work and play: I've been going to acupuncture every week for the past few months. Keeping this practice built into my schedule actually requires discipline. It requires putting up a boundary with the business that I typically don't like doing
Laying on the table each week gives me all the time to notice the things that rise up in myself
No place to go because I have those needles pinning me down-- doing the good work, settling my monkey mind (my phone appropriately autocorrected to money mind 🤦♀️), reminding me to focus on the way my body + mind work by staying the eternal observer
Detached, at a distance. For optimal understanding without the attachment of shame. The mantra of: "I am who I am"
Two sessions ago I went in super anxious. I felt myself energetically existing in the front half of my body.
What this felt like: shortness of breath, tension in my shoulders, a knot in my chest, unbalanced heart rhythm, clenched jaw, ready to pounce, forward driving
Uncomfortably, I settled into the session. A couple breaths and I asked "why?"
I immediately saw myself as a teenager, sitting in my high school English class
I was a front-seater. Always choosing to be in the front row of the class. I saw/felt the energetics of this and how it plays out in my body
This has been my default for years. This is the pattern I know well
A singularly focused people pleaser who wants praise and control and no distractions. First to jump on everything, take on everything. Helpful beyond measure. Impossible to live up to myself
It made me really sad to trace the path back to those moments; to try to understand why I didn't know (I still don't know!) how to truly settle in my own body
I took a bunch of deep breaths and felt out what I need to do to occupy the back half of my body-- how to drop deeper into my being
And then I felt out what it means to bring the front half me and the back half me together
It takes real discipline for me to relax-- to force/remind myself to settle in and settle down. If I squirm, I gently nudge myself back to center
I embrace the times where my work and play are solo
Ebru marbling, with my tools in reflection, seems like a good start
