On listening to the body

What lights us up, and what doesn't

Photo by Morgan Sessions on Unsplash

I wrote a poem about listening to my body.

This week, my body has felt stiff and tired. I tried to dance on Thursday evening, because even though I was tired, showing up to dance always feels like medicine. But my head felt like a throbbing rock on my shoulders. It felt impossible to move with any grace or flow. I thought about going home but I kept moving, slowly, with breaks in between. I held my head and swayed. I lay my head down and moved the rest of my body across the floor. I leaned back on a ballet bar, my head hanging back, crossing one leg over the other, using my hips, in time with the music. My lower back melted. The bar felt like a delicious massage against my aching shoulders.

I’ve been working too hard over winter and I saw this coming. I saw it in my calendar as clearly as I saw my schedule. But I’ve gone full steam ahead, managing my energy as best I can, because I’ve gifted myself a light at the end of this tunnel. I’m doing my best and storing up savings like a chipmunk with their acorns because I’m taking a long break in September. I promised it to myself early this year, and I’m honouring that promise. The closer I get the lighter I feel, so I know it’s right. I know it’s what I need.

Even though I’m not sure what comes after, even though I am a little bit afraid, even though I have several voices in my head telling me this is selfish and lazy and irresponsible, I know they don’t know what is right for me in this moment the way my body does.

The world will have us believe we shouldn’t do a lot of things. That what our inner selves tell us we need is wrong or not allowed or not good enough. The older I get the more I trust my own voice, my own body. I trust myself to find a way.

Ever since reading The Artist’s Way last year, I’ve been thinking a lot about the small child within me. Each time I have an inkling of an idea that lights me up as if to say, “Can we?” with her big eyes wide, I see her. I see how much it would mean to her. If she were really a small child looking up at me, wouldn’t I try my best to make it happen? Wouldn’t I say “yes” more often? Why would I keep saying to her, “Maybe, after we do XYZ…” which every child knows is the polite way for an adult to say “never”?

I’m listening to my body and learning so much. It seems such a simple thing, to rest when you're tired. To hold your head when it hurts. To leap when you feel brave. To play when you feel curious and joyful. To eat what you crave. Yet so much of the time, we simply don’t or can’t, for one reason or another, or we have lost the ability to listen. The other voices can be so loud.

Dancing has taught me that my body has so much to say that I don’t have words for yet, that I might never have words for. As a writer, it’s been a fascinating exploration.

A few weeks ago, I sat with friends in an ice cream shop, late on a Tuesday night. We asked each other, as we sometimes do, what our goals are for the rest of the year.

“Mine is just to keep following what lights me up,” I said. It felt like the clearest thing I have said all year.

I want to keep following what lights me up.

What sparks my curiosity, inspires me, and makes me feel happy and light and excited.

What lights me up and what doesn’t.

Who lights me up and who doesn’t.

I might not be able to do anything about it right now. I won’t always be able to plan and take a long break. But I will pay attention. I’ll notice. These are my guiding lights. These are the clues about what’s to come, what’s possible, if I’m open. If I can listen.

To listen to that guiding light, when it sparkles and when it dims

To listen to our bodies, when they are brimming with energy and when they ache

is to look after ourselves.

To look after ourselves is to do our best for each other.

More and more, this is what I believe to be true.

Here is the poem, and a video I made to go with it

May we all listen to our bodies, which are full of more wisdom than we often give them credit for, 

Amy