When my dad died, I spoke at his memorial service. I didn’t cry. I remember being up there and reading what I had written the night before and feeling like I should have been crying, but I didn’t. Even though it was just 12 weeks from first hearing the word cancer, I didn’t even get choked up. I felt more like I was just reading an essay in front of one of my college classes.
Afterwards, during the ice cream reception in the church foyer, a lady came up to me and said incredulously “I don’t know how you did that. How did you speak without crying? You’re so strong.” And somehow her words didn’t feel like a compliment – they felt laced with critique and judgment. Like what she was actually asking was What’s wrong with you?
Three years ago, our best friends moved across the country. We had thought we were going to do all of life with them. We had planned to weather the tumultuous teen years together. We had spent our early parenting years in each others lives daily. Seeing them multiple times per week. Our will states that in the event that both Chris and I die, they get our kids. That’s the once-in-a-lifetime type of friendship we had.
The morning that they pulled out of town, we got up early to say goodbye to them, not knowing when we’d see them again. We gave long hugs and told them how much their friendship meant to us. And again, I felt the immense weight of the moment and I knew I should have been emotional. Somewhere deep inside, I was enormously sad, but in that moment I couldn’t access those feelings. I just felt like I was on autopilot.
At our wedding, something I had dreamed about and prayed for for years, everything was perfect. The location, the people, the ceremony … it was all exactly as we’d planned. Chris and I had written our own vows. When he read his to me, he got choked up. His voice wavered. As he spoke to me through tear-filled eyes, I could literally feel his love emanating from him. It was a deeply moving and unforgettable moment.
Then I read mine. I had put a lot of thought into what I wrote and I meant what I said, but somehow, it felt hollow. It was like I was reading script. I was standing there, words coming out of my mouth, but my emotional self had fled the scene. I should have been there, tears in my eyes, barely able to speak, in awe of the man God had brought into my life. Instead, I felt … like an imposter.
In thinking back on each of these experiences, I realize I have always wondered what is wrong with me. Why am I unable to feel anything or express real emotion in the moment? Am I broken? Am I so callous and hard that I can’t cry?
Here’s the truth. It’s something I’m just now coming to understand through lots of counseling. In these highly emotional events, I was not present. I was not in my body. I was completely dissociated from myself and my emotions. In each of these moments, it’s like I was outside of myself, observing myself from someone else’s perspective. Watching and judging myself. Not feeling my feelings.
I’ve never had words for this experience before.
I’m pretty new to this whole idea of embodied living. I’m just beginning to understand what it means to be present and in my body in the moment. If you had told me a few years ago that I was dissociating, I would have rolled my eyes and told you to take your woo-woo stuff to someone else.
I believe it now.
It suddenly makes sense why I cry watching emotional moments in movies. It’s because I’m watching it. I watch other people embody their emotions and it moves me. I desperately want that. I want to learn how to experience that myself.
The truth about us as created beings is incredible. It blows my mind to contemplate how we are one being – body, mind and spirit. How our nervous system is created to react physically to our minds, which are formed by our felt experiences. How we can literally change the shape of our brain through intentional awareness. In other words, when we pay attention – when we become aware of our bodies and what they’re telling us – we can know ourselves in a whole new way. We can feel our feelings.
Somatic therapy is a practice where you can use bodily sensation to access stored trauma and buried emotion and use mindfulness and physical techniques to restore connection between the body, the mind and the spirit. Through things like breathing exercises, grounding, body scanning, tapping, massage.
One of the first questions my counselor ever asked me at one of our first meetings, when I was sharing about one of our recent marital conflicts, was “When you get upset, where do you feel it in your body?”
***Crickets.*** I had nothing to say to her. I literally had no idea.
I had never, ever paid attention to my body. I just felt my emotions. I felt sad. Or angry. Or afraid. But here’s the crazy thing. Our body expresses our emotions before we are even aware that we are feeling them.
Think about it. When you are upset, what happens to your body? Do you…
Feel a weight in your chest? Furrow your brow? Get a stomachache? Clench your fists? Purse your lips? Hunch your shoulders? Get a headache? Does your throat get tight? Does your neck hurt?
Here’s what it looks like for me … its all about my forehead. When I’m upset or stressed or feeling dysregulated, I put my hand on my forehead. I cover my eyes with my hand. I massage my head. I put my forehead down on the table. I close my eyes.
Once I began pay attention and realized “my tell,” I could practice self-regulation. When I notice I’m putting my hand to my forehead or I’m closing my eyes, I think “Okay pause. What’s happening with me? I’m upset. Why am I upset? What do I need?” And with the awareness, I move from my reactive, feeling driven part of my brain to my logical, thinking part of my brain. I move from being a volcano to a gently simmering pot of water.
Our bodies are our best teacher when it comes to self-awareness and self-regulation. If we pay attention to those signals, we can actually know what’s going on with us emotionally before we actually feel it.
It’s so amazing.
And that is why I want to learn to be in my body always. I want to practice embodied living. I don’t want to miss out on any more big life moments because I’m watching myself from a distance. I want to be able to remember things in detail because I was present, feeling all my feelings – even the sad or scary ones – right in the moment.
Because life is made up of the big moments. They are what matters. So I want make sure I’m there.
These Words of Mine 
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