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“Are you searching for your true self?
Then come out of your own prison.
Leave the little creek and join the mighty river that flows into the ocean.
Like an ox, don’t pull the wheel of this world on your back.
Take off the burden.
Whirl and circle, and rise above the wheel of the world.
There is another view.”
-Rumi
I invite you to take off the burden. Just for a moment. To set it all down, to get still and listen. There is so much wisdom here for us when we just stop and listen.
We must pause and start right where we are, we can’t start anywhere else. We must breathe and open to the life that is right here. That other view is not something outside of you. It’s already here, waiting for you to come home.
I know it can be hard to understand and can feel far away, but know that it doesn’t have to make sense. Let your body listen. Let it lead and teach you.
I know for me that choosing to deeply listen to my body changed everything, and has continued to teach me every day. The language of the body is very clear when we learn to listen to it. Be patient, it takes time to learn a new language.
The first step is to feel physical sensations in the body.
These are the building blocks of life. See if you can practice the power of the pause and get curious………
What's alive in my body?
Can I open the life that is here?
What’s happening in my body? What am I experiencing? What physical sensations are here?
These are all ways to say that in my experience we must move from the thinking self to the feeling self to see that other view.
And why does this matter? Why should we care?
Well, I think if you are reading this you know why it matters to you.
To me, it matters because I desire a deeper experience of being alive.
As Joseph Campbell says,
“People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.”
For me, I got to a point in my life where I wanted to stop protecting myself from life and start connecting to life. To stop bracing and armoring against it and start living it. I woke up to the missed moments, to how much unlived life there was. I realized I wasn't really here for my life. It was as if I was looking through a window. And I realized I couldn’t just go through the window and stepped into my life, I couldn’t snap my fingers and magically start really living. I had to meet all that was in the way, all the barriers and walls that I had built. Just like Rumi says,
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it."
What I listen to in these words, is that it’s not that we must eradicate the barriers, get rid of them, but instead to deconstruct them, take apart, and welcome the fragmented pieces back home.
What often gets left out of this quote is this piece:
"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it, and embrace them."
In my experience, embracing is key. The healing path for me was and is the choice to no longer abandon myself, to turn towards myself rather than away.
We all orphan parts of ourselves off, box up, tuck away, disconnect from, all in an attempt to stay safe. And it’s really intelligent, knowing and embracing the tremendous intelligence of the body is important. There is nothing wrong with you. We did what we needed to in order to feel love, belonging, safety, even if those didn’t come in warm wonderful ways. And so this welcoming back home and embracing and turning towards is such a fundamental piece.
What I have found to be true for me is that the longing that I had for life, what I was really starving for was my own love. I believe what we all are longing for is our own loving. And so my practice of meeting myself again and again and holding myself with acceptance, welcoming the parts of myself back home, reclaiming, befriending, and tending to the life that is here was the path for me, is the path for me, is how I want to choose to live my life every day.
And the word choose is important because I do choose. I don’t think he gets said enough that this is not easy. That working on yourself, healing yourself, the journey, however you want to phrase it, is not easy.
And if anything, it gets worse before it gets better. It is a lot “easier “ for me to jump ship and pound a bottle of tequila and blame and rage at the world.
AND each day I choose freedom over easy. I choose life over comfort. I choose love over pain.
We are not born shut down, we learn to shut down and we can unlearn it. So much of this work for me has been in undoing an unwinding.
So if you are wondering where to start, start right where you are.
Find your feet.
Meet yourself right here.
Feel your breath.
Deepen in your attention down and into your body.
Get still and listen.
I like to place hands on body to help anchor me right here. You can offer loving words to yourself to connect, "I'm right here. I'm listening."
And I know it’s not easy. I know sometimes what you meet is dark, and sticky, numb, murky, and can feel overwhelming. The debris that swirls around you when you turn towards yourself can feel impossible to navigate.
It’s so important to have support on this journey. To have coaches, teachers, guides, mentors, professionals, friends, loved ones, all the support you need. Humans need each other, whether we admit it or not. We are not meant to do this alone.
I say in my coaching that the path back home is one of reclaiming befriending and embodying the wholeness and fullness of who you are, that means the dark and the light, the full freaking spectrum. We cannot pick and choose our wholeness.
And each time that you practice, each time you pause and breathe and come home to your heart, to your body, your belly, your bones, you strengthen that resilience to stay moment to moment, you increase your capacity to feel, you grow trust and safety, and each time you create more freedom.
Give yourself permission to dream, to want more, to imagine what if……..
What if instead of defending and armoring against, I took a breath, I found my feet, I spoke from my heart.
What if instead of leaving I stayed?
What if I open to the life that is here and let it be just as it is just in this moment?
Not forever not even for a minute but in this moment in a second, can I?
What if instead of needing to be right, I deeply listened?
What if instead of hardening, I softened, and found length and dignity in my spine?
There is so much here for you.
You are not lost, you just have to connect back to your compass to find your way home.
Don’t look outside, look within. Instead of asking WHY ask how and what.
How does this feel in my body? What am I experiencing, feeling, sensing, noticing?
Get curious.
On my desk, I have a post-it note that reminds me: be kind, stay open, get curious.
So to wrap it up, the invitation is to simply practice pausing and feeling the physical sensation in the body.
This can seem too simple and easy to skip over, or trade-in for something more fancy and shiny, but trust me, this is the foundation, the building blocks of life. As my coach and mentor, Krista Petty says, you can’t write new stories if you don’t learn the alphabet. If we don’t learn the fundamentals, the building blocks, the alphabet, we can’t write beautiful sentences and paragraphs, we can’t write new stories, instead, we will rewrite the same stories again and again.
So, start where you are. Practice pausing throughout the day. Get still and quiet and curious. Open and notice what sensations are happening in the body. See if you can just let it be. Without fixing, analyzing, criticizing, just notice. Recognize and allow. And then see where this begins to lead you.
If you want some guidance on this, reach out. You can always schedule a free discovery call with me if you are curious about embodiment coaching. I also offer free introductory sessions of an embodied mediation practice called HeartRise, and lots more here on my website. And always always always know that you can reach out with questions, for support, with anything.
I create content to support you on your journey, it’s for YOU, dear one.
So to wrap it up with some last words from Rumi since he has been our guide today…….
"Very little grows on jagged rock.
Be ground.
Be crumbled, so wildflowers will come up where you are.
You’ve been stony for too many years.
Try something different.
Surrender."
With Gratitude & Grace,
Aspen