This Time I Know I'm Back In My Body
Can I hear a little commotion for this stream of consciousness?!
There is something truly …insane… about finding the perfect album or song that truly emcompasses everything you feel. I find that with Heard It In a Past Life by Maggie Rogers. I am a massive fan of artistic emotional vulnerability and she truly delivers this — especially on the closer, Back in my Body which is not only the inspiration of this post, but also her documentary down below:
Quick right?! Thirteen minutes, and she closes it performing the song in it’s acoustic form.
One thing I gathered from this documentary is a feeling a home, and searching for it and once finding it, truly feeling comfortable inside of that home you built. Maggie reflects on anxiety, and ultimately explains finding yourself, after losing your way.
This past year I’ve been truly meditating on this idea of being in my body, and finding security within myself. I had a post it note taped to my phone of Rupi Kaur’s poem. “After feeling disconnected for so long, my mind and body are coming back to each other”. Not only in a form of manifestation but also in an attempt to keep my mind and body on the same level. This notion of being in my body, and being present with myself is something I avoided for such a long time. I found my body and my mind to be not only two seperate places, but places I dare not to venture into for more than 20 minutes.
When you Google, “how do you know if your mind and body are connected” results about Neurology come up. Can’t say I care about Neurology. But what does it feel like? What does it look like? Have I already achieved it? Or, am I too self aware to make a rational judgement about myself and how I feel? How do I know? These questions replay in my brain.
Maggie Rogers in her documentary mentions that being back in her body means, “[…]being able to do the things I love, but do them in the way I love and in my way and in my time. Giving myself the opportunity to just be me.” I feel that, in more than one way. Being back in my body = being in a space where I am my most authentic self, doing things I love in a way I love to do them. Consider this Sean; when are you your best self?
It’s easy for me to get distracted. The everyday life. The law class I’m taking. The two jobs I have. Finding post graduate plans. Figuring my life out. It often takes me out of my body, and with that, a state of misery, and heightened anxiety. As I transition to adulthood, and really gather my bearings on what it means to be an empowered Black man in this world, I truly do have to take inventory with myself. My eventual plan to be an educator can’t come to fruition if at 27 I’m a bag of bones and my passion for everything is burnt up. How do I come back to myself? How to reignite myself? How do I listen to my body and my brain? How do I find Sean after losing him? How do I let myself know after finding him, that it’s okay he ventured off? Finding myself in something I love.
Note to self: find time to get ‘back in your body’