Episode Summary
Even if it's not our natural disaster, even if no one we know has COVID, all of the chaos of this moment is affecting us. It's affecting our body. What can we do to begin to work with these strong feelings, these strong events, fears, moments, dynamics? How can we let our body help us find a way through?
Episode Resources
→ When Loss Hurts: 6 Physical Effects of Grief: https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/when-loss-hurts-6-physical-effects-of-grief-0520187
→ When Grief Gets Physical: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/understanding-grief/201909/when-grief-gets-physical
→ Between the World and Me: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/tanehisi-coates-between-the-world-and-me/397619/
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→ Episodes on Authentic Weddings: https://ever-changing.net/authentic-weddings
→ Episodes on Grief & Loss: https://ever-changing.net/grief-loss
→ Episodes on Challenging Times: https://ever-changing.net/challenging-times
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About the Show
Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes.
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Full Transcript
The unique challenges of this time are affecting us at a survival level. They may be bringing up feelings we've never felt before. It can help to realize that some of their potency comes from the fact that they are landing on a very foundational piece of who we are and what it means to be alive.
Even if it's not our natural disaster, even if no one we know has COVID, all of the chaos of this moment is affecting us. It's affecting our body. What can we do to begin to work with these strong feelings, these strong events, fears, moment, dynamics? How can we let our body help us find a way through?
This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas. Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions.
With the uptick in natural disasters lately, I realized that this might be a good time to talk about how very fragile being in body can be. And how important and how amazing.
You might be one of those people who never thinks much about your body, maybe you live in your head a lot, or you're young and carefree, or you just don't think about it. And you might have a body that's talks to you loudly and in no uncertain terms with, a body with which you've had to develop a relationship.
Either way, your body is affected by your thoughts, your stress levels, your hormones, and also what's going on around you.
The 1st chakra is where body meets spirit. I often find that when things are happening, the more serious things, the more base-level survival type things, we can get triggered at the 1st chakra level.
The 1st chakra, at the base of our spine, is all about being in a body. It's about food, shelter and clothing. It's about safe passage and basic survival. It's one of the first chakras to awaken when we're born. It's all about being alive.
Some of us are lucky enough to live in a world where we don't need to worry about basic survival needs on a day to day basis. Instead, our energies are free to move on into creative expression and philosophy and critical analysis. But when those moments of basic needs arise, they are the sole focus. How am I going to pay the rent? Where will I source food I can eat? I have to find a safe place to sleep. These are all basic needs.
So in these moments when basic needs are going on for us or even just around us, we can get tripped up and kinda stuck at that first chakra level. Things like COVID, which brings not only fear of illness, but also fears of losing our loved ones. And for some of us, that trips up other base level need considerations because losing a loved one could mean losing our home if we can't afford the rent or mortgage on our own. We've also seen massive job losses with COVID, which can directly affect where we can afford to live and what kind of foods we can purchase.
Body. These considerations are all about being in a body, a body that needs food and shelter, a body that can get sick. A body that can die.
Stress and pressure from the ongoing isolation and vigilance and social distancing can have physical manifestations. I know for me and many of the people in my life, stress is starting to take a physical toll. Flare ups of long term conditions, new aches & pains, a changing relationship with food, insomnia. We can't get a massage, the gym is closed, we are having to learn and sometimes create new ways of caring for our bodies. And, the big one, physical touch is now dangerous. How crazy is that?
Body. These considerations are all about being in a body, a body that needs deep breathing and calm, a body that needs touch.
At the same time we are in a moment of profound change where black bodies and white bodies are becoming more visible. Protestors of all races are putting their bodies directly in the path of police brutality, some for the first time. And the words of Ta Nihisi Coats are still echoing from his 2015 book "Beyond the World and Me", a letter to his son. '"But all our phrasing—race relations, racial chasm, racial justice, racial profiling, white privilege, even white supremacy—serves to obscure that racism is a visceral experience... You must never look away from this. You must always remember that the sociology, the history, the economics, the graphs, the charts, the regressions all land, with great violence, upon the body."
