Wondermine
Wondermine
Episode 7: Come Home to Your Body
On today's episode, Larissa & Elizabeth talk about what it means to feel at home in your body, and Larissa gives Elizabeth (and you!) some experiences to try during the call--with fascinating results! Small steps, and lots of practice and self-compassion are key to feeling that your body is your home.
Mentioned in this podcast (Bookshop links are affiliate links):
The Warmth of Other Suns- Isabel Wilkerson (bookshop)
The reference to “dark emotions” is a Miriam Greenspan term. Her book is Healing Through the Dark Emotions. (bookshop)
Wayward Son - Rainbow Rowell (bookshop)
How Emotions Are Made - Lisa Feldman Barrett (bookshop)
Shake It Off - Taylor Swift (YouTube)
Tigress Osborn - https://www.instagram.com/iofthetigress/
Tigress's essay on the history of body positivity
The Body Is Not An Apology, Sonya Renee Taylor (bookshop)
Lauren Ohayon (website)
My Grandmother’s Hands - Resmaa Menakem (bookshop)
Jane Clapp (website)
What Happened To You by Bruce Perry & Oprah Winfrey
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Music by ZakharValaha from Pixabay
Follow us on Instagram @wonderminepodcast
Welcome to Wondermine. I'm Larissa Parson. I'm a joy coach, a movement teacher, a mom to twins, a bit of a hippie, and I had the best croissant ever last week. Ah
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I'm Elizabeth M Johnson. I'm a big reader and big eater. Food mentions make me pause. I'm a trauma educator and a rape survivor. And I write and talk about trauma, relationships and culture. And I've decided to out myself as someone who does give money to homeless people on the street, not every day, not every time, and not a lot of money. But I feel like I want to own that a little bit more. Hmm.
Larissa Parson:Love that. We are the duo behind this limited series podcast called Wondermine. Wondermine is limited series feminist podcast that looks at the wow and the how of living a life rooted in curiosity, community and liberation. If you've ever felt like something was missing, or you were missing something, this is the podcast for you.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And this is our seventh episode. We are going to be talking about coming home to your body, which I'm really excited about.
Larissa Parson:So, when we talk about coming home to our body, we're kind of talking about body liberation on the individual level. And that, of course leads us to body liberation in a much larger sense. And before we get started, I'm just wondering if we would like to talk about what we've been reading.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes, I would love to talk about what we've been reading. Would you like me to go first or...?
Larissa Parson:Yes, please.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Okay, so I am reading Isabel Wilkerson's first book, The Warmth of Other Suns. And it is everything I thought it would be and more. I am coming to it very late and in a really circuitous route. But it is basically talking about The Great Migration. And if you are someone who has read Caste--which I have stopped and started, because I really wanted to go back and read her first book--you will enjoy this book. This is a book of nonfiction, talking about The Great Migration, but what she's talking about it in a very beautiful narrative way. She is profiling in the most cooperative and community- oriented sense three people who took this big trip at different points, two men and one woman. And it is just incredible. So you could read it really I feel like as a story. Or you could read it, as it should really be, a text that we are learning in school. I'm learning history that I have never learned. I am not very far into the book, but even pieces about like how the state of Florida was set up during Jim Crow. I am not a white person who thought of Florida as a particularly like egregious place for Jim Crow, or even slavery. And that is clearly not true after getting through a little bit of this book. So there's just it's incredible. It's lyrical, there's pieces of humor in it. It is just a beacon. I'm enjoying it in the way that I enjoyed-- one more shout out for him --Robert Jones Jr's book The Prophets, which I can't stop talking about. But enjoying it in a sense that while it is very hard to read, because it is a lot of sort of reconciling with past history that's never been reconciled with, the writing is just so incredible, and concise, and it's everything for me as a nonfiction writer. It is what I would aspire to, to be to the quality and the story of writing that I would hope to offer. Anyway, it's incredible.
Larissa Parson:What a wonderful endorsement. I love that book. I read it several, I think several years ago. I think I was still teaching high school at the time. And we may have been reading it as a community. I really can't remember the context because it must have been after I had kids. So everything's kind of a blur when I start looking for things like that. As you know, Elizabeth, I am not a big nonfiction reader, because it gets dry and boring for me and I want a story. And I want like these days, I really want a happy ending. But that book was easy to read. It was really easy to read. And I remember it really well, because of her storytelling. It's just it's really fantastic. So I have not been reading anything like that. I'm kind of toggling between two books on my ebook reader. I am reading 'Wayward Son', which is by Rainbow Rowell. It's the second in a trilogy of these, YA supernatural magic books, which is exactly what I needed, when it's very, very queer. It's just delightful. So I did have the disconcerting experience of having read through the first book, a couple months ago, maybe three, maybe even six months ago, I didn't really know. And I completely forgot basically everything that happened in that book. As I stepped into the second book, I was like, Who are these people? Where are we what's happening? and it took me a while to get oriented to it, you know. Like, sometimes an author will give you lots and lots and lots of information upfront, to remind you, because maybe it's been a year since you read the first book. And that didn't happen so much here. But I still enjoy the story. And now I'm deep, like right in the middle of it. And I'm really, really liking it. It's fun. We're talking about vampires in America. Now, these are all bunch of English magicians who've come over on a road trip. They're in Vegas. I mean, it's super, super fun. And then I took a long car trip. This week. I drove up to DC to see my folks. And on my way home, I decided that I wanted to listen to an audiobook. So I picked up'How Emotions Are Made'. And the author's name is slipping my mind right now. But we'll put it in the show notes. And it's great. It's kind of talking about how emotions are things that we name based on feelings in our bodies. And the names that we give to emotions are very culturally influenced. So anger isn't always the same for everyone. And its kind of this radical thing. And it's been out for quite a while. This is a revised edition that came out on the audiobook. So anyway, I'm looking forward to digging in a little bit more, because it's really directly relevant to the stuff we're talking about today, in a certain sense. So that's what I'm reading.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Love it. I'm making a note of that one.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, I think you would really like it. For sure. Because we're going to do a whole bunch of stuff in this episode, let's keep this grounding exercise short and sweet. What I want us to do is, so if you're walking around, you might want to just keep walking with more mindfulness. If you're sitting in your car, you know, maybe you can use one hand for this, if you're sitting in your chair, you might just use your shoulders. And if you're standing up and you have space to move, then you can do whatever you want. We're going to take just a moment to move any part of your body that feels like it needs to move. And you can shake, you can like I'm shaking my hands. I often will like to I won't do it because it'll sound terrible on the audio. But I do like to do an exercise where you shake your legs, so that you feel like you're shaking your butt off your sit bones. And so you can play with that one if you've got the time and the space to do it. Otherwise, just like shake any body part or shrug your shoulders a few times. Or if you're out walking, notice your footsteps just kind of feel the rhythm of your body moving. Just take a moment to feel your body moving in whatever way you can. If you're in the car, I found a really cool move while I was driving where I was like swimming one arm out in front of me and turning my shoulder a little bit kind of like I was trying to reach for the windshield. So that might be a good one to play with while you're driving because you can keep one hand on the wheel. I mean, we don't want people to crash their cars. Then, when you feel like you've moved enough, you can just settle back down into wherever you are. And kind of take a breath or two and notice how does it feel to have just moved a little bit and paid attention to my moving? Does your body feel more at ease? Does your body kind of wish it could do some more moving? Whatever you feel is fine. How'd that go for you, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I remember that invitation to like, what did you just say? "Sort of like shake your sits bones?"
