I’m aware of a tight gut and chest as I work to meet a group planning deadline. My breathing is shallow. My head is hot and feels like a helmet clamped on top of it. I have been working all morning “feverishly”. My palms are sweating. I am in a subtle but noticeable wholebody stress response to my life situation. I pause for a moment and recognize all of these bodily signals of stress. I stare at the run-on sentences on my computer screen. The writing up of the organizational structure and its content is decidedly NOT flowing.
I sit back in my chair and take in the day unfolding around me. The two dogs are snoring, curled up in their cozy day-beds. The cherry and plum trees are blossoming outside. I hear bird-song. I stretch my arms above my head and notice the blotches of blue sky peaking out from the overcast damp maritime sky. My legs and low back begin to notice the support of the chair. They are warm and tingling now, where moments before there was only tightness and soreness. I stretch my feet and legs out towards contact with the floor.
I glimpse my husband moving around in the garden outside, pruning apple trees and fruit bushes. His arms raise in the air, cutting, then he leans down, snipping. He pauses now, straightens up, and looks also at the day around him. There is something about noticing his bodily movements and gestures from an awareness of my own bodily experience. He glimpses me watching him from the study window. He smiles. He opens his arms wide and stands planted on the good earth beneath his feet. He is letting me know, with his body gesture, that he welcomes me into this present moment connection of We Here with all his heart. My breath deepens. My chest and shoulders expand. My head is tingling with breathing space. My belly and pelvis are warm, alive, aware of themselves. I wave to him and take some time to allow my whole organism to receive the effects of our We Here connection even more.
This inter-human transaction was completed in under two minutes. My sense of myself and my felt sense of the body as a whole has been refreshed and touched by another human being. I return to my computer screen. I see immediately what needs to be deleted and that what remains, is the essence of what I wanted to say. I complete the task in the next half hour and stand up when the smell of cooking onions and garlic wafts in from the kitchen. It is time to sit down to a shared lunch with my loved one.