Neurodivergent people often do not feel good in their bodies, and it can be easy to believe that this is inevitable. But is it? Here are some practices to help you feel better more often. When was the last time you felt good in your body? Can you remember? Has it been a while? Being in pain tends to be much more memorable, and even if you don’t live with chronic pain, you may be living with chronic sensory discomfort, anxiety or a heightened sense of threat. But thanks to neuroplasticity, the more often the brain gets these unpleasant sensations, the stronger those pathways get reinforced in the body. This is why it is so important to actively counter those painful/uncomfortable signals—you don’t want them taking up any more real estate in your body than they already do! One way to do this is through meditation. This is a very specific kind of mediation where you try to remember a time that you felt really good in your body. You bring that memory to mind, and then you try to really feel that memory in your body. What were the smells? What did it look like? What were the textures? For me, I love to recall being in the Burren in Ireland. I have Irish roots, and there is no other place on earth I feel quite so at home. It is a strikingly unique place—unusual formations of rocks as far as the eye can see, and a stunning array of wild flowers bursting out of those rocks, as diverse and unexpected as you can possibly imagine. It is a wide, open place, a wild place, but also a subtle place. Tiny little details you have to be looking for or you would miss entirely. It anchors you deeply to a forgotten past, a past that predates humanity. It is vast. It is profound. My two most memorable trips to the Burren were the ones when I went there as soon as got off the airplane. Airplanes are hard for me. I am a bit claustrophobic and I have chemical and sound sensitivities and I can’t sit still or sleep on a plane. On one of those trips, we had been preparing for takeoff from JFK and something prevented us from leaving the ground for what felt like an eternity. The engines were going full force, and the smell of exhaust filled the plane and gave me a vicious migraine. I started to have a panic attack because I could not get out and it seemed insane that we were all having to breathe that in for so long. But of course, the plane did finally take off, and it did eventually land in Shannon, Ireland. From there, it’s just over half an hour to the Burren. And suddenly I was free! Just get out of the car…step into the Burren…and get lost there for as long as you please. This is not just your everyday kind of free, but the deep freedom of the soul when it suddenly finds itself in the best place on earth. What a contrast. There is a meditation practice called Tonglen that reminds me of this Burren experience. There are different ways of doing Tonglen, but perhaps the most common is to think of the pain of others as you inhale and send out compassion/lovingkindness in your exhale. Your breathing becomes a type of filter that transforms the suffering into something beautiful. As someone who has trouble shifting gears, I find Tonglen a challenging practice and can often not do more than 3 complete breaths. I just can’t get my brain to do that transformative work so quickly. But I do think that’s all the more reason to practice it—that tendency to ‘get stuck’ in a certain head space is part of what can prolong pain and discomfort in my life. So sometimes I will imagine the horrible feeling of being stuck on the airplane on my inhale, and then being in the Burren on my exhale. That meditation is about practicing shifting gears. But if I just want to meditate on feeling good in my body, I may focus solely on conjuring up the memory of what it felt like to be in the Burren. I may imagine that the forcefield of energy around me is made up of the Burren, so that I am in fact bringing the Burren with me everywhere I go. It is my strength, my power, my hidden magic. If these kinds of meditations are new to you, no worries! It isn’t something you have to do for a long time. Even if you can just take 5 minutes, it can be enough. What is most important is that you are really able to conjure up what it felt like in your body when you felt really good. You find that moment, and you savor it. Over time, it gets easier to return to that place, for it to really feel like you rather than an isolated memory. So find your moment, relive it, and embrace it as often as possible. Neuroplasticity may be responsible for reinforcing our pain and discomfort over time, but it’s a two way street. Remember how it feels to feel good, and the desirable pathways will get reinforced instead. Would you like these posts delivered directly to your inbox each week? Subscribe for free on Substack: arikarapson.substack.com
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