The Body as Lightning Rod
Greetings, friends. It would seem that I’ve gone from the igloo to the rainforest in just a couple of short weeks. I don’t know about you, but here it’s feeling like the humidity level in the emotional ether is well over 100%. The sponge is FULL. It’s sopping, and that begets a certain amount of coincidental seeping and sometimes spilling. And highly porous creature that I am (have I mentioned that I’m a double Cancer with a Pisces moon?)1, I’m feeling it all, and I’m feeling it all deeply.
All this feeling leaves me uncomfortably sodden and squishy not to mention just generally squabashed. I’ve been in a downright waterlogged kind of way. I’d even go so far as to say I’m occasionally in a bit of a Titanically waterlogged way.
It’s taken me a long time to become conscious of this phenomenon, and also to realize that while not everyone experiences this kind of emotional saturation, I’m by no means the only one who does. Turns out there are plenty of kindred souls out there empathically absorbing and holding emo spills like so many shop vacs.
There are also plenty of nuanced and mysterious reasons why some of us carry this soggy bog of an emotional load. Natal astrology is one thing I’ve found useful in understanding my personal context. I realize this isn’t something everyone is interested in nor open to. But to any astrology-eschewing friends reading this, I say to you the following: WAIT! Don’t slam the door of your open mind just yet!
Did you know that Carl Jung, pillar of modern analytical psychology, believed that planetary aspects are clues to an individual’s “psycho-physiological disposition?”
Well, if you didn’t before, now you do. But regardless of whether that changes anything at all about your opinion of astrology, there are myriad of other nurture and nature nuances that might contribute to spongy heart syndrome (not a medical term).
“Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” [Quote by Carl Jung; Photo by Victoria Aleksandrova on Unsplash]
Once I accepted the fact of my innate sponginess, I started learning to work with it. Over a long arc of time, I’ve made significant progress learning to set and maintain sturdy emotional and energetic boundaries to prevent flooding. I’ve also carefully curated a regimen of daily practices to care for my emotional and energetic hygiene (and to prevent accidental emotional drowning).
But despite my efforts, Trump2 has been challenging the integrity of my breakwalls. The chop created by the force of his administration’s chaos and invective is of a depth and breadth that calls for more than merely sound architecture and engineering.
I know this to be the case because my body has been telling me so, in no uncertain terms. What began a few months ago as a whisper of bodily concern over my felt sense of where the election was heading has become something more like the shriek of a banshee. It’s making my ears hurt, quite literally, as it tells me the following:
You may be one-foot-in-front-of-the othering your way through each day, showing up to commitments and responsibilities and appearing all biz-as-yoozh, but the chaos and creep of hate and human rights violations is REAL and getting realer by the minute.
CCTV capture of hateful human rights violations chaotically creeping forward.
As a post script to its main message, my body is also asking for some basic unsung hero recognition. I don’t blame it. If it weren’t for my body intercepting the overwhelming emotional wattage of these times, then grounding it into the somatic earth of myself, I’d either be imploding or flying apart at the seams. So, thank you, body. You’ve been an unfailing lightning rod in the shitstorm.
You may well be wondering exactly *how* my body is expressing itself so clearly. Fair question, friends. Fair question. And I’m willing to share (within limits). My body is nothing if not creative in crafting its messaging. Here are a few recent ways it’s been getting its point across :
waking me up most nights between 1-3 am. In Traditional Chinese Medicine, this is the time each day when anger and resentment tend to rise, and the dynamic duo of liver and gallbladder do their best to cleanse the blood of toxins, including emotional ones;
clenching and grinding my teeth during when I manage to sleep, then subluxing my jaws when I wake;
pulsing painfully through my temples, ears and neck, which are, as you may have noticed, the supporting cast members in the jaw drama;
slowing down or speeding up my digestion, which is creating quite a wobbling effect, perhaps to highlight the indigestibility of reality; and lastly,
with a full-on frenzy of eyelid fasciculation over the ugliness of said indigestible reality.
“In order to realize the worth of the anchor, we need to feel the stress of the storm.” [Quote by Corrie Ten Boom; Photo by David Moum on Unsplash]
That’s probably more than enough of an illustration of my body’s main point, which I believe is this: it needs more support in order to hold me steady right now. I could be wrong, but it seems to met that it’s also giving me a choice here, a choice to either
respond with compassion and curiosity about its distress, or
bury its lead until symptoms multiply and resurface down the road like zombies from the grave.
Now, true as it is that we are living through largely unprecedented times (although there are haunting similarities to the events of…oh, let’s just pick Salem, Massachusetts c. 1692), I know enough from experience to want to avoid the zombie apocalypse that will inevitably come with choice #2. So, I’ve chosen instead to inquire with my body as to what it needs from me right now.
As far as I’ve been able to decipher in my so-far dialogue with this body of mine, it needs more downtime, more slowness, and more gentleness than usual. It needs beauty. It needs time in community, but not too much, because it also really needs spiritual care in the form of solitude, connection with nature and times of little to no sensory stimulation.
And perhaps most important of all, it desperately needs me to be humble enough to acknowledge its needs and limits.
The body as crossing guard.
Like any healthy long-term relationship, the one with my body cannot thrive without reciprocity and fair exchange. We must take care of each other, my body and I, based on our respective strengths. It grounds me, holds me steady and also provides me with a steady stream of essential intel about my needs. In return, I must respond accordingly by setting boundaries and limits and supplying it with the various forms of fuel it requires.
Friends, the way I see it, what we’re dealing with right now — all of us — is grueling at a level that was nearly impossible anticipate before it came to bear. Part of the drain comes from emotional overwhelm, particularly a surplus of fear.
For some of us, this is no ordinary anxiety, but big existential fear. Fear about losing our very right to exist freely, authentically and safely in this country. That’s true especially, but not exclusively, for immigrants and trans/nonbinary/gender expansive folks. But really, it’s true to some extent for anyone who doesn’t buy into the MAGA vision.
And while there are some wonderful external supports available to help us stay regulated and safe right now, they are not at all at scale. There’s simply too much coming at us all the live-long day, every single day.
When you see this coming, make for the bulkhead of the body.
I believe that behooves us to do a bit of burrowing. To dig deep until we locate the place that lies beyond the reach of any external force, that sturdy place at our center. I wish I could tell you how to find it. I cannot. But I do believe you will know it when you get there. And the horrors of history have given us ample examples of heroes who sheltered successfully in the safe space within.
Staying tuned into essential self is a big thing. Taking care of the needs brought by the body is a smaller (but not a small) thing, usually a more accessible thing. So my personal plan — at least for now — is to prioritize my relationship with my body above most everything else and to be attentive to its needs. This will make it possible to slip into the warm bath of connection with my essential self.
Friends, I hope your bodies are having an easier time than mine is right now. But either way, I’m wishing you ease of connection and cooperation in your relationship with the body. After all, it is your closest companion. And from that ease, may you find a ready and regular recognition of the everlasting safe harbor within.
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old bray of my heart. I am. I am. I am.” [Quote by Sylvia Plath; Photo by Heidi Kaden on Unsplash]
If this post spoke to you and you’d like to “buy me a coffee,” please click below (and thank you very much)
1 If you have no idea what I’m talking about when I say that and/or no interest in knowing what I mean by it…well, I get it…and not to worry. If, on the other hand, you’re highly intrigued and would like to learn more, I’ve got you covered.
