Embodied gentleness, self-compassion, clarity, and trust are the inner resources chosen to be embodied in this exploration of the inner experience of a challenging work situation to support physical, mental, emotional, and relational health at work. Exercises like these are facilitated and shared in small groups at Embodied Solutions communities and events. Part I can be found here.
Day 3
It’s Monday morning. The word at the forefront of my mind this morning is gentleness. It feels like my work weeks are starving for some gentleness. My work situation for years was such a resource to me, provided for everything I loved about my lifestyle and what was most important to me. There might be a hectic week or two here and there but I always knew that would subside and it would go back to me enjoying the variety of the demands in my position. In the past few months with several changes all at once, it is no longer recognizable. There is constant pressure to do more, no matter how much you’re doing, and do it all with perfection.
This morning I feel the urgency to be productive before everything crumbles and stays that way for the rest of the week. Monday mornings have become my favorite time of the week.
I keep reframing my mindset to think of the pressure put on me as the pressure I allow on myself. I have a strong desire to process the fears that arise with so much pressure.
I feel like it is difficult to breathe as I write these words.
I review the list of inner resources and self-compassion becomes my focus.
Self-compassion
Just writing “self-compassion” already allows me to breathe a little bit easier. I want to keep writing these words. Self-compassion. Gentleness. I feel the stress and tension in my back and my neck, and they feel like an obstacle that my inhale has to breathe past. It feels very restricted. I meet it with gentleness. Gentleness itself feels like compassion combined with softness. When I feel compassion, I feel it a little more energized, but gentleness feels like passive compassion that is sitting back a bit. And I like it. I feel like I could cry but no tears come. I feel movement in my upper chest that feels like when I would be crying.
I remember the words from embodying relational attunement over the weekend: everyone is in an exceptionally difficult situation right now. I feel a relaxing in my shoulders, but it also brings my awareness to a holding that doesn’t let go. The thought comes that I don’t want to be in an exceptionally difficult situation right now, and I feel my stomach holding itself tightly too. The term self-compassion comes to mind again and brings a bit of relief.
Breaths are soft and passing through the constriction without disturbing the constriction too much. There is a burning at the bottom of my lungs. I feel a lot of compassion and sadness that they have to go through this, and a pulling in my throat that feels like crying. A bigger breath comes and I don’t feel much constriction. I feel pain in my neck and head and back and shoulders. Awareness of one led to another and another. The thought comes that I would love to take a big eraser and erase all of this from my life.
I have pain in my head and was visualizing bulldozing through this situation head first. A big breath comes. If I could correct this visual, I guess it would be to stand upright instead of pushing head first and allow my heart to be changed as the situation is changing, and allow my body to sense the challenge for what it is and learn about myself and life at the same time. I feel a burning in my stomach. The front of my chest is shaking. It feels heavy like crying that just hasn’t reached my eyes. My breathing is soft and the word “gentle” returns. A bigger breath comes and I yawn. My eyes are ready to go back to bed. My ribs feel burning.
Gentleness. I feel gentleness, and it feels like it enables me to be aware of all of the burning and pain all through my body at one time without getting overwhelmed or needing to react to it. My neck is in the most pain.
Self-compassion. Nice. It doesn’t need to change anything, it just sees my condition and says wow, let’s be soft with this, and curious with this, without having to change anything.
I feel the fear that my breathing could become difficult from stress. I hadn’t felt this fear before now but I can feel constriction and holding trying to prevent the fear from being felt, and it has been like this for a while now that I recognize it and look back. I had serious breathing issues before that I had not had in many months, but it came back again recently. With clarity I can see I don’t have the answers yet. And I feel gentleness and self-compassion for the person who doesn’t have the answers yet, and has this stress and tension, pain and burning.
Clarity
I feel so good writing but as soon as I begin to turn my attention to the practicalities of work I feel the pressure. Pressuring myself, of course. I feel the pain in my back and my heart rate already increasing and my breathing is so tight. A big breath comes in acknowledgment. I recognize I want to be able to change my inner state as much as I want to be able to change my outer work conditions. Sometimes I really feel the enjoyment drawing me to work. But sometimes I get this urgency that pushes me there and I don’t wait for the inner motivation, and there is a lot of pressure. My mind begins to search for the answer, do I wait for the motivation? What if it doesn’t come? I only get one Monday morning per week. There are never answers to these kinds of frantic circles. Gentleness. Gentleness is my intervention today. Do I drink some tea to get myself going? Am I even craving tea? I am so disconnected from my own clarity once this pressure starts. Gentleness.
The word clarity gets my attention again. I feel the frantic pace trying to get back to clarity, but I let that go, knowing that’s not a path that will lead me back to clarity. A breath comes and I get the visual of parts of me clinging to it. I picture tiny kids on their dad’s leg. Please take me back to clarity! Pain in my back gets my attention. Shaking is vibrating through my whole body now, through my torso and down my legs. Gentleness. Clarity. When I write clarity I see this is a state that needs me, needs gentleness. I feel pressure behind my eyes where tears would be. This feeling that Monday morning only comes once per week. I feel a knot in my stomach. A breath takes itself.
A tsunami of all the things that were piling up by the end of the week going to need my attention is there now. And a deep breath takes comes. That seems to motivate me.
Trust
I find something in me searching for the trust in life I often feel. It is warm and settled and down in my abdomen. Even my thoughts and my feelings recognize the presence of trust, and they trust its presence these days. It is not new anymore, it has been around now enough to be familiar. A visualization comes to mind that perfectly illustrates how I feel inside, like a schoolyard of kids that were just in chaos quieted down to listen. All of me is tuning into the presence of trust in life. It is a trust that I survived even the most difficult things I have been through, and I continually grow in my capacity to support myself through challenges.
I feel the heaviness in my neck and shoulders and back and ribs but they all seem quiet and calm and resting on whatever is below them. A breath comes and doesn’t meet any resistance or pain on the way through. My mind is so empty I’m not even sure how I went from feeling so much tension in my being to this experience, and I think I will have to read back through what I wrote later just to find out. Another breath takes itself and my throat clears itself. Fear comes up. I feel a discomfort squeezing in my stomach as all these other parts are relaxed when I reintroduce this concept. The word gentle comes up. I invite the stomach into the trusting of life. It feels encompassed by warmth and I’m aware of the discomfort but it too becomes faint within the warmth of trust. A breath takes itself. A feeling around my eyes that I could cry. The thought that I need to re-read and repeat this over and over. A yawn. My neck pulling. Trust. The thought comes that blind trust might lead to my demise, and then counter thought immediately greets it that the calmer I am the better I will be able to think and find solutions. Every part likes this and settles into the trust. The clarity. The gentleness.
