[Hi, friends. I’ve recorded me reading this piece aloud to you and want to give a heads up that it wasn’t until after I stopped recording that I realized my mic wasn’t plugged in. So, the audio quality isn’t the greatest and there are some parts where I misread. I’m sharing anyway to show you (and myself) that even if something isn’t it can still be useful/impactful. I hope you enjoy.]
. . .
I began this year with a declaration: I am a commitment to softening my body. Softening my body for me is both a figurative and literal practice. It’s the figurative softening of the invisible armor that my body has learned to activate for protection (often when I’m in no threat of harm), and it’s also the literal softening of the tension that my body habitually holds in its tissues unconsciously—needlessly clenching my jaw, bringing my shoulders up to my ears, holding my breath for no reason.
As I’ve been bringing awareness to how my body contorts itself into guarding and hardening, I’ve been engaging in a new practice that gently, lovingly reminds me to unclench, settle down, and release. The practice and the awareness were both spurred by meditation.
There’s this moment right at the beginning of the meditation where I deeply inhale into my belly and, as I exhale out the mouth, I let go of any holding in my body—releasing tension in my neck and hands, relaxing my shoulders and legs, letting my body be held by the earth. After repeating this a few times, it’s then I realize just how much I’ve been resisting gravity and contracting upward. I often lay or sit down and think that I am resting fully. It’s not until I take those breaths and let the exhales soften my body that I realize just how much I’ve been holding—which got me thinking about all the other ways I think I’m in a state of “rest” but my body is actually tense and bracing.
An example of this: I’m waiting in line at the grocery store and notice that the muscles around my mouth, nose, jaw, and cheeks are activated; I’m grimacing for no reason. I always thought that I had a resting bitch face but now I’m starting to believe that it’s actually me holding tension in my face as a very subtle and well-practiced form of armoring my body.