The Pleasure Chronicles: Arepas, Agua Fresca and Inner 8 year old wisdom

Alone

What does that word mean to you?

What stories show up for you with these 5 letters.

I got curious about alone this week after a conversation with the brilliant mind

MaryJo Lorei who in a few short questions had me deep in my feels and aware that the story of alone still holds a type of power over me. Meet MaryJo here, you will not leave the conversation the same.

When she asked me about alone and we moved through the series of kind, curious quandaries it became clear that the message around ways to avoid being alone had been learned and honed back from when I was 8 years old. 

Ill save you the personal psychoanalysis, but I must share how shocked I am by the way my body responded. I could feel my actual frame shrink, my shoulders hunch, my eyes soften, and it was as if my 5’11 leggy, curvey, confident, current self was again a pre-tweenage lanky, awkward girl craving desperately to blend in, need less, and take up less space to fit in

This type of shrinking shows up in quoting for my services, applying for jobs, negotiating a second date, and family dynamics. When I am in crowds I feel myself so aware of the potential of getting in someones way that I take shorter strides, keep my arms in, and spend so much energy making sure that I am not the problem. Uhhhh, that friend is a problem right there! Something needed to be done, so I implemented one of my favorite embodiment exercises.

I took myself on a pleasure date around being alone to allow my body the space to speak. My body was upset, stomach churning, mind racing, trying at every turn to persuade me away from really looking or feeling into this. These type of pains are so deep and old, the body has had years to hone the skills of keeping this in a box, so opening that lid is nothing short of bravery. The internal objections start, but I am resolved to feel it all, because what resists persists- and I am committed to something bigger for my life. 

When I got to the restaurant, I was given the number 30- it reminded me how my body has been feeling this strange sense of how my 30’s are coming to an end, and I have the unknown of 40 in the current view.

What had I made up around being 40? Was it something I thought, or was it something I was taught> What did the 8 year old me have to teach me as the two parts of me sat at the table- my earbuds in.

I asked the 8 year old- “what would you like to eat love?” I asked kindly.

She wanted arepas and prickly pear aqua Fresca- fantastic taste :)

Then I sat at the table quietly and asked the 39 year old me, what she wanted to listen to. 

Music wasn’t the vibe, the cars or conversations around me were not either, so I landed on the audiobook “The Courage of Compassion by Robin Steinberg. I was riveted. The voice, conviction and unmatched stand for social justice that filled my ears, filled my soul too. I felt alive, my blood pumping, mind racing following her stories of fighting alongside those the criminal justice system has brutalized. I felt anger, power, my mind expanding, my heart opening. I felt authentic, and alive. I was meeting my true self, and I was meeting her when I was alone.

When I am truly following my pleasure and I am alone, I love to be in a space of learning. I crave to know more about systems that are broken so I can be part of the solution- or at least a more educated ally. I learned that the flavor of a juice chosen by an 8 year old tasted sweet and honoring to her need to choose a flavored drink over water. Growing up she learned to need less and cost less, so water was always the right choice. There is nothing wrong with water of course, but this was a microcosm of how she felt about everything. So today the story would be different, and she would get that vibrant pink, sweet nectar of worthiness in a cup.

I get to listen to all parts of me, I get to feel into how it moves and shifts the narratives that have been held in my body since my brain started to make connections about how the world works. 

The lump in my throat and the heaviness on my heart about being alone feels a little less because I did something with the feeling today. I embodied something new by following the wisdom of pleasure. I am reparenting myself, this 8 year old that learned to not expand or that being a very tall girl is something strange or a problem. She gets to grow up. I learned that to my core in my free time finding solutions and hearing other people’s stories lights me up. I get to create a life full of those moments. I learned that my worthiness is not tied to if there is another person sitting across the table from me.  And the 8 year old me believes it too.

After eating, and almost loosing my ability to keep the tears in from the chapter I was listening to, I followed my pleasure and took myself to the plant shop next door. Walking among the fountains, I closed my eyes and listened to the water, intentionally took a breath in my nose so I could take in whatever aroma was there. I felt in that moment so deeply in the present- and when I was in the present I did not feel alone or anxious at all. I then walked among the small rows of plants that were recently watered. I could smell earth, and what I can only describe as the fragrance of the sun meeting the recent watering. I felt alive, and so wowed by my ability to be and lean into the present. The plants were pleasure, the audio book was pleasure, the 8 year old holding hands with my 39 year old self was pleasure. And it all happened because I chose to spend time with the thing that I resisted the most.

I do the work I do with clients because I believe that embodied pleasure and presence are life changing. When learned they can integrate fragmented parts of a being’s life to allow the human back in the being. I mentor and coach because I cannot shake the feeling that we are meant for more than just coasting through life. 

How is your inner 8 year old? 

How is your current day self?

What does alone mean to you?

What is the sensation you resist the most?

How is your way of being part of social justice and systemic change? If you are a white bodied human, my invitation to you is to make this part of your life’s practice. It will need to be an intentional choice as the world is not set up for us to naturally see this, or be moved to do something about it. And that my friend, means that when we do, we can be the fracture in the system that has kept our melanated brothers, sisters and humans in a system that is designed to harm them. That is a system that gets to shift, break, and heal- because it matters. Listen to books, support BIPOC leaders that are already teaching this work. I cannot recommend enough My Grandmother's Hands by Resmaa Menakem | Embodied Anti-Racist Education at it’s finest. Or listen to “The Courage of Compassion” by Robin Steinberg to be moved to action.

Embracing the courage of self compassion- I ask you how will you will be willing to be brave enough to do the same.