dreams

i woke up in the early morning in the middle of a loud gust of wind in the canyon, in the middle of a dream. in the dream jo had asked me to catch a shark for dinner. a live one. i got an alligator instead. i caught a small (for an) alligator in a medium sized-cage, and proudly announced to jo — look, i caught a shark! for your birthday dinner!

but then paused… was it a shark? … or… or was it an alligator? i couldn’t remember. i also couldn’t remember how i caught it.

oh no, i stuttered, haltingly. i think i caught an alligator. oh no, she said in response.

i definitely think we need a shark, she went on. and don’t you know, alligators are one of the most dangerous creatures alive? how would we even cook it?

i didn’t know. but i also didn’t know how we would cook a shark.

together, we stared at the shaking cage, ready for the alligator to burst forth at any moment.

disorientation

i haven’t written here the last month or so, because i’ve been furiously writing elsewhere. Stamp-Stump-Click-Clacking away (for anyone who has heard me type, you know this sound…) in a chaotic google doc (titled, MP FINAL FINAL FINAL, bc obviously there had been two other “final” docs before it), for my thesis. a thesis that, a year ago, i decided to write about the experience of insecurity in nonmonogamous dynamics, and how the dance form i do, contact improvisation, might have something to say or some way to dance about it.

this was my Big Plan. and i felt Really Good about it. but then i got disoriented.

i have spent the last 8 months actively turning towards the experience of disorientation in my relationships, and attempting to write about it.

it has been one of the hardest things i have ever done.

it has also been one of the truest things i have ever done.

it also doesn’t feel finished.

on sunday, i turned in a half-baked thesis. with a small caged alligator still there, uncooked and trembling.

drafting

on friday of last week, i woke up to skies that were no longer sunny and 70*, to imminent snow and freezing temperatures. i dragged myself to my last full cohort seminar of the year, where I sat alone, near the door, ready to bolt at any sign of danger. i drove back to the house where i was dog sitting (mhm) in the middle of a snow storm, took an afternoon bath. then, for the next six hours, i furiously and ferociously reorganized and filled out the rough rough draft of my paper. at 7pm. i halted.

i think I’m done. i actually said out loud, to no one other than myself, and maybe ma, the sweet dog who had been sitting steadily by my feet. i think, this thing is finished. or finished enough for now.

i blew out the candle and closed the laptop. i made dinner. i drank a glass of wine. i watched the final episode of DTF. (wtf?!)

as i lay down at the end of the day for what i hoped to be a much deserved and welcome sleep, my body had other things to say. i got nauseous. i felt spinny. i ran to the bathroom.

i puked 3 times.

debates

i’ve debated about whether or not it makes sense to share this paper, what i’ve been writing about for the last 8 months here, on this substack. i kind of feel like it doesn’t? or it does, but wants to be in a slightly different form. wearing a different kind of outfit.

but this morning i woke up, with my small alligator in the medium cage and the shark still not caught, let alone cooked, and thought… what do i have to lose from sharing?

this thing seems to want out.

so here it is. or at least (at most?), a little introductory taste…

Dancing with Disorientation:

a dance movement therapist contacts relational risk

(or, a somatic counselor becomes disoriented, and attempts to orient again)

by Teagan Lehrmann

May 2026

The End

February 22, 2026

We’re almost to Ned, in B’s truck. It’s 10:14am. She’s driving, I’m in the passenger seat. We’re on our way up to El Dora to ski. It’s February, but it looks and feels more like summer. The air is warm, and windy.

We’re in the truck, and we’re talking about C. B’s relationship to C — her understanding of what’s been happening. Where she thought, or hoped to be in a non-hierarchical system of relational anarchy, where there is actually functional primacy. Where this primacy has been avoided, unaddressed, confusing the situation. Confusing, and impacting B, as she orients towards them. Confusing and impacting me, as I orient towards her. The waterfall of unchecked prioritization, the trail of anxiety and avoidance. This dance we’re in together.

I’m just super disoriented, she says, turning to looking at me, tears collecting in the corners of her eyes. My breath settles lower into my belly, and I exhale. Finally, I can feel the ground. The ground of shared experience.

In that moment, something clicks. That this relational disorientation isn’t hers alone. It’s mine too, and has been — for months. That disorientation is the point at which it all starts to make sense, because it doesn’t.

“The bad news is, you’re falling through the air, nothing to hang on to, no parachute. The good news is, there’s no ground.”

Chogyam Trungpa (1973)

Introduction I: an orientation

note to reader: I started this paper with an inquiry about working with the insecure experience of attachment inherent in CNM dynamics through a practice of CI. But then I got disoriented.

This is a paper about disorientation. You know that feeling, don’t you? You’re walking down a road you thought you knew — you’ve walked this road a thousand times. You took a turn, you thought was right. You weren’t thinking, because you didn’t have to. Your feet have always known the way. But suddenly, a slight noise, a crack in the bark of the trees as the wind bends them just so… wait, trees? What trees? There’s no trees down this road. This road you’ve walked a thousand times. Your gaze snaps up, you take in the forest grove you’ve now found yourself within. This forest grove that is not (and never was) the road you thought you knew.

Or: your phone rings. You weren’t expecting to get a call tonight. With just a few words, maybe a sentence or two, relaying news you didn’t expect. The Big Kind of News. Your sense of reality starts to tilt, or tear, or completely rips, and for a moment, you’re floating in space. For a moment, space is all there is. Is it up or down or sideways? For a moment, directionality no longer makes sense. And also you are utterly alone.

Or: your arms are open wide. So too are your eyes. You start spinning — spinning and spinning and spinning and when you stop, the floor is slightly askew, the walls and all the rest of the world seems to keep swirling around you.

Just for a moment. And then it settles. And then it shifts.

