What is available to you to ground yourself when you feel discomfort?
It has been wonderful to be in touch with you in the last few weeks. It sounds like we are sharing a lot of similar complexities in how we manage this moment in our life journeys. I have heard so much overwhelm come through in your words back to me. I would love to offer you a gift that may help.
As much as I wish we could be in person together to share calming practices, I have been surprised by how much energy I am still able to feel from others far away when I connect through phone calls and virtual gatherings. I want to offer you a grounding exercise to support your desire for peace. I trust that our energy will connect whenever you choose to try it or when I am practicing it as well.
As you know, I love books and I love to read. One of the books that has been by my side the last few months is My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies. The book is filled with a variety of body and breath practices to help us reconnect to what is happening in our bodies as we experience a range of emotions from discomfort to peace.
Taking time to connect with our bodies and breath helps us to relax when we are feeling unsettled. Reconnecting reminds us of who we are and the resiliency that lives within our body and spirit to care for us. Afterward, there can be a feeling of safety and peace that did not exist moments before.
One I would offer to you in moments when you are feeling disconnected from yourself and overwhelmed is the body practice below. I have adapted it slightly from the book for the purposes of this letter. I hope you can find time for yourself to try this out.
Get comfortable in a quiet space.
Take 3 long deep breaths in through your nose and exhale through your mouth (the biggest breaths you have taken today).
Begin to notice the outline of your body and the slight pressure of the air around you as it touches your skin. Notice the touch of your clothing and the sensations it creates on your skin. Experience the pressure of the seat beneath you and the ground beneath your feet.
As you continue to breathe deeply, notice if you can sense hope in your body? Where? How does your body experience that hope? Is it a release or an expansion? A tightness born of eagerness or anticipation?
What hopes accompany these sensations? The chance to heal? To be free of the burden of racialized trauma? To live a bigger, deeper life?
As you continue to breathe deeply, notice if you experience fear in your body? If so, where? How does it manifest? As tightness? As a painful radiance? As a dead, hard spot?
What worries accompany the fear? Are you afraid your life will be different in ways you can’t predict? What pictures appear in your mind as you experience that fear?
Continue to breathe deeply and take a scan of your body and listen. What is your body trying to tell you in these last moments? What words/phrases do you hear that you need to hold onto?
Take 3 long deep breaths in through your nose and exhale through your mouth (the biggest breaths you have taken today)
When you are ready open your eyes and take a few minutes to write down what you felt and heard in your body and spirit. What does your body want you to remember as you return to your normal day to day?
Let me know when you have time for this body practice. I would love to hear from you about how it goes and what your body says to you. Please share!
Quiero saber te ti. What is available to you to ground yourself when you feel discomfort? What comes alive for you when you take the time for body and breath practice?
Un abrazo,
Michelle
