Becoming Friends With Self-Awareness
A mindful breath took me back to the furthest place I've been from home
It’s been a year since my trip to Portugal! This same time last year, I spent two weeks on a road trip with my colleague and buddy João. We started from Lisbon, his home city, and drove south into a seaside town called Sines (the birthplace of explorer Vasco Da Gama, as João comments with pride). We spent a few wonderful days at his uncle’s place soaking the sun and the stretch of coastal beauty. We feasted in culinary journeys and his hospitable uncle (I’m an Alentejo man, and again, with pride!) got me drunk on aguardente (literally fire water) and we sober up with a strong espresso before retiring to bed.
After Sines, we drove north to Serra Da Estrela, Coimbra, and finally Porto.
On the drive up to Serra Da Estrela (the national park with fancy Queijo Serra da Estrela, or goat cheese), we stopped to admire the dramatic view of the valley and the historic villages below.
I stumbled out of the car and fumbled with my Canon AE-1. It’s my first time travelling with an analog camera so I’m keen to capture everything I can. Once I got the quintessential landscape shot, I put the camera back in the car and stood lamely. I’m facing the rocky valley of who knows where. I’m inspecting the scents (like cow poop), the sun on my skin, and the lovely breeze on my cheeks. Suddenly it occurs to me to wrap my arms around myself and take a deep, deep breath.
I hear the footsteps of João approaching, Taking a mindful breath?, he asked.
And my mind clicks, and I say yeah, just taking this in.
For the first time in a year, this memory greeted me as I took the same mindful breaths at home, winding down the day as usual until this scene dropped by for an unexpected visit. Before I knew it, I was smiling ear to ear and I couldn’t help but close my eyes to stay in that memory for just a little bit longer. I felt easier, and for a second I stopped thinking about lockdowns, pandemics & bushfires. There was a renewed sense of hope and optimism for the world, as if everything had been graced with the sun & breeze of that day.
This is not the first time a memory had been prompted through a mundane routine or physical activity. In fact, if I paid more attention to my physiology, it happens all the time. When I go to bed, my dreams from the night before would replay. I’ll see distorted images in my mind and feel strange emotions in my body as I try desparately to connect the visceral to the visual. Often I fail to come up with a complete narrative, but if I’m lucky, the dream from the night before continues as if I’m finishing off a movie.
I’ve been paying more attention to sensations to build up self-awareness, so that I can integrate my reality with my own lived experiences, rather than tainting it with haunting unknowns or traumatising memories. In The Body Keeps The Score, the author reveals that people with past traumas tend to feel desensitised from their emotions because they were once too overwhelming to feel. Once that ‘blocking out’ system is set in place, it takes practice (and therapy) to make your mind listen to your body for what it truly feels.
If an organism is stuck in survival mode, its energies are focused on fighting off unseen enemies, which leaves no room for nurture, care, and love. For us humans, it means that as long as the mind is defending itself against invisible assaults, our closest bonds are threatened, along with our ability to imagine, plan, play, learn, and pay attention to other people’s needs.
📖 The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
Being detached from your body is a peculiar thing. Effects like depersonalisation and dissociation is on the extreme end of not being able to listen to your body. For me, being ‘detached’ meant that I didn’t like to have opinions, had no interest in meeting my own needs, would sacrifice what was mine to make someone else happy, and often felt an undercurrent of anger that I couldn’t identify, like a chip on my shoulder? Unfortunately the resting bitch face is still with me, but I’m getting there.
Between 2019 and 2020, I’ve played lots of games to try to get to know the other half of me again. I introduced new experiences to my body like inversion, throwing clay, floating in a salty water tank, kneading bread, fasting. I don’t do all of those things every day, but I did build up a consistent yoga habit. Yoga has helped me reframe my body as a strong and grounded thing, but I still dip some times. Instead of seeing my past eating disorder as having ‘come back to haunt me’, I have to reframe it as a condition that I can manage because I’m now familiar with how my body goes into self-destruction mode when I don’t meet my own needs. And once you know how your body plays these tricks, you’ll start to listen and go deeper into the message your body is trying to tell you.
If you have a comfortable connection with your inner sensations—if you can trust them to give you accurate information—you will feel in charge of your body, your feelings, and your self.
📖 The Body Keeps the Score — Bessel van der Kolk M.D.
I’m hopeful that on the other side of this coin lies an abundance of love and light that I haven’t been able to tap into. I’m exaggerating, but it’s no secret that none of us are fully alive in our realities. Now that I’m empowering myself to become less self-absorbed (with regressing aspects), what doors do I open for myself? Is it curiousity for other people? Genuine enthusiasm and hope for better things to come? Openness to collaboration and networking with the greater human race? I can unleash my unlimited potential! Awaken the giant within!
Perhaps. Maybe I can tell you more about this before the year ends.
My friend, how are you doing? Have you occupying yourself with any thought experiments lately? Or have you been playing games with your body?
What’s In The Lunch Box
Of course, an assortment of my favourite drink, espresso!
Thank you so much for reading my lunch box. I spend a few hours weekly practising my writing, and lunch box has been a huge indication of progress for me. If you would like to help me move the progress needle, let me know if my writing has resonated with you by clicking on the little heart ♥️ at the bottom!