In an earlier newsletter this year I shared that I spent most of December and January navigating a freeze trauma loop.

For me, this freeze response felt like numbness, heaviness, emotional ambivalence, feeling stuck, frozen in place, or like slogging through mud each day with clarity nowhere in sight.

But one message came through loud and clear: get in your body (as much as you can).

How much time do you spend in your body?

“What a silly question?!” you might say. “I am in my body all of the time.” But are you? Really?

Last fall, my right heel slipped off the edge of a carpeted step. And I proceeded to bounce down about four steps; landing each time on the heel of my extended right leg.

If you have been around for a while, you might know that almost four years ago I was told that I was too young for knee replacement in this leg. It is always inflamed to varying degrees.

But after jamming my knee with my full bodyweight about four times in quick succession, it was a little (or a lot) cranky and in new places.

After resting it for a couple of weeks and finding it still pretty aggravated, I enlisted the help of a physical therapist.

And this is where the new challenge came in. Not in the physical therapy itself (which is so fun!! said no one ever) but in the question the PT kept asking me at the beginning of each visit.

“How has your knee been?” Yes, I realize that this doesn’t, on its face, sound like a difficult question. Stick with me.

Because I would stand there looking confused and slightly dumbfounded as I tried to remember the quality of my physical experience since I had seen him last.

The truth was, unless the pain was at a “it hurts when I walk and also when I drive and also when I sleep” level, I wasn’t registering my experience at all.

And here is what I realized. Even though I have spent the last almost eight years gradually learning to return to my body after a lifetime of dissociation, I was very rarely present in my physical experience.

Yes, I have developed critical anchors or moments where I am present–in the gym, during my nightly meditation, walking the dog–but other than that, during the other 86% of my waking hours, NADA, unless I am having one of those days when every step hurts.

The body is always talking to us. The body never lies.

But just because we exist within our bodies doesn’t mean we are present to our experience. It doesn’t mean the neural connections aren’t atrophied from the years we spent ignoring, denying, leaving, pushing, hacking or conquering our bodies.

I can assure you that ignoring the body guarantees that the body will get louder. Until perhaps it becomes critically or terminally ill.

And I can also share that returning to my body, tending to my body, listening and learning to respond to what it says and what it needs, continues to be a critical healing path for me. One that I will continue to explore and develop and utilize even in the most challenging of time. Especially in the most challenging of times.

The good news is that we can rebuild these connections. We can rewire our neural pathways. We can tap back into the wisdom that our bodies have for us.

And rebuilding begins with learning to be IN and with the body.

For some of us, being told to return to body may feel like a terrible death sentence. There is a reason we left after all. And we might need support to begin that process. If that is you, know you are not alone and there are healing professionals who can help.

For others, being anywhere but the body may just be a culturally conditioned habit that we can begin to rewire on our own. By returning to the breath. And dropping into our felt experience.

Maybe we begin with one minute one time per day. And then maybe a few times per day.

Then maybe we are able to extend that presence to ten minutes. Or an hour.

And then maybe, over time, we are able to return to our bodies many times a day throughout the day.

Just to check in. To say “hi, I see you, is there anything you need from me?” or “thank you for doing everything that you do for me so that I can live and love and be in this world.”

When is the last time you were in your body?

Love,

Booth