In my first article on this blog, I briefly talked about one of my deepest traumas from childhood, which eventually became one of the main reasons why I “disconnected” from my body. It was really hard to write and especially post that article since, even though I had decided that writing about this would help me and perhaps some other people, in my mind, I still carried a lot of shame for everything that happened.
To briefly sum it all up, my disconnect started when I was forbidden to touch and explore myself when I was three years old. I was shamed, sometimes punished, and always under someone else’s guidance, so that everyone in my closest family would ensure I wouldn’t be breaking the “rules.”
I’m not gonna talk too much about it here since the full version of this story is available in my other blog post, but I think it’s always important to know where your disconnect began. The truth is, when I was forbidden to touch myself, believing I was betraying my whole family and harming my future, I not only felt ashamed, but also, since this is the period of the “3-year-old crisis”—the time when a person starts becoming aware that they are separate individuals from their parents, realizing their wants and needs, and being curious to explore themselves—well… One of the reasons why this situation was so impactful was because back then, what I gathered from this was that my body does not really belong to me, but rather to someone else, who wields actual control.
And well, when your body does not feel like it belongs to you, you are afraid of really using it because you don’t know what’s gonna happen to you then. It’s hard to fully describe what it feels like, but imagine this: you were given a car, but instead of driving it from the inside, you were given a remote control: you see that the car is moving, but you yourself stay in one place.
For a long time, I didn’t even realize it. I just lived with the core conviction that something was wrong with me. I felt awkward inside my body, like I was truly separated from it and we didn’t fully “get each other.” In my soul, I would always be wild, with open, free motions, but when I had to perform a certain physical motion in from of others, even though I would perfectly understand it, I wouldn’t know how to do it. I felt fake.
Now, I know that there is no situation in which only one action could cause any severe consequences. Usually, there are many different factors that may have an influence on the result—things that we oftentimes do not even think about. And my case isn’t so different.
Despite the fact that I lost the sense of control over my body and feared being (especially performing) in it due to this situation, I am now wondering—perhaps it was something else. I want to remind both myself and you, dear reader, that we cannot fully dissociate from our bodies unless, well, we die or get paralyzed (though in this case, there are chances that we can heal again).
If we look at it this way, we all kind of come into this world being dissociated from our bodies and only here really learn what it feels like to have our own separate form, as well as the form of others. We cannot immediately run, jump, or even sit and stand. We can eat, drink, poop, and do all the things a human being can do, but we are not yet aware that we are also being physical now, living in the physical world. Fascinating.
Then, after some time, we begin to explore ourselves. And if we, at this step, learn to freely communicate with our bodies, it’s going to be easier for us moving forward. But for those of us, who, like me, never really got to freely explore, well, there is, I guess, a pretty simple and simultaneously difficult solution: begin exploring now.
Perhaps this is not us being disconnected.
This is us really connecting for the first time 🫂
What does that look like? Well, for me, I decided one of the core ways is going to be finally taking dance classes (btw, today’s gonna be my 9th class!!!), and before each practice convincing myself that I am not doing it for people in the room, my parents, or someone else. I am doing it for me because I want to know what that feels like to relax inside my body while combining various unusual movements and rhythms of the music. Yes, it is one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do in life since, at times, I don’t even feel like I am present in the room, and my body feels as heavy as a sofa. But if this happens in the middle of the dance class, I take a few deep breaths, maybe pause for a bit, get some water, hug myself, and keep dancing.
I haven’t had a moment yet when I would stop dancing altogether because of this, though it came very close a few times. But I know that, should I ever need it, I will stop. And you guys, no matter what it is that you are doing, if any of you share a similar challenge, should do the same. At these moments, I remind myself that I am, again, not doing it for the sake of the dance itself or, God forbid, perfection, but for the sake of fun and exploration. Perfection and force will only stand in our way in this case. And I can definitely see, not only on camera but, most importantly, deep inside, how piece by piece, brick by brick, the contact is gradually beginning to rebuild.
I’ll be making part three really soon (hopefully), so stay tuned, my loves! And remember that it is important to understand where your disconnect began and where you need to “go back” in order to reconnect again. It’s important to remember that it’s always been here, waiting for you to align with it. And you will, because it is your birthright! 💗
Love,
The Alien Girl
