It is December 2015 and I am sitting in a small room at the St. Luke’s Concussion Clinic. I sit in a reclining chair across the room from a woman in her 60s who is speaking to me, saying,“Perhaps there is a place in your body where the ringing is louder and hotter than other places. As you look around inside the body, begin to allow yourself to note where the ringing feels loudest and hottest. And, if it feels right, perhaps just allow yourself to feel deeper into this place, into the ringing, into the heat, making your way into its center. Just feeling. And, then, in your time, perhaps allow your attention to explore the outer edges of this ringing and hot sensation. Where does it begin to change in its felt sensation? Just feeling. Noticing. Staying curious. And when it feels right, perhaps there is a place in your body where there is a sense of quiet; perhaps it is just a place where there is less ringing, less heat, even if just a little less. Perhaps you can look through the body and see what you discover, what you feel. And if you find such place, perhaps you can allow your attention to feel this area, letting go of labels, and just feeling it.”
These were some of the words that Barb, my occupational therapist, used to help me move from trying to fight off the circumstances of life, from seeing my body as public enemy number one, from an endless spiral of anxiety, from intrusive and un-ending thoughts, and instead to feeling the body as it was as I was, to re-establishing connection with my body, to becoming loving presence to my body, to the road to healing.
I will never forget that day. It was the first time that I felt any sort of relief after the brain injury earlier that year.
What stands out to me now is Barb’s gentleness, her warmth, her presence, her genuine curiosity, and her genuine belief that I had an internal compass that would still guide me home if I could begin to see it and pay attention to it again.
This is the power of “perhaps.”
“Perhaps” allows and invites investigation, exploration, curiosity, inquisitiveness. It engages the inner eye. It opens the doors and windows to receive input, to do it in one’s own time, to withhold the need for an answer, to bypass judgment, to leave behind labels for awhile, to simply be with life in an intentional way, open to mystery, open to discovery, open to listen and receive.
The image that is arising is that of going underwater in the Payette Lake with snorkel and goggles and just taking a look at what might be hanging out under the surface.
The lake is different under the surface.
It can be windy and rainy and choppy on the surface, but it only takes diving four or five feet under the water to feel the water cool down and calm down and quiet down.
Instead of looking at the water from above, I am then in the water. Submerged. Surrounded. Immersed.
I can look at life from a surface level, I can create one story after another, I can imagine, I can ruminate, I can try to problem-solve, I can write a book about what might be down under the surface.
But as soon as I give myself permission, or am prompted to by a gifted teacher such as Barb, I get below the surface, I wade in, or I dive in, and I engage the right hemisphere of the brain that is very good at feeling and being, allowing the left hemisphere of the brain that is very good at thinking and doing to deactivate a bit, to take a break, to begin to get really quiet.
The invitation is there every moment. Perhaps there is a place in your body where it is calm and peaceful. As you look through the body, feeling through the body with the spotlight of your attention, perhaps you will notice such a place and feel into it, deeper and deeper, allowing this sense of calm and ease to permeate through the body like the warm light of the morning sun as it crests the horizon, or the feeling of water as you become submerged in it.
Perhaps.
Peace