Body. These considerations are all about being in a body, a body that can be subject to cruelty and fear, a body that has the right to exist free from violence and threats of violence.
And then also, the natural disasters going on this month have brought their own 1st chakra challenges and wake up calls. Hurricane Laura hit the southern states as one of the most powerful storms to ever hit the US. A fire in a chemical plant after the storm spread toxic smoke throughout the area. 1.5 million people were told to evacuate, during a pandemic. And in the west the wildfires sent even more people away from the shelter of home, some unable to return. And thick smoke turned skies gray and the sun red for weeks.
Again, body. These considerations are all about being in a body, a body that lives on a planet going through great distress during climate change, a body that needs safety from the natural elements.
And lastly, grief. I don't know about you, but I'm not always present to the grief in the world because it can be a little overwhelming. There's the personal grief of losing a friend, the communal grief of losing a community held together by a business that closed, the collective grief of watching so many people die from COVID, and the global grief of watching our planet in so much pain.
Grief shows up in the body. Grief is not just about crying, anger and depression, grief can bring a host of physical reactions. It was a huge relief to me to learn after my dad died that physical reactions were a big part of grief. I'll include some links in the show notes about this if you'd like to learn more, but suffice to say grief can cause inflammation, increased blood pressure, chest pain, nausea, confusion, headaches and muscle weakness.
Body. These considerations are all about being in a body, a body that is connected to the whole, a body whose heart aches when it sees grief and loss.
So what we do with this information, this rather sobering list of all of the ways our bodies are being triggered right now? Probably one of the best things we can do is stay connected to our bodies, by bringing a gentle awareness as we live our lives. Directing a bit of our attention and compassion to our body, just like we would to a friend who was hanging out with us. Just a soft presence, a sense of, "Hey. How you doing? I'm here." And it can also be helpful to notice our dialog with our body. What kind of words are we saying in our head about or to our body? Do our words come from a place of lack or judgement? And if so, what might it be like to give our body the benefit of the doubt, to treat our body like a friend?
I know that pain, weakness, and illness can sometimes feel like our body is betraying us. Like, "I want to do that thing but I can't 'cause of my friggin' body!" and that's a real thing. It's frustrating. Believe me, I know. And maybe our body isn't trying to hurt us or limit us. Maybe there's some kind of wisdom in there that we can benefit from if we can listen to it.
There are ways we can create sacred space and ritual around honoring our body too. If we want, we can grab a journal and take it to a quiet place where we can be alone for a while. Maybe do some deep breathing or light a candle to create an intentional space. It might be interesting to write out a list of any items that are affecting us at that 1st chakra level. Then we can feel into each of them and see what we can discover. Maybe some of the fear isn't ours. Maybe we're holding old, Ancestral energies around some of the challenges. We can choose an item to put on our altar for each concern, or perhaps pick a tarot card to gain deeper insight into it. We can journal about them and ask ourselves, what do I need for each one? Love, movement, tears, support? Something practical? Something energetic? What am I learning about each one? The idea would be to really honor each concern, each deep life event and let the energy around it move. Then we could rest, reflect, journal and open the space.
So I encourage you to spend some quality time with your body. Almost like going on a date. Do something you body wants to do. Or don't do something your body doesn't want to do. Take a long walk in the evening when it's cool. Get takeout from your favorite restaurant. Skip the alcohol your brain is saying will make you feel better. Stretch more. Breathe way more. Take that online improv class you're scared of. Put on your favorite music and dance. Your body knows how to process the extra energy at the 1st chakra. In fact, nothing can process it better than your body. Just listen and learn.
Before we go, we're taking a survey of our listeners, and we'd love for you to participate. It will help us learn more about you - no matter how long you've been a listener or how frequently you listen to the show. So please take a few minutes and visit our website at shamepinata.com. You'll find the listener survey link right on that page. To offer our thanks to you for taking the time to share your reflections on the show, we'll send you a 5-minute centering meditation.
Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like the show, please take a minute to review it on Apple Podcasts. Your review will help more people find the show. Learn more at shamepinata.com. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.