Hi there,

I don’t know if you find this surprising or not, but I often find it challenging to pick up my pen and write — not when I’m writing with you, either here or in-person, but when I’m on my own.

I procrastinate, I avoid, and I tell myself I don’t have anything to say. On harder days, I leave my body almost immediately, find myself adrift.

If you relate to any of that, I just wanted to say first that you’re not alone and second that sometimes I have to actually do it to remember how essential it is to feeling at home in and with myself. For me, it’s the act of moving and writing that brings me home. I don’t actually have to believe it will be helpful ahead of time in order for it to be supportive in practice.

If you’d like to make that kind of space for yourself, today’s practice is here for you.

Warmly,
Anna

PS. I’m taking our next regularly scheduled post off to close out summer over here, so I’ll be back with you on Sept. 9th. Looking forward to seeing you then!

The movement portion of our practice is done entirely from seated in a chair, though you can of course be elsewhere if you prefer! Everything else you need is in the video.

I am a wild thing,* and I only forget it 99% of the time. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I am re-membering it slowly, putting it back together as I put myself back together.

It’s hard to find the right language when there wasn’t a before. There is not a past site of return for me, though I am always building a current one, a body I can return to anytime I need.

I admire people who work to rewild places and spaces, who nourish the soil and reacquaint it with native plants. Maybe that’s what is happening here -- not a re-wilding, but a wilding. How do I take the soil that is me and mineralize it, turn it over, tend to it with the patient heart of a naturalist who carries a long-term vision?

If I were to wild myself, I would let my bones drop, pull away less from gravity, begin to spread and root. I would invite my eyes to look to the four corners, around, within, in front, behind.

Here I am.

I would let my arms reach, bend, drape, grow both stronger and more supple as time and wind and weather shape me.

In ten years’ time I would measure myself and discover, to my great delight but definitely not surprise, that I am two inches taller.

*Jump-off line is from the poem I shared in our practice today: On Days When by Dean Atta.

Paid subscribers, you are invited to share in the comments! How was the practice for you? If you’d like, you’re also welcome to share a line from what you wrote or even the whole piece. It’s always wonderful to connect in this way!

• Sept. 22nd

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Thursday group: 4:00-5:30pm PT / 7:00-8:30pm ET

• Sept. 24th

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Some spots have already been claimed by past participants and folks on the waitlist. So if you want to join before I open registration more broadly this Sunday, Aug. 2nd, click here to do so — I’d love to have you with us!

Hi there,

My hope is always that this practice is an anchor to connect you to your body, a bridge to what is most true for you right now — the kind of truth that maybe you didn’t entirely realize was waiting to come forward or the kind you very much did know was there but couldn’t fully see until you put pen to paper.

Even when I think I have a direction for where my writing might go, there’s always at least some element of clarity, or I-didn’t-realize-I-quite-thought-that, or distillation. I hope today’s practice can bring you some of what you need whenever you give it a try!

Warmly,
Anna

You can do the movement portion of our practice from standing or seated — up to you! You might like to have a hand towel, yoga strap, or scarf (something along those lines) available, but you’ll also be just fine without it. Everything else you need is in the video!

The poem I shared today is Inventory by Jen Lee. Her most recent book is Instructions to a Self: A Diary of Becoming.

I’ll be sharing in the comments today, and I hope you will, too! See you there!

Registration for the Fall live series of What the Body Knows is opening in a couple weeks! I always open registration first for people on the waitlist, so if you want to get first heads up, you can get on the list here. I’d love to practice with you this fall!

Hi there,

It really feels like summer here once our neighborhood outdoor pool opens. It’s only open for two short months each year, so we go regularly — and so does everyone else.

The pool is often crowded, and I always feel like we’re all in it together. There’s every kind of body and everyone wants to cool off, enjoy their time, and laugh when a kid swims into your leg because there was nowhere else to go. I’m grateful to be in this kind of space, and I’m even happier that I’m in it with my daughter, that we are witnessing all the people living and swimming in their many different bodies together.

More than a decade ago, I took up lap swimming on a whim. I went to my local YMCA indoor pool, and I went at 1pm on purpose because I was often one of only a couple of people there. Just as often (and my dream come true), I was the only one there. I liked going then because I’m not a fast swimmer and I didn’t want to feel rushed by sharing a lane. Also: less people would observe my body.

Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell as a parent what has actually shifted in me and what I have shifted by will because of what I want my daughter to see. In the case of my body being seen in a swimsuit, I think it’s some of both at this point. Because any time she is getting in, so am I: my body and her body joining all the other bodies, claiming our watery space.

Looking forward to hearing how this week’s poem, “Beach Body,” inspires your practice this week!

