walking the thread

I still remember the words of my first meditation instructor: “This practice has made me more myself than anything else.” The words ping ponged through my body, “more myself,” “more myself ... ”

More myself, I imagined, would mean being able to reside in my body. It would mean knowing what really matters and making choices from that knowing. It would mean following my inner compass rather than the myriad other voices. I didn’t know how much I longed to feel, “more myself,” until I heard those words.

In that first 5-minute session, and many sessions after, I was flooded with anxiety. I couldn’t place why or from what, and I got curious. I started to see how my anxiety had been with me for a long time and, like a canary in a coal mine, told me something honest about my history and my present. I started listening to my body.

This week a client asked me, “could a regular mediation practice support my somatic practices?”

Deep breath.
How to answer this question without tumbling forward worlds of excitement?

I gave her a response that she may not have liked: “I think you’re asking me something that your body already knows. Let's practice together and see.”

Her question reminded me of the contemplative journey -- the journey of "more myself."

We start with something – a centering practice, meditation, ritual, breath work – and in doing so place ourselves on the golden thread. As we show up to meet that thread, over and over, it speak to us. It says: maybe a little softer, maybe a little kinder, maybe more stillness, maybe less yes, maybe ... ?

That "maybe" is alive in us. It calls forward our bravery. We take the first tentative step and then another. We begin to walk the thread. Our "maybe" strengthens to a "perhaps." We begin to trust it. We begin to follow ourselves back to ourselves.