Reconnecting with my body

Hello body,

It’s so good to be in touch again.

It’s certainly been a while. Thanks for hanging on in there while I neglected you this past year or two. Thanks for holding me together and upright even when I did not stretch you or relax you or move you in more than one walking-sitting-standing-sitting-sitting-standing-walking-running-for-a-train motion. Sorry for not dancing or swimming or filling you slowly with fresh sea air often enough. Sorry for never really being still. Somehow, even though you’ve gotten a little bashed by minor ailments, you kept going, you’re stronger than I think. I should give you more credit.

I hope I never ignore your needs for so long again. It’s easy to fool oneself into believing one can survive on the mind alone. But the mind requires a body to make its home in, requires blood and air to flow. Needs energy to fill all the the spaces. I forget it’s all connected.


Yeh, it’s all connected. And I think some of that flow has been stifled or blocked, and I think my thoughts and my feelings have been impacted in turn.

So I’m glad for the yoga poses that bring the blood rushing into the head, and release some of the tension held there. For stretching every part of you, inside and out. For a rare chance to look in the mirror and believe you are strong and have the potential to be so much stronger. I’m thankful for times to let loose on the dancefloor, disconnecting slightly from my over-active thoughts and letting the music move you in every direction. I’m extra thankful for beautiful places to walk and run in - without a timetable - so that eyes and heart get a good drink too. And shoulders slowly unfurl with time away from desks and deadlines. I'm glad to know people who talk about and acknowledge and live out the importance of connecting physically with faith, with feelings, with each other.

I’m learning to tune in to what you’re saying. What the resistance in you is telling me. To be kind to you when you hurt, but to challenge you when you start closing up. To notice, for example, that when arms and torso stop moving, it’s sometimes because of some fear or discomfort or awkwardness in me or that you’re picking up from the people around you. And to learn that sometimes the best way to overcome this fear is not to argue with myself, not to wait until I feel something different, but to take a deep breath, rotate shoulders, swing arms and twist and open up chest and let the life flow back in. Let you take up space. I’m learning this in improv classes, in social settings, in dance workshops. Wherever we’re together, actually.

So you’re powerful. You’re worth listening to. Worth looking after. Worth sharing with the world. I think we should work more often. It certainly makes me feel happier, more alive, more connected, when I do. I’ll try and tune in more regularly to your wisdom.

Love, Katrina

PS That's not me in the photo, but it is a new friend I've been walking and talking bodies and yoga with! And hopefully soon there'll be photo evidence of me and you embracing the world together. :-)