Warmly,
Anna

The movement portion of our practice is done entirely from seated (and yes, my dog Henry joins!). Everything else you need is in the video.

The poem I shared today is Beach Body by Kate Baer, from her book And Yet. Her latest poetry collection is How About Now.

What I wrote to the prompt:

This is not your mother’s body*, which is maybe more important to remember than it may otherwise seem. It’s also not the body my mother wanted for me. It is the body she tended to, but only peripherally.

For so many years, far too many years, I tried to make my body something it wasn’t. I blamed my body for its size, its hungers, its needs, its pain. It was only later, much later, that I began to realize what I needed to embrace was, yes, my body, but even more importantly the my part of it.

My body, like many bodies, has been harmed in big ways and small by others -- by their words, by their actions. So now I spend my time not remembering, but learning for the first time, the daily-ish care my body wants and needs -- not as a self-improvement project, not to get a “new” body (which doesn’t exist) but to actually bear witness to and honor my own experience.

My daughter went to a new half-day camp this week. She was nervous before we left on the first day, so we talked about how one important thing you can do is move your body to move that nervous energy. I said I’d race her across the living room, and as I took off, she clucked her way across the floor like a chicken. I did high kicks and took my hands up to the ceiling, shaking them down to the floor. She did all of that while still being a chicken, a smile breaking through.

As we got in the car to head out, I said another important tool is playing music you love -- maybe a little too loud. I asked what she wanted to listen to and put it on, cranked it up. We sang and did hand gestures to the words.

I am doing all this for her, yes -- I want her to know her body and how to be in relationship with it. But each time I do, I’m also reminding and teaching myself: this body is mine. I can move it how I want.

This practice is always better when we’re in it together! If you give it a try, I’d love for you to share how it went for you, a line you wrote that feels alive for you, or even your whole piece. This is only available for paid subscribers so we can keep the comments a place where we’d actually want to share. If you ever want to join as a paid subscriber and cost is an issue, email me and I’ll get you in — no questions asked.

Since 2019, I have undertaken a major, deep-dive trauma healing process. The experience takes considerably less of my time and bandwidth than it used to, but it’s still very much part of my life.

While therapy has of course been a primary support, alongside many other modalities during different seasons, one practice that has sustained me throughout is writing. I began writing toward my own healing without exactly noticing it. I’d had an on and off journaling practice through the years, and I write a good amount for work, so it’s something I reach for when I want to work through something. But it wasn’t until later that I realized that every time I took to the page, every hard letter I drafted at least a hundred times before sending, that I was writing myself toward healing and inner freedom.

That particular insight eventually led me to this practice that we do here together because it was a combination of movement and writing that worked (and works) for me, and I still feel that way each time I practice. When I put pen to paper, something in me prepares to move and open, even be surprised by what comes forward.

If you resonate with that or are curious about it, today’s practice is for you, just like all of them are.

Warmly,
Anna

The movement portion of our practice is done from standing, though you can definitely do it from seated if preferred. Everything else you need is in the video!

The poem I shared today is Bonfire Opera by Danusha Laméris. Her first book is Bonfire Opera, and her most recent one is Blade by Blade. I love them both!

I’ll be sharing in the comments today, and I hope you will, too! See you there!

Today, an invitation to practice together —

because you want a pause in your full life to hear yourself,

because you haven’t heard from your body lately (or you hear from it all the time and know you need space to listen),

because something always comes forward on the page that you need to hear,

and because this is how you want to be in relationship with yourself: letting it all move, following the thread only you can follow.

I’m right there with you, following my own thread, too.

Warmly,
Anna

The movement portion of our practice is done from standing. If you have something you can press your hands into like a wall, chair seat, or table, that will be helpful, but it’s also fine if you don’t. Everything else you need is in the video!

The poem I shared today (with much gratitude, as always) is You’re Panicking at the Wrong Disco by Amy Kay.

What I wrote to the prompt:

Go ahead — be messy, be weird* — how much time do I think I have left? Take the risk on the bigger pivot, the one you know is actually calling, not the one that makes more sense. It’s actually not too late.

I don’t know when I was messiest in my life, nor how I would definite it — physically, emotionally? I haven’t had much access to either, so it feels — not hard exactly, more like unknown.

When I was on sabbatical now almost a year ago, I made more space to let my interests blend. I put everything I read and listened to and learned into conversation. I drew in my notebook, even painted. I have a lingering dream of being an artist. Does everyone? Or a writer, which I am in some ways and not in others.

At what point will I let myself loose?

At what point will I let myself feel what that would be like? And I mean really feel it. Because another thing I didn’t have access to for a long time is feeling. So now that I have more access, long worked for, what else do I want to do with it?

Paid members, do your thing — let us know what the practice was like for you, share a line that feels alive, or you’re also welcome to share your whole piece!