The APA Dictionary of Psychology defines disorientation as an “impaired ability to identify oneself or to locate oneself in relation to time, place, or other aspects of one’s surroundings” (American Psychological Association, 2018). It goes on to say that “long-term disorientation can be characteristic of neurological and psychological disorders; temporary disorientation can be caused by alcohol or drugs or can occur in situations of acute stress.” Such a definition seems to hint at a pathologizing view of this universal, or at least mundane, experience (Ahmed, 2006). In my body, this feels significant. Which I notice as a tingly heat in my chest. A lift in my eyebrows. A desire to speak up, push back. Through this paper, I hope to offer a different view.

This is also a paper about relationship, and relationality. Relationality meaning here, quite simply, “the condition of being in relation with others, and in most formulations, the condition of being somehow constituted by relationships with others” (Bialek, 2022). Meaning that the “I am” of existing is framed as more of a “We are” — a philosophical orientation towards interconnectedness, as opposed to individuality (2022). Or, one could say this is a paper about contact: which can be defined in the Gestalt approach as the “boundary,” the meeting place between self and the environment, the site of change and growth (Perls, Hefferline, & Goodman, 1951). More specifically, this paper is about my experience of disorientation as I contacted a boundary in motion, in a larger relational environment of (nonhierarchical) consensual nonmonogamy (CNM).

First, this was (and is still) a paper about contact improvisation. This research started with dancing. Or, the energetic spark of this research sprung out of what seemed obvious to me about one of my main somatic practices, contact improvisation (CI). To me, this formless form of partner dancing has always seemed to offer a clear parallel to, and somatic pathway for, folks exploring non monogamous dynamics. Somatic, here meaning “describing, relating to, or arising in the body rather than from the mind” (American Psychological Association, 2018). As a dance movement therapist, I regard bodily cues as vital psychological information, a way of accessing and working on the edge of conscious and subconscious material; a way of writing new psychological stories, working on the level of direct experience. Throughout this process, dancing has been my thread; the place I continued to return to, as everything tilted. The dance of Contact Improvisation was where I found the ground.

This paper is a dance, that extends into space. Starting this research, there was not one question, but many (how does CI reveal my attachment patterns and habits? what happens in the moments of “transition” in a CI dance, as it relates to CNM? what does the practice of “sharing weight” have to do with it? what about tensegrity?) These questions emerged and transformed and changed over time. They also changed me.

… and in the process of doing so, completely disoriented me. What seemed so obvious to me in my embodied practice of dancing and relating, seemed so far away from what was available to me in the literature. I found little in the way of published research talking about CI within the realm of psychotherapy or counseling, and what I did find was mostly in the form of unpublished Naropa theses, gathering dust in the archives. Regarding nonmonogamy, I found nothing relating CI and CNM, and the only article talking about this population in a Dance Movement Therapy context was published in 2012… now over ten years ago… and nothing else since. Nothing. The literature on attachment (based in the white western structure of the nuclear family) (Keller, 2022) and the subsequent theories for working with “couples” didn’t seem to make sense for the world I wanted to talk about — a world where there might be more than one partners or attachment figures, a world where there’s less of a difference between “partner” and “friend,” a world of more relational abundance, generosity, and risk (Fern, 2020; Pérez-Cortes, 2020/2022). This world I could sense in the deep core and outer fringes of my lived experience, and underneath the ideological premise (promise?) of polyamorous and relationship anarchy frameworks. As I approached the vacant space of relevant literature, this world I wanted to talk about seemed (more and more) to exist on a completely different planet.

Here, at this edge, I got dizzy. I felt stuck. Walking through mud. Falling through space. Initially encountered as an obstacle, disorientation emerged as the primary focal point of this research. By which I mean, it slapped me in the face. Repeatedly. Until I accepted that disorientation is really the heart of this work. Took a deep breath. And turned towards it.

This paper insisted on a highly personal, occasionally transgressive form and style precisely because of the emptiness I encountered in the field. Because in the absence of robust literature and theory, my own lived experience was the only thing I could find to hold onto as I now asked: What on earth is happening here? Why am I so disoriented, and what does this disorientation have to say about my (CNM) relationships? And how does my practice of dancing (CI) help me meet this experience, and work with it?

Or: how might dancing with disorientation actually offer a way in? (to connection).

This paper might not look like, or sound like, other academic papers, because this paper is taking a risk, in its attempt to be more relational.

…. to be continued? …

with so much love

from hands that are barely hanging on (but so so close)

<3

tea

most mornings these days, i wake up, make a cup of tea, and get to work

— on a puzzle

this puzzle found it’s way onto our kitchen table a couple weeks ago

a puzzle of the world

2000 pieces, taking up most of the square footage of

the long dining room table

Jo and I share for meals, and talking

often about relationships (the work of doing them differently), also sex, also the work that does or doesn’t pay the bills, what lies heavy on our minds

what puzzles our hearts

as we talk, my hands fidget with the pieces

break-ups, breakdowns, small breaks in the space in between stories

creating outlines with edges, connecting colors, grouping shapes, trying to make sense of the small details, to click pieces into place — a bigger whole

a whole that’s easier to tend to than the gap on the left side of my chest

most mornings these days, Jo leaves and i sit there, still at the head of the long wooden table and look and look, and fidget, and sit there, and fidget and look

with increasing angst — it’s too much. it’s too big. the pieces are too small. i can’t find the one i need.

other times, i sit there, and get one piece. and then two. and then suddenly an entire section begins to come together, and it all starts to make a little more sense. it all starts to feel a little more contained.

these past couple weeks i can’t seem to bring myself to get to work.

