Release Tension From Your Body

In this session we introduce the poem ‘Broken Pottery’ as a lead into to a body scan – the goal being to identify and release tensions in the body and capture the feelings and emotions upon the page. This process will lead to deep insights and evocative poetry and ultimately peace. This track is taken from my course, ‘Finding Peace Through Poetry’, available now via my profile.

Transcript

There are parts of me that want to speak,

But I don't know,

I can't think,

That doesn't feel right,

I don't know,

Can I have another bite?

It's funny,

When I was young I would sacrifice my meal,

I had a little serving and my brother was there and he was looking,

So I gave it to him,

Leaving me with nothing,

But now I'm still holding that nothing,

A plate of nothingness,

While my brother's got everything.

I see him there,

I see him holding,

I see him consuming,

My mother's attention,

My mother's love,

The part of her that I wanted into his cup that's overflowing.

My cup's empty,

My cup's broken,

But then I look over and see his cup,

And his cup's open,

It's porous,

It's flying,

And I'm like,

Maybe I could bring my cup and his cup and place them together,

Healing,

Uniting,

Connecting,

But that requires more of me,

More of he,

More of we,

Together,

But our past pulled us apart,

So maybe to fill that gap I express myself with this art,

And I see the art in him and he sees the art in me,

But maybe there's a togetherness of a space where we can be,

Be together and be free,

Two pieces of broken pottery.

So that poem,

Two Pieces of Broken Pottery,

Directly relates to the activities that we're going to be looking at today,

And is also an extension of the previous activity.

There are parts of us internally,

Parts of us in our bodies that hold onto tension,

Holds onto past memories,

Holds onto feelings and emotions,

And these parts of us are prime real estate to investigate and to release.

If you can access and identify and release those feelings through poetry,

You will find peace.

Now,

What we did yesterday,

This idea of the writing therapy,

You know,

Doing the five or so minutes of getting the words onto the page,

Then identifying the overarching meaning,

And then taking that meaning and sort of looking for a poetic expression of that meaning.

That's sort of one way to approach this.

That's one way to use sort of poetry going from the global to the minute and then expressing it.

And I encourage you to go down that path if it serves you,

Because remember the overall goal of this course is to get you writing,

Or rather,

To get you writing and then attaining peace.

So you do whatever works for you.

But another approach is to use those same skills in combination with a body scan.

The idea of rather than just allowing ourselves to conceptually or internally or mentally express,

We're going to be searching our body instead.

Now the idea or the sort of back end of this comes from the interplay between body scanning,

Vipassana meditation,

And poetic expression.

So what we do is,

With our pen and our paper,

Just take a seat and take a couple of slow deep breaths in through the nose and out through the mouth,

And just settle into the session.

And what we're going to be doing is just scanning the different parts of our body for as specific an emotion,

Feeling,

Or memory as we can.

And when we hit upon an emotion,

Or memory,

Or feeling,

Or any other poignant thing that you feel needs to be written down,

You just jot that down on the page.

So for my example,

With the broken pottery poem,

There was a feeling of love,

Of connectedness,

Of a lack of connection,

Of pottery,

Of my brother and my mother,

And of jealousy.

All of these feelings and some of the other themes and words that are expressed in the poem were found within my body.

As we go through this body scan,

As we go down through the body,

We're just looking to see what's being held there.

It might come across as a physical feeling,

Or a mental feeling,

Or an emotion,

Or a tension,

Or something like that,

But whatever it is,

Our goal is to just be there for it,

And to capture it upon the page.

So let's take another breath,

In through the nose,

And out through the mouth,

And just begin.

Start by drawing your attention to your head,

And any feelings,

Or emotions,

Or memories,

Or thoughts,

Or moods that arise,

Just notice them.

We're not attempting to change them,

Or to shift them,

Or to do anything with them,

Other than just notice what is arising.

And if there's something poignant,

Something specific,

Something strong,

Feel free to just place it there upon the page.

There are no wrong answers with this one.

It's just getting an overall feeling of what's happening inside your body.

Placing those feelings upon the page,

And by doing so,

Hopefully learning a little bit about ourselves,

Potentially even releasing some of the tension.

Just moving your attention down to your neck,

And your shoulders.

And once again,

Just feeling what's coming up for you.

I'm just taking this moment to note down the more poignant,

More powerful feelings that are coming up.

I'm now shifting down to your arms,

And your hands.

When you shift,

You might feel compelled to release,

As your awareness touches different parts of your body.

You might find them just by the mere act of awareness,

Just releasing a little bit,

Just finding peace in these parts of our body.

If that happens,

Just go with it.

