I woke up but kept my eyes closed. I felt the way that my sheets felt on my body. I noticed what my toes felt like on the right foot versus the left. I moved my fingers across the sheets and noticed how it felt. I brought my awareness to my shoulders and noticed the tension that I was holding. As I noticed the tension, I felt it relax and felt my body take a deep breath.
I slowly opened my eyes and noticed what it felt like to be opening them. They still felt heavy and not ready to be open. I fluttered them shut again and gave myself a couple of more moments to rest in my bed. The next time that I opened them, it felt good to open them. I was ready to meet my day.
I quietly slid out of bed and noticed the way that my legs slid across the sheets. Then, I noticed how it felt for my feet to make contact with the hardwood floor in my bedroom. I wiggled my toes against the floor.
As I walked out of my room, I was met by some of the cats in our home. I smiled and said good morning on my way to the bathroom. They followed me in and I patted them while I went pee. I walked out of the bathroom and put down food for them before heading down the stairs.
When I got downstairs, I opened the doors onto the porch and felt the breeze meet my body. I closed my eyes again and stood there feeling the freshness that the morning air offered me. The cats who were sleeping on the porch stretched before jumping down from their sleeping spots and entered the home.
I used to miss all of these moments. I used to be so deeply in my mind that I missed most of my own morning. I used to be so caught up with what was happening in my head and all of the steps of my day that I wasn’t present with the life that I was living, the body that I am in. I think back about just how much of this beautiful human experience I have missed because I was in my head and not in my body.
My body hasn’t always felt safe to be present with. In fact, my body felt unsafe more than it felt safe, which is why I lived in my head. Doing the somatic work to regulate my nervous system and feel safe in my body allowed me to actually experience all of the human experience. We are so much more than our mind; this human experience is so much more than our mind.