Why I like to write...

In noticing my senses, when allowing my mind the space to focus on them during the day, I can grow a sense of ease, that wasn’t there before.

I just asked J if it was too weird…? Too left field, too abstract or bland, to write about the little things that have been filling up my mind this week. About our senses, and sensations and how I find that focusing on them is helping my head (well, my inner octopus at least, as she feels a little safer).

Yet I suppose these little bits, the bits that aren’t necessarily refined or shiny or often spoken of… the bits that bring sensation into the body, without the perceived clarity or definition of words and thoughts in the mind... they’re the bits that bring me alive.

In noticing my senses, when allowing my mind the space to focus on them during the day, I can grow a sense of ease, that wasn’t there before. So I’ve been learning more about these different senses of ours, and how when we listen in, to each one of them, that together they maybe can start to sing…

And I was reminded of the felt-sense meditation group I went to in Bath many years ago… and how my body, even back then, responded so wildly to that work. To this song that my body sang. My tremors rose, and my whole body shook… and our group leader, who went on to become my therapist, began to teach me more about leaning into these bodily sensations of mine, in a safe, contained way.

Yet here I am, years later, still reeling from the tsunami of sensations that took over my body over a year ago now. Still learning to listen to what they are trying to say, as sometimes it can feel more like they are screaming rather than singing. And truthfully I’ve learned over the years, rather too well I now fear, how to shut the sound of so many of them out. And so as I sit here, with pencil and paper, I start again, at the beginning… and simply open to hear what it actually feels like, to write.

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Felt-Sense

I read a wonderfully clear explanation of our felt-sense (or interoception, but I prefer felt-sense as it makes more sense to my mind) the other day (here), that helped remind me of the many different aspects of this felt-sense of ours. I found it incredibly helpful to be reminded of the fact that your sense of feeling, and in turn your emotions, (both your valence, from like to dislike, and arousal) shifts all the time depending on what you’re doing.

And when I’m writing, I notice that I am in a really grounded and expansive state of low arousal and ‘pleasant’ valence. My sweet (blue) spot if you will. Then yesterday, as I was reading a post from Kate Fox, she shared that she also uses different strategies, a bit like this, that help get her to what she calls her ‘flow state’, which makes complete sense to me:

trying to get my brain into a flow state so as to help me regulate my system in the face of sensory overload

Brain overload and scarce attention

When I look more closely at my senses, I think it ties into some other sensations that my brain is picking up whilst I write too…

Sight & Movement

I notice that what I am actually looking at helps bring about this sense of ease. because it is a contained space, my body and head don’t move a lot… and there is both a stillness in the desk and the paper, but also a gentle movement with the soft slow-flowing motion of my hand across the page, and my words that grow seemingly from the paper.

Touch

I’m convinced, as a keen crafter and hand-maker of many different things, that there is a special kind of sensation that grows when you are making anything with your actual hands. I’m not super woo-woo I swear, but I have a total gut-feeling that our hands have some kind of super-highway to our heads and heart somehow. I’m not sure if this aspect of the vagus nerve has been studied before (I’m sure it has… in fact I’ve just googled it now, and think I can see why there’s a real interesting ‘sensation’ that arises when we hold things in our hands, due to our receptors and their density in our fingers).

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Anyways, I guess what I’m getting around to saying, in a sort of round-about way, is that I think that the more I start to tune into this body of mine, and the millions of messages that it’s sending each second to my head, from all of my senses, that I can start to look at it more lovingly, and less frustratingly.

I can start to see why my nervous system blew a fuse, and how maybe, with a lot of time, space and practice, I can start to help it feel safer again, simply by focusing on the parts of me, the feelings in my body, that I think I’ve spent a lifetime trying to ignore. As when you pause to think about it, for just a second, you start to notice just how marvellous our nervous systems truly are.

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So I suppose it’s becoming a tiny project of mine, to research and experiment with these sometimes new-to-me feelings of sensation. That sometimes feel silent and then suddenly loud… and I find myself wondering if you do the same? If you find it helpful to listen into your body, both when doing the things you love… but also when your mind grows tired and your body starts to shut down?

I for one, find it truly fascinating to think of how unique all these experiences of ours are. Of all these combinations of senses and sensations, receptors and messages, that buzz around our beings, silently, in the spaces between the words…

So tell me my friend, what does it feel like to you, when you write…?

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Thank you so much for taking the time to read my words. If anything resonated with you I’d love you to subscribe so that we may stay in touch… but more than that, I’d love you to drop me a comment about what spark caught your attention, and what you maybe felt or saw as part of your own reflection. That way we can grow to be pen-pals in here, as I always love the energy flow that these conversations can bring…