it’s all too much

my mom is sick and the cousin who was missing is back jail and these two Big Boundaries that sting like rejection

it’s all too much

to finish the notes

of the couple i haven’t seen in two saturdays

to go to class

with the best friend who now isn’t

to start the paper

the outline of which was due three weeks ago

to respond to the emails of the folks who

said they’d like to help, but need compensation

i’d like that too, i think to myself

maybe this work i can’t seem to get working on would be easier to start if i was getting paid

so i don’t

and instead, i sit at the table

working on this puzzle

it’s all too much

i tell my new therapist, who i don’t pay (thank you medicaid), and a person who wanted to help, and whom I did

to even approach writing about contact and attachment when my own attachment system is spinning out and raw and glitching. when my main (also new, just a budding) source spring of contact decided three weeks ago, and told me over the phone, that yeah, it was a no.

we tried it on, she said. it didn’t fit.

certain, she was, that the pieces of our bodies and our longing and our hearts didn’t make sense together.

certain, I felt, that we didn’t really try. or try in the right way, with enough safety, and enough container, enough playfulness or space. we never even connected the edges. never even marked “here” — this is what we’re doing, where we’re building. and this is where and what we’re not.

it’s hard to know if the pieces fit when we don’t know what direction is up or down or sideways.

it’s easy to say the pants don’t fit when you’re shoving your leg into the tight long sleeve of an arm hole

it’s easy to give up and run away when there’s no map, no reference photo for this kind of thing we’re trying to do.

as I sit at the table with a cup of tea that is cooling and a brow that is scrunched up in searching, and a back that is hunched over a table and boxes of ungrouped pieces, I think of my sister who always said it was “cheating” to look at the photo on the cover of the box.

i never really got it until now

i never really got it until trying and failing and failing and trying and trying to make the pieces of my heart and body and longing fit with the longing and body and heart of another, and another, and an other, sometimes more than one other at a time

most of the time, the trying ends with dirt and sand and tears in my eyes. a pit in my stomach.

i never really got it until i realized that in this kind of puzzle, the one that doesn’t come in a box with a photo, you have to start small. to just get one piece first, and then two. to move outwards from the details, with no real sense of where you’re going

because that’s exactly the point

because you already decided you didn’t want the puzzle that comes in the box with the photo on the cover, the one passed down through the hands of disney and rom coms and family and fairy tales and taylor swift songs

because you gave that box away years ago

because the pit in the hole of your stomach knows that despite what it looks like (ie. a total fucking mess) you do know where you’re going (or if not where, how) and you trust your body and your heart and your longing enough to know when it fits —because you will feel it — and when it doesn’t

and you promise yourself (again) to LET GO and to take space and regroup when it all becomes too much, too disorienting, and you and the one with soft hands and sweet kisses are both trying and trying to squeeze your legs into the small opening of the arm hole

falling over backwards and too scared to name what’s happening, until she dips first and says

it doesn’t fit.

and looking at the stretched out long sleeve of the arm hole,

you see that it doesn’t

and go back to piecing together

the 2000 pieces of the world

on the surface of your kitchen table

sneaking furtive glances at the box

with the photo on the cover.

til soon <3

teagan

p.s. this week is a weird one, in a weird time, in a weird country. we’re being told to gather and celebrate — but maybe what’s needed is to gather and grieve? with gratitude, always.

a wish: may your gatherings be nourishing. may your company be kind. and may this week bring you the space that is needed to look at what puzzles your heart

p.p.s. pop off sis

hey.

suddenly it’s fall. up in jamestown, where i now live nestled in a canyon in a solar-fueled, hand-built, straw bale house, the weather has taken a sharp cool turn. the nights and mornings are crisp.

suddenly, it’s not summer anymore. there’s a certain kind of grief there. also relief.

this summer held so much, as summers do. (cancer season is always an intense one for my system). in the middle of much transition, big hard endings and moves and separation — and i don’t need to tell you so much chaos out there in the world — there was also so much sweetness.

sweetness in the form of long bike rides, creek dips, juicy dances, wedding crashes, and nights filled with more snuggling and stargazing and sharing than sleep.

one such eve in mid august, lying in the open air up above Gold Hill i had the realization: i’m in love. with all my friends.

maybe the steep shift in elevation was messing with my brain.

or maybe a prayer i’ve prayed or didn’t know i’ve been praying or knew i was praying but didn’t know exactly what for had been answered in this extended moment of belonging.

the kind of belonging i felt then, and can still feel the resonance of now, is a kind of belonging i used to believe could only be found through the finding of one’s One True Love.

One being a major sticky point for me, throughout my relational life. (but i guess also “True” and “Love” being concepts that haven’t quite landed, claustrophobic in their implied specificity).

before we get ahead of ourselves, no — i wasn’t at an orgy (though you don’t have to look too hard to find this kind of thing in boulder, it’s currently not rly my thing)

but yes, there is a certain kind of “coming out” moment happening here in this semi-public space. one that feels riskier in a sense than claiming queerness. even though this is also just that - queering relationship. queering community. queering home.

claiming a commitment (not because i want to, per se, but because i kind of have to) to “doing the relationship thing” differently than i had been told. (by society, media, church, family, friends).

yes, i’m telling you i’m one of those non-monogamous gays. (…or am i?)

over the last several years, i’ve been timidly, brashly, intentionally, carelessly investigating the world of non-monogamy. trying it on for size, wondering if it’s “for” me. putting on various versions of “opening up,” consensual non-monogamy (CNM), polyamory, relationship anarchy.

what i’ve found: i have no idea what i want. what actually “works” (for me, for anyone).

what’s true is that “relationship” as it’s been defined and idealized and commoditized by the monogamous paradigm is broken. is suffering from an identity crisis. is in desperate need of repair. whether we have one partner, or many.

