Turning Toward Our Bodies
The Body is the Shore On the Ocean of Being.
--Sufi saying (Levine, 271)
As another birthday passes, I reflect on my age and am somewhat surprised at the number. I have often thought that as I get older, I don’t actually feel like I am aging. That is, until I remember how hard it is to get up from the floor! My mind and my spirit feel young – and my body feels… well, old at times.
Like many, I’ve had a complicated relationship with my body. Starting in about junior high, I was aware of my parents continually telling me to stand up straight. As was true for most of my growing up years, I was much taller than my peers. Slouching, making my body smaller, was a physical reaction to not wanting to be seen. I was filled with worries about how I looked, unsure of myself amidst my peers, trying to fit in when I felt like I fit “out.”
My body responded to the stress and curled in on itself, like a desperate possum, playing dead when fighting or running are impossible.
Flash forward 18 years, my body again bore and expressed the brunt of my stresses as I tried to juggle full-time, non-stop work with a new baby dependent upon my body for physical and emotional nourishment. While I struggled to meet the ever-increasing demands of work and motherhood, never feeling like my best was “good enough,” my body cried out. When I think back to those days, I savor the tender moments of nursing, cuddling, and the wonder of this new little human. I also remember, with much less fondness, the constant feelings of overwhelm, with my body perpetually in a kind of “dis-ease.”
Amidst the flurry of to-do’s and expectations, my body was signaling, calling, and I didn’t answer.
Today, over 30 years later, I’m learning how to answer the calls of my body and trust her wisdom and wiring. Yes, my body will continue to change in challenging ways as I get older and it is just as precious and worthy of loving care as it was when I was a tiny baby.
Of course, saying my body is worth loving care is easier said than done in a society that constantly feeds us “evidence” to doubt the worth of our bodies. In Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle, sisters Emily and Amelia Nagoski offer practical strategies that can counter a pervasive, societal, often internalized, body shape stigma.
These strategies include accepting the ambivalence we may feel, and turning “toward the mess of noisy, contradictory thoughts and feelings with kindness and compassion…[knowing] your body size doesn’t dictate your health.”
Other strategies include questioning preconceived standards of beauty and looking at the wealth of diversity in bodies with open, fresh eyes.
To start attuning and appreciating your body, I invite you to begin by:
Understanding the Stress Response Cycle: Our bodies are created as unique protection defense systems which activate in a split second before our thinking brains can respond. (Additional Polyvagal Theory info here) For example, if your eyes saw a lion suddenly lunge in through your front door, your sympathetic nervous system would respond to the stressor and go on high alert, activating the “’stress response,’ a cascade of neurological and hormonal activity that initiates physiological changes to help you survive” (Nagoski & Nagoski, p. 5). Your heart instantly starts beating faster, your senses become hyper-focused, your mind’s attention totally focused on the here and now, your breath changes, your muscles get ready to GO. So, you run, and in the running, the stress of the “stress response cycle” is released, with the cycle complete, and you are back, feeling calmer, ready to engage with your world again.
Unsticking from the Stuck: Like our ancestors, we experience threats daily. But unlike our ancestors, the threats are probably not lions. In the 21st century, we often can’t just run if our body senses danger. If we are stressed in an exam, for example, we can’t run, we have to stay and take the exam. In not completing the stress response cycle over and over again, “this unreleased, pent-up energy lives on in our nervous system, so we never actually feel like we got away from the situation. We get stuck in the past or, rather, the past gets stuck in us” (Khouri, pp. 28-29). The wonder of our bodies lies in the fact that we can use this same unique protection defense system wired within us to help us unstick and find our way back to system-wide dynamic balance.
You’ve Got to Move it: So, how can we use our bodies to unstick and complete the stress response cycles of our lives? Move it! Even as a possum playing dead will shudder and shake after the threat has passed (completing his attuned mammalian stress response cycle), so I can intentionally take time to shake out after stressful events. Unlike my spouse, I have never been one to listen to music in the car. With my new knowledge about the importance of moving to release stress, I have started not just listening to music but moving to music when I drive home. In the drumming on the steering wheel at a stop light or bobbing my body to the rhythm of a song, I am allowing my muscles to release, my body to let go, and my system to begin resetting before I get home. Once home, going for a walk can also help me – as can connecting with loved ones. Each of these activities releases my body and through my body, my mind is also easing.
Play with your own ways to turn toward your body. You can find a playlist here of songs that are offered by our Rooted Compassion team of therapists as ones that help us move in order to unstick, destress, and release. Join us and “shake it out”!
References:
Khouri, H. (2021). Peace from Anxiety: Get Grounded, Build Resilience & Stay Connected Amidst the Chaos. Shambala.
Levine, P. A. (2010). In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. North Atlantic Books.
Nagoski, E. and Nagoski, A. (2020). Burnout: The Secret of Unlocking the Stress Cycle. Ballantine Books.
Photos:
Eric Nopanen (@rexcuando) on Unsplash
As a drama therapist and licensed professional counselor, Mimi (she/her/hers) offers a creative approach to help you get out of your head and into the life you want to live. Sessions with Mimi can take many forms, depending on your needs, interests, and therapeutic goals. Whether it’s through talking, journaling, enacting, drawing, storytelling, moving, or imagining, Mimi will meet you where you are and provide tools to help you get where you want to be.
The Rooted Compassion team is made up of a group of counselors who have a variety of specialties in order to best serve our clients. We recognize that every person has his/her own personal and unique life experiences and that one modality will not work for every client. Listed below is a summary of our counselors’ specialties at Rooted Compassion:
Emotional Freedom Techniques
Grief Counseling
Somatic Focused Counseling
EMDR
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Mindfulness-Based Practices
Trauma Responsive Care Techniques
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
Drama Therapy/Expressive Arts
If you are interested in learning more about what Rooted Compassion is all about, please contact us today, look through our website, or find us on Instagram and Facebook.
Rooted Compassion Counseling is Ohio’s leading practice for trauma therapy through the lens of the nervous system. Our focus is to walk alongside clients as they heal from depression, anxiety, trauma, grief and/or loss. If you or someone you know are seeking to explore and build an inner sense of calm and safety, please contact us today. We would love to help you to find a counselor and counseling techniques that will guide you on your mental health journey to healing.
