using to forcing myself ahead and pushing through the discomfort of anxiety, fear and sadness.
My day would have looked very different if I had followed that old strategy. And I can guarantee the outcome would not have been what I wished for myself.
Instead, I gave my body the time it needed. Time that amounted to all of 5 minutes. My feelings shifted all on their own and I sat up. This profound shift had even me surprised (and I'm already a feel your feelings convert).
My focus was back, my creative energy started flowing and I got the things done that I had wanted to get done without any issues.
I felt present, clear and most importantly, I felt SAFE.
I ended up having such a wonderful day.
These tiny moments make an impact. On our lives and on the lives around us.
We don't want to ignore the feelings of others. And we don't want to ignore our own feelings.
You are not a meat suit. And your feelings matter.
Build a relationship with your body.
Learn to be with your body, in the joys and in the fears.
Not to change any of it, but just to help it feel less alone.
It will thank you in such profound ways.
Sending you all lots of love,
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