by Joey
I’ve recently been contemplating abundance and joy as I feel it through my senses. Smelling life.
The simple truth that in each moment, I truly have everything that I need. This and every following moment of sensuous presence; recharged by my own aliveness.
I’m always arrived, here, feeling rivers of sensation massage my whole body—head to toe.
I notice my own presence thrum deeply within my bones and sinew, like a song that I hear from within.
And then I get pulled into scarcity: the feeling lack, striving, chasing, seeking, searching or not-enough. I feel my body contract and tense. Not-Quite-Right (NQR) sensations bubble up to the surface of my awareness always in these dense moments… it does not last long. I respond almost instantaneously to these implosions. They take me in, I go with them, following the sensations with loving attention. I become an explorer navigating new inner terrain. Willing to get lost.
The NQR sense is calling me back into sensuousness. To soften into who I am, where I am, as I am. A reconnection. A little reminder that there is nothing to fix. I am arrived, here, always.
I’m always precisely where I need to be, learning what I need to learn, growing and evolving into my next version of self. It’s a cycle of life unfolding within and around me. I’m part of it.
So I expand into my fuller radiant self and I breathe a little deeper. The NQR passes and I’m flooded with full body sensation head to toe; the gates of vitality open when I surrender into my body rather than fight myself.
Body scanning for me is not ‘thinking’ about the body. It’s not observing ourselves from a distance. It’s not a mental exercise or an intellectual mishmash of geometric shapes. It’s being inside the inner experience of our sensory landscapes. We go in. We enter our felt-sense entirely. We become life.
The full body vibration ripples freely no matter where I am or what I am doing, when I connect inwards. Joy ripples through my neural synapses because I’m quite content to ‘be’.
The slime-like feel of conditioner against my shoulder as I wash my long hair slowly. I rest into it.
The prickles of sand inside my socks and the dirt under my fingernails from planting seedlings in the veggie box. I marinate in these textures.
The visual mess and vibrancy of chaos that is my kitchen lounge. Everything everywhere and nothing out of place—the scattering of joy upon each food scrap, random paper and soiled clothing that hasn’t yet made it to the laundry. A smile upon my lips.
I ‘see’ the story of preschooler fun written all over the floor: mud, rain, thorns, and spontaneity.
Mystery surrounds me, and mystery is at the heart of it all. Sensual living is a commitment to presence, connection and mystery.
Nothing is prepackaged or certain.
In my Sensing Ground community, we talk about consciously weaning ourselves from our addiction to certainty; we know it’s a trap. An anxious scramble to a destination that doesn’t exist—because we are always here, arrived.
Each breath has a mysterious and joyful quality.
Each sound that falls upon my ears has a mysterious and pretty unfolding melody; bird song, laughter, a child’s defiant scream.
Each touch upon my skin has a mysterious length, firmness and brevity; always shifting, gliding and changing with my own mysterious movement.
Each moment is fresh. New. Unknown. Something to invite in and meet. A living gift to receive and open up towards, to taste it all fully.
I feel utterly full. There is nothing more that I need because I am satiated with beauty. The subtle joy of everything everywhere of which I am a part.
Patterns, colours, textures and music.
Life is art. When I plug into myself, I am free and wild in the most beautiful sense. Connected to the universe within.
And nobody else knows about my sensuous inner life: it’s my secret, for me, moment to moment.
Your sensuous life, is yours.
Stay tuned for more details about Sensing Ground: I am creating something beautiful for everyone who would like to join the sensuous.
by Joey
This blog post traverses some deep and tender edges that are quite common for those with persistent bodily sensations. The very edges of darkness where we feel like life is not worth living anymore. Let’s talk about it.
Please read this knowing that you are not alone, and feeling the intense parts of life is part of reconnecting with ourselves, our body, and our purpose. It all belongs. For 1:1 support with me, you can reach out to me here if you are feeling like co-exploring any of your own edges. There is nothing wrong with you, you do not need fixing and I can support you to feel more equipped and confident with your own inner darkness.
