It was the 1990’s and I was crammed into a tiny Fiat 500, somewhere in Berlin, Germany. (Let’s say the Fiat was red, just for fun!)
I’d been moving around a lot by then. And the young Colombian man who was squeezed in next to me was asking all kinds of questions about how I got there, in this toy-sized vehicle, from America. I summed it up by saying, I had a “culo inquieto.” Loosely translated, it means a restless ass. He laughed in shock, more at my language than at my life style. (I’d been living in Spain for a few years by then and had completely lost my Colombian refinement when speaking Spanish.)
Staying put was never easy for me. I was often in one place, while pining for another. Splitting myself in two, putting my hopes on the the future, waiting for something to be different. This left me unsteady and chronically nervous.
Over the years, I’ve had to learn to un-split myself, to inhabit where I am and stop waiting. COVID-19 is asking us all to do this on levels previously un-imaginable. To inhabit where we are despite our fears and uncertainty.
So how do we do this? How do we shift from waiting for what’s “supposed to be” to fully inhabiting what is, with all its discomfort? How do we heal this split?
The quickest way I know is to become physical. To drop deeply into the body, feel where you are, and sense what is. And this includes feeling frustration, heartbreak, aloneness and uncertainty, and letting it all flow through you.
And when it does, everything changes.
When you inhabit where you are, in your body, your creativity comes alive, space and options open up, unexpected interactions come your way. Life pulsates all around you, again.
If you’re ready to inhabit where you are, here’s a short, playful, guided practice that’ll quickly drop you into your body, energize your legs and quiet your mind.