My new embodiment teacher - Covid-19

After eighteen months of following guidelines and agonising over what was safe, within my ethical framework and worth/not worth risking, I finally enjoyed playing my first post-lockdown gig at a festival recently. And unfortunately, in spite of various risk reducing measures, I tested positive for Covid-19 soon after. It’s not been much fun, but could have been far worse – no doubt, thanks to two rounds of vaccination. The thing that was most discombobulating was the loss of my sense of smell or ‘anosmia’. This has really got me thinking about the embodied approach I now instinctively bring to my work, my emotional wellbeing and life in general.

If you’ve read my posts online, attended workshops or heard me talk about my work, you’ll no doubt have heard or seen me mention grounding techniques and ways to connect with our bodies as a means to de-stress, feel more present and fend off things like panic attacks and responses to trauma such as dissociation (feeling detached from our bodies and disconnected from ‘here and now’ reality). I, and others working in this field, often encourage connecting with our environments and connecting with our own bodies as ways of getting grounded and present. This tends to rely on using our ‘five senses’ – sight, hearing, touch, smell and taste. Talking about our five senses seems to imply that we all possess a full complement of fully or partially functional sensory input and processing mechanisms – something which clearly is not the case for everyone. Although it hasn’t had an especially disabling impact on my life to be temporarily disconnected from one of my senses, it has reminded me that using sensory stimulation for grounding isn’t a ‘one size fits all’. Firstly, because not everyone has the same sensory capacity, and secondly, because we all connect with and feel soothed by our senses differently. Being neurodivergent, I have a lot of lived experience of sensory overstimulation, and sometimes what I need is less input, not more. But, like most people, I’m more tuned into some of my senses than others – these are the ones that can either serve as a fast-track to feeling calm and a quick way of connecting me with emotions and memories, or can cause overwhelm if the input is too much or particularly unpleasant. For me, these are hearing and smell – both of these are very important to me and very sensitive. This is why it was so bizarre spending two weeks sniffing at things that normally help to wake me up, relax me or make me feel excited about the food I’m about to eat, and getting nothing. I embarked on what seemed to be a pretty successful regime of smell training in an attempt to stimulate whatever olfactory nerves or mechanisms had fallen into an infection-related snooze. If nothing else, it was a helpful reminder after an oddly disembodied era of Zoom calls and remote connections, that I live in, and experience life through a body. And that bodies can be fragile, sensitive, wise, resilient and the recipients of so much mistreatment, whether intentional or otherwise.

I recently came across an article that vociferously argued against the traditional Cartesian theory of mind-body dualism and suggested we abolish the concept of ‘mind’ as separate from body altogether. It’s – ironically – a bit of a mind bender, but the more embodied work I do, the less I tend to think in terms of a separation between the mental and physical when I consider my own or others’ inner worlds. I look out for how thoughts, ideas and interactions and their resulting emotional responses are experienced in the body, and how physical experiences in turn might be shaping our psychology. There are specific physical signs that I’m pretty tuned into these days, and that serve to give me information perhaps even before my conscious mind has caught up. The one I tend to offer as an example most often is a vibrating or trembling at the back of my neck that kicks in when I feel vulnerable, exposed or threatened. Often, the threat is pretty benign – perhaps I’ve offered a gentle challenge to a client or received one from someone supporting me, and a small part of me is anxious about potential conflict. But sometimes, it’s an early alert that something isn’t right, and when I feel it, I know I need to respond. Alternatively, I can use an awareness of my physical responses to keep an eye on my list of resources that support my wellbeing, adding or deleting things according to how well they’re working for me… I’ll realise that certain practices, songs, smells, places, pictures or objects need to go on the list if interacting with them produces an instant release of shoulder tension, softening of the diaphragm, excited skin tingling or general feeling of ‘expansiveness’.

I’m excited to see the rise and rise of therapy, coaching, writing, retreats and training programmes using embodied or somatic approaches. It feels incredibly timely, and as if it might herald a much-needed sea change away from compartmentalising and intellectualising and towards a whole-person view of how we move through the world and interact with each other. In an age of rapidly developing technology, with seemingly endless opportunities to connect and express ourselves from ‘behind a screen’, it can be easy to forget that we are more than just our brains. Perhaps eighteen months of stark reminders that we are physical beings might offer an opportunity to bring about some balance in this area – here’s to more permission to rest when we need to, to tuning into what our body sensations might be trying to tell us, to remembering that we have the potential to be both vulnerable and resilient, and to offering our bodies some compassion. It might sound like a weird concept, but why not take some time to consider what your body wants to tell you, and what you might need to say to it? My message to mine right now is “thanks for keeping me alive through all of this, and for being strong enough to fight off a dangerous virus. I’ve been reminded of how grateful I am for the senses that I’m able to use to interact with the world and alter my state of mind. The simple joy of smelling the first coffee of the day, the garden after rain or a fragrant bath is one of those amazing “little” things that I’ll try not to take for granted any more”.

