Come Home to Yourself

I’m sharing some personal and tender stuff today because who knows, maybe you feel it too?

My body has been trying real hard to get my attention lately. Signaling me with symptoms that make no sense and are no fun. I’ll skip the details of all that, but the timing. The timing is not lost on me. 

In fact- things went wonky the exact day I decided that my guiding lamppost for 2021 would not be a Word this year, but rather an idea:

Come Home to Yourself.

This has a lot of different implications and meanings for me, but I think it can best be summed up by a question my friend Melissa Blair once asked me on Voxer: 

“Hey girl. How’s your head? How’s your heart? How’s your Butt?”

And if THAT doesn’t get right down to it for us women, I don’t know what does. 

So I thought this idea of coming home to myself might look a million different ways this year, but it turns out there was only one place to start. 

In my body. 

Literally on January 1st, my body was like, 

“Okay then. Have a seat, dear. Class is in session.

The thing is, I thought I already did this part. I’ve worked hard to come home to my body these last few years. To listen to her, trust her, honor her (limitations and desires equally!), to ask of her what she needs more often, to go gently and softly instead of punishingly.

Even going as far as saying “her” instead of “it” in reference to my body. Which, I’ll be honest, still feels a little hippie, but then, I’m a little hippie too, so I guess don’t fight the funk? Also because at this point it just feels like I’m saying body a whole lot and “her” breaks it up a little. (hashtag writer problems)

I thought I had clawed and doggy-paddled my way back home to my Body after a decade of being pulled out to sea by Disconnection (read: body traumas I didn’t even know I was carrying. I mean, I never thought I carried real trauma in my body- I’ve never been in a major accident, been attacked, or been violated in the ways you might imagine… but hello! CHILDBIRTH!)

OKAY.

I HAVE SO MUCH MORE TO SAY ABOUT THIS!

(IM SORRY ABOUT ALL THE SHOUTY CAPITALS HERE, BUT I HAVE BIG BIG FEELINGS AROUND THIS AND I’M ONLY NOW BEGINING TO PROCESS THEM ELEVEN AND FOURTEEN YEARS AFTER GIVING BIRTH.)

(So maybe we can revisit this topic one day soon together?)

(Also, how many parenthesis are too many parenthesis? 

And what is the plural of parenthesis?)

But I digress.

I thought I had landed safely on the shores of Peace in my Body, but she is a teacher and I will never be done learning. She knows things before I do. And even though it’s frustrating to feel like after all this time and all this work, suddenly  I CAN’T read her signals and I DON’T know what she needs, I try to remember that is an old mindset. One that doesn’t serve me anymore.

My Body and I are not on separate teams. My Body is my team captain.

So I’m doing my best to remember daily that whatever this Body is up to, she’s doing it FOR me, not TO me.

The mental and emotional exhaustion from this last year are real, and for many of us, that means our Bodies are feeling ALL of that too. They’re carrying it. They’re absorbing the shock for us.

 And yet.

They are so resilient.

They are still show up for us every dang day, and fight so hard to protect us, to keep us safe, to alert us, to care for us, to give us joy and pleasure, to DO LIFE with us, like a real partner. To love us well.

Maybe today we can return the favor?

Asking for myself.