Soma journey 2 - 'Just to get up each morning is to make a kind of peace'
The above quote comes from Leonard Cohen. He actually talks about Holocaust here and the full quote goes likes this:
It is painful to recall a past intensity, to estimate your distance from the Belsen heap, to make your peace with numbers. Just to get up each morning is to make a kind of peace.
That last line really stuck with me. It talks about trauma, and also, most importantly, about the process of healing. We all go through difficulties at some point in our lives, yet rarely we are equipped with tools on how to deal with it, and body and instincts take over. Body shuts down, body appeases, body flees, body fights. And then we are left with a lot of emotions, which again, we sometimes don't feel like we have control of. But there's so much to learn about trauma and i won't get into it now, but I want to focus on the specific area of activism and somatics/body awareness.
So this is related to my second major relevation of the power of somatics - it was discovering generative somatics team. It came as a suprise to me that happily calming down is not the main purpose of somatics. It actually can be used to centre yourself and feel all the emotions, including anger. generative somatics work a lot with activists, who certainly not only express but experience a lot of anger and most likely store it within themselves. How do you use your anger? Can you center yourself and focus, but maintain the fire and the drive of this powerful emotion? Will that help you achieve even more change instead of burning yourself down bit by bit, when sometimes it feels all you do is bang your head on the wall and no one cares? I am sooooo fascinated by getting involved in that area, and have made a promise to myself to work with activists if I ever learn enough and could help them.
Another amazing person who talks about social justice and body is Camille Barton. She is even starting an MA course ECOLOGIES OF TRANSFORMATION so do check it out. On their bio it says: 'The harms that come from racism, sexism, ableism and other forms of discrimination, are carried in our bodies, often manifesting as physical pain, anxiety, hypervigilance and other symptoms.' The way we feel in our bodies oftentimes is actually systematic oppression, and that shouldn't be pushed aside. Our teachers, our educators and people we admire should be telling us that it's actually NOT our fault and actually by meditating 15min a day we WON'T fix it, but we can at least start regulating it. I've listened to quite a few amazing talks with her, including this one on Colonization, Schizophrenia and State Violence: https://youtu.be/Prq1MFXeW4Q
So to go back to the quote. Just a simple action of getting up every morning could be done with awareness and focus. It could help you connect your peace and whatever intention you have set for that day - or for your whole life. Center yourself and make change.
Here is a 15min long centering exercise with generative somatics Sumitra Rajkumar to get you started: https://irresistible.org/podcast/12p?dm_i=56G9,7358,124ZE3,RBFY,1
ENJOY!