TGIF :: (Re)connecting with the Body

#60 || This may be more essential to a ClearLife journey than we think

Jun 14, 2024

Maybe We’re Already Living From the Heart

“I would like to take you out Cecily for tea or coffee sometime soon to talk about last Friday’s TGIF.”

Uh-oh… I thought to myself, reading this text in a family thread. She was referring to the one I published two weeks ago, Entering my 50s, ❤️ First. Which, btw, preceded a deeply heart-full birthday weekend and beyond…

What could it be?

We finally caught up over dinner on Wednesday. This beloved friend-family member is deeply perceptive, thoughtful of others beyond measure, and really knows her stuff. She practiced psychotherapy for thirty years, taught the Enneagram for twenty, has founded and run charitable, organizations, raised a family, and more. I respect and adore her, and was very curious to hear what she wanted to share.

After a bit of a catch up, she succinctly pointed out that the tools I’d offered to help us connect with our hearts in that week’s TGIF aren’t really about connecting with the heart after all:

“The prompts you offered were more about the body. Have you considered that you already live from your heart?”

We reviewed the practices I’d listed, and she was right, they’re body-based, not heart based(!) (summarized here):

Place a hand over the heart (physical gesture)
Spend time in nature (a physical act)
Get crafty (a physical activity)
Take an intentional walk (a physical movement)
Let love in (hugs, eye contact) (a physical allowing)
Write out intentions for The Eight Awarenesses (a physical expression)

We spent part of the evening reviewing Enneagram types and the different orientations we each have (fascinating).

Later though, this got me thinking (feeling?)…

What role does reconnecting with our bodies play in a ClearLife journey?

And in turn, do we need to disconnect from our body’s wisdom to dim out with whatever our dimmer of choice is (alcohol, spending, sex, work, exercise, etc.)?

Have I been aware of this feature of my own path?

The Role the Body Plays in a ClearLife Journey

Maybe there is there an invitation here, for all of us, to more deeply attune to our bodies, our physical dwelling place, rich with essential sensory guidance and home of our deepest truths. It makes perfect sense that we’d want to tune our physical signals out if we are habitually doing something to avoid listening to ourselves. Our bodies are always communicating (or trying to communicate) with us in one way or another.

Research

I went back and reviewed some of the influences on my own path, my own development of The Eight Awarenesses. Specifically, I revisited the works and talks of Gabor Maté and Bessel A. van der Kolk, two visionaries who have researched and shared extensively on the necessity of reconnecting with the body to heal from trauma and addiction. Two highlights:

“In the real world, our bodies are inseparable from our emotions and thoughts,
and the body will be affected by them.”

— Gabor Maté, When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection

“Self-regulation depends on having a friendly relationship with your body.
Without it you have to rely on external regulation – from medication, drugs like alcohol, constant reassurance, or compulsive compliance with the wishes of others.”

— Bessel A. van der Kolk, author of
The Body Keeps the Score, Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma

^^ Read those again,

These are highlights, but there is a literal universe of research, wisdom, and insights among their offerings. If this area is of interest to you, the links go to their books.

» If you have female voices to recommend on these topics, I’d love to know your recommendations too.

Dimming to Feel Less Physically?

Is this a core theme of ClearLife?

We feel discomfort, we want relief, we seek out a dimmer, and we temporarily feel better. For some, we get too cozy with that dimmer and it becomes a crutch, hard to stop, something we do despite the negative consequences or intentions to do less.

A ClearLife journey invites us to explore what we are avoiding feeling, resolve or release at the source, and then start the process of unfurling from there.

The focus of healing and transformation in recovery circles—and ClearLife—is typically emotional or psychological pain. We dim to soften difficult feelings. Yes, there are all kinds of ways to dim physical pain as well, but most of what we explore is in the emotional realm.

What is the relationship with the physical experience then? It’s not just about feeling physically better because we removed something unhealthy from our routines… many of rediscover an attunement, a wisdom, a power in our physical selves that has been dimmed out for years. How do we reconnect with this source of essential sensory guidance and home of our deepest truths?