Remember the goal of this course isn't really to write,

Isn't really to follow the instructions.

The overall goal of this course is to find peace.

So if at any time,

Once again,

You feel that peace upon you,

Just be with it.

Now move your attention down to your front body,

Your chest,

And your belly,

And your groin.

And just,

Once again,

Feel what's arising.

The thoughts,

Memories,

Moods,

Emotions,

Feelings.

Whatever it is that's coming up,

Just be there for it.

Just taking note upon your page,

Whatever you're compelled to take note of.

I'm now drawing your attention to your back.

Your upper back,

Your lower back,

And your seat.

You might feel tension or nondescript energy.

And if so,

That's okay.

You might do this entire scan and not have any words upon the page.

That doesn't mean you failed.

It's just that you'll have no words to capture today.

And that is also okay.

This idea of a body scan is therapeutic and helpful regardless.

And I finally draw your attention to your legs and to your feet.

There'll be aspects,

Or energies,

Or feelings,

Or memories,

Or emotions that may be present.

Just be aware of them.

Take note of any that feel poignant.

Now we're going to draw our attention to the totality of our body.

And just take a couple of sighing breaths.

Deep and slow.

In through the nose,

And out through the mouth.

And as we're doing that,

Just feeling our totality.

And jotting down any extra words that pop up.

So if you feel compelled to stick with this activity for longer,

Feel free to pause the audio and run through the body scan again.

Just sit with whatever is arising and just taking note on that page of the more poignant,

Prominent,

And important and strong things that are arising.

Just this act alone of drawing attention to the body,

And highlighting it,

And naming it,

Can really help to release some of the pent-up tension and energy in the body.

Then once more,

And as we'll discuss,

These feelings can lead to poignant poetry,

The writing of which can further help in the attainment of peace.

But before we get to that,

I just wanted to touch upon the potential issue of nothing arising.

If nothing arose,

Or if there was confusion,

Or sort of an overwhelm,

A nondescript sort of feeling,

That itself can be used as stimulus to write upon.

The fact that there is this inability to go deep,

The fact that it feels like there's this overwhelm,

This tension.

I almost like,

Or I'm seeing the imagery of a storm.

I guess what I'm saying is that even a lack of a feeling is something to consider talking about,

Is something to investigate into.

It might be that there's so much there that you can't access it,

Or that there is nothing there and it's a numbness.

But either way,

Whether you've got lots of words or none,

The experience of the body scan itself can be discussed.

It can be contemplated,

It can be written upon.

But let's assume that you've got some words on that page.

What we'll do shortly is,

I will pause the audio for a minute,

And we'll just look over those words.

Look for themes,

Look for connections,

Look for overarching feelings and expressions,

Like I did with my poem,

The Broken Pottery poem.

There were themes around love and jealousy and lack and neglect and connection and confusion.

And I sat with those pieces in my mind,

And allowed them to just run and play,

Eventually producing the Broken Pottery piece.

I'm not saying that what you will produce has to be that long,

Or that detailed,

Or that evocative.

Remember our goal isn't to compare or contrast,

It's just to write,

With the goal of obtaining our own piece.

But there will be a connection there.

So I ask you to sit for a minute,

Or longer,

If you need to,

And just be there for it.

Words come,

Write.

And if they don't come,

Just observe and feel.

Because either way,

You're doing it right.

Let's begin.

Okay,

So how'd you go?

As always,

If you need some more time on that activity,

Feel free to pause the audio and continue.

Today we looked at the poem,

Broken Pottery.

We used it as a lead-in to the body scan.

The idea of looking through our entire body,

Part by part,

Piece by piece.

Just allowing our body to speak.

The body holds the score,

It holds tension,

It holds energy.

So by turning the lens of attention towards it,

The light of consciousness,

We can ask it to speak,

To express.

And if we've got a pen and a pad beside us,

We can begin to capture those words.

And the feelings,

And the symbology,

And the meaning behind it,

Can lead to some really evocative poetry.

The writing of which can reveal deeper truths,

And lead to great levels of healing and inner peace.

So I encourage you to return back to this session,

To practice that body scan with writing.

Just allowing yourself,

The next time you go through it,

To just free-float with your body scanning,

And the words will come,

And then you might feel compelled to just fall into more writing therapy,

Or a poem might just fall.

And when that happens,

Capture it on the page.

As always,

I invite you to share what you've written,

If you like,

In the classroom,

Or to ask a question.

Either way,

I'll be there daily to answer and connect.

Until the next session,

Catch up.

This track was taken from the course Finding Peace Through Poetry.

It's out now,

And available via my profile on InsightTimer.

I encourage you to click through and check it out.