Larissa Parson:Shake your butt off your sits bones.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Sounds right. ..from I think from a video that you did on Prime. I remember that invitation of the language around that. And there's something --and of course, there's, this is a whole other thing--there's a lot around shaking, right? And how good that can feel. But it is, it's interesting to me that my go-to when you said that, or when you kind of introduced this activity was to do something that I normally do, which is to, you know, kind of turn my arms around or rotate my shoulders.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And then when you said the shaking thing,"I'm like, okay, that's an invitation to do this." And it always feels good.
Larissa Parson:Always.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:It always feels good. It always does. And it feel like it's the silly thing. Like, it's the thing that's maybe more playful and maybe a little bit more childlike. If I'm out in public, I can totally rotate my shoulders around. But I definitely would not be shaking my hands and wrists, which is what I was doing when you invited us to do that. And so it feels like one is a little bit more sort of permissible than the other. But when you invite us to do it, then you've given me permission, and then I could do it.
Larissa Parson:Hmm. I love that. How cool. Yeah, the shaking is, it's one of my favorite things. But you're right, it's not the kind of thing that I'll just like, bust out, you know, on east campus doing. I'm not gonna stand by Whole Foods and start shaking. It's a really great way to discharge nervous system activation. Yeah, I'll call it that. So like that feeling of being activated, of being super, in a heightened state. And there are lots of words for this, and really listening to 'How Emotions Are Made' has made me very cautious about the language that I use to describe this. But you know, my favorite thing to do when I'm feeling really overwhelmed, is to either really shut down and tune out, or to put on 'Shake It Off' and shake it off. Because it lets my nervous system reset. It lets my nervous system discharge. It lets everything kind of like come back to a less activated state. It doesn't mean that I'm not, you know, it doesn't mean that I'm like, getting rid of all the bad feelings. I want to feel them. But sometimes your body gets overwhelmed with them. And we don't want to stay there all the time.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, I think this is can be especially true for trauma survivors, too. Or folks --who I've been talking to some people recently--who have been going through a lot of repeated traumas, in addition to the pandemic. So aside from my regular trauma survivor folks, people who've been going through some really big things. And it's continually big, where they feel like they're on that constant, high cortisol sort of alert,"the flight or fight". And this(the shaking) can feel really good.
Larissa Parson:Yes! Yeah, it's really, really good in those situations. In fact, if I can find time to shake my body, even if it's just having a dance party in my kitchen. You know, like, daily, it feels really good. It really helps me stay grounded in my body. So, what we're talking about today, is coming home to your body. And I want to relate it back to this idea of shaking and deactivating a little bit. Coming home to your body, is the process of being able to tell when something like that exercise is,"working", if that makes sense. It's becoming attuned to what your body needs, wants, loves, feels. And it's a sense of knowing that your body is your friend, that your body is not the enemy. Which is a lot.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That is a lot.
Larissa Parson:And there's more.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Of course there is.
Larissa Parson:So yeah...go ahead.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I'm interested in the idea. Because you and I've had the side conversations around, like body positivity versus like body neutrality. And then I'm curious about that . And those of you listening have heard these same terms and maybe we're hearing body neutrality even more and in spaces like in certain spaces where body positivity means certain things only for certain people or applies to "certain" I'm interested in your, the idea of body as friend and kind of where it fits into all of that. And that can come in at any point. But your language is making me people.
Larissa Parson:Yeah. very curious.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Mmmmm, yes.
Larissa Parson:Let's go there right now. I think that's a really nice segue here. So when we talk about body positivity, I am not the person to give you a huge rundown of the body positivity and fat liberation movements, the person you want And we want to be okay with all the experiences to listen to on that one is my friend, Tigress Osborn, and we can link a couple of her pieces in the show notes. But let's talk more generally. So, folks generally look at body positivity as this idea that we should love our bodies all the time. And that's just not possible or true, for most people, you can love your body. And- Here's our Yes, and. And you can have days, when you don't love your body, when you're feeling angry with your body, when you're frustrated with your body, when you pick it that one thing on your body that you don't like. So, body positivity for a lot of people feels a little bit like toxic positivity. Because it feels like well, the message is that you should love your body all the time and if I don't love my body all the time, then I'm doing something wrong. And we don't want that. And I mean, I think that the way that I like to think and talk about bodies is very positive. It's welcoming, it's inviting, it's curious, it's playful. But I don't usually use the words body positivity to describe that because we want to be okay with the dark emotions. of having a body. And I think a lot of the time, a lot of the folks who tend to use body positivity language, many of them able bodied, cis, hetero...
