The Soft Animal of Your Body

“All you must do is let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” - Mary Oliver

Since leaving the trail three years ago, I have been living the large majority of my life in my head. That is not to say it has been strategic or thoughtful, perhaps rather far from it. Though my thoughts were running, either perpetually away from fear, uncertainty, or even confidence in my self, or towards anything that looked like safety, certainty, or control, my body stood stuck, still, lifeless. With so much time in my head, my body started living life, less. I moved through my body sure, I developed a yoga practice, ran my first marathon, then ran my first ultra, but I was living through my body, not from it. I was living from the control center in my mind, attempting to make everything just so, trying to get the ground back beneath my feet as if the earth ever stood still.

Brené Brown in her newest book “Atlas of the Heart” sites that a near-enemy of an emotion or experience is that thing that masquerades as the experience but really deteriorates and undermines it. In the case of connection, the near enemy is control. When we try to control other’s perceptions, our own comfort or agenda, the body of the earth and call her a resource rather than our source, and by extension our own bodies, we lose and deteriorate connection with ourselves, others, and the world around us. Brené continues by asserting that connection to others can only ever be as deep as our connection to ourselves. When we control ourselves or others, we undermine that which makes life worthwhile.

Controlling myself looks like ignoring the grumbles in my stomach to check my watch if it is “time to eat.” It looks like the fog or tiredness leaking, swirling in my mind, begging for bed but needing to finish one last task (and then another…). It looks like laying my life out on a schedule, telling myself when to move, for how long, how hard, how often. It looks like “self care agendas” as if caring for myself is just another thing on a to-do list. It looks like sitting outside willing the trees around me to knock some wind and life into me, demanding poetry pour from their leaves onto my skin. It looks like constantly thinking about how to react or speak or listen, instead of feeling what happens in my body. It looks like repression, attachment, control.

I’m sure you may have felt some of these things before. It is called many names: burnout, fatigue, depression at times, languishing, etc. But what I call it is disembodiment.

Embodiment is paying attention to our inner aliveness. It is the coming home to awareness and presence with your senses and feelings in your body. When you are embodied you are connected deeply with yourself and your spirit. You eat when you grow grumbles in your stomach instead of looking at your watch to discern if it’s that time. You rise and rest with your breath instead of an alarm. You move your body in a way that feels good instead of in a way that is efficient or tries to change the sight in the mirror. You let the soft animal of your body love what it loves with joy, not judgement.

Embodiment is the movement from repression to expression and control to connection. I thought what I needed coming out to the trail was a “reset.” A chance do do things differently. But a reset erases the lessons we have learned, the things that carry us to new paths and new ways of actually doing things differently. I didn’t need a reset from my life. What I needed was a reminder that I was indeed alive, and a new way, a new path or “trail,” if you will, to walk and learn to express and live from that place. A reminder that I was not just a body through which to compute, think, or produce, but a body from which to express.

Connection to my body, my spirit, looks like putting myself in the way of beauty and not just noticing, but savoring it. It looks like dancing and singing when I am experiencing joy or playfulness. It looks like yelling or running or throwing rocks in a lake when I am angry. It looks like letting out fierce tears in sadness or beauty or joy. It looks like eating without counting calories burned or ingested, and delighting in every flaky, buttery, fruity, crunchy, creamy bite. It looks like pure love and feels like energy flowing true.

It is true I took probably the extreme path to tread and learn this lesson, but sometimes we have to dive off the deep end. For if the connection we have to others and to the world around us is only as strong and beautiful as the connection we have to ourselves, I think I’ll keep treading and diving the waters of the deep end.

When do you notice control showing up in your life? What happens in your body? What does connection look like, feel like, taste like, move like to you? What might happen if you exhaled control and inhaled connection?