The Year I laid on the Floor

I sit and write this on December 30th, 2020. It is the first time I have sat down to this blog to write in almost 9 months. To be honest this is the first time my brain has felt clear enough to write something. I am not sure why today and I am not really sure about what…so thank you if you keep reading.

I have started seeing the year end “new year, new you” crap on social media and such for the last few weeks, which always frustrates me as I want to scream into the abyss “you are not broken!!!” And I believe that. We are not broken, and we do not need to be fixed yet if I am being honest this year might have been the year I felt maybe you could break. I start this by saying I live with a shit ton of privilege. I have maintained paid work throughout the pandemic. My family has maintained relative physical health, even though I can see the effects this pandemic has had on all our mental health. We have known people diagnosed with COVID-19 but they have all thankfully recovered. I know that this is not case for millions of people around the world. The devastation this has brought hurts my heart so much that it is hard to put into words and I sit with my privilege in this. I have watched a racial reckoning start with many declaring to learn and do better yet I sit here now months later wondering where a lot of those people have gone. What are we doing in Canada to dismantle the systems of oppression that we as White people have continued to uphold for decades? What am I doing? I have sat with “should I be speaking?” (Maybe why my writers block happened…and I didn’t try to change that) I have sat with “if I am speaking how do I not centre my voice?” (my voice is a dominate voice and it does not need to do the talking) How do I uplift the voices of marginalized folx? (when I have no money to pay guests on my podcast nor do I think I should speak for anyone) I ask all these questions and I still have no answer. I continue to learn and unlearn. I want to share with you that I try not to do harm but realize that I have and will continue to do so. That does not absolve me from anything it is just a fact.

So what have I been doing? Well … laying on the floor….a lot. I caught myself doing this more and more starting about April. I would just lay down. Everything was online for work, my kids were both doing remote learning, in French, my partner was working outside the home at increased hours and there were moments I would just crumble to the floor and breath. There was nothing pretty about it. No yoga mat, no dimmed lights. Sometimes a kid would put their face to mine and say “are you asleep because I am hungry” to which I would mutter “cheesestring”. Sometimes these moments would be seconds other times minutes. They happened in every room of the house and outside on the lawn or the driveway. Sometimes once a day and sometimes more. At first I thought I was odd. That I was breaking and couldn’t even function any longer. But something happened. I noticed that I felt better every time I stood up after laying down. It wasn’t a huge “woohoo I got this” but it was “ok…we can do this”. It was a shift. It was a resource I had never accessed but my body knew. It knew that could not sustain as I was. I noticed I was yelling and crying less (both things were happening at levels I had not experienced before). I noticed that my kids were more responsive because I was calmer. Putting my body on the earth saved me and then I eventually discovered why.

I first heard the term “window of tolerance” this past summer in group supervision with Anna Lutz, RD and Dr. Maria Parades. I had heard it casually mentioned before but really did not understand nor take the time to understand. Super briefly- however I think I will write about it more in the future - the window tolerance is the comfy zone. It is the window in which you are emotionally regulated. You can also be above or below the window (which is where I had been chronically living since March 12th, 2020). Above the window is your fight or flight response. You are hyper aroused, there could be anxiety, outbursts (I was yelling about nothing much), impulsive and other things. You can be below the window- which is the freeze response or hypo arousal. Below the window you can be experiencing withdraw, auto pilot, flat. I found myself experiencing these as well. I do not think I was in the window often, I was above or below and unable to regulate. Yet my body knew. It knew it needed to ground its self. I can honestly say that living with a chronic disease for 20 years has taught me to listen when my body screams which it was. Laying on the floor was moving me back into my window. Our nervous systems are incredible. I have only started tip toeing into this work yet it is nourishing my soul in a way that I had not expected. The links I am seeing between eating or not eating and the nervous system are endless.

I also took a course by Tracy Brown, RD and Fiona Sutherland APD that spent a lot time on this and was blown away. I am once again left with why do we not learn this stuff in our RD training. During the training I found myself thinking of all ways my family has done things to move themselves back into their own windows. I am not a hugger but my kids sitting snuggled up or on my lap grounds me and it has since they were born (side note at the ages of 12 and 9 I realize this is not happening a lot in the next 10 years and maybe why I gravitated to the floor) This happened naturally and intuitively, kind of like the way I think about eating.

We live in a world that tells us not to trust our bodies. That they can not tell us what they need- whether it is food or comfort. But they can. I know that it is not accessible to all but for those of you that are able to hear your body try listening. For me 2020 became the year I laid on the floor. Yes there was so much more- both good and bad- but if I take away anything, it is that the earth can support me and I can find my way back to my window.

Be Unapologetically you while I be Unapologetically Me