Happy Sunday!

My favorite activities as a teenager all involved movement: dancing at concerts, playing football, weight training, delivering pizza for Pizza Hut, and working on the Wigwam Resort greens crew. This was in the mid to late 90s so most of these activities were done in relative silence. Me, in my body, often surprised to find that I hadn’t had a thought in quite some time.

I’ve always been an avid conversationalist, but when I was on my own as a young man, I loved the feeling of what is now called flow, which I could tap into when I was engrossed in movement. 

Much shifted in my late 20s through my 30s. Movement became much less regular. I would often spend 12-16 hours at my desk. I took to standing because working at a laptop seated my body began to break down. 

I started a fitness ritual three years ago. It began as a challenge from my personal trainer to replace lifting very heavy weights with cardio. But I stopped doing it around October of last year.

I’m collecting my thoughts on what embodiment has meant to me throughout my life, from my earliest memories to my current predicament. The cold weather and my lack of a gym pass have meant that I’ve not been keeping up with the rituals that served me so well over the past three years. 

Maybe, like me, the seasons of your life were marked by different levels of feeling good in your body and other periods where you’re trying not to touch. While I’m thinking, you can join Mindy and me in pursuing different perspectives and maybe connect with the rituals Mindy’s enjoying that help her connect with her body.

—david/gonzo

• This article on the Trauma Research Foundation website defines embodiment, as used in the field of somatic psychology, thusly: Embodiment: verb// The act of expanding one’s self awareness to include the felt experience of the body, such as sensory, sensational, emotional and physical experiences, and incorporating that information into one’s overall conception and conduct of themselves, their identity, beliefs, behaviors, and ways of being. ✨

• I was looking for something related to our theme of embodiment to listen to while I was doing some household chores and I came across this podcast by The Embodiment Project. I went back to the beginning and listened to all five parts of Embracing the Beast. It was original a written piece for Massage Magazine, here’s a pdf version if you prefer to read. I love the author’s use of fairytale as metaphor for the relationship between the mind and the body. I especially love the way he interprets The Princess and the Frog. The whole piece has given me some good stuff to chew on. A lot of their other episodes look intriguing as well; I’m excited to keep listening. ✨

• A friend this week shared in a group chat that she was struggling to help her teenaged daughter learn how to drive a stick shift because it had been so long since she herself learned that she had no idea how to explain it. She said, “I tell her what I think I do but then I honestly don’t know if it’s what I actually do.” It got me thinking about muscle memory, and how we all have experience with it, especially in contexts like learning a physical skill, but that the idea of our bodies remembering (i.e. stored trauma as addressed in The Body Keeps the Score) is relatively new and unfamiliar to many. ✨

• After hearing/seeing numerous mentions of it, I finally checked out the Big Bear Valley Live Eagle Nest Cam. Watching the parent feed the young (I haven’t caught that scene live yet, but I’ve scrolled back to see it), I was struck by how incredibly patient the parent is. I volunteer at a wildlife rescue and one of our primary tasks April through August is caring for owl, hawk, and falcon babies that for whatever reason end up needing human intervention to survive. Hand feeding sounds charming but can be a really frustrating task. Sometimes the babies don’t know what you’re doing. Back to the eagle cam, though. The parent tears off a piece of fish, and tries to feed it to the eaglet. The eaglet drops it. Parent picks it up and tries again. Eaglet drops it. I watched both eaglets drop their meat four or more times on occasion before getting a successful mouthful. But the parent seemed endlessly patient. My theory on animals is that, lacking a narrative creation capacity, they exist in a state of constant presence, attuned to their bodies to know what to do, without a storyline obscuring the wisdom of their instincts. I imagine that we humans can get to a point where we use our minds as needed, but don’t have them running nonstop, and are able to turn over control to our bodies and our own instincts more of the time. I know the glimpses I’ve had of this state have felt amazing.✨ 

• An embodiment practice I’m trying to incorporate is to use the 30-60 seconds while I’m microwaving something to stretch and move my body in uncommon ways. So far the kids haven’t been around to see me. 😅✨

• My Saturday Morning Spotify Daylist served up this crazy gem so I thought it would be fun to share: Initiated by the Forest 🎶✨

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That’s all for this week! If you’re into this, share this newsletter with all your friends. Connecting with new subscribers is magical! 🧚🏻‍♀️

DISCLAIMER: This newsletter is for educational and informational purposes only and is not intended as a substitute for professional medical advice.