What Your Body Knows About Now

Here we go!

Hi there,

What practices help you remember what you know in your bones? And bring you closer to your own truth?

What the Body Knows is one of those practices for me. It begins with gentle, body-affirming movement to help you land in your body, and then we move into a timed writing practice inspired by a poem. If you’re familiar with Curvy Yoga, you can think of this like an extension of that practice. We meet our bodies both on the mat or in the chair (wherever you move your body) and on the page with the same spirit of meeting what is real in this moment, offering ourselves care along the way.

As I mentioned when I announced that this Substack is happening, this feels like a wild time to be starting something new. And this is also a practice that has sustained me personally through so much, that can meet what wants to come forward as you move and write. When it feels like the world wants to disconnect us from our bodies with increasing haste, I believe we deeply need practices that (re)connect us, and this is one of mine. Doing this practice in community is such a salve; it reminds me that others value this, too.

I recently taught my daughter about feeling “nercited” (nervous + excited), inspired by a beloved friend who taught her daughter the same thing years ago. It’s such a human and familiar feeling, isn’t it? That’s how I’m feeling today, but mostly I feel so grateful to get to share this first practice with you here! I’m looking forward to seeing how we find our rhythm.

I say this in today’s video practice, but it bears repeating: the best way to learn about this practice is just to do it. If you want more details about how we practice, I shared some here.

For now, let’s get to it!

Warmly,
Anna

PS. Today’s post is longer than what I expect for future ones. I just want to make sure you have what you need to begin!

You can do the movement portion of today’s practice from standing or seated (chair or ground) or make your own version from lying down. You’ll see this in the video, but I wore jeans just to underline the point that you don’t have to change clothes unless you want to. My hope is for these practices to be as doable as possible!

After you watch the video and are ready to write, set your timer for 5-15 minutes (we usually do 10 when I lead this practice live, but what matters most is that you write all the way through until when your timer sounds because you can’t know what’s only ready to be said once you get to the end unless you do), and then go! Put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard if that’s not available, though I encourage it if it is) and write as quickly as you can, pen never leaving the page. When you come to the end of a thought, simply write the jump-off line again and see where it takes you next. I talk more about all of this in the video!

Some weeks I will share what I write to the prompt for everyone. I’m doing that today because it’s our first practice! I don’t want anyone to feel alone in sharing in the comments. Other weeks I will only share what I write with paid subscribers. It depends on how tender what I write feels to me!

The purpose of this practice is not to write something polished. It’s to hear from your body. I write by hand, but I will type up what I share here (trust me, if I took a photo of what I wrote, you wouldn’t be able to read it!). So while I may very lightly edit it as I type, in general I am committed to sharing what I wrote as I wrote it because this is a practice in not needing everything to be perfect as much as it is anything else.

Okay, here’s what I wrote for this week’s prompt:

Put down the shovel,* even if you feel awkward just standing there, nothing in your hands. A few years ago, after explaining where I was in an ongoing trauma healing process, a friend said “You are really knee deep in shit.” It’s possible she said mud, but I remember it as shit -- both her quote and the experience itself.

I’m not sure I know who I am if I’m not digging in one way or another. Sometimes I have dug toward success, achievement. Other times to the healing I thought I was doing, other times still to the healing I was actually doing. The healing under the healing.

I’ve only been to the Grand Canyon once. I had both a terrible and beautiful experience there. Terrible because the altitude set off a series of very bad migraines. Beautiful because, well, I got to sit at the edge of the Grand Canyon and look down, look out, and feel myself in time.

Some people were not afraid of getting too close to the edge while we were there. I imagine those as people who life has protected from every edge they’ve encountered, at least so far. I know some other people don’t fear the edge because they’ve been not just right up to it but over it and back again.

I respect the edge because I know how quickly it appears, how you think your feet are on solid ground but actually they are on rubble, then air. What I like most is to sit and look out at the horizon. I consider this one of my most fundamental mental health practices and feel myself becoming unwell when I don’t do it often enough.

On one of our days at the Grand Canyon, I saw a sign that told you to look down at the river from where you were standing. Never have I craved geology lessons like I did those few days. The river has carved down so deep here, the sign said, that what’s next is the center of the earth.