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I carry a good amount of tension in my head, neck, and shoulders. I know I’m not alone in that!

What I notice is that I have a desire to work on it for a little while (self-massage, massage by a professional, regular movement breaks, etc.) and then have it be over with. What I wouldn’t give to have this issue “fixed” permanently, never needing to think about it again!

What I learn time and again, though, is that’s not what it means to have a human body. Yes, certainly change can happen, but I still need to regularly be doing things to support.

I find that the same is true of my writing practice. When I’m in-between leading live sessions of What the Body Knows, it’s easy enough for my personal practice to fall by the wayside. What I notice when it does, though, is how a restlessness starts to grow in me kind of like tension builds in my neck. Putting pen to paper isn’t about feeling good about my self-care practices or checking something off a list for me. For me it’s a vital way I stay in contact with myself — and I begin to lose myself when I don’t.

If you feel a resonance with that, too, I hope today’s practice will be supportive. And if you’re also a head/neck/shoulder tension person (who isn’t these days?), that’s what we focus on in the movement portion.

Warmly,
Anna

The movement portion of our practice is done entirely from seated. Everything else you need is in the video!

The poem I shared today is Inspired by my jeans not fitting by Hannah Rosenberg. Her debut collection is Same.

I’ll be sharing in the comments today, and I hope you will, too! You’re welcome to share about what the practice was like for you, a line from your writing that’s still speaking to you, or even your whole piece.

In a world where it’s increasingly challenging to tell what is real, this practice is one place that you can find, hear, and express what’s true for you — your body, your movement, your hand moving across the page, your words.

If you’re needing some of that, I hope this practice is supportive!

Warmly,
Anna

We start the movement portion of this practice standing and end it seated (chair or ground). You don’t need anything else except what you like to have on hand for movement and writing. Everything else you need is in the video!

The poem I shared today is “The Paradox” by Sarah Kay, from her book No Matter the Wreckage (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014). Shared here with much gratitude!

What I wrote to the prompt:

Even if it is just for one moment a day, week, month, or even year -- let me be right here: elbow on the desk, index finger behind my ear, middle and ring fingers in front, pinky in the air, head resting as my right hand moves across the page.

Right here: my dog sighing, asleep on my yoga mat. I used to find it funny, if a bit confusing, how often he ends up there -- until I realized that of course he does. The energy on that mat! Some people treat their mats in a sacred way by keeping them pristine, rolling them out only for asana and meditation, putting them right back.

I treat mine sacredly by leaving it out, making it part of life -- I practice and teach on it, my dog sleeps on it, my daughter dances and plays on it, my husband rests his feet on it while he waits each evening to see if our daughter is asleep after bedtime. This is the kind of sacred I want: the sacredness of bodies and family and movement and the rhythms of daily life. I let it all in. Because it has taken much of my life to be able to feel anything at all and because I want my daughter to be part of what matters to me in the world, for her to see what makes a life and how it all weaves together.

Even if it is just for one moment, let me feel how I am ever so slightly tipped to my left hip while sitting here -- left toes curled under subtly, right ones, too. I lift my heel and my ankle cracks. I told a friend recently that I think PT and all my little exercises and routines are just my life now -- a way to stay moving. Part of me misses when it wasn’t so, but that part is small. Mostly, I feel lucky to be able to do it, actually wish I’d learned this was part of having a body far sooner: this daily tending, not toward perfection as I was taught, but toward presence, toward living.

Paid subscribers, I would love to hear from you in the comments how the practice went for you, a line you wrote that is still resonating with you, or even all of your piece. It’s always so good to feel the ways in which we are each practicing in our own ways.

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This summer I’m offering a three-week, mini-series of the live version of What the Body Knows! If you haven’t practiced with us live before, it’s the perfect way to give it a try. And if you have, it…

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I’m so glad to be back connecting with you here!

Somehow it’s been six months since my last post (three months on sabbatical, then three months easing my way back in). I’ve been thinking of y…

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I think of what we’re doing here as a way in. I’ve done this practice when I felt bored, when I didn’t want to do it, when I wrote way past my timer, when I was sobbing, when I stopped halfway through, when it felt like a lifeline, and so much more.

It’s hard to stay with things these days, at least for me. Like most of us, my attention is more fractured than I’d like it to be. I find myself reading a book at night, even one I’m enjoying, and then clicking out to check the news or my email, having the vague feeling that I had a reason I was doing that originally but I’ve long since forgotten it.

What I know is that when I can make space for practices like the one we do here, practices that get me both into my body and into the truth of my life in the moment, it helps me return to myself, no matter how long I’ve been gone. In many ways, the entire practice is return. We return again and again, to the page and to what matters.