what’s true is that the fairy-tale version of love we love to tell again and again and again, the kind of love we pine for in the west is so fixated on the rush of new lust, it forgets about what it takes to make a relationship sustainable. so obsessed with ownership, it suffocates the range of our expression (of desire, of self). this “fairy tale” love demands the ultimate sacrifice (of self), for the promise of salvation (thru the redemption of True Love).

it’s a sacrifice i no longer feel willing to make, for a promise i no longer believe in.

what’s true (for me, in this moment) is that in a period of “lacking” a monogamous or even primary partner, i have so much more capacity to love my friends. not just in a “love you girl” kind of way – but in a deeply tender, clean your house, build a garden, bring you soup when you’re sick, pick you a bouquet of flowers and hold your hand at 11pm while we both cry kind of way.

what’s true (for me, in this moment) is that this kind of love feels exciting, nourishing, sensual, alive, and yes, even romantic.

i think of my mother (hi mom), telling me that all she ever wanted was for me to “find someone” to share my life with.

i think of the partnerships i’ve had, the ones never quite “worked.” how i consistently loose myself somewhere in the middle. the recurring narrative of “failure.”

what’s true (for me, in this moment) is that in this time without some One, i feel like i’m alive again. in love with the rhythm of my life. the way it’s shared with and amplified by the love of so many others.

there’s something to be said about this.

there’s so much that others have said (like jessica fern, rhaina cohen, dean spade, marie thouin, and the multiamory folks)*, and also so much that hasn’t yet been said. so much that i might continue to say here, through my writing? to continue to flesh out in my dancing. in my relationships. possibly in my thesis.

*if you’re looking for a full reading list, holler at ya boi, i got u

bc as i start the third and final (yay) year of graduate schooling, i’m being invited (instructed) to turn towards what interests me most in this world of somatic / dance movement therapy, and to craft a research project to focus on over the next nine months.

right now, i’m just at the beginning. curious about what certain aspects of the dance form i love (and love to hate and hate to love) – contact improvisation (a formless form of partner dance) – might offer to folks interested in exploring non-monogamy (like me), but really for anyone looking to do the relationship thing differently. by which i mean with a little less auto-pilot and a little more awareness.

it’s a loose inquiry right now, to hone in on over the next several weeks / year.

some related / more specific questions i’m asking:

• how / does dancing contact improvisation confront us with our attachment patterns?

• what happens for me / others in the transitional moments into & out of a dance? (or connection / relationship). how do i handle those comings and goings and gaps?

• how / does dancing contact improvisation lead to an increased awareness of “relational space”? can certain parts of CI can be taken out of context to practice this kind of awareness, even for folks who claim that they “don’t dance?”

• how does one go about looking for a relationship, by which I mean connection / love / care / belonging, when defined by what it “isn’t” more than what it “is”?

• what’s up with romantic friendship? can i actually build a life with this at the center?

curious what kind of questions you’re asking about the relationships you’re in (or not, but want to be)

to all the friends near and far — yes, you — I LOVE YOU. oh so much.

xoxo

tea

for the last year or so, maybe more i’ve been thinking a lot about timelines, past lives, future possibilities. (also alien lands, cosmic collapse and rips in the space time continuum). also how a song, a certain wine, a two hour plane ride, can send me backwards or forwards in time.

how many lives i’ve lived, at almost four years past thirty.

how many portals i’ve stepped or stumbled into, that have changed or molded the shape of my world, the landscape of my being. how sometimes i think i can access those many selves, those past versions of me, those past loves, those past homes… and sometimes the overwhelming grief when i can’t

i’m still the same guy, aren’t I? but am i?

the edges of wrinkles there, the edge of my eyes, still framed by a baby face, at this age my mother had already lost her mother, had three babies by now (or just about) – and i’m still “figuring it out”

figuring out how to belong and how to be and what to do in these times to give a life meaning

meaning that, i still don’t really know. as the years roll through i sometimes think (i fear, i obsess, i cry) that i don’t have much to show for it – no house, no job, no ring, no offspring or savings to speak of, no clear sense of direction, just a lot of deep probing questions but

i’m in a show?

showing that i had a silly little dream to Be a Dancer and Make Art and by golly, it looks like i’m doing it, baby’s first group piece in a grad student show.

silly but, it’s something

silly but, when the system is crumbling, sometimes silly and sweet and small and making art together is what’s needed

over the last three months, i’ve been tickled? floored? enamored? by a motley group of movers who have has gathered around me to create an “improvised piece” out of these questions and themes. initially I thought it was about black holes. or portals. a weasel stuck in particle collider. this man channeling an alien named bashar who’s telling us humanity keeps splitting our reality because we choosing wrong.* i had no idea what i was doing – i’ve never “choreographed” a piece before.

*this is not an account that i follow, nor a stance that i claim to be true - it’s ARTISTIC INQUIRY OKAY :P

of course, nothing went as planned. some people were in, but then out, but then in again. the sound artist i’d recently befriended who was down to make our improvised sound suddenly got an offer to perform at a museum in new york. sure cool, but it was the same weekend as OUR show

of course, i was taking it extra extra personally – the show’s on my birthday after all

the arc of the piece mirrored something about the story of my life right now, reinforced a narrative that I cannot get what i want. nothing works out for me, and everything is awful

i told a friend through tears that it was all a disaster. the piece might not even happen

in spite of it all, i kept showing up. to the work of moving with my questions – to the work of being in a process – and so did others

what does it look like to jump across time? to swim through the cosmos? to wake up to the moment? waking up in the forrest, then waking up in the city, and waking up in the far far far past and waking to ourselves as we are right now and how do we know if we’re sleeping? how can we move back into a dream?

presence is the portal.

one of the movers said these words aloud as we looped the sound of our voices saying nonsensical things.