Elizabeth M. Johnson:White.
Larissa Parson:White, thin, white women.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes.
Larissa Parson:And so you know, the goal is to love our bodies, like a friend. We don't always agree with our friends. Maybe our bodies are like more like, maybe friend isn't the word, maybe right people is the word in this context. We don't always agree with our right people. Sometimes we have to have conversations with our right people that don't necessarily feel great. And our right people are there for us all the time. And so to go back to body positivity, body neutrality. So body neutrality is a term that came up kind of in response to the way the body positivity was feeling, kind of like not so great to people. Body neutrality is a great place to start a journey toward coming home. It's this idea that I have a body. And I don't have to be madly in love with my body all the time. And I don't have to hate my body all the time. And the messaging that we're given frequently is that, well, we should be constantly trying to improve our body, that we should hate our body, that our body is not good enough. So body neutrality gets us out of that conditioning and that messaging. And it may be as far as some of us want to go with this for a really long time, because it's a big, nervous system activator. You have big feelings when we start thinking that we're enough. Yeah. Does that all makes sense for body positivity and body neutrality?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes. And the idea of loving our body like it's one of our right people.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, that really all syncs together nicely for me.
Larissa Parson:Great.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Thank you.
Larissa Parson:Sure. So when we get to body neutrality, we can totally stay right there. That can be the word that really resonates with you. I like to bring in the concept of radical self love, which is really it's a body neutral stance. But it's a body neutral stance, that allows us to see our bodies as worthy of love. So you might not be feeling like all snuggly and cozy with your body today, but it is worthy of that feeling. And when we start to get in touch with our bodies as feeling worthy like that, we start to look out to other bodies and start to say, "Oh, those bodies are also worthy of this feeling". And this is all right out of Sonya Renee Taylor's. This is not my thought. It's not my original thought. It is totally her work. So I want to make sure that we call that out.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes.
Larissa Parson:I really feel like it's just taking body neutrality that one little step farther toward recognizing what it is that keeps us from feeling neutral and or loving toward our bodies. So it's looking more out at the systems of oppression, and lots of other stuff that might get in the way. And then the one last thing I think I'll say about what is coming home to your body, is that - I said earlier that it's a sense of tuning into your body and kind of recognizing what feels good and all of that - it's also feeling safe in doing so. So you might not always feel at home in your body, because you might not be in a situation where you feel completely safe tuning in. You might need to just zone out. You might need to leave the room. Being at home in your body means that you know that that's the right thing to do. Elizabeth, do you have anything you want to respond to? That as a lot.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, no, I think one of the things that's kind of coming to my mind right now is the importance that you're placing around this idea of feeling safe. And this is something that I think a lot of trauma survivors can really relate to, and it's something that I really try to emphasize in my own work is that we really have to be in a place --before we can do any massive amount of changing even small changes, I would say, --of feeling safe.
Larissa Parson:Yes.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:...within ourself to do so. So that's a piece that I think is a really important aspect of this idea. And I'm glad that you're kind of highlighting that.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, well, I think it's really, really important because a lack of safety is one of the things that gets in the way. So if we were to shift to what's getting in the way of feeling at home in your body, it's going to be stuff that doesn't make you feel safe, or internalized stuff. So we're talking big picture systems of oppression, all of them. I would name in particular ableism, capitalism, patriarchy, and then literally every other-ism wants to go in there, too. I started talking about it and then I'm like, Oh, actually, we could just put them all in there. Racism, homophobia, like all of this stuff, is really part of this. Capitalism in particular, and ableism have this like, really intertwined relationship where they want us to spend money on perfecting our bodies, to achieve some sort of standard of health and wellness that is really arbitrary, and is always subject to change over the course of one's lifetime. And I think there's a lot of messaging around that that really, just doesn't do us any good.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah. And something that you're emphasizing here that I want to also pull out here, is this piece of systems of oppression. Sometimes we think, "okay, I'm not feeling safe, or I'm not quite right in my body, or I'm not, something's not quite right in my world. What is wrong with me? Why am I the one who is broken? What do I need to do to fix myself?"
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:and I think what you're saying is really important--which is what we've been echoing throughout this entire series-- is we really need to do ourselves a favor, and remind ourselves, that we live and work under these systems of oppression that significantly influence how we think and act on a daily basis from moment to moment.
Larissa Parson:All. the. time. So if you listen back to our"Yes/And" episode, there's a whole bunch of stuff about exactly this - this binary thinking, that makes us worthy, not worthy. Makes us good, not good. Good, bad. You know, all of that. This is exactly it, Elizabeth. That's exactly what I'm talking about. So I would say like, there's that layer. It's like a nesting doll of problems that get in the way of being at home in our bodies. The biggest outside doll is the systems that we're all living in. And this nesting doll analogy is really working for me. The next doll in is your family dynamics and your community. So we're looking at the lasagna, too, Elizabeth.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes.
Larissa Parson:Right?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I'm thinking lasagna. I mean, the nesting doll visual is so fantastic. And this is really helpful. Yes, go. I love it.
Larissa Parson:Yeah. So like, so we're talking, those family dynamics, the community dynamics, what you grew up, with your family of origin, the kind of place that you grew up in. So the messages that you received as a child, like being too much, or how you didn't fit in with whatever, crowd wherever. And that goes to like, all kinds of things neuro diversity, body shape, body size, ability, gender, sexuality, all of these things, right? All the ways that we maybe you do fit in in one way, and maybe don't fit it in another way. Perfectionism. Growing up with perfectionism as kind of a theme in your home. So that that's like the second nesting doll. And then there's the third doll. That is, I would say, some of your other lived experiences, including trauma.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Uh huh.
