“Oh hey there- ! Hi ! …Come on in… I’ll get the door for you. We were just sitting down to share a meal and we saved a place for you at the table. Are you hungry? How was your day?”
Imagine feeling embraced by this greeting walking into a group of strangers. This is a reflection of how it felt on my first day of SoULL Unit one. I could feel these inviting words echoing from the group.
Growing up I spent a lot of time after school at a friend's house whose mom would sit and talk with us every day around the family kitchen table. When we came bouncing in she would stop what she was doing, sit us down at the table and make us something to eat, and talk to us about our day. She made us peanut butter sandwiches and we drank juice from recycled jelly jars that had cartoon characters on them. My favorite had a cat and mouse on it. My friends had a dinosaur. I looked forward every day after school to going to my friends house and us talking around that kitchen table. As I grew older I realized it wasn’t the kitchen table, the fun jelly jars of juice or even the peanut butter sandwiches that I looked forward to each day. It was the sharing and the connection that was so special when we gathered.
Unit one of SoULL felt like a gathering of close family/friends sharing around a kitchen table. And like someone was holding the door for me as I walked into class holding both my fears and courage by the hand. I could feel the “soles” of my shoes were worn from walking a journey and living a story I hadn’t shared before. And my “soul” became instantly aware of the untold stories in my heart. It was like learning a foreign, yet familiar language. How many of us, afterall, remember who we were before the world told us who we were supposed to be? It had been a while since I felt fed.
Before you read on, feel free to take a breath with me, if you’d like: Sit back, relax your neck and shoulders.…take a slow breath in and inhale gently… now exhale slowly... Relaxing that little space between your eyebrows … and focus on your breath. Now relax your jaw and breathe in again. This time breathe in a feeling of deep compassion and exhale a feeling of deep peace.
After taking this breath, you might feel as I did after experiencing many of our classes. I felt more at ease and maybe like the edge-y parts inside were smoothed a bit. I had a deeper feeling of self awareness and like I dropped into a deeper sense of belonging inside myself as a result of our classes.
On my first day of Unit one, I felt a bit like I was getting ready to give my first speech in front of my 3rd grade class. I was nervous and knew I’d be sharing parts of me, but didn’t know which parts or to what extent. I started a letter to myself a week before class began that was filled with my fears and “what if’s” and “I don’t think I cans”. Just minutes before the class started I quickly finished the letter to myself writing:
“But what if I fail?…. Oh, but Darling, what if you fly?”
Peace and love,
G.
After sealing the envelope, I entered the class, fears and all. And I’m so thankful I did. What I experienced was invaluable. It changed my world view and gave me a new interpersonal framework from which to build. I learned more about our changing rhythms and movements that are interconnected with nature, as well as our expansions and contractions. I found a gathering place where each of us had a gift to bring. And a place where all of our gifts were welcomed.
SoULL Unit one was reminiscent of a welcoming place and a gathering table for my younger self, around which we shared our common threads of our humanness: our strengths and fears, our joys and struggles, our clarity and uncertainties. All of our internal pulses that make us human were welcomed at this table.
Now I can share this with you:
Oh hey there-! Hi! Come on in. I’ll get the door for you. We were just sitting down to share a meal and I saved a place for you at the table. Are you hungry? How was your day?
Thanks for taking a breath with me.
Gina Rubin