I hope today’s practice returns you in the ways you most need.

Warmly,
Anna

We do today’s movement practice from seated (chair or ground, up to you). Everything else you need is in the video!

The poem we use for our prompt today is Want by Carrie Fountain

Website: Carrie Fountain

Book: The Life

As always, I am sharing this poem with so much gratitude!

How did the practice sit with you this week? What’s it like to plug into movement in these different ways: both in the body and on the page? We’d love to hear how it’s going or something you wrote in the comments! I’ll be sharing there, too!

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When I feel like I have no idea how I can possibly hold anything else in this world, which is most days, I turn to the practice we do here. It’s a way I create space inside to hear myself, for real.

I hope it offers you your own version of this, too.

Warmly,
Anna

We do today’s movement practice from lying down (ground or couch/bed), but you can certainly do it from seated in a chair if preferred. Everything else you need to know is in the video!

The poem we use for our practice is What You Missed That Day You Were Absent From Fourth Grade by Brad Aaron Modlin

Website: Brad Aaron Modlin

Book: Everyone at This Party Has Two Names

As always, I am sharing this poem with so much gratitude!

I love seeing everyone encourage each other in the comments! When you do the practice, I would love for you to share how it went, a line that had life for you from what you wrote, your entire piece, or whatever feels resonant for you. I’m sharing what I wrote there today, too!

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Between the years of 2015 and 2022, my family and I moved four times (and technically six if you count the few months we spent in rentals in between two of those moves). If you asked me why we were moving again at the time, I would have had a good reason: we needed different space, we wanted to move to the west coast, we wanted to save money, and so on.

The real reason, though? I never felt settled. And I kept thinking the problem was geographic, when really it was internal. It wasn’t until I was more settled in my own body that I finally stopped reaching for Redfin as a reflex.

We’ve now lived in our current home for three years, which isn’t long but is also the longest we’ve lived anywhere that I wasn’t pretty immediately plotting my next move.

I think on some level I always knew the answer wasn’t going to come in the form of a new address, and while I wouldn’t say “an answer” has arrived now, I do know better how to feel for when I’m rooted.

This week’s practice invites us to consider (among many other things, always) the ways in which we have begun again or want to, and I hope it’s supportive for wherever you find yourself today.

Warmly,
Anna

Today’s movement practice uses the support of a chair from both standing and seated. Everything else you need for both the movement and writing portions is in the video. When you’re ready, all you have to do is set your timer for however long you want to write, put pen to paper, write down the jump-off line of your choosing, and see where your body and the time take you.

Here’s what I wrote when I did the practice myself (I wrote right past the alarm on this one!):

You may do this, I tell you, it is permitted. Begin again the story of your life. I wanted to take the whole last stanza from this poem because I need every word of it right now. It’s what I’m living, and it’s around permission.

I told my therapist I wanted to take a sabbatical and she said, “What are you waiting on? Permission?” “Always,” I said. And it’s true. I am always on some level waiting for permission.

A few years ago when I had to end a particularly difficult relationship, I craved permission like air. I hungered for it, thirsted for it. I felt enraged that I couldn’t get it. “Why won’t someone just tell me I can do this?!,” I thought over and over. The truth is that sometimes they did. The bigger truth is that no one else’s permission matters if I don’t have my own.

I imagine sabbatical to be a place I could teach myself permission. I listened to a podcast about how people figure out the logistical details of sabbatical, which is different in intention, though not entirely, from a break. I think of it more as an intentional space to cultivate a new way of listening, one that doesn’t require me to have something at least moderately helpful or supportive to say each and every week. A space to clear and listen for what’s next, how the work wants to evolve but more importantly how I do.

I’ve already convinced myself I don’t really need it, can make do just fine without it. And on many levels, of course, that’s true. But on another, it’s hard to talk so much about listening to your body with how much I override my own. Maybe there’s something I can learn only by following the road I’ve been creating all these years. It’s possible it’s taken me right here: to listening when it feels impossible. Which isn’t to say I haven’t done that before, I have. If I haven’t begun again the story of my life, I have certainly interrupted it greatly.

One of my biggest lessons from the past several years is that sometimes you don’t know how you’ll feel until you do the thing. It’s actually not possible to know until then.

Who would I be, or become, if I gave myself my own permission?

*Jump-off line from “Da Capo” by Jane Hirshfield

Website: Jane Hirshfield does not have a website, which you gotta love.

Most recent book: The Asking: New & Selected Poems and I also enjoyed her conversation on the Emergence Magazine podcast

As always, I am sharing this poem with so much gratitude!

If you do the practice this week, I’d love to hear: how did it go? If there’s an excerpt you want to share from what you write (or the whole piece), you’re warmly invited to do so!

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