For most of my life, I identified as an intellectual and smart person. I absorbed mental models and value systems that allowed me to academically thrive and socially adapt.
When a concussion broke those filters, life became disorganized and unfamiliar. Things that previously felt innate like storytelling, reading, and journaling all felt exhausting. I couldn’t even go grocery shopping without feeling mentally accosted. This colored my mental landscape with dark colors of paranoia and cynicism.
In the three years since, I’ve stabilized significantly and on the surface seem to have readjusted back to life okay. Yet going into this year, I still felt the need to set a goal to feel at home in my mind and body.
At first I channeled this intention into measurable outcomes: move daily, establish a weekly therapy cadence, decrease my anxiety and depression levels. My focus on hitting these external measures, however, shifted my focus away from my internal experience. I was going through the motions, doing teletherapy and barre classes, yet still feeling disconnected from myself.
An overtaxed mind
While these practices didn’t fully get me there, they did create the space for me to sense there was deeper work to do. I noticed an attachment to my pre-concussion mind, leading to an amplified need for control. Coupled with the pressure I was putting on myself to return “back to normal”, I created obsessive lists and systems that steamrolled the sensitive emotional Jiaxin.
This heavy mind-mediated way of living previously worked well for me. Post concussion though, using this broken filter led to paranoia, irritability, and exhaustion. I was always one coffee spill, Zoom update, or slightly askew glance from being totally triggered and going into emotional overdrive.
Shifting from mind to body
Three years later, I’m further along in my journey and have embraced healing as a practice rather than a discrete moment in time. At the core of my healing is an ethos of embodiment, broadening my lens to exist in the entirety of my body, embracing anatomy, mind, heart, and soul.
It would be disingenuous of me to imply that embodiment was simply a switch we could all switch on. Embodiment requires a level of honesty and connection with yourself that can feel difficult, inefficient, and frustrating to activate. For me, it required multiple rounds of trial and error, alongside periods of stagnancy where I just needed to go through the chaos. Once I had more space in my life, cultivating embodiment then required a constant pruning of non-constructive influences and practices in my life.
I believe embodiment means carrying a fundamentally positive view of self, and shedding the weight of “shoulds” that are often rooted in fear of missing out or rejection. As a recovering people pleaser, I am accustomed to optimizing myself for the world around me. It’s been a long entanglement process of distilling out my values from the mental chatter, and which ones are the unnecessary burden of other people’s expectations. It still feels scary at times turning down an invitation or not being able to fulfill a request, but it does feel authentic and stable.
Daily Embodiment
I still have many moments where I’m lost in my mind: what do I need to do next? How did I mess up in that last meeting? Where am I meeting my scene partner for practice? In the muck of to-do lists and rambles, I lose sight of the present. My Buddhist friend recently shared the following with me: “if you are not in awe, you are distracted.”
The first thing to do is to notice that your mind is going. The mind tends to judge, while the body just is. By shifting from a place of judging to noticing, you give yourself a chance of step out of your mind and into your body. Don’t worry if it doesn’t work right away: each time you try it is practice. Some mantras to cultivate embodiment:
When you notice your mind running, say: “Thank you brain. Sit down, I got this.”
“One thing at a time”
“Every experience is a lesson”
These days, I identify more as a present and thoughtful person. My mind is still a core piece of who I am, alongside my playful soul and sensitive heart.
Toybox
📚 All This Could All Be Different by Sarah Thankam Mathews. Our 20 something queer Indian heroine examines her personality and relationships in a raw emotional way. The rhythmic prose draws you in. | 🍿 Whiplash. Mind games combined with a story of raw ambition. | 📺🍷 Drops of God on Apple TV. Singlehandedly making me want to become a sommelier. | 🍇 Trader Joes’s Espiral Vino Verde is one of my go-to summer staples. A $5 lightly carbonated that is sure to be your fave too. | 🦋 NYX matte liquid eyeliner in Blue Thang from Target. This has been a fun swap from my usual black!
That’s it for this edition, take care until the next.
XOXO JZ