Celebrating Neurodiversity

Being diagnosed with ADHD well into adulthood is a fascinating experience and one I’m glad I had. My understanding of what ADHD is has changed a lot over the years. I was vaguely aware of the concept during my school career - it was something ‘naughty boys’ had and manifested in an inability to sit still, disruptive behaviour in class and bad grades. This didn’t apply very neatly to me, so it didn’t occur to anyone as a possibility, as far as I’m aware. I was easily distracted and chatty (a word I’m sure was used exclusively to describe girls), but not ‘badly behaved’. I was brilliant when I put my mind to it, if I do say so myself! The issue seemed to be whether or not I wanted to put my mind to it. I did well at school and university, except in anything too mathematical, but I learned to do well by the seat of my pants. To use creativity and caffeine to pull me through year after year of slightly left-field essays finished at 4am. To sound like I’d read a book after skimming through it on the bus. I eventually learned better study skills and time management capabilities but it was an adrenaline-filled journey getting to the stage of ‘reasonably sensible adult’. 

During my MSc, my main area of study looked at how young people educated outside of mainstream school due to ‘social, emotional and behavioural difficulties’ self-identified. More specifically, how young men and young women* internalised different messages about their struggles. Most of these young people had ADHD. Safe to say, at this point I had no idea how close to home my studies were. I was then of the belief that ADHD diagnostic criteria were far too blunt an instrument, that it was over-diagnosed and that we were pathologising children for not fitting into an education system that was not designed to meet all learners’ needs.  I still believe there’s some truth in that last point, but learning more about ADHD as a neurological difference in the years leading up to my diagnosis made my views on the rest a little more nuanced. 

It feels more positive, here in 2020, to be discussing Neurodiversity as a term to describe, for example, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorders and Dyslexia. The word is celebratory, with ‘diversity’ seen as something to be achieved and delighted in. An acknowledgement of all the different ways that brains can work and that this contributes to the many different skills and traits that make up a well-rounded society. Of course, they are still described as ‘disorders’ and still, in many cases require treatment, be it medical or psycho-educational. I’ve been reframing the language of ‘disorder’ for myself by looking at some of the traits and tendencies that can present challenges, and how they so often seem to have a ‘mirror’ trait that is an advantage (like the struggle to think clearly through a task in ordered steps, vs. the creative thinking that gave me the edge in those 4am essays). Still, a society that, just like the school system I remember, is not designed with Neurodiversity in mind can be an exhausting place to navigate.

I have found that body work, be it singing and humming, breath work, yoga or more active forms of meditation are hugely helpful in terms of bringing me back to focus and clearing my busy head. I’d previously put times when I was especially distractable, fidgety or struggling to regulate my emotions down to other causes - did I have anxiety? Was this unprocessed trauma? This is by no means black and white - having a diagnosis doesn’t mean that every road leads back to ADHD. And while it’s true that feeling anxious, stressed, over-tired or otherwise ‘out of whack’ is likely to exacerbate symptoms, I hadn’t realised that there was an underlying cause. But even before I knew the terminology or the layperson neurobiology, I knew what resources worked well for me. Although at first, I struggled to settle into a routine with using them, the more I did it, the more progress I saw. Training as a practitioner gave me even more opportunities to sing, breathe and get in touch with my body. This time of crisis that we’re living through really intensifies the challenges we already face, meaning that it’s more important than ever to stay on top of self-care and connect with our bodies, as well as to stay out of shame when we have a less ‘functional’ day.

A relatively high percentage of the people I’ve worked with over the years have been Neurodiverse in some way. This, along with my own experience, has led me to get really interested in finding out what links and overlapping traits might exist between, for example, ADHD, trauma and attachment (watch this space!). Academic interest aside, it’s been a privilege to be on this adventure together - using my skills and clients’ expertise in their own lives combined to figure out what works best for each amazingly unique person.

*I was quite unaware of the concept of non-binary gender identities at this point!