“Thank the (Gay) Gods, that isn’t what happened. As I type this, my spirit is fully intact. A wannabe poem is whispering in my ear, “Write me, Andrea, write me.” This morning, in the coffee shop, my partner caught me dancing to the worst techno beat I’d heard since the late 90’s. The sight of her giggling made me feel like I could compose the sheet music for laughter. “I don’t know the meaning of life,” I later typed into the notes on my phone. “But I know the meaning of my life is to love my life, no matter how it shows up.”
>How do we love our lives? No matter how they show up? That’s a big question.
I feel like I live that question every day. I don’t face a cancer diagnosis but I do face immense difficulty and I’m guessing you do too.
Some times, on a good day, though, when I’m able to turn to love, and meet the difficult moments with care and presence, things begin to feel tolerable, and there is even beauty to be found in a sunset, a walk, a smile, a poem.
Gibson got there by showing up for themself and their big, gnarly feelings:
I put on my big boy pants and did the only thing I know to do to keep my spirit from breaking: I grieved and I grieved and I grieved and grieved some more. I sobbed so hard I thought I might flood my home. When I found anger beneath my tears, I walked out to the garage and punched every bit of dust off of the boxing bag I hadn’t touched in years. When I heard fear in my anger, I stood still and trembled so hard it almost looked like dancing. And through it all, I repeated a line I’d written long before my cancer diagnosis: Let your heart break so your spirit doesn’t. Letting my heart break felt like standing in a hurricane without lifting a single finger to protect myself from the debris flying at my skull. But afterwards, I texted a friend, “The sun has finally broken through the clouds in my chest.” The light had returned.
And it’s a great example of somatic practice in action. Somatic practices can support us to meet the most difficult moments and they can teach us the art of ‘being with’ whatever is occurring with care, presence, and awareness.
Of course, for many of us, feeling the feelings and, “being with” whatever is unfolding in our lives, can be really tricky. We need safety and support so we can be with our big, gnarly feelings, and meet the difficult moments events in our lives.
Does this mean we should all scream, cry and punch boxing bags?
Nope. It just means we need to know what we need.
We all have to find the language, the map, the geography,that works for us.
Maybe it’s a new language.
Maybe we need someone to hold space while we learn a new alphabet so we can map the landscape of our interiority or the geography of our grief.
Maybe we need a friend to sit with and hold our hand while we cry, or just to go out and have a cup of coffee or go for a walk.
Whatever it is, we need to find what gets us through.