i don’t want to be here. tangled up in the vines, lalala ladeedeeda i can’t hear you. how many portals? time is not a straight line.

presence is the portal

the words struck a cord, a nerve, a deep resonance in the pit of my belly. yes. YES. YES YES YES. this little glimmer of aliveness in a desert of inspiration.

how do we get out of here?

presence is the portal.

how do we shift our collective timeline?

presence is the portal

what’s the plan?

there’s no plan, but there’s presence.

what’s the move?

into and out of and back into presence.

we can’t escape without presence.

we can’t fight without presence

we can’t rebuild without presence.

presence is the portal.

and now here we are, at the night of the show. not sure what will happen… but something will.

here we are also, at the eve before a libra full moon, my solar return, another portal.

no but literally – apparently all the retrogrades are all over, and eclipse season is thru, and now the energy is gonna start MOVING. buckle on up.

my birthday wish for myself, and my full moon wish for us all is for more acceptance and more justice, more dancing and more rest, more dreaming and more presence.

ps. if you wanna honor me or the moon or just do something rly nice in this rly mean moment in time consider donating to either of these two organizations working towards a more just & inclusive & free & more real reality:

TRANSLIFELINE - nationwide peer support phone service run by trans people for trans and questioning folks in need of support

ACLU - fighting for immigrant rights, trans justice, reproductive freedom (& more) in courts and communities across the country

flowers will soon be blooming,

tea

omg hi. i definitely fell off the face of the planet the last three (?) months. but it also seems like that’s just what’s happening right now. everything feels inside out and topsy turvy. in the world (in america for sure). in my friend’s lives. in my life.

i could tell you about it. the breakup that wasn’t mine, but felt like it. (excruciatingly so). the having to move, more than once (another on the way), the panic attacks, the flu, the almost-cruises. the ever mounting existential angst i feel in a world that’s increasingly rushed and chaotic and full of not just fake but totally ape shit news and like where tf is the ground?

i think i’ll save you the headache of it all. let’s just say, it’s a tower year for sure, at least for me.

it seemed more fun (interesting? useful?) to tell you to break up with your therapist. or like, to offer some signs / situations in which it might be a good option to consider.

*for context – am currently considering breaking up with mine. (it’s not bc i don’t love her. i really reallyyyy do).

okay wait wait wait back-up. aren’t you a therapist in training? (yep.) who finally caved and took out a hunk of loans to pay for a therapeutic education? (mhm). and wait, haven’t i heard you say that you think everyone should go to therapy? (sure did, and, with some limited exceptions, still more or less believe this to be true).

but you’re telling me to STOP going to therapy? (say it louder for the kids in the back).

a dear friend of mine recently(ish) asked me, “is it bad that I’m thinking of breaking up with my therapist?” she had been seeing this therapist for a number of years. i immediately responded, um, no way! which caught me by surprise.

a few months later she did, and reported back as it being one of the best decisions she’d made in a good hot minute.

that conversation stuck with me, as well as her glowing results. i’ve been thinking about it a lot. and am writing about it here, possibly as a mini series as I question the field of therapy completely.

and recommit to the work.

part 1. WHY BREAKUP?

1. not all therapists are created equal

(aka there are lots of bad therapists out there and you might have one)

the longer i’m in school, and the more different kinds of therapists i cross paths with or hear about, the more i realize a) just how powerful the education i’m getting is (albeit far- far far far - from perfect). the majority of our focus is around deeply understanding and undoing all of our inherited and ingrained patterns around relating, and learning to use our bodies as instruments of reading and holding and transforming space. we’re learning to discern when a feeling is ours — and when it’s not (called countertransference, or exchange), and how to hold that as useful information in relating to the therapeutic space.

b) most therapists don’t actually do this. in fact, there are some therapists out there who have never even been to therapy themselves. (this should be illegal, but nobody asked me).

big problem #1: there’s not a universal definition of what therapy even is, or how to do it. despite having been in grad school for almost two years, i honestly still can’t really tell you what it is that we’re doing here. what’s true — in the grand scheme of thing, the idea of therapy is really really new. (more on this later).

what I can tell you, is that in most standardized therapeutic education, there’s a lot of emphasis on psychological frameworks, and very little emphasis on meeting the moment, which, I believe, is where the actual healing happens.

what’s also true (at least, according to the research), is that the single most important factor in determining whether or not people will have a good experience in therapy, who report therapy as “useful,” is the quality of the therapeutic relationship (ie. the relationship between the client and the therapist). it’s the experience the client has of feeling felt. this isn’t just feeling seen, or feeling heard (but that’s definitely part of it), and it’s not even about understanding or insight or goals or measurable change. it’s the (seemingly) simple experience of feeling met in your emotional / somatic experience, in a deep, ineffable kind of shared understanding.

there’s therapists who can do this. and those who can’t.

| question to ask yourself: do I feel felt by my therapist (not just heard and seen?)

2. it’s time to mix it up.

if you’ve been working with the same therapist, who utilizes the same style, for you know, a while (we’re talking anywhere in the range of a couple to five or even ten years) it could be time to switch it up. even with a great therapist, the relationship can start to soften or stale over time, and you might find that you’re no longer getting the same level insight or aren’t being challenged as much.

you might even feel stuck, which could be an indicator a fresh perspective or different approach is needed.

just like any other humans doing literally anything — different therapists are good at different things! and are worse at others. one therapist might be GREAT at working with attachment theory & enm relationships, but not so good at deep trauma work, where another therapist might EXCEL at working with practical strategies to change behaviors, but might not be the best at catching defensive emotional strategies.

insider tip: you can actually ask your therapist what they’re good at. and where they think their blindspots are. even if you’ve worked with them for years, you can talk about whether or not where you’re at right now is the best fit for their skillsets. if it’s not, you can also ask for referrals, for folks who might be better or differently equipped to provide the kind of support that you’re seeking. i definitely had to be told that this was an okay thing to do.

