The Great Dance
I released a new podcast episode today. Now, this is a big one! It’s one where I take us straight to the heart of my very favorite practice on this Planet Earth.
It’s a game that I just LOVE to play as I put on my trail shoes, pack some snacks and water in my pack, and head out onto the trails. Sometimes I’m out there for an hour. Other times it looks more like after after hour as I move my legs and feet across the dirt and rock and roots and leaves; as I propel my body through the forest or the desert; up and down mountains; dropping down and weaving through the canyons.
Long story short, I just love what awakens in myself when I am in motion out on the land, connecting into nature as I awaken the energies within my own self! Out there, in motion, I feel grounded; I feel joyful; I feel like I am efforting in a way that is bringing me the greatest form of fulfillment that I can embody! I LOVE it!
But it’s only one part of the game.
The other half – another equally important piece of the game! – is what I see being taught quite loudly in our world today: a practice that has shown up here in the west and has immense power for transformation so, naturally, our world is making a lot of noise about it! But within this noise arises a destructive quality of this practice; a destructive quality that manifests when the practice becomes uprooted from the its wholesome nature.
This is to say that what my intention for us, today, is to bring the uprooted version of this practice (what we may speak to as a stillness meditation or mindfulness meditation practice) and to root it back down into greater context that is a wholesome embodiment practice for anyone and everyone.
Mindfulness / Stillness meditation
I started meditating shortly after graduating college. Having devoted years to the study of the mind through an academic and research lens, I needed something to fill the gap in my life (and in my head).
Meanwhile, I was acutely aware that now, as an adult, I would need to be able to face the world and make decisions in a way that no one had really taught me to do! I was fearful. I was anxious. I was overwhelmed.
I was perfectly set up to receive the story that mindfulness (stillness) meditation is exactly what I needed!
Meditation quickly blew my mind in the greatest way possible as I moved into a space of knowing the layers and depths of all the parts of self that no one had ever told me to unravel before! I quickly cultivated a more skillful knowing of my thoughts and actions, and I was grateful to receive a practice that could help me clear out the anxiety and overwhelm that had become deeply problematic in my life.
This form of mindfulness meditation served me for many years. Then shit blew up in my life, in the world around me, and I unknowingly entered into a space of knowing self in far, far deeper depths.
It’s in this space that stillness meditation would leave me – at least for a period of time – so that I could learn a newer, deeper way of practicing.
We are energetic beings. Our bodies are made of a wealth of diversity of cells that each act in their own right, communicating with each other and exchanging resources as they come together to form the physical nature of who we each are. Our cells vibrate with high potency for the teeney tiny specs of life that they are! They radiate energy that is picked up by their neighboring cells, and their neighbors too!
Take a moment to breathe into your chest. Here, you’ll find your lungs, and your heart, and many other tissues that are radiating life force in a way that’s, well, quite impossible to put into words. That’s okay though – I don’t need to write it; I simply ask that you feel it.
We are energetic beings, made up of physical cells that radiate life force and we, as the higher consciousness that encompasses the totality of our physical selves, have a game that we can play.
One version of the game is to sit in stillness, witness the fluctuations that flow through our consciousness, and hold a sort of intention to empty out. After all, our world values clarity, and all that energetic noise within can cloud the clarity that we are seeking as we move through life as this higher consciousness.
Sitting in stillness, can you hold awareness for the fluctuating thoughts and breath, sounds and sensations that move in and out of your consciousness?
And, as you hold this awareness, do you find that the fluctuations fall away into the background as a new sense of peace fills you?
If yes, then beautiful! Honor this practice.
If no (which turns out to be the case for a lot of people!), then we have more to share on this story.
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When my life and the world around me fell apart (hello big breakup and pandemic happening hand-in-hand!), I found myself clinging to my stillness meditation. I didn’t want to feel the waves fear and anxiety that crippled me. I wanted peace; I wanted clarity.
