into the body

For me, this past year has brought a profound, palpable shift in the way I’m being guided to relate to the world. A journey from the mind, into the body. 

I naturally have a very active mind. It’s quick, wildly curious, like a truth-and-clarity-seeking missile. Because of that, it takes extra effort and devotion for me to move out of my mind and into my body, to sit with the unknown, in the void, without explanation or incessant investigation. 

It takes an entirely different toolkit to navigate life through the felt sense, through the language of energetics, emotions, physical sensations. To deeply trust in that which is present, but can’t be readily defined. To respect and value my internal experience over all else. 

The lessons along this path have mostly manifested, unsurprisingly, in my physical body. It started with a 7-month period of feeling like I suddenly had no idea what was happening in my body and why - feeling terrified to leave the house for fear that it may betray me while out in public. In one moment last summer, I crumpled to the floor of the bathroom shaking in intense pain, while losing consciousness in what felt like slow-motion, with the honest thought, “is this what dying feels like?” accompanying me on the way down. 

Luckily, I wasn’t dying, but I was being initiated by fire into a much deeper and more trusting relationship with this incredible physical vessel that I chose to inhabit in this life. Over time, I came to viscerally experience the infinite wisdom and intelligence that the body holds (that I had been largely bypassing through my mind for most of my life). 

Since that period of intensity passed, each time that I default back to navigating life through my mind, my body pipes up, loud and clear, with a physical manifestation that requires me to pull back, slow down, or stop in my tracks entirely. It’s asked me, repeatedly, to remove any ties that bind my sense of value and worth to outward expressions of productivity, and be fully present with my inner processes. “This is your work” it whispers, “this is what you’re here to guide others through.”

That reminder, and the deep sense of knowing that it’s laced with, helps dissolve the frustration that arises when I feel like I’m being pulled back once again. 

In order to hold and guide others through periods of initiation and transformation, we must hold and guide ourselves through them first. Devotion to being present and loving with our bodies and our lives, in all their expressions, increases our capacity exponentially. 

This journey has lit an even brighter fire within me to hold space for this journey within others. To hold a guiding light on the path from the mind into the body, because that’s where our truest truth, the real gold, can be found.

✺