Is this why so many people on a ClearLife journey end up focusing on the body?

Tuning Into Our Physical Selves, A Podcast Theme

Yesterday, in reflecting on the first season of the Undimmed podcast, I realized how many of our guests have spoken to the physical revelations and awakenings they’ve had along their ClearLife journeys.

We get through the emotional part, get reacquainted with uncomfortable feelings (hopefully acting on or moving through them, finally), then realize we’ve been neglecting our bodies for a long time. Reconnection with our physical selves can be via leaning into athletic activities, finally facing trauma held in our bodies through somatic or other work, or understanding how our relationship with our bodies is a source of suffering itself (physical pain, disordered eating, sexual or other trauma).

For Jennifer Pattee, captured in I Choose My Beyoncé (Clear) Life, her athleticism propelled her even more deeply into healthful living, and a drinking habit proved incompatible with her passion. When she ditched alcohol everything in her life leveled up.

For Kamelle Mills who opens up in Living in Fuchsia, as a deeply physical person to begin with, his body transformation once he stopped drinking served as a powerful motivator to keep going. His body is now rich with all kinds of sacred guidance.

Then this past week, we heard from

Dana Leigh Lyons

in Helpful Habits in Finding Freedom from Alcohol and Disordered Eating who speaks with a delicate grace to her use of alcohol to soften some of the difficulties she experienced from disordered eating and learning to embrace nutrition and yoga to heal and thrive:

“It's almost like drinking is the first thing to go. And then that offers an opening to start changing other things. And that's definitely been true for me…”

“[I learned] to come into a relationship with my physical body where the measure wasn't how thin I was, the measure was . . . what is my body need right now, just to stay physically healthy and to move in ways that, that are freeing and feel good.”

There is an invitation to honor or physical beings that follows the early experiences in ClearLife. It is up to us to listen or not. We grow fluent in the notion of ceasing self-abandonment emotionally, but what about deeply tuning into our physical needs and wisdom? Can we stop self-abandoning our body’s callings too?

Maybe My Friend is Right…

Is this what I am being called to do, not necessarily live more from heart, but rather more deeply connect with and honor the body? I am exploring this and invite you to as well.

We can ask ourselves:

Could I connect with my body more deeply in a way that works for me?

Are there practices I’ve been focusing on that seem like they are serving a deeper inner dimension connection, but perhaps are more in service of an intimacy with my body?

Am I actually honoring attractions and aversions? Are there pulls and pushes in the days that I am listening to and acting on, or am I living “a life that is an architecture of appropriateness”?

Am I truly listening to my body’s needs? Resting when it wants to rest, moving when it wants to move, eating when it wants nourishment …dancing when it wants to dance? Is self-consciousness, attempts to self-control, or some flavor of perfectionism getting in the way? What would happen if I actually released that grip, that clench, and with fluidity acted on my physical desires and needs?

Is my mind getting in the way? Is that an old protective mechanism I can finally shed?

A Practice, An Invitation

For a week, explore honoring the wisdom of the body as much as possible.

Baby Steps. This can be simple things like promptly responding to the physical urge to drink water, go to the bathroom, have a snack, go outside, smell the flower, sit down, or move.

Deeper Explorations. The practice can also involve honoring more consequential urges such as moving towards people and places we feel an attraction to, and not forcing ourselves to do things we don’t truly, deeply want to do. We can explore connecting with people our bodies let us know we want to be in contact with and distancing ourselves from people our physical beings show some resistance or aversion to.

Observe. Notice any shifts throughout the week. Are you more relaxed, attuned, overall at peace when you follow your body’s signals? What other things changed when you did something differently than maybe your mind would have directed you? What if we continued this practice of honoring our body’s wisdom more consistently? Is this part of our path to healing?

“In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them.
Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.”

— Bessel A. van der Kolk

Is this a path to deeper freedom?

I’d love to hear your impressions, read your feedback, and see your responses.

Thank you for learning with me.

Be well.

❤️