Larissa Parson:So Elizabeth, how does trauma get in the way of feeling at home in your body? You said already, that it's about safety and also ... go ahead, why don't why don't you talk?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I'll get to--which I haven't really done and frankly, I'm giving myself permission to say it's totally fine that I haven't done it-- but really what we're speaking about here is interpersonal trauma on some levels, less speaking about earthquakes.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And when I'm speaking, I'm talking about interpersonal trauma. So when it when we think about interpersonal trauma, what's happened is that someone who we have (most of the time) had trust or relationship with has hurt us or has used their power over us. And so depending on when that happened, there's going to be after effects from that betrayal. So when we think about trauma survivors in their relationship with their body--and I've done a lot of work with survivors on this--often what happens is a belief system has been developed out of this traumatic experience. Whether that's, you know, rape or molestation or, or physical violence, whatever that form of interpersonal trauma, and the belief that has come up as a result of this --and it could have been, because someone was told this specifically-- is that your body/their body is broken, that their body does not function the way that others that "norma"l people or everyone else's bodies do. And that gets in the way of a lot.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, and it's so important. Again, we'll, we'll talk about titration. It's so important when you're a survivor, to titrate that sense of being at home and your body. The process of getting there may not look like I went to a weekend retreat, and now I feel all better.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah.
Larissa Parson:In fact, that's actually not going to work for anybody. Because, nobody's body works that way. I think I'll add on to the kind of like earthquake-size trauma, or the other kinds of lived experiences. So we also experienced this, when our body changes state, from one way to another. So I think I work with a lot of postpartum folks and folks who are giving birth, which for many, many bodies can be a traumatic experience. It is a definite change experience in the body. The body changes shape massively. And the experience of recovering from that can be difficult. It can be perplexing. It can be disorienting. Just because your body changed shape a whole lot and changes shape forever., maybe, for some bodies. For many, I would say most bodies. And no matter what your shape was, before. I'm trying to keep these terms really, really clear because I think it's really important to not go down the "baby weight" trail, because I think that's false. It's really that your body changes shape and you're confused because your body feels different.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And this is another piece which can be really triggering for our interpersonal trauma survivors. You know when we think about breast possibly swelling and pieces of our body feeling very different than they ever have. Or we think about the idea of pushing something through the birth canal out into the world, or having, you know, any kind of interventions can be really horrifying and scary for some trauma survivors. Some of whom may have thought or been told that their body could not do such a thing (birth a baby), for whatever reason. So that's really triggering because it can be absolutely disorienting and perplexing and those those other key pieces too but triggering for many trauma survivors.
Larissa Parson:Absolutely triggering for many trauma survivors. And I will say also triggering for many. Let's move away from shape change. Just the process of the how medicalized our birth process is in this country can be triggering for many groups of people. Like, take your intersectionality circles, and you could point to somebody and you know, that it is going to be triggering perplexing, upsetting to go through the process of giving birth in this country. I will say, especially as a black woman. One of the people I follow on Instagram, had a post the other day that was like,"you know, you can stop telling black women that were more likely to die in childbirth and instead, you can give us resources o that we don't. But we don't want to hear about how we're gonna, we're more likely to die anymore. We know. We have known this for a long time. We want medical care that is equitable." So, that can get in a way of feeling at home in your body. You go to the doctor's office, and you get treated like you're not a body, or maybe you're just a body and not a person. You know?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah. And this is this is a piece that I've been talking about for years, shortly after I had my daughter, but this is a piece that I'm seeing more and more women come out and share publicly: about how they have been treated by the medical establishment and what that has meant to their relationship with their body.
Larissa Parson:Yes.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And I just want to add here because I do
feel really strongly about this:this is why we don't because of how people have been traumatized by their providers (and of course, it's not all providers) but this is why women do not go in or people with breasts do not go in to get mammograms on a regular basis. This is why we don't go and get a Pap smear. Julie Lythcott-Haim had a really incredible piece-- I feel like it was before Thanksgiving -- in her newsletter that said something like, "this is the piece that I had my doctor in college said this to me, and it has taken me this long to move beyond it." And she is slightly older than I am. So I'm gonna say she's in her maybe mid early to mid 50s. But it's taken her a long time to go back and have a trusted relationship with a provider. On top of that Tressie and Roxane have talked about this at length in Hear to Slay about the inaccessibility for many of us to find providers who we feel safe with.
Larissa Parson:Yes.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And so there's a whole cascade around this that I feel like really needs to be acknowledged. So if you are one of those people, you are not alone. You are in very good company with many of us who have been betrayed by a provider in one way or another and then have chosen to not get care because of that. And then of course, what does that mean for our health and longevity?
Larissa Parson:Absolutely. Yeah, not alone at all. I mean, I have gotten pretty good at either dissociating as needed or processing my feelings later, when I have unpleasant interactions with medical professionals. But you know, there are moments when I still stop and have to really tell myself to take a breath. This is the system. The system is the problem. Like, when I was in the hospital this fall, the first time I was in the hospital this fall., they sent me home on a no residue diet, which is just it's very white. It's like white bread, and white rice and cheese, cottage cheese and applesauce, maybe not even applesauce. It's terrible. And I had to do it for you know until I had my surgery. So it's like about a month of this, but on the little discharge sheet, there was information about,'you should eat these kinds of things because you're overweight'. And it was all like salads and broccoli. Like I literally cannot eat any of these things right now. Why is this even on the sheet on the discharge sheet? It's all these little, tiny, I would I call it a microaggression.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Absolutely, yes.
Larissa Parson:Where it's supposed to where you're like, Oh, my body is just, you know, it's a piece of shit today.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah. And where does that piece of shit belief come from? Right? Because I'm getting both of these
Larissa Parson:Right.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I mean, isn't that the whole messed up messages. And then I think too--because I try to be more inclusive in my thinking here - but what is this mean for diet culture in a nutshell here? You got to do that. You can't do someone who is not a native speaker? Who's getting both of these pieces of information sent home with them? That is confusing.
Larissa Parson:Yes!
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And who are they asking then? Because clearly someone thinks I'm fat. And so I have to do this. But then I also can't eat this?
Larissa Parson:Right. this. But my body can't take this. So do I just not eat? I cannot imagine how confusing that would be. I mean, I can, actually, but, it kind of boggles my mind. The whole thing boggles my mind.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Sorry, I feel like I got us a little off track. But I feel like these are like, really, really important. This is really important.