But sitting in stillness, calling upon all that I knew to do to as a skilled meditator, I found that I just… couldn’t!
I could not sit still!
Believe me, I tried. And in this stillness I put forth a tremendous effort to let fall away what I didn’t want to hold in my consciousness. Ah, but this efforting is not the way of a true meditation practice! Something was deeply off here, and I needed a great shift.
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There is not space today to share the full story (that will come in other writings; plus, you can here more on this week’s podcast episode!).
What I do wish to share here is how I completely lost my ability to go within in any sort of meditation practice. My inner landscape became too dark; too fiery. The flames within were all too ready and willing to take over any time I slowed down, closed my eyes, and brought conscious awareness to that which lives within.
The thing is, this experience wasn’t isolated to meditation. I lost this, too, in another favorite space of mine: rock climbing: an arena I was all-too-proud to speak to as a space where I could harness my meditation practice and put it to use to empty my mind and find focused clarity up on a cliff wall!
This is to say, turning my consciousness inward, everything was now just too much! Turning to my breath, I’d become increasingly anxious. Turning my attention to my heart, or spine, or any “physical” part of self, I would become taken over by unpleasant energy and I just couldn’t!
I tried yoga – over and over and over again. I would place my feet on the mat, feel into the sensations in my legs, and find myself burning with unpleasant sensation that took me out of self and racing to be anywhere else!
All-the-while, I’m receiving advice from people around me who are telling me the benefits of meditation. “Katie, you just need to learn to control your breath; to control your thoughts. Just meditate more – everyone is talking about how helpful it is!”
Bull fucking shit.
No. I needed a different path.
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My own embodiment path for healing, joy, and deep transformation
People sometimes tell me (or else, look at me with a judgmental stare while I can read their thoughts) that I am insane for running ultra marathons.
Except, running ultra marathons it what saved my life.
I couldn’t find the answers I needed anywhere! No one could help me cool the flames that ripped through the cells and the channels in my body. No one could help me calm the horrific thoughts that spiraled through my head. The panic attacks were showing up in greater frequency. I didn’t know what to do.
Although, what I did know to do is call on my extreme discipline and love for trail running as I got myself outside to train every single day for the insane event that is a 100 miler.
Each day, I put on my trail shoes, pack some snacks and water in my pack, and head out onto the trails. Sometimes I’m out there for an hour. Other times it looks more like after after hour as I move my legs and feet across the dirt and rock and roots and leaves; as I propel my body through the forest or the desert; up and down mountains; dropping down and weaving through the canyons.
Out here, I find my feet on solid Earth. I ground into this support. I feel her hold me; nourish me.
Out here, I breathe freely as I move my body through space.
Out here, the fire within me is matched by the movement in my legs.
Out here, the terror-filled thoughts fall away as my mind is filled with smells and images of life surrounding me!
Here, in motion, I can hold the BIG ENERGY that tortures me in stillness.
Here, in motion, I can allow that energy to move through me, and to make its way elsewhere.
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You don’t have to be suffering to the degree that I was to benefit from this story.
Really, all I am here to say is that we have got to stop listening to stories about what practices should serve us and how, if the practice isn’t working, we’re doing something wrong.
Embodied living is about being connected to self as we hold awareness for what is alive within; and, as we learn skillful discernment for that which we choose to call into our lives and out bodies.
Stillness meditation practices are useful at the right time. I mean this. I quite literally paused halfway through the writing of this article because my thoughts were getting jumbled; so I went a sat on my meditation cushion for 5 minutes, emptied out my head, called in some healing light from up above, and returned with greater clarity.
Plus, every single day, I have to move my body. The energy in here just gets WILD!
In the linked podcast episode, I guide you through how I play out this practice on the trails, dancing between movement and stillness. I also guide you through the core of what I teach in a yoga practice. It’s the same principle. What matters is that you take it with you into the playgrounds that align with your needs & desires.
