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Getting my Substack groove back has been wobbly. But look! I’m doing it!
And getting my morning movement groove back has been wobbly. Showing up-wise. Time-wise. And actual balance-wise. We’re talking Wobble City.
After years of silently berating myself for letting life or anxiety get in the way of practice, I decided to give a name to showing up again after a lull.
Addressing the body. I am addressing my body.
I remember sitting on the floor of my Brooklyn railroad apartment. The vinyl strips below me were patterned “wood” to fool people who had never seen wood. I sat with folded legs and folded forward, prayer-like.
My vicious-catty-sidebar-inner-voice lit up. It was rolling before I even sat down. Why bother? This was less a stretch than a penitent confessional. “Dear Body. It has been (fill in the blank days) since my last movement practice. Please forgive me.”
This time, though, I heard a little inner voice that was louder than Catty Sidebar.
Addressing the body. I am addressing my body.
And it soothed Catty. Together we breathed and met our movement right where we were. We being me. You see?
Anyway, I intuited (or Catty Sidebar intuited) that all of the movement I had ever done in my lifetime was stored in this moment, this penitent stretch. It’s in there somewhere. Physical knowledge. A deeper knowing. A different kind of intelligence. And that intelligence was protecting me with empathy.
Addressing the body is a dialogue with myself. A deep listening to bones, to breath, to my own yes’s and no’s. Respecting limits and looking for the places care and curiosity take me. If I’m really tuned in, it will guide internal tempos and rhythms that emerge as play. Play as a deep form of work.
Even time away from movement is valuable. Even when I’m “not moving,” it’s all movement. It’s all in there, information gathered. Filed away for later. I find this in writing, too. Even if I’m not grappling with the page, I’m grappling with the world. And taking notes stored in the body for later. Little acorns squirreled away.
Addressing the body. I am addressing my body.
And even now, as I hear Catty Sidebar screech that “addressing the body” is a boring name and I should come up with something catchier, I remember that I moved today. And lo and behold I’m at the desk writing, too.
So, all of this is to say that sometimes it’s nice to wobble. To lean into the fall and say it’s on purpose.
Do you have any names for returning to something? To yourself? To a practice? How do you move through when it feels icky and tricky?
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