alsooooo after some time together, your therapist might *think* they know you quite well. therapists are people too. they get comfortable with patterns and routines and might no longer question small nuances in your behavior, might miss subtler dynamics or sneakier cues because their projection of you has become more solidified (and comfortable) over time.

it’s also not uncommon for enmeshment to happen in the therapeutic space. yes, you can become dependent on your therapist. even really good therapists might not always catch it. (big problem #2: for private pay practitioners, it’s not reallyyyy in their financial interest to do so).

if you think enmeshment or codependence might be happening… you can ask your therapist about this too.

that’s not to say that duller periods of “doing therapy” aren’t ok. in fact, sometimes periods of resistance or stagnation are an important, even essential, part of the process (especially if avoidance or denial is part of your style. it can sometimes take a good lonnnnngggggg while to get to the meat).

if you’re new to this work, or new to a therapist, and it’s first time you’re encountering resistance or boredom or frustration, now is NOT the time to run away.

talk to your therapist instead.

| questions to ask yourself: what are my goals for therapy right now? is this therapist a good fit for those goals? and (if you feel stuck) where might i need a fresh perspective?

3. it’s time to just be done. or at least, take a break.

breaking news: therapy isn’t meant to last forever. if your therapist has never once brought up the idea of closure, or what their process looks like for wrapping things up, ASK THEM. if they don’t respond well to the inquiry, could be a red flag.

because you know what they say — all good things must come to an end. well actually that’s kind of b.s., bc literally EVERYTHING must come to an end. even therapy.

death is an inevitable part of life, and so are endings. terminating a relationship with a therapist can be an INCREDIBLE opportunity to actually understand how you relate to endings, to death.

last year i ended a therapeutic relationship of 8+ years by a) avoiding scheduling another session and b) sending a rather vague and angsty email back three months later. and never talked to him again.

i also know someone who decided to end things with her therapist, and spent almost three months off-ramping the relationship. she and her therapist examined their attachment patterns from every which angle. they took the time to name gratitudes and challenges of working together over the last three years. they co-created and performed a ritual of closure.

um so like i said, there’s really different ways we respond to endings. this can be really useful information to know about yourself.

lastly, finally, and perhaps most importantly: it is OKAY to step off the self-improvement machine for a minute. whether that’s a few weeks, or a few years. it is okay to take a pause, to take a nap, to take a break, yes even from the project of understanding yourself. sometimes, our greatest insights come from periods of rest and integration.

this is more or less where i am currently at. overstuffed with information and insight, needing a little time to digest. craving a little more space. having to remind myself… that taking a break from therapy (especially when i’m surrounded by it 24/7) is not only okay… it might be absolutely necessary.

for you, as much as myself: you are not a leaky faucet to be fixed. you are already completely whole and good and fine.

but if you’ve never gone to therapy… maybe give it a try?

warmer days ahead,

tea

happy pumpkin spice season <3

this summer, i felt like i was loosing it. losing track of myself as I fell into other people: their lives, their grief, their bodies, their stories. losing track of my practice, as I lost the desire to dance. losing track of the world, as the news felt too heavy to bear, i turned away. i was losing at working. losing at resting. or taking time off. losing at integrating or healing or settling or getting any closer to understanding why tf i hit my head so often, almost once a month. 

it’s like the universe has to hit me upside the noggin so i sit down to listen. 

this morning, i sat down. 

i sat down on my cushion to practice, with a small smattering of small objects i had set down atop my “altar” (ie. dresser). i sat down on the couch with my journal, and a cup of tea, stream of consciousness scribble three morning pages, i sat down at my old desk in my new house to write for the first time since i’ve moved. 

i wondered: is this a ritual? 

ritual – another thing i felt like i was loosing. or maybe have never fully grasped?  

as classes start back up (thank god, i was losing it) i notice a theme. we’re talking a lot about ritual, and its role in creativity, research, healing… and a reoccurring question: is ritual the same or different than routine? 

some definitions / descriptions / questions i’ve encountered: 

1. google search, ref. Oxford Dictionary

rit·u·al 

/ˈriCH(əw)əl/

noun: a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order."the role of ritual in religion"

adjective: relating to or done as a religious or solemn rite."ritual burial”

i’m struck by the use of solemn. does ritual have to be serious?

2. Twyla Tharpe (from Rituals of Preparation) 

“I begin each day of my life with a ritual: I wake up at 5:30 A.M., put on my workout clothes, my leg warmers, my sweatshirts, and my hat. I walk outside my Manhattan home, hail a taxi, and tell the driver to take me to the Pumping Iron gym at 91st Street and First Avenue, where I work out for two hours. The ritual is not the stretching and weight training I put my body through each morning at the gym; the ritual is the cab. The moment I tell the driver where to go I have completed the ritual “ (p. 14).

according to Tharpe, the “mundane” steps one takes to clear the path, to set the table, the “automatic but decisive patterns of behavior” is a vital part of the creative process. to Tharpe, this meets the definition: “a prescribed order for performing religious or other devotional service” (p. 15). 

i find myself pushing back. Twyla, isn’t this just your daily workout routine? where’s the magic? where’s the wonder? 

3. Malidoma Patrice Somé (from The Healing Wisdom of Africa)  

“Ritual is the technology that allows for the manipulation of… subtle energies… When villagers act together on their need for healing and engage in such spontaneous gestures, they are requesting the presence of the invisible forces and are participating with those forces in creating a harmony or symbiosis…. Ritual is an art, an art that weaves and dances with symbols, and helping to create that art rejuvenates participants” (pp. 22-23). 

