An Opportunity to Feel, Ask and Receive
This New Moon in Cancer I will be facilitating an experience called “The Temple of Nurturing Touch” at a women’s embodiment retreat called HoneyRoot. I get to join an impressive circle of women and teachers. My offering will be an opportunity for women to drop into the sacred present moment and give and receive nurturing touch.
I’ll be asking women in the receiving role to turn inward, feel what’s alive inside and tell their partner(s) what sort of touch would be most welcomed and supportive. On one level, this is a simple task.
Then again, any point in this prescribed process can be a challenging task. Each one of these points in the process (feeling, asking and receiving) can represent a stumbling block.
What's It was Like Not to Feel
Many moons ago, I had no idea how to feel inside my own skin. I remember the first time I stepped into a healer’s office in my early 20s. I was fresh out of college and not too far out from a painful childhood. He was a tall Englishman with long blond hair and roughly 12 years my senior. Sitting in a quiet room, his penetrating eyes illuminated by a desk lamp, he asked me how I was feeling.
I froze like a deer in headlights. I didn’t know what to say. I was at a loss in the face of that question. I didn’t have a clue as to what I was feeling. What I managed to share was a story about my ex-roommate that I had fallen for. I told him about this guy that had no interest in me between tears and sniffles. At that time, when it came to being with me feeling me, I was clueless.
Connected In the Present
Today, if you asked me what I was feeling, I could give you volumes of information. I could give you a status report on all the different parts of my body, what’s feeling open and spacious… what is feeling tight and constricted and everything in between. I could tell you what subtle and not so subtle feelings were occupying those different body parts. On a good day, when I’m feeling something challenging, I could tell you what age that particular constellation of emotions, sensations and thought patterns first entered my life.
How did I go from clueless to brilliant in my embodied self-awareness? Practice. Lots of practice. Large amounts of time asking myself what’s happening inside. That and intentionally putting myself in the presence of people who valued me being with me.
How might my story support those who tend to lose themselves in relationships?
One thing is clear: The more disconnected I was from my feelings, the more I was vulnerable to losing myself in relationships. The more and more skillful I became at feeling myself, the more and more skillful I became at blossoming in relationships.
I could say the same thing about asking and receiving.
Everyone of these pieces takes practice to get good at. At the “Temple of Nurturing Touch” I look forward to giving women the opportunity to practice the art of feeling what they’re feeling, articulating what they want and receiving just that. In a field of a sacred connection, this beautiful medicine.
This is how we put an end to losing ourselves in relationships. This is how we love ourselves whole.
What would help you get better at feeling, asking and receiving?