As the world has now been in social/physical isolation for an extended period of time, I wonder how we’re all doing considering the levels of touch we’re either over or under-receiving.
Touch is how our nervous systems first connect with our caregivers as babies. It’s our contact with the outside world. It’s such a rich and distinctive form of awareness that without it we’d be spacially lost. It’s also a major connective tool for us as community-oriented beings. Levels of intimacy via touch are so important that there’s even a word for feeling touch-starved: “skin-hunger.”
In Chinese medicine we say that the skin and body hair are controlled by the lungs. Just as the lungs are in charge of the intake of oxygen from the outside world, our skin and body hair have a great deal of contact with our external environment. In fact, the skin is one of our first alerts to changes in said environment, whether it be a goose-bump from a shift in temperature or arm hair standing at attention to the slightest threat of danger. It’s also no coincidence that grief, or sadness, is the emotion of the lung/skin/body hair complex. Sadness inevitably takes over when we don’t receive skin contact, or when the energetic boundaries of our skin-covered bodies is poor, for a long period of time.
As we age out of our baby brains and tendencies toward youthful texture exploration, we train ourselves to expect the world around us to be as we already know it. Fascination falls away and the world becomes mundane. But it doesn’t need to be that way. In fact, our sense of touch is a profoundly healing perception tool when we choose to use it wisely.
The sensual nature of touch, when activated with full awareness, is one of the quickest ways to down-regulate (calm) the nervous system. It can be a useful way to train the brain to highlight things that feel pleasurable in the body - offering a respite from pain, both emotional and physical. We also know that touch can be both a receiving mechanism and a giving mechanism. If we can provide what touch brings to someone or something else, we can also gain from experiencing it in the other direction.
Take a moment today to check in to touch. If you’re feeling over-touched by children or a partner, ask yourself if you’re giving more than receiving. Notice if you could shift the perception of giving to receiving in your mind whenever touch is happening. If you feel you’re not receiving enough touch, perhaps shift your tactile awareness to the mundane objects you thought you knew, to enlighten your experience of touch.
Touch is my favorite sense, so of course I’m super excited to be offering a free Self-Healing Touch Workshop next week (details below)! Touch invites us to delight the mind and the body in the offerings of the outside world in such a particular way that very few other things do. Learning how many different ways you can touch and be touched is more than just healing - it’s mindfulness in action. It’s a reclamation of the explorative mind. It’s the active process of re-learning how to be alive.
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happenings
Free Self-HealingTouch Workshop!
Saturday, May 9, 10 AM Pacific Time
Craving touch in this weird quarantine time? Or maybe you're feeling "over touched" by kids or partners? Perhaps you're simply looking for new experiences to reconnect with yourself...
Join me on Zoom for 1 hour of somatic touch-based practices to get you back in touch with... touch! I'll be leading a deep embodiment meditation followed by sense orientation and movement to recalibrate what touch means to your body.
Don't worry, this workshop is rated PG and perfectly friendly to anybody who desires to join. Sign up below and make sure you read the follow-up email as attendance will require some household objects for exploration!
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because I’m feeling extra
Embodied Birthday Dance Playlist
Because today’s my birthday…
I wanted to spread some embodied dance vibesssss!
Feel your body.
Every inch.
Thank you for being alive with me.
xo~
m.