It is possible to dig so deep that you find you own center. That is what I’ve been doing, in some ways always and certainly since my daughter was born. I picked up a shovel and started to dig, knowing that if I couldn’t find my center, it would be harder for her to find hers.

I don’t know that I’d say I’m here exactly, in my own center. Certainly I’m not always, though I know I am closer, can locate its outlines. I once heard someone say that maybe what we call a sixth sense is really just having all your senses attuned, listening, creating our own form of echolocation.

I am notoriously bad with directions. If I drive to one place, I would have no way of making my way back. Going does not equal returning. It’s only after I’ve made the journey many times that I feel comfortable glancing at the directions before leaving, then eventually heading out without them. Sometimes I still turn them back on part-way.

I’ve traveled the path I’m on right now many times, and of course I appreciate a spiral as much as anyone. What I’m curious about is what happens when I set it all down, close my eyes, listen, feel, and let myself be found.

*Jump-off line from today’s poem: “Note to Self Above the Paradox Valley” by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

Website: A Hundred Falling Veils (you can sign up here to get a free poem from Rosemerry every day -- highly recommend!) and Word Woman

Most recent book: The Unfolding: Poems (Wildhouse Poetry, 2024).

I am sharing this poem with much gratitude! Many of us have been taught poetry from a great remove, as if each poem is an inscrutable code we must crack correctly. No wonder so many of us feel like we don’t “get it!” All you need to know about the poems I share here is how they make you feel in this very moment.

Also: bonus thanks to

chelsea bird

for designing the beautiful graphics you see here! Highly recommend her work!

When we practice together live, everyone shares what they write. This part can feel scary at first (talk about nercited!), but for many people (myself included), it’s what brings everything together and keeps us coming back. In truth, every part of this practice is my favorite, but this part really brings the practice alive. This is the part that makes me feel full to the brim in the best way.

My hope is that we can bring the best parts of the live class experience alive here for more of us. I would love for you to share in the comments a line or section that has life for you from what you wrote or the entire piece. It’s up to you!

Comments are only for paid subscribers because, well, you’ve been in an open internet comments section before, right? Yikes! So while practice videos are available for free and you’re welcome to do the practice on your own, you’ll need to be a paid subscriber to comment so that we can make this a kind space for everyone to feel comfortable sharing.

Psst: just a reminder that if you’re reading this and you’re a member of Curvy Yoga Studio, you get a paid membership here for free. If you aren’t able to comment when logged in or run into any other issues, just email me and I’ll get you sorted.

What we’re about is encouraging and holding space for each other. I imagine we’ll fine tune these suggestions as we go along, but this is what I have to get us started:

• These types of comments are great:

  • Excitement that we’re getting started!

  • Questions or comments about the practice — how it went, what you felt, what to do when you feel stuck, etc.

  • A line or excerpt from what you wrote to the prompt or the whole thing — up to you!

  • Gratitude for what someone wrote: a simple “thank you” in words or in the form of something like a heart emoji

  • Identifying a line or two that felt alive for you in what someone else wrote. This might look like quoting the line(s) and then saying something like “wow -- I felt this in my bones!”

• These types of comments are not okay:

  • This isn’t a writing class in any traditional sense. It’s a truth-telling, remember your bones, aliveness experience that we create together through poetry, writing, letting our words be heard, and the body. So copyediting, editorial feedback, structural suggestions, etc. on what anyone writes are not part of what we’re up to here.

  • Anything commenting directly on a writer’s experience, such as “I’m so sorry about ___.” This is not because we’re without empathy! It’s because there is power in listening and witnessing and we want each writer to be able to share without needing to manage others’ feedback, no matter how well intentioned. If you feel you must comment on a shared experience, something simple like “solidarity” works.

  • No advice, please! That includes all kinds: “have you tried x supplement for that,” “I did y and it really helped me,” “you should submit your writing to z,” etc.

  • Anything hateful, discriminatory, shaming, etc. I feel like this should go without saying, but since we all know that’s unfortunately not the world we’re living in, I’m saying it. Also, this is a project of Curvy Yoga, so we are for sure a body-affirming space.

Thank you for being here! I’m looking forward to practicing together!