Somé points towards the lack of ritual in Western culture, pointing towards the importance of community, and the implied connection to Spirit that ritual provides.

i feel the lack of, the longing for this kind of connection.

perhaps my favorite mind/genre-bending one yet…

4. Coppin & Nelson (from The Art of Inquiry: A Depth-Psychological Perspective)

“Many readers may notice that the moves of psychological inquiry are subtly reminiscent of traditional ceremony and ritual. That is, the moves are meaningful, intentional practices that bring one into relationship with something Other, which is something greater than oneself. That “Other,” in the art of inquiry, is the work” (p. 176).

yes, this book, The Art of Inquiry is calling for a more mystical process, a relationship with the subconscious and perhaps even spiritual aspects of psychological research. 

this piece also points to the historical loss of ritual in the West (like Somé), while also nodding to the inextricable link to routine (much like Tharpe). another, longer excerpt:

“Ritual has a long history and venerable reputation, one that has been tarnished since the earliest days of the European Enlightenment, when the belief in the power of humans to control their own fate reached its pitch. To this day, the fantasy of control is still widespread … Because of the fantasy of control continues to exert is seductive pull today, many believe ritual is an anachronism. Yet, consider the ways most of us prepare for work each morning: bathing, dressing in business clothes, eating breakfast, mulling over the day’s schedule, and then setting out for the office. Those who do this Monday through Friday think of it as routine. Another name for it is ritual” (p. 176). 

there’s a paradox here: ritual, as process, a method that implies a giving up control. an invitation for fate or Spirit or god or the subconscious to arise, take up some space. a way of honoring the unknown. and yet the ritual itself, is something we set up, design, initiate… control? 

this summer i was losing it. nothing predictable, nothing to schedule. without a container to hold the whirlpool of experience, i poured myself fully in to what i could find: others, and where I didn’t have that, collapsed into a puddle. 

have i been experiencing depression? anxiety? adhd? (three diagnoses i have been formally given, and of which i have many thoughts, more soon)

or are my “symptoms” more akin to spiritual crisis?  (a curiosity as of late)

and whether or not it’s one or the other, can it simply be boiled down to a lack of routine? a famine of ritual? 

ritual, as i’m relating to it now, is a process you control, in order to lose it. to lose it, in order to come back. to come back, in order to be changed. 

i remind myself what’s been lost, to pave the way for coming back

coming back to myself. to giving myself space. to remembering my sense of “power” (aka root or center or feet?), to my desire and desirability. 

i bleached my hair. was it a ritual? it’s changed the way i’m holding my body. 

coming back to dance. by dancing. i danced to a song. was it a ritual? it’s changed the way i’m holding my grief. 

a small dance? a grief ritual?

coming back to writing. making space to allow the flow to come through and remembering i have to schedule the time. to make it routine.

i wrote this. did it take a ritual? this process of writing has changed the way i’m  holding my beliefs.

coming back to spirit. to magic. 

last night i looked for the moon. a sexy slender crescent in the sky. 

this fall, it seems, my work is in the coming back. remembering to pray in the darkness, to create the containers and repeat the conditions that will hold myself together enough to fall into the unknown.

(and coming back to back to back to back to me so i can avoid falling back to back to back to back to you 😘)

ty charlixcxoxoxoloveyouall <3

tea 

oh hey. it’s been. a year. 

no actually – it really has. i sent out my first full substack post, someone new, almost exactly one year ago on May 14, 2023 (also my ma’s bday, hbd mom <3). tbh, i’d give myself a… b- ? on my follow through with this project of writing so far.

it’s a been a year of big moves and new journeys and grad school and saying yes and saying no and turning one year older. but guess what I’m now in my jesus year, as they say. my buddha time. 33. the magical number of enlightenment and rebirth. 

nbd or anything. 

it’s also… been quite the week? month? 

reconcussed, the end of my semester was a slog. overwhelmed and saddened, as half of the core-faculty at my program (ie. all the folks i most admired and longed to learn from) announced their leave. reinvigorated, by another – more distanced glimpse – of caroline rose at a recent boulder show (mini epilogue below).

i find myself in a moment of looping back around. in many ways, here I am again, not that far from where I was same time last year, asking myself the same questions, seeing the same shows. wondering who i am, and what to do, and where to go. 

what is therapy, even? and what isn’t it? what do i want to get out of this program, this process? who is the mentor? who is the muse?

in some ways, i’m looping back around to meeting my spaztic, meeting my frantic, meeting my grasping, hungry ghost. 

but looping back around with a sensation that the ground beneath feels a little more… like ground? with a sense that maybe there’s “brilliant sanity” here alongside the gouls, delicately glimmering amidst the muck of it all. 

a new term in my contemplative vocabulary, i (pretend to) understand brilliant sanity to be this buddhist psych idea that holds that even when experiencing “unhealthy” (for lack of a better word” states of mind (going as far as expressions of mania or psychosis) – there’s still something of brilliance there, something trying to protect us, or connect us, or show compassion to those around us. and that something can get thwarted or warped or distorted, but that something often just wants to be seen. and if reflected back, can offer a little bit of space. 

a little space to breathe. 

if this sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo, welcome. if you’d like the technical definition and clinical application of this concept, you’d have to call your (my) girlfriend, she’s the real buddhist scholar here, but my (lOoSe) take is that there’s brilliant sanity everywhere. if only we’re perceptive enough to see it.

there’s brilliant sanity in my concussions. my brain is just responding to (increasingly) minimal impact in the way it’s learned to keep itself “safe.” even if' it’s actually holding me back.

there’s brilliant sanity in my post-injury panic attacks – my nervous system simply wants me to stay alive… despite its limited ability to do anything about it. 