Larissa Parson:This is so so important that I think that it's it's really important to have this in the conversation. So there is a lot stacked against us.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes.
Larissa Parson:When we want to feel a sense of home in our bodies - when we want to feel like our body is one of our right people. I saw your body just take that like sigh when I said your body is your right people. What does that feel like in our bodies to think that? Does it feel hard to believe? Absolutely. It is totally hard to believe. And it is totally possible. So I think I want to talk about how we do push all that stuff out of the way. Sometimes. A little bit. Bit by bit. A little bit at a time. Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Because it's a "yes /and" right? It's another sort of "yes/and".
Larissa Parson:Yes, it's totally a yes, and. Because, yes, lots of stuff is stacked against us. And we sometimes get to push it aside. Sometimes we get to like just take all the layers of the nesting doll out and lay them out across a shelf and look at them separately from ourselves. We get to come out of the nesting doll. I don't know, this metaphor is getting away from me. But that's okay. So, what I love as one tool for coming home to the body is movement. And because this is a podcast, and I know that you're not like listening to this on your yoga mat, we're not going to do a bunch of movement, but I will I want to just preface what we are going to do by saying the reason that I love movement as a technique for coming home is that no matter who you are, where you are, your body has to move in some way every day, even if it's to get on and off of the toilet. So, your your arms have to move in some way. You have to swipe on your phone. We can talk minimal, minimal movements. Your body has to move every day. So, what movement practices help us do is get a sense of where our body is in space, and what our body likes and what our body doesn't like. And they can be tools for working with things that don't feel good in our bodies and helping them feel better. So for things like pelvic organ prolapse or a sprained ankle, there are movements we can do to help those things feel less bad over time. And the reason that I really like thinking about it in that way is that the process of say rehabbing your knee or your ankle or your broken foot is a way of really dialing into, what do I feel? What's good, what's bad, what's real, what's not...? I'll use a metaphor that my teacher Lauren Ohayon uses. If my body is in the middle of an ocean, how do I make a map of where on the ocean I am? And movement is a tool for doing that. It just helps you kind of situate yourself, in your body, in the world. Elizabeth, you're giving me a quizzical look. So tell me. I can I can clarify that a little bit.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That would be great because I was with you with the nesting dolls, but I'm thinking... how....Larissa is floating in the ocean?
Larissa Parson:Okay, let's go back to the nesting doll. So movement....
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I love you, Lauren. But that one lost me.
Larissa Parson:That's because I think Lauren's situating it in the context of like, actually moving. Okay, well, if, let me see if I can pull Lauren's thing back. And then I'll go back to the nesting doll. So let's say that you are having back pain. Let's make it really concrete. You're having back pain. And you don't have any idea why. So to make a map that helps you figure out where on the globe you are, have back pain, you might want to start with when do I notice the back pain? First of all, what was I doing before my back started hurting? If it's nothing fine, great. Then you might start noticing where do I habitually keep my body? That gives you more of a map of what's happening in your body? So how am I standing? How am I sitting? How am I lying down? Do I always sleep in the same position? Do I always wake up with a crick in my neck? Okay, that's more information. So we're filling in the map by taking stock of where our body is. And then you add in, you sprinkle in some movement, which is let's try changing this position when you do this kind of activity. So let's hinge from the hip instead of rounding the spine. How does your back pain feel two weeks later? Like those kinds of things help us get make more sense of the world of our body. Is that better?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Fantastic.
Larissa Parson:Okay. So that's why I like movement as a way of getting a sense of home. Like, okay, here we are, I have figured out where my body is relative to say this back pain, great. But I want to get out of this nesting doll because this nesting doll is not comfortable. We'll go back to the nesting doll now. So we can intellectually pretty easily notice, oh, that's perfectionism getting at me and sticking me inside the stall. Oh, that's being told that I wasn't enough all the time as a kid or being told that I was too much all the time as a kid, or being told that I was too loud, or whatever. Okay, I can intellectually take those things off. But how do I feel this safely in my body so that I can walk through the world having shed those layers comfortably?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes.
Larissa Parson:So I thought we would try three short experiments in getting that felt sense of being at home. They may have varying results. Here's my medical disclaimer, this is not meant to treat or diagnose any disease. This is an experiment and a place to be curious with your body and to be curious with your feelings and to be curious with how do I feel when I do these things? So the first thing is, we're just going to orient. And orienting is something that gets taught in a lot of kind of trauma informed spaces as a tool for helping the body recognize that it is in a safe place right now. So if you're listening to this podcast, it is highly unlikely that you are in an unsafe place, but if you are, I recommend that you stop listening and go somewhere else that feels neutral. And then once you're in that place, all you're going to do is look around. Notice your feet, wherever they are, they can be on the floor. Maybe you're sitting on something so you can notice what you're sitting on. And then you're going to slowly turn your head so you can look up, down, side to side. I'm going super slowly. Look over one shoulder to see behind you. Come back and look over the other shoulder to see behind you. You can turn your head and then take note of windows and doors. What are the exits and entrances to the space you're in? If you're out in the open, where are the cross streets, if you're in a city, where the trails, if you're in the woods, where are the places where you can go, and where you can leave where you are? And then notice, do you feel a little bit more settled in your body now that you've taken stock of what's around you? I also like to add in sounds and smells and sights to this process. So as you're looking around, you can check out, Oh, I hear some leaves crunching, or there's a squirrel over there, or there's a car over here. So you're really just building a slightly higher level of awareness of your surroundings. And then you come back to yourself. And you notice where you are relative to all of these things. And that's the first step for many people I usually use that when I'm leading people out of or into a like meditation or something like that, because it's really helpful to go, Oh, I'm back in this room. Here I am.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah. I find myself hoping that folks who are therapists or doing any kind of one on one healing work as a mental health professional with anyone are using such a tool, before they delve into some really hard things with that person as like as a grounding exercise, and as a stabilizing sort of practice. And my other thought was that the the trauma survivors who are listening will be like "I know where the entrances and exits are, you bet your ass my back is to them!" I have you in front of me.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Myy back is never facing a door. We are very aware of where / how we can escape from a space or how we might be able to get out or how vulnerable we are in the space that we are in.
