I was listening to a podcast not long ago that I enjoy and heard a favorite greeting the mother/daughter co-hosts often say to one another. “How does it feel being you today?”
Having the opportunity to try this with one of the women I’m mentoring felt pivotal. When I posed the question, she paused and replied, “so, so.” I sat quietly with that for a moment and asked if she could say more? I understand how it feels for me to be so, so, yet I desire to understand how it feels for her and that requires inquiry.
For me, when asked this question, I’m certain that it is as changeable as the formations of the fleeting clouds in the sky. Learning to be okay with this is my practice as no thought or feeling is final. The illusion of a period at the end of a thought/feeling is merely that, an illusion.
What matters when we ask this question is to be heart minded as Sarah Blondin, reminds us and to truly listen. Intentionally and with a compassionate curiosity to be with the one we have asked the question of.
Often as children we might have expressed how we felt only to hear, “Oh, you don’t feel that way.” Almost as if our feelings might have felt inconvenient, a bother or that someone outside of us knew better how we were feeling than we did? Such a confusing message this can be and thankfully from what I have observed is being practiced less.
Dropping down into my body and allowing it to guide me has been life changing. I know there have been seasons where I may have forgotten and allowed every feeling and thought to feel permanent. What occurred are they lodged and wedged themselves within my body rather than being able to flow through. To perhaps surface in situations where they became activated that often caught me completely by surprise and often with some embarrassment.
Beginning by feeling into bodily sensations that I might have ignored in the past became a first step. No judging or questioning of the truth and validity of what my body is sharing and honoring my vessel that is my home for this incarnation. Does it need food, rest, a walk in nature, a pause? I try to not negotiate with it and give to it as I would a child in my care.
Embodiment is welcoming and bringing all the pieces of ourselves back home where they belong. Requiring some rewiring, practicing and unlearning of old paradigms and narratives that no longer serve us. I must admit my mind is relieved to have the wise counsel of my body weighing in as this is her wheel house and what she was created for.
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