Life Moves Toward Life
When I talk about my experience of chronic illness, sometimes people look exasperated and say, “You’re so brave, I don’t know how you keep going.” I appreciate this attempt to say, “I see that what you’re going through is really hard.” And I also feel confused - am I brave or am I trying to live my life? I’m not sure there’s any other option.
I can lie on the floor and say, “I give up” (I’ve done this!), but then the dog barks for dinner and someone calls me to say hello, so I resume my usual activities.
The difficulty of keeping on has been especially poignant in the last several months because I’ve been diagnosed with a new illnesses - Mast Cell Activation Syndrome - a likely offshoot of Long Covid. I’m sharing the name of the diagnosis because in addition to navigating this myself, I’m working to expand my knowledge so that I can be a professional Somatic Coaching resource for others and so you know that you’re not alone.
Intensified symptoms require me to do less and spend more time in low lighting, quiet, stillness, solitude, and sleep. Lately I wake up each day to a simpler and sometimes difficult human experience. Is it brave to keep going? Or is this that ineffable human drive to keep moving toward life no matter what's happening?
My teacher Richard Strozzi-Heckler says,
“Life moves towards life…When we allow ourselves to be touched by the rhythm of life, by sensations, streamings, waves of excitation, and fields of energy, we grasp the possibility of becoming self-healing, self-educating, and self-generating.”
A promise of somatic practice is that when I connect with my Soma, or my whole body and being, I am connecting to the flow of life energy, which is where my resilience lives. I am still miserable in the midst of symptoms for sure, but more of the time I also experience joy, laughter, awe, and sweetness. My life moves toward life and that allows me to keep going.
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