Body Injuries As A Portal To Surrender

July 1 - The last few days my body has been reminding me that embodiment is not only about strength, movement, and expression, yet also about surrender.

I slipped (on wet cat food of all things) on our porch and injured my knee pretty badly to the point of feeling nauseous and like I might pass out. Right before, Gabriel and I had just recorded our first video for our new podcast and I was feeling happy and fulfilled but perhaps a bit 'out of my body'. Luckily Gabriel heard me yelling for him and helped me to the couch or I might have been laying there on my own for awhile unable to move.

With this injury, suddenly the things that usually bring me meaning and movement were paused. Creating, serving, doing yoga/my weight training/dancing, going down to the camp at the ravine, clearing the land, doing what I normally do to care for all these cats, cooking for everyone...all of it had to be put aside.

I haven't been able to put weight on my knee quite yet so I can only really rest in bed, ice it, and need help from others to even hop to the bathroom. It does seem to be getting a bit better now and I expect/hope for a full recovery and no lingering issues with it.

There is a deep vulnerability that comes up when our body cannot do what it usually does though. Parts of us can feel helpless, limited, or uncertain about who we are when we are not actively offering, creating, helping, or holding.

There can be grief there and helplessness and definitely tears.

But there is another doorway here that I've been feeling.

The body in its vulnerability becomes a portal into receiving. Receiving care from others. Receiving love. Receiving support.

Receiving the invitation to simply be.

There is a deep tenderness in allowing ourselves to be held, even when we have not much to give, but because we are worthy of love even when we are resting. I am so grateful for the care I'm receiving and for those around me and virtually as well offering their support.

These days, I am practicing a deeper kind of embodiment...listening, slowing down, allowing, and letting myself be cared for.

The body is not only our vessel for action...its also our teacher of surrender.

~

July 6 -

As I’ve been recovering from this knee injury over the last week, I’ve so felt how the healing isn’t just happening in my knee.

It’s happening in a much younger place inside me as well who is getting a new experience of care.

When I was in second grade, I had an accident that required stitches. This part of me remembers being left afterwards, at home alone from school, without anyone to cry with, to comfort me, or to help me digest the shock and fear that my little body had experienced.

The injury healed. But the little girl who carried that experience was left holding it by herself.

Along with many other traumatic experiences in my childhood both physical and emotional.

This week, as I’ve rested with my injured knee, I could feel that same little girl, my inner child Jilly (my nic name as a kid) becoming very present.

She wasn’t only feeling the physical pain.

She was feeling the helplessness, vulnerability, fear and a deep longing to be cared for.

In the Divine Self Embodiment process, we don’t try to think our way out of these moments or bypass them with spiritual ideas. We don’t tell our parts to “stay positive” or “everything happens for a reason.”

Instead, we stay, feel, and open.

We allow the tears that couldn’t be cried before to finally have somewhere to go.

The healing isn’t in the insight alone or even in resting our physical bodies.

The healing is also in the experience of what was missing finally arriving.

This time, Jilly isn’t alone. My Divine Self is with her.

I’m holding her while I ice my knee. I’m listening while she cries.

I’m reassuring her when she feels afraid. I’m letting my daughter and community care for me in ways that simply weren’t available when I was a child. I’m even giggling with her when she is feeling lighter.

This is what I would call an embodied corrective experience.

This is when deeper healing can happen because the nervous system, the emotional body, the parts who need it, and the physical body all begin to receive a new reality.

The body isn’t only healing from the fall or injuries or illnesses that we experience. It is also healing from being alone with pain.

I’ve been surprised to discover that my deepest gratitude isn’t that my knee is very slowly improving.

It’s that this injury has given Jilly something she has been waiting decades to receive. The experience of not being left alone. And it’s also given me space and time to truly slow down and receive the care I’m being offered.

Divine Mother has sweetly offered that I needed this to receive a ‘care surrogacy’. Thank you so much to those of you who commented so warmly on my original post with wishes and blessings for recovery and care...they were all received with gratitude!

So often our greatest healing doesn’t come from avoiding vulnerability.

It comes from allowing ourselves to remain open long enough for love to reach the places that never received it before.

Love,

Jelelle Awen

I took this pic during a moment of vulnerability, feeling tears of helplessness and yet also so touched by the care and love I was receiving from everyone, especially Raianna who has been just amazing in responding to me and my needs. I wanted to share a pic that isn't just 'shiny' and smiling, being with and accepting all of life in the ups and downs, the tears and the joys, the pains and the pleasures...all part of being a sacred human in this body.