Larissa Parson:Absolutely.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Especially if it's a different or foreign space for us. So I like that a lot. I like noticing, taking this moment. So the third thing is that I really like taking this moment to be intentional about that. As a practice, as opposed to "this is
a trauma response for me:I'm not going to be having my back to the door."
Larissa Parson:Yes, that's exactly it. There's a difference between automatically checking, because that's your response and that's your default, versus taking a moment to really take it in, to really tune in slowly. And I would say that some folks I know will often, especially if they're starting a, like a deep one on one process will say something like, is there something in the room that you really are fixated on? That seems like a base for you. So like I've been coached in sessions where I've looked at one of the plants in my space here. And that's been kind of my go to thing to look at, whenever I'm feeling a little overwhelmed by the work. I can go back. I can take it in. I can just kind of check in with it. It provides me with like a signpost or a talisman or something like that, where it's, I can always come back to that plant if I'm feeling like my body is overwhelmed. So that can be a really useful variation on it as well.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes.
Larissa Parson:Okay, should we try another thing?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes, please.
Larissa Parson:Okay, so this one, you can do anywhere, anytime. Nobody has to know that you're doing it. It's not a movement based thing. You don't have to turn your head if you don't want to. I will invite anyone who has the time and space who wants to sit down or lie down, it can be really nice if it feels safe and comfortable to do this. But you can also just kind of like just imagine it while you're standing. And one of the practices that I've really, really been enjoying lately is being able to generate this felt sense when I'm out and about so they don't have to like get into my special place to find it. You know? So this is this thing I call a loved bubble. And Elizabeth you've probably read about this quite a bit, possibly even experienced it in some sort of recording at some point. We'll do the short and sweet version, as opposed to the long and lengthy version. So basically, what you're going to do is no matter where you are, eyes open, eyes closed, doesn't matter, I want you to imagine that your body is surrounded by a love bubble. And I choose that name deliberately because it is kind of silly, which lets us get a little playful and imaginative with it. So you've got a big love bubble. And sometimes, for me, my love blows big, it's big and bubbly, and pink and shiny. For other people, it feels like a second layer of skin. For some people, it can be like a like a jewel that radiates out from inside. So your love bubble is your love bubble. And it doesn't have to be my love bubble. But whatever that is, it's a force field that protects you. And then here's the special part. You get to check in with your body, if you have the space and time. If you're just walking, you know, maybe just thinking about that force field surrounding you with the sense of love and care would be fine. But if you have the resources to do this, you might want to check in with your body and kind of go is there any part of me that feels like it doesn't belong here? Is there any part of me that feels like it doesn't deserve to be enveloped with love, or that resists being enveloped with a sense of deep care? And then if that is a yes for you, I want you to invite that part in. And this can be a feeling it can be a thought it can be literally your elbow or your knee. Invite that that part in and welcome it in. Sometimes I like to give those parts like a cup of tea and a blanket, and a book. Whatever feels comforting and cozy to them. Maybe even sometimes I have dialogues with myself. I'm like, what do we need right now? Do I need to shift my position? Is an all I need? Do I need to curl up in a ball? Do I need to you know, what are the things you need to do to welcome that part in or it could be just purely metaphorical like, oh, right, all of my parts belong in here. And that's the whole point is, all of your parts are welcome inside this force field. And then we're gonna sit with that for just a few moments. What does it feel like for everything, every part of you to be fully surrounded? And then that's gonna bring us to the end of that one. Usually, there's a little more graceful exit, but we're on a podcasts. So you know. Any thoughts, Elizabeth?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That one feels hard.
Larissa Parson:It is hard.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah. I think we talked briefly about the idea of titration and I wonder if it might be helpful for some people if this feels hard and big and just like, I can't quite put my hand around it in some way, which is the way it feels for me.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:...if it might be possible to do it and to choose a really innocuous piece of ourself
Larissa Parson:Yes!
Elizabeth M. Johnson:...on our body, like my feet? Yes, you know, and start there, and then maybe build off over time, until your whole body is in your love bubble, or until your whole spirit or something like that. Because it feels very, very big.
