Being Aliveness at Our Edges
Boundaries. Limit-setting. I hear those phrases and, oftentimes, I feel a pit in my stomach: dread. How am I gonna do THAT?
If I return to my embodiment practice, I can find a way through. But how? By practicing letting my aliveness move to my edges. Practicing inhabiting myself, as body with edges.
In Zapchen Somatics I continue to learn how to do this very directly, using practices that combine movement, breath, sound and touch. I also learn this in Tai Chi/Qi Gong, where the learning is inside complex forms of movement that connect together and, for me, is a more indirect yet still potent way to fill out to my edges.
The Zapchen practices invite our pulsation, our aliveness, to open and move more freely. Some of the practices, including Patting or HA! that I taught in my classes last week, invite us to experience ourselves aware of our edges and move towards being aware in and aware as our edges. Sighing and Rocking, also included last week’s classes, support us to experience ourselves as embodied container, full and alive.
When I’m inhabiting myself fully, including my edges,, I often experience a sense of wonder, like I’m a glistening soap bubble dancing in space. Contained and containing. Expansive and dense, Floating and still. Limitless with limits.
Where do you experience yourself as body with edges? Where not? What are the qualities of the sensations, their textures, vibrations, temperatures, sounds, tastes?
My Zapchen and other embodiment teachers often speak about how the practices that help us experience ourselves as body, boundaried and open, are foundational because when we do them we experience our wholeness without creating constrictions on our aliveness.
When we’re as body, boundaried and open, we act with agency. We’re able to choose how to move and shape our edges in a responsive way, with kindness to ourselves and to all we encounter.
From my glistening soap bubble to yours, with wonder and full of heart,
Marla
Jani Gillette, my longtime friend and fellow Zapchenista, created this whimsically alive drawing/painting. She’s a self-described Poet Barista, serving up made-to-order art and free-verse poetry for all occasions. I hope you’ll visit her website.
