🎶 If I Could Sing, I Would Sing This For You -- Hope Comes 🎶
Hey you!
The days have started to get warmer (at least where I live) and vaccines are really happening. We are peeking out from our seemingly endless homebound stays. And, thankfully, the Bengsons are back. They have brought -- through their music -- a way to process what all this means -- not in our heads, but in our hearts. I hope you enjoy this short, but powerful piece as much as I have.
The Bengsons -- Hope Comes
When the Bengsons cry out, “Hope comes from the place the hurt comes,” they are talking about our bodies and our souls.
They have planted a large, road-side sign for us directing us to feel what we feel in our bodies: our awareness, our sensations, our pain, both physical and emotional.
“The part of you that is not alright is also the place that loves the light.”
This is our work. You, me, and the exhausted achievers among us are being directed away from our overworked brains and toward our bodies, as counter-intuitive as that might sound. We’re expert thinkers, doers, and problem solvers, but we’re not as comfortable connecting with our bodies.
“So gather up your sinew, and gather up your faction. Hope is not a feeling; hope is an action.”
How will we take action, conceived and moved, through our bodies? I have been encouraging us to feel/sense/grow awareness of what how our bodies respond.
“We can say, ‘We are not alright; we can help each other get through the night.’”
Instead of papering over our hurts, and pain, and regrets, it starts with saying - out loud - that we are not alright. And, we need to find the community of women to whom we can say this.
“We can plant a seed and watch it grow into something we don’t already know.”
We can’t know where this new direction will take us. But it starts from the place inside us that is not alright.
Where am I? I am struggling with the challenge to pay even closer attention to what my body’s wisdom is teaching me. I plan to firmly say “no” to doing things that my body is not onboard with -- like spending time with people who I have always spent time with, but with whom, I now realize, I have no real connection.
While both my husband and I are fully vaccinated, my husband’s vaccines apparently did him no good due to a serious immune system issue. So how will I move back into the world to see my kids and expand my reach, while not putting him at risk? We are not alright, but he and I (and we somehow) will find our right action.
I have committed to planting a garden in my side yard to create more connection in my life. It’s not an ordinary garden, but a wild, native garden that recreates the prairie populated by indiginous plants and peoples in Illinois. I want to grow a deeper connection to my body by connecting more deeply with living plants. I’ll share more as this adventure unfolds. But I am smiling as I write this -- hopeful and excited.
The New York Times published a special section in April called, Transformation: How the pandemic birthed and awakening for many Americans. The stories are riveting.
Mary Fugate, from Cincinnati, who suffered from PTSD and was terribly triggered by wearing a mask, decided to drive to New Mexico to be with her sister, who had to be hospitalized for the removal of a possibly cancerous cyst. She wrote, “ I don’t know who I am becoming. I like who I am becoming. I just haven’t fully met her yet. I don’t think I can go back to a ‘before.’ I don’t think I fit that life anymore.”
Melva James, an African-American woman originally from Jackson, Mississippi and now from Massachusetts wrote about a friend’s tragic suicide and the death, from Covid, of her friend’s mother. And, as a Black person, she wrote about generally feeling unsafe in this political climate and as a result of the police killings and the racism she experiences.
She wrote so beautifully about the changes in her physical self. While she had felt a lot of nothing in the past, during the pandemic she started doing yoga, becoming physically stronger, and more aware of her body and her breathing. She explained, “Living inside my body and getting to know my full self is part of my journey from nothingness to joy.”
This is our work, to live more fully inside our bodies and to get to know our full selves, so that we can live our lives starting from the ‘not all right’ place and moving toward our personal North Stars.
If you would like to share with me where you are -- how you are transforming -- as you move out into the world I would be glad to hear from you. I promise to keep your comments confidential and to respond to each of you who writes.
With Love and Gratitude,
AnnMerle
P.S. If you'd like to know more about my monthly membership, The #FierceOver50 Gathering, where we practice body-centered stress relief, just click here. And, if you'd like to chat about whether the Gathering is right for you, just hit reply to this email and we'll set up a time to chat.