I am.
Two of the most powerful words.
For what you put after them… shapes your reality.
This concept of The I Am… has been dancing with… and floating around me… for a while now.
It started a few months ago as I listened to a Podcast of a talk that describes the power of I am… from an Eastern mystical angle… beginning with the idea that all knowledge starts with… I am.
This link between the I am… and the knowledge I have picked up… absorbed… been encouraged to accept… that I have gained through my own self aware experience… is not letting me leave these choppy waters… this dance floor… so this writing aims to help me feel my way through what it means to me… how I describe myself… and how I respond to being the I that I am.
Earlier today… someone shared a traumatic experience with me.
They told me that they were aware they had been messed up… hurt… invaded… (they had lived through a colonisation situation where they grew up)… had lost family members who were imprisoned and other loved ones who were murdered.
They said they knew that there were parts of them that were fucked up… they knew they had been fucked up… but they also knew that there was joy in today for them… as long as they stayed present with what there was here and now. I was quiet after hearing this… I needed to take a few moments to consider this before I could respond… and once I had taken those moments… said out loud;
“Thank you for sharing all of this with me”
It brings me valuable ways to understand the difference between… I was fucked up… and I am fucked up.
So my first knowledge… my first understanding of the idea that I existed as an individual… that I could do something and it had an impact… was…
I am.
Not sure whether I developed this within the womb… as I know my senses… my ability to feel… my motor skills that enabled me to hold myself if scared developed while I was in the womb… or whether it was in those first few months after being born… as I realised that I could choose to move my hand towards something and grasp it… I could make choices… and when I realised this… when I used this to get hold of what my attention… my curiosity… was drawn towards… on some level… I understood… I Am!
The beginning… and the end of of knowledge… I am… or I am not… a simple binary… until I confuse myself with feelings of… am I when asleep… when under general anaesthetic…when inebriated on drugs and or alcohol… when not present with myself… or another person?
And the big one… after my body ceases to function… am I?
What I know… is that as I sit here and type these words… I am… my sensual experience… the feelings that my body holds and shares with my brain… informs me that I am making choices… I am choosing these words… I am conscious of these keys on this keyboard… and the contact between my sitting bones and this chair… of the slight dampness of the air on this misty early autumn morning… I am experiencing all of this… I am.
So today after hearing of the awful challenges that someone shared with me around their managing the trauma of colonisation and repression… I understand that I… too… have been fucked up… I have also fucked up others.
These situations have happened at different times… in different places… at different levels of intensity… and I now choose to say… with confidence and quiet strength… I am not fucked up.
Not as long as I am here now… and I am… and writing this brings me here… now.
As do many of the somatic practices that I have learned… experienced and developed… they keep me here and now… and create the space for me to say… I know who I am.
And all of this… brings me to feelings of… what do I have to offer… what have I got that I can offer… to myself… and to others?
Over that last week… I realise that I have been deep into my practices… including a weekend retreat doing Qigong and breathing exercises… swimming in a river and an indoor pool… yoga sessions… a very welcoming and warm local community meeting around our civil rights… where I was the only white person in the room of 15 people… and deep conversations with others sharing their deepest thoughts and feelings around who they are.
All this… opening… moving… feeling… left me exposed… but I pushed that to one side… until…
Yesterday evening after holding different poses for several minutes each… in a Yin Yoga session… I noticed tears… and realised they were mine… we were working on opening hearts and hips… and it felt so exposed… so raw… impossible to ignore my sensitive and delicate relationship to the depth of feelings that are held… stored… and experienced… in this existence of I am.
The room was dark… only lit with a few candles… and… as I felt embarrassed at my tears quietly falling… as I stayed with these feelings… the dark held me… while my open hips and heart flooded me with old tricky… sticky… emotions and feelings…and I breathed… and I smiled as the taste of these warm salty tears made their way down my face and touched my lips.
I found jewels in all of these activities… these somatic experiences… and these are the three jewels that I found… am using now… and am offering to you as well;
Refuge.
Where do you… me… us… we… find refuge if not within our selves and in each other?
Here… together… we can experience and feel… we are… you are… and… I am.
Guidance.
The river… the skies… the woods I walked through on my retreat… those people who share their lived somatic wisdom with me… guide me towards this understanding of… I am.
Liberation.
From needing to know… from seeking… from grasping… leaving me free to explore my own being… my somatic wisdom.
Free to acknowledge the messiness that has sometimes left me drowning and gasping… while also free to see those challenges as making me what I am here… in this refuge from those storms… with these wonderful guides… in nature… in person… in spirit… in… I am.
So I continue to define the I am… with each conscious choice that I make… with each person that I engage with… with each sun rise and sun set… and I offer refuge… guidance… and the possibility of liberation… to all those people I live… love… and work with. This… is who… and why… I am.
Thanks to you for reading this… and I offer it in trust that it may stir some feelings within you that open up new opportunities for reflection and understanding… thanks to all those people… teachers… friends… clients… and lovers… who have supported me… offering refuge… guidance… and openings that lead to liberation.