—
Imagine me walking through an arid featureless landscape, alone, no water or food. There is thunder rumbling and lightning bolts shooting closer by the second. The noise is exquisitely chaotic. There is no shelter.
I’m parched, sunburnt and despite pitch-perfect efforting, I’m out of ideas. Lost.
I have no map, no compass, no phone and nowhere else to be except right here, deserted. The darkness closes in. There are no stars, no moon. There is no shape or form at all, anywhere. The atmosphere is thick, dense, and black.
I rest into my breath and body. Heart pounding and every tiny strand of hair raised. I’m naked to the dark world.
I search for a clue, a foothold, a rock, a sign of light, but there is nothing and no one.
The seduction of death sings to me with her lovely hummingbird voice. I want to die and return to the atomic song of oneness; it feels so lovely to rest in the idea of dying.
But I do not die, I keep breathing. Life thrums through me. Sigh.
I’m at another Sacred threshold. I’m asked to choose life, over and over. Again and again.
So I keep doing that. This life gig. It keeps rolling. And I question everything including my own purpose.
Why am I here? What am I contributing to our collective? How can I honour my sense of interconnectedness and live in a world with so many fractures?
It’s hard. It is tremendously lonely in the deep, arid places. And it cycles, over and over. Returning again, to more darkness, year after year.
—
First, suicidal moods are within the healthy scope being human (attempting suicide is an entirely different situation and conversation).
If you experience suicidal thoughts, you are not alone. You, like me, are a deep feeler, exploring the edges of life within your human body. It’s extremely uncomfortable yet safe to feel intensity and to traverse big inner experiences. Your body may be asking something of you at this chapter of life; perhaps there are core needs yearning to be touched, nurtured and shared. This is Sacred.
I’m sharing this post here because many of my ROCK STEADY members have said how supportive and helpful it is to air these suicide conversations and to connect with our deeper sense of shared humanity. I’m widening the reach to whoever wants to join us, to share here. Put on the kettle, sit with me.
Life is hard at times and moving these dark-dark nights out of taboo helps to bring some hint of light; that we are not alone in it.
Like joyful moods and peaceful moods, these existential dark moods are part of our human handbag. It all belongs.
When I was younger, I thought that everyone experienced suicidal ideation.
As the waves of darkness washed over me, I felt through it, noticed it, observed myself and my thoughts, and I journaled. It never occurred to me to call a friend or talk about it. It just seemed like my Sacred process.
I would venture deep into the rigid locked boxes of my psyche and after the labour of pain, I’d retrieve a little gift of knowing—something made sense to me, and I would return to the living.
It felt like a profound touching into of my own Soul. A crossing of thresholds and a seeing beyond the veils of the known.
As I reached my late 20s or early 30s I started sharing with my friends about these suicidal thoughts. I was met with judgment, shock, disbelief, advice, pathology, laughter, and recommendations to go shopping, get drunk or hook up with a guy. I was questioned.
Or told to cheer up, it’ll pass. Be grateful! Life’s a gift!
I learned not to talk about it.
I learned that it was unusual to meet death and hang out in its lair.
I learned that people of all ages are not generally understanding or supportive when it comes to deep, meaningful inquiry about life, and death.
It felt strange to be sent to a therapist, to walk away feeling extra complicated and abnormal. Why pay someone to talk about things I already know about myself? To be seen through the lens of pathology instead of seen in my wholeness: of which death is a part.
When my kids ask questions about dying, I light up: finally, some good conversation.
Them: “Are we going to die mum?”
Me: “Yes. Just, probably not today.”
Them: “Oh… we want to die now! Please!!”
Me: “Wait your turn. We all take our turn at dying. It usually only happens once.”
Them: “Okay”.
