I went to a trauma awareness skillshare workshop Will put on in Portland yesterday, where I was reminded about body awareness. Will taped it so I'm guessing soon he'll post a link for everyone to be able to listen for yourselves, which I recommend. The theries Will shared and the way he wove them together were helpful to me. It's so easy in our society/culture to live fully disconnected from our bodies and felt realities, trying to push for More! and Better! and Faster! It's so easy to forget to be aware of my own body and to trust that it knows what it needs. I slip into my head and walk around trying to keep myself safe while everything in me is shouting Danger! Danger!

I've been struggling to get back to myself since I've made it back home to my beloved Pacific Northwest after visiting a red state for two weeks to spend time with my non-mad partner's dying grandfather, support the family, and then attend his funeral. It's wonderful to see and spend time with my dear family and friends. I've also found myself more wary, distrustful, maybe slightly paranoid after what went on there and the way I was treated. It's hard to find support and grounding from the people I love here when my social anxiety gets so revved up.

Since I've been back, I've been catching up on sleep, using my light box regularly, journaling, attending Icarus meetings, painting like a Mad fool (9 paintings in 2 days), and basically trying to take care of myself, and I'm still feeling anxious, defensive-hostile, and on edge. I've been looking for missing pieces and wondering how I can learn from/work with all the anger, defensiveness, and anxiety I've been feeling.

Will emphasized body awareness as the key he's used as he's experimented over the years with finding what tools are helpful for him. He shared some simple, useful ways to get in touch with and become aware of being in one's body. Small steps, they seem, compared to the fist-sized knot of orange-hot metal I feel in my guts, screaming at me, and burning my hands every time I try to pick it up. Body awareness is both slow and gentle, and for me right now it seems hardly loud enough to be heard above the din in my head pushing me to try harder. Noticing the contrast, I am reminded of the last few lines in Going to Walden by Mary Oliver:

It isn't very far as highways lie.
I might be back by night fall, having seen
The rough pines, and the stones, and the clear water.
Friends argue that I might be wiser for it.
They do not hear that far-off Yankee whisper:
How dull we grow from hurrying here and there!

Many have gone, and think me half a fool
To miss a day away in the cool country.
Maybe. But in a book I read and cherish,
Going to Walden is not so easy a thing
As a green visit. It is the slow and difficult
Trick of living, and finding it where you are.

For me, going to Walden /coming home to myself is not so easy a thing as returning from a red visit. If it is the slow and difficult trick of living and finding it where I am, where am I if not in my body? It's a good place to start.