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| The Day We Rewired My Brain by tomswift46 |
I am frustrated that my mind and body and spirit are still so separate, so alienated from one another. Even so, the progress that I have made in rewiring my brain is significant, substantial, and worth celebrating. I am still excited about how far this process has already taken me, but also reminded of how much more rewiring there is to be done! I imagine a team of tiny electricians inside my brain, busily untangling and sorting the many wires, slowly improving and enhancing various regions of thought and emotion as they go. Yesterday I felt the positive feedback of how much has changed as I begin to rewire my brain, while today I am feeling how much further there is to go. Yet again, I am reminded that every step is a small one, all progress is gradual, and that I have a lot to learn in this lifetime.
It's funny, as I was reflecting on yesterday's post from 2013, I was feeling my pessimism about what had changed, in contrast to the optimism of yesterday's post. And now, in reading today's post, I feel awe and wonder about how this particular aspect of my brain rewiring has unfolded over these past 10 years. Again in contrast to today's post. Polarization is such a fun(ny) phenomenon!
ReplyDeleteWhile I am still challenged at times with tracking my emotions, and I still find myself stuck in my head more than I would like, I have also forged a consistent, deep, and intimate relationship with my body and spirit. I had the privilege of getting to learn The Resilience Toolkit, and now get to teach these somatic awareness practices to others. It is a key that unlocked so many stuck places in me: to better understand my nervous system, to approach my physical and emotional reactions with curiosity and support.
These days I can generally track what I'm feeling physically, and often name the emotions and nervous system state I'm experiencing as well. Hurrah! Sometimes I even have the capacity to do somatic practices to move the energy through. When I am able to feel enough psychological distance from the physical sensations, I can recognize the distress pattern as energy states, not The Truth. This is the first step to shifting my reality through settling my nervous system.
Like right now - I was able to get present enough to notice the deeply uncomfortable way I was holding my body. This then led me to grapple with how it feels physically to spend a lot of time on my computer.
My first reaction was the customary self-judgement for having such "bad posture". Then I paused and took a moment to gratefully acknowledge myself for noticing some of my body's needs, and that I have the capacity to honor them in this moment. I got up and adjusted my position. I moved through my self-judgment (and then judging myself for judging myself -you know!). Past self-judgement was the place where I could acknowledge that moving or stretching would be better for my body in this moment. And yet I am choosing to write this instead. I can feel that contradiction and also support myself to get out my external keyboard and mouse and be as conscious of my posture as possible. These are redirects away from spending energy judging myself for my previous failure. And alchemizing that energy into gratitude and presence. I write this here as a declaration, to celebrate that I'm rewiring my brain in this very moment by soothing the pain of self-judgment with the balm of self-gratitude.
One of our barriers to embodiment is that if I let myself feel what is happening in my body right now, I would also have to feel the truth of how uncomfortable my body is. And the truth is, I feel run down and sick (like most people I know in 2023...) and disassociated and physically stagnant (also like most people I know?...). When I become embodied, I honor my true capacity, which very often means the next right thing is to lie down. Especially in the winter.
And the fact that I can have this entire internal process and articulate it is such a profound shift from where I was 10 years ago. It feels like a miracle! ✨