The truth is, it’s hard to experience walls of silence, shame and fear when it comes to conversation around death and dying. It is a valid part of life. But hardly anyone talks about it, or wants to explore it.
We have had far too many young suicides in our local area. I understand how they felt and why they chose as they did.
It’s real.
I have danced with the idea of dying often enough throughout my life.
Becoming a mother did not stop it. My desire to explore the darkness only increased. My yearning for a world that honours life, the living, and individuality soared. And, the very real expression of daily harm, dying ecosystems, wars and political corruption surround us. It’s everywhere. And I feel my part in it.
I believe that collectively we need to feel it all, so that we can learn how to do things differently here on earth.
To let our somatic intelligence offer us strength, clarity and new ideas for collective gentle living. To follow the body’s lead and let it guide us through the dark.
How can we each become more honest, more connected and more true to our Soul’s calling?
Can we descend into the desert of our own psyche and sit through the storms of our own becoming until we capture the threads of who we are and what we are here to contribute?
Can we hold each other’s hands and talk about it?
I support people living with persistent pains to trust their bodily sensations and explore their inner landscapes.
I teach them how to use their body as a compass and how to read their inner terrain with their own inner map.
b>I invite everyone who encounters me to digest the Paradigm of Fear and Separation, transforming it with love into the Paradigm of Sensuality and Connection. The body knows who we are when we feel sensation and connect to it. Insights are born, intuition flows from here. Instincts kick in.
I believe we are here on earth to feel the sensations that our bodies create. We are a mirror of the world that we live in. Our bodies hold vital information for understanding ourselves, each other, our planet.
Even when it hurts.
Perhaps, especially when it hurts.
I believe we feel it, to make sense of it, to know who we are, to liberate ourselves from the illusion of separation.
We come home to unity and togetherness. We arrive at a collective place where pain and darkness is shared with song, stories and laughter—in ritual with bare feet and thumping drums.
Where we all belong and existential moods are celebrated.
Suicidal lows are real, painful and they belong. You are not alone.
What is the Soul anyway?
A useful inquiry for us all to ponder and come to our own conclusions about.
by Joey
Let’s talk about struggling.
Life can feel like a very long, dark tunnel with no end in sight.
I struggle too. With my human aches and deep pain.
It grips tight, sucks inwards.
My thoughts circle around thin air grappling to make sense of the emotional ache.
I sigh heavily — often during this struggle. An exasperated sigh as though my insides are reaching deep for more juice.
At times like this I feel like I’m doing life wrong, I’ve missed the memo and there’s no turning back. I feel alone.
Only more of this human heart ache again and again.
To love is to know this ache.
This yearning for intimate connection with some part of the outer world.
My inner world is crying for the outer world. To weave the two together in a union that makes sense.
That’s the mystery unfolding.
The unknown.
Sometimes there is no voice to soothe the pain.
Sometimes there is no silver lining or happy ending.
Sometimes there is a chasm that nobody sees, so it’s not there.
Except it is there, because I feel it.
The chasm exists inside of me.
And, I know that it’s real, and it belongs.
Even if nobody else can feel it too.
The chasm brings me a message, a dirge-like song. A whisper. A hushed tone. I hear it.
It begs me to share my story.
It tells me that our human aches and pains are meant for art. To be shared in creative ways. To be heard. To be felt. To be recognised despite their invisible nature.
It’s not easy to share our stories.
Writing my next book, Sensing Ground, has challenged me to share my story in ways that I’ve never shared it.
It’s taking me to new edges. To pause and breathe. To question who I am and who I am not.
It’s making me question why bother? Does my story matter?
I could wrap it up tight and hide it inside of me. Keep my pains to myself and silently suffer. I could pretend that there is no pain.
My prayer for us all is that we own our personal story and share it somewhere safe. Not a shopping list of symptoms, but our deeper stories. The stories that are Sacred. The stories that move us to tears.
Stories shape our world.
Your story matters.
I’ll do my very best to share mine.
