Last week I started a process of reaching out to old friends from a summer camp I attended as a kid and later worked at as a counselor. This process continues and is really helping me reconnect with parts of myself left too long on the compost heap; Parts I need to move forward. Parts that I need to let go of to regain something lost.
As joyful as this process has been and continues to be, it is also difficult. Not just for the grief and sentimental feelings that are aroused, which though powerful, are also paradoxically liberating, but because something deeper even than those things is challenged and awoken through this encounter with the past. What is it?
Whatever it is, it is reflected in my body. I’ve always stored tensions there, and digested difficult things there, but this is a slow realization. Every week I become more amazed at how I can listen to my body to find out what I’m feeling. It seems tautological: Where else are our feelings than in our body? Yet somehow it is not. Perhaps it has something to do with becoming aware of this process. Or maybe this seemingly broadening awareness is just a new projection: The projection of difficult feelings onto the body so that some kind of conversation can ensue.
In this particular case, the grief for the past and longing that is awoken brings tears in the present. Even shaking. And then my body hurts. Usually in the abdomen, but quite often in the neck: both near the occipital tuberosity, atlas, axis area, and a little lower where these join the shoulders. And the shoulders too: tense, clicky, wanting to be stretched. And in the groin a warmth, but a sense of disconnect between this base-of-spine area and the rest of the spine. There are ‘blocks’ everywhere when I start looking. Its as if the body is splitting up the stress into various parts. Most of the digestion takes place through the middle, but this is somewhat blocked from either moving upward to the head, or downward through the lumbar region. And the head gets dizzy or painful, almost cut off from below, while the hips, and surrounding organs are variously cold and warm by turns. What is this all about? Is it anything?
I felt inspired and motivated by some of this re-connect with old friends. I wanted to dig up old pictures to share, make some plans to visit with friends, and also I felt more willing to face my current situation with a bit of motivation to do something about it: From cleaning house to taking care of a few responsibilities I’d let lapse into disrepair. I distantly felt a bit motivated to set some goals out of this process.
I felt inspired to listen to my feelings more intentionally. To take a break from thinking and doing and other means of distraction in order to possibly learn about what I need. Or maybe just ‘how I feel, really’. I followed through on this to some degree, though the large drawing pad I have is still blank. I did journal a bit more than usual. I listened to the wind on a walk. I felt my body, my posture, my breathing, my sadness, a bit more than usual.
And if that were all, then I’d say “Fantastic, you’re on the right track”. But I also got distracted away from these things more intensely. I spent a lot of time cleaning up my computer, rather than my life, for example. I found excitement in repairing my ipod so that I could listen to more podcasts from Dharma Seed, Dr. Dave, etc..
And then came the back ache.
And then came the headache.
But, BUT, I did still move forward on some things. In a sense this whole post can be summed up by the the sports phrase: Game On. The battle is being fought, not surrendered to and/or ran away from at every opportunity.
I have a long way to go, and I get so swamped by strong feelings during the progress forward. Some moments I am ready to hate. Others to love. Sometimes I’m as vulnerable as a lamb. Others as a rock, impervious even when I just want to feel. I kind of hate that saying “I have a long way to go”. Where am I going? Its just a sense that here is an opportunity that I am, for the most part, taking, with the caveat that it is just one step.
The evidence of stubbornness in resistance is also evidence for how persistent I can be when on the journey. Get this Ox in the furrow and I will till for as long as it takes.
Leaving it at that.
