Listening to one’s body

I’m going against my usual grain and speaking solely from a Mindfulness teacher perspective in this article.

Concerning the complete unawareness of one’s emotions regarding the events that happened this year so far. “Everything will be alright” is a good feel-good statement when one is confronted with violent tears over what is happening in the world. We should have someone comfort us and say “We’ll make it ok”. It’s true, it’s appropriate, it’s kind.

More so, one could have someone standing next to us screaming “FEEL IT! JUST FEEL THE GUILT AND THE PAIN AND THE TERROR OF THE UNKNOWN” and we’d cry even more. So, we rather have comfort, right?

Regardless at what capacity you’re witnessing current events, you’re the witness to how it belongs in your body. You’re the witness to how it reacts in your emotions. And you’re the feeler, the body, the emotions and the reactions, all at once. If all this isn’t causing you an emotional overload, little else will.

The terror of the unknown is being masked by the warrior side of us in the well-known plane of “activisting”, whether on the streets or social media. It’s well-known how we can band together to help those who need their voices heard. Little less known is the capacity we actually have to make actual change, whether inward or outward in order for that comfort to be tangible.

I mean… can you honestly defund the police yourself? Or do you need dialogue with whoever is in charge? Can you honestly decolonize History? Or you have to have dialogue with those in charge? Can you honestly be kind to everyone involved, or do you need an inner dialogue and be kind to yourself first?

We need to see where it hurts, inward and outward. We need to find the pain, the obstacles to facing the issues that bind us to anger, reactivity and violence, instead of change through dialogue and well-presented ideas. We need to see where it hurts in ourselves, in those others in pain, and in the affected social spheres. We need to find the pain, the wound, in order to heal it once and for all.

So, we need to start with step one:

Listening to our bodies.

Are you nervous? Ever since February I’m having nervous heartburn. I keep drinking solutions to that problem, but I haven’t faced the actual issue. In fact, I don’t even know what the issue is. I need internal navigation and maybe a cosmic neon light sign pointing there, to let me know.

How is your digestive system? Are you eating well? Are you normally hungry? Are you eating your emotions?

How is your monkey mind? Are you coherent, or do you move from one ideology to the next in a heartbeat? Are you being kind to yourself and others?

How is your breathing? Deep, shallow? Slow, fast?

How are your muscles feeling? Relaxed? Tense?

What do you feel in the center of your chest? Is there a knot? Is it feeling free?

Honestly, I’ve been exhausted. It’s not the World’s events alone, but my own personal story unfolding this year. The feeling of isolation and the need for people and hugs and true friendship. I’ve been utterly exhausted that I’ve been sleeping sometimes most of the day. Maybe I’m a bit depressed? Honestly, I think so. Given all that is been happening, reactions of people close to me who I felt knew better, or ought to, and surprisingly attempts I’m witnessing to cash with this whole pandemic thing. The best and worst of humanity is coming to the front and if you spend enough time in social media you start to believe human society is made of manure, for lack of better term.

I sincerely hope we all take our most deserving break somehow if we can. Allow this manure to serve as fertilizer to better fields. If we allow ourselves even a week of total rest, meditation and maybe a dip in the ocean we might feel envigorated enough to face what’s coming.

We might even consider spending some time listening to what our bodies are telling us.

And somehow, in the midst of all this, actually concretely make an organized change for the better.