Larissa Parson:I totally understand that. And I really appreciate that. So, yes. Sometimes I like to start off with like, what feels neutral to you? . So like the nose, your ear lobes, unless you're wearing these big old clunky headphones over your ears, your ear loves usually feel pretty neutral. So sometimes you can start your love bubble there and radiate it out. Or you can just start with like, instead of going to a whole love bubble, maybe you just tune into a part that feels neutral to good neutral to good, like on that spectrum. Maybe there's a part that feels really good. And then you radiate that feeling out a little bit from that part, as far as feels good. So that's like that titration like that slow building up toward a bigger thing. Yeah, I think that's a great idea, Elizabeth, and I'm gonna start thinking about how to cue that more often. Thank you.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I feel like this is one of these things where you really want to set people up for even the smallest amount of success around. So it feels like okay, "I want to try that." So it's titration again. So I come to one support group and it went okay, and I've given myself permission to leave early if I want to and come later. Then I'm like, "that feels good. I might come next week, " You know, that kind of little bit at a time. For some survivors it might feel like, "I am so out of touch with my body. Yes, that I cannot quite identify a piece that feels even neutral." But then if there's a prompt, like you said, elbow or tip of nose...Okay, that's actually not a piece that's dealing with chronic pain or tha I feel
Larissa Parson:Absolutely. frustrated or anxious about. Yeah, so yeah, that's great. Thank you. Yeah, the tip of nose is a really good one. Very rarely is the tip of my nose feeling weird or funky. My jaw, like, start getting to the jaw and you're like, oh, no, no, no, no, no, I don't want to go there. No, thank you. That's not
Elizabeth M. Johnson:No I can't imagine him saying that. so good. And so yeah, titrate that make it smaller. That's, that's part of why actually also, I love the idea of like an amulet or something that's kind of within that's radiating out, because then it can kind of be this very small thing that doesn't actually have to cover your whole body, and it can be just this little piece of you that is feeling that feeling. And then that makes it a little bit easier to access the feeling, even if the whole rest of your body doesn't feel like it belongs to it. Okay, so the last thing we're going to do is a, it's really a self soothing method. Resmaa Menakem talks about it in My Grandmother's Hands. I also learned it from Jane Clapp, and bazillion other places as well. I can't possibly name every person I've learned this from. But those are the two that just popped into my mind. So this third one is touch. Because sometimes we forget we have a body. And I want to make sure that this is really that we're really clear, you get to touch whatever parts of your body feel right to touch. So my favorite is actually to rub your hands together, as if you're putting on lotion. Because and specifically just like or as if you were trying to warm them up or anything like that. So just touching your hands and moving them together can be a very nice, self soothing activity that again, you can do on a zoom call, and nobody can see you. But you get to remember that you have a body. And that if that feels okay, and you're not on a zoom call, where people are gonna think you're weird for doing it. You can add touch to whatever part of your body feels okay to touch. So again, your elbow might be the place that you want to touch,. You might want to rub your forearm. I really love using a massage ball or my hand and rubbing my chest. But that may not feel like a super accessible area I like like right under the collarbones is my favorite place to go because there's often a lot of tension there. But even just touching your forearms. I do a lot of, if I'm sitting, I do a lot of stroking my leg when I'm on calls and feeling like I just need to be in touch with my body. So that's the third practice is really just touch your body. Say hello. It's gentle. We want to be mindful and gentle and not forceful, and not touch anything that doesn't want to be touched. So what feels neutral? Maybe it's touching the tip of your nose. Maybe it's crossing your arms. Maybe it's letting yourself lean into your defensive posture a little bit and feeling how and why that feels secure. Oh, that feels really good to cross my arms. And just that that touch of your own hands on your own body saying this is mine. That's what we're doing with that. That's not what Resmaa says. That's what I am saying. That's my take on that.
Larissa Parson:He would not say that. That's not what he's saying. But the rubbing of the hands together. Yes, is the self soothing thing. But I'm like, oh, no, this is my body. I get to touch it, where I want to, when I want to, how I want to. It belongs to me. And I know that Elizabeth is gonna say that's really challenging.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Um, well, gosh, I feel like I need to rise to a challenge.
Larissa Parson:You don't need to.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Well, what I'm thinking is I love that because it is entirely within our control. So as I chime in from like the Greek chorus of trauma survivors on the side
here:this will be hard for some of us.
Larissa Parson:Yeah.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:And it's another "yes/and". And this is a great tool for us, y'all. Those of you out here who have been had control taken away from them in some capacity before now is this opportunity that Larissa has given us to reassert control within our own self on our own body on our own terms. And this is a really beautiful gift we can give ourselves. You decide when and where, you know, like all of those public service announcements out there, "I get to choose". And that's right. And here's a way for us to do this. This is a great, you know, if anyone's ever anyone's been in that space and heard "what about a massage and some self care!" and that can feel absolutely horrifying for some trauma survivors. Yep. And here's a way to get used to the idea to introduce the idea of what it means to touch yourself in a non-sexual way, in a way that you get to make choices around that could feel very empowering. So I love this tool, tip.
Larissa Parson:I love that I thought you were gonna find this really challenging. And you're like, "No, I love this actually".
Elizabeth M. Johnson:I think it might be challenging. Yeah, it might be. But I also feel like in some ways, it's actually more accessible than the love bubble. Because it's really, again, a small bit with lots of choices around it, which I think is really helpful.
Larissa Parson:Mm hmm. I can totally see that. Mm! So I'm feeling like, I need to discharge a little bit of energy, personally. So I'm just gonna shake my hands. I'm gonna invite if anybody else is like,"whew some of that was really hard", then give yourself permission to oops, not shake your mic off. But give yourself permission to shake or wiggle. I like to rock back and forth a lot. Whatever your body needs to do to feel a little bit more like, Oh, hey, I'm okay now. Right now. I'm back in my little space, maybe orient a little bit, maybe I fele my feet on the ground. We're wrapping things up. So how do we get ready to move on? Okay.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Good transition.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, I just needed to like, take a breath. That's another thing we can do is give ourselves permission to breathe. I have a list. That's like 20 things long, and some of them are more accessible, and some of them are less accessible. So let's sum up. How do we come home to our body? We unpack the nesting doll. We do it with a sense of curiosity. Is there any part of me that doesn't feel right, right now, in this context? Is there a part of me that feels good or neutral right now? So we do that curiosity. And we look really carefully like, is this me or is this ableism? Is this me or is this racism that's making me feel not at home? We take pleasure and joy. We didn't talk a lot about that during this episode. But I feel like in many other episodes, we've talked about that. So we lean into the good feelings, because we, again, are sitting in this nesting doll of bad feelings. And it's okay to have the bad feelings. We just need to recognize which ones belong to us and which ones don't - which ones are not ours to hold on to. So we lean into the pleasure because we know that's ours. As we start to feel more at home in our bodies, we start to realize that our bodies are maybe more like our right people, or maybe we stick with right relationship for a while. Body neutrality. Maybe we're kind of like, okay, I'm not delighted to have a body today. And that's okay. And I think that part of coming home is recognizing when you're like, Oh, the stairs need replacing. Or I could put a new coat of paint on this. Or... That doesn't mean that you need to change your body just that like oh, it's not feeling that way that I want it to feel right now. So I think a new coat of paint is actually a much better metaphor for this. Because you could throw a new coat of paint on basically anything and it'll look better. And that might be just like a different mindset shift is your new coat of paint. It's not like my body needs to change. Your body doesn't need to change. And when we start feeling at home in our bodies, we start feeling from time to time, kind of like health and metaphors are many today. The simile in this case. We feel kind of like Goldilocks finding the just right porridge. It's not too hot. It's It's not too cold. It's just right. It doesn't mean that it's not too hot, some days not too cold other days, it means that right now it's just right. And that just right feeling is something that everybody deserves to have. So when we can stop being overwhelmed, distracted, caught off guard, by everything, just making a big gesture with my arms, like all the things that keep us away from our bodies. If we can step away, push that stuff to the side a little bit a little more often, then we can kind of go well, hey, this is for everyone. It's not just about me. So coming home to your body is a sense of body liberation, a sense of freedom from those systems. Even while those systems continue to exist, however, we're trying to make them not exist, the more of us who can feel like, Hey, I've got a body, and it's okay to have a body. And it's okay to be in my body, just as it is. The more of us can say, well, how come our system thinks it's not okay to have a body? How come it's not okay to give women health care?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Or what about those people over there?
Larissa Parson:Sorry, people have uteruses. Why is it not okay to have equitable health care for everyone?
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes. Or our incarcerated folks or all of these people across the board? Like, why is it not okay for*them*? What about them over there? Are they not like me? Because we do all have bodies? And it's okay to have all those bodies.
Larissa Parson:exactly.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That's a fabulous sum up. And I want to just add, the one piece of this is the thing that we take bit by bit by bit with titration. You can start small, we can start. Anytime we start on our terms. And we go at the pace that works for us.
Larissa Parson:Yeah, always at the pace that works for us. It may be that we come to the systemic problems realization before and start wanting to make change in that direction, before we feel fully at home in our bodies. Because, again, it's the water we're swimming in. It's the nesting doll we're in. We are still getting the messages, the messages are still coming. So you might be able to bounce them off your love bubble some days, but some days they're gonna get through. And just recognizing that oh, this is one of those times when all of that new year, new you marketing is working on me. Just being able to say oh, hey, that's diet culture. That is part of the process.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yes. Fabulous. Thank you for all of that Larissa. There's a lot that we've covered and we will add all of these references into the show notes. And welcome your thoughts and comments on any of this and what's worked for you. There's a lot of pieces here, which I'm just really excited about.
Larissa Parson:How did we talk for so long and Elizabeth? I don't know. I was like, this is gonna be the really shortest episode we've done.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:and it probably is not. No, and this is a nudge that we will be wrapping up with what we're eating this week. And it is Thursday as we're recording this so I know that Larissa says excited about her CSA I'm not gonna say anything else about that. I am going to say because I don't know what's in that and it's always a delight to hear what she finds. Um, I'm going to say that what I am eating this week is I do have some things coming from Strong Arm on Saturday which I'm really excited about. I also --thinking ahead because I two things-- I have bread coming tomorrow from Ninth Street Bakery we have our lovely little delivery that comes on Fridays. I don't know what's coming in addition to the baguette that is coming and I am still going to go get some cheese and do that with a bread. And I'm making some soup this weekend because now it's cold. I made a really beautiful roasted butternut squash and apple soup that I gave some away to yesterday I still have some for lunch. So I'm looking forward to having that. So I have a yummy kind of mixed hearty bag of food coming my way on many levels that I'm excited about.
Larissa Parson:That all sounds so delicious. And a little bit jealous of your Ninth Street bakery delivery. I'm not gone lie.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:It's fantastic. We get the baguette and then I can freeze it or I can give it away because it is two loaves of bread. So that's Bread. But yeah, it's wonderful.
Larissa Parson:That's super. Okay, so I'm gonna go back to what I talked about at the beginning, actually, because I know the croissant... I have brussel sprouts coming in my CSA, I'm pretty sure. And so I'm looking forward to posting some of those. But the croissant. So I had this lovely experience. Boy, let me just tell you that coming home to your body sometimes feels like noticing when your feet hurt a lot. I walked so much when I was in DC- so much. And I'm just like, oh, I need different shoes for walking in cities than I have right now. That's information. Anyway, so I took a walk yesterday morning with my brother's partner. She and I walked you know, it's like, a quarter mile or something. And then we walked for like two miles or three miles, we walked a lot after that. But we walked up to a cafe that is just a couple blocks from my mom's house or three or four blocks from my mom's house. And I had this lovely latte with like a pump of vanilla syrup in it and an almond croissant. And what was so delicious about this is that my my friend Danielle, my brother's partner was like, Oh, I always did my croissants and in my coffee, and I was like you do what? She said I dip them. And I was like, really? Tell me more. Let me try this. So we sat outside. And I broke off little pieces. I dipped it in the coffee. You know, I've done this with biscotti and stuff like that. Cookies, you know hard things...
Elizabeth M. Johnson:That's exactly right. Yes.
Larissa Parson:Never thought to do this with something soft and pillowy. And it was just - it melts. It gets this coffee. And you get the sweetness, and then it melts in your mouth. And these were really, really good croissants. They were just fresh. They were kind of warm. Just delicious. So that is the food experience that I'm dwelling on today.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Oh, yeah.
Larissa Parson:And thinking how can I replicate this in my life more often? There was an outside cafe area so we could sit outside and eat.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah, that's a tricky thing here, isn't it? The outside seating space that feels safe to sit at. And we still don't seem to quite have that. Loaf has those really good almond croissant? I have not had one in a really long time, I have to say, but I have had them (n the past) and they're delish. So you can try to replicate it somehow.
Larissa Parson:I see. All right. I think I need to take like a midday walk over there sometime then.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Yeah. With just the right shoes.
Larissa Parson:Just the right shoes, or just walk more so that my feet get more used to walking. It's both it's both it's a yes, and. It's like yes, get some different shoes. But also I haven't been walking a lot because of you know, recovering from surgery and whatnot. So, yeah. There we go.
Elizabeth M. Johnson:Well, thank you all so much for being here with us. Please consider sharing Wondermine with a friend or writing a review for us on however you're listening to your podcast. That helps people find us.
Larissa Parson:And you can follow us in between episodes@wonderminepodcast on Instagram. And we will be back next week with our last episode. Thanks, everybody.