there’s brilliant sanity in my tears, my disorientation, and my rage, as I confront the reality of two more years in this program, without the modeling and the holding of the professors who first drew me in. who inspired me to say yes to a second attempt at grad school, and move my life from ca to co. these big big feels they point to my deep desire to grow in a specific direction — which can direct my future studies. my ravenous craving for mentorship — which can be filled in other, more intentional, ways. and the sharp clarity that I actually want to be an artistic and capable and embodied dance movement therapist, and to build my capacity for holding others in this particular and beautiful way. 

recognizing the glimmer of brilliant sanity is not an excuse to spiritually bypass. to cover up the ick and make it all okay. instead it’s a way of naming the wisdom behind the impulse. offering an opportunity to redirect the energy, to take back an ounce of ownership what might otherwise feel like too much pain. 

i wondered if there was brilliant sanity too in looping back to meet my shame, to re-engage in my slightly spastic? lightly manic? way of relating to my crushingly obsessive celebrity crush. 

looping back one year later to offer a brief epilogue to my encounter with one caroline rose.

bc they were looping back around on another tour for the same album: the art of forgetting. the same one that sits, taunting me from my shelf. (after “loosing” it last year at the show, a new one was mailed three weeks later, freshly signed “Hi Teagan. Bye Teagan. ouch.)

they were re-touring this album, and coming through boulder. ofc i’d go again… right? i found myself telling the story anew to new friends, reliving the tingle of anxiety, the sharp prick of self-critique tipping me towards an activated state, increasing in intensity as the show drew nearer. 

one friend tells me: teagan, this story is incredible. you need to get on the moth or something. 

another friend tells me: teagan, you gotta get her back. 

she made a good point. too tempting to not try.

so two friends help stage a photo shoot, peppering me with spicy ideas, another helps choose one to print. the cool cat who owns the cutest wine shop in town helps select a sexy (but still affordable) bottle, label modified, which another helps me smuggle through security, secret agent style, as if i had something up my sleeve.

signed, sealed, delivered. what i’d do to be hers… (jk.)

crazy idea? yes. did i feel kinda crazy doing it? you bet. did i get thrown off my ground completely and regret my behavior for weeks and descend into a state of shameover-induced depression and CRY!? absolutely not. 

engaging with the kinda crazy energy, in v silly community, without becoming consumed completely – i found a shaky sense of empowerment instead of a collapse. a spark of creativity in place of the sinkhole of despair. looping back to the story to (ever so slightly) transform it. make it a little more… mine? a (little) love song for myself.

they might never get it. maybe neither will you.

but for now… hi carolione, bye caroline.

love, someone (not all that) new. 

brilliantly looping, 

tea <3

…oh but and also…

• bae and tay. maybe the rest of the internet is done yelling about these albums, but i’m sure not. both cowboy carter and the tortured poets dept grapple with the unbearable weight of massive talent (to borrow from nick cage), and are ridiculously long. one of them is brilliantly executed and deserves a grammy. (#beyonceforprez). the other… well, let’s just say it’s time to cut this tortured poet off.

• kristin stewart. okay so i may have re-watched the full twilight series recently. sue me. i also watched her new(ish) film blood lies bleeding (yay for female directors!) it’s intense af but clearly feminist, and surrealist in it’s visuals and retro-textured soundscape. also very, very gay. 

• jane schoenbrun - yay for non-binary trans directors! i saw the tv glow is on the ticket for friday – also an A24 treat. 

• an easy link to all the musical references above, plus a few

• spreading our wings and lifting up palestine with adrienne maree brown. still sitting with this piece. for the love of god, cease fire please. 

ps. i have space for new clients this summer! if you know of anyone looking to craft highly converting creative copy for ads, emails, and bloggy blogs ~ hit that “reply” 😘

what’s come back around for me is a season of grief. of goodbyes. of little (and not so little) deaths. a five + year long relationship, a shared home, a dear city, a pretty “good” gig and source financial security, a waterfall of endings. 

i’ve been asking the question: what does it mean to tend to grief? to feel it? to really be with it? 

my grief right now is slippery, hard to look at, hard to hold. completely evasive, then welling up and spilling over in unassuming moments. i realize just how far I am from being in a clear relationship with it. in fact, I barely know it. 

in a world that tells me sadness is the opposite of happiness and wallowing is lazy and to not want to or be able to get out of bed is depressive, and depression an pathological illness, it’s not surprising that i feel at a loss with how to deal. for death is to be avoided at all costs. in fact, we barely speak of it.  

i grasp, flail?, around in the dark for the Right Way to Grieve. 

i take baths and go on walks and go to therapy, and try to craft a grief ritual. i’ve gotten as far as making a grief box - that’s now brimming with ten years of unprocessed chaos. have i really not grieved for this long?  

i cry, often. mostly, in front of others. i’ve found my grief loves a witness, someone to hear and to hold. i’m learning to appreciate my always close to the surface leaky faucet tears as emotional progress, after years of being told not to cry, stop crying, c’mon get yourself together. 

i try to sit. in my room. with my meditation instructor. in silence during a weekend long retreat. 

in practice, i attempt what’s called “the touch and go” method. centering the attention on the breath, then moving towards the felt sensations. noticing, what’s alive in the moment? if anything at all. mostly, i get static, empty silence. although on occasion (most often when sitting with others) i’m able to discern the outline of something weighty and dark and blue and spreading that begins in my heart, and reaches slowly outwards - consuming my throat, tightening my back, plunging down towards my belly. i stay with this for a moment, just a minute or two, then go back to the breath, or the sounds in the room. touch in to the feeling, then go back to a steadier regulation. 

the idea, so i’m told, is that unprocessed emotions get stored in the body. when we settle the mind enough, these emotions and sensations will naturally arise, as they’re ready to be looked at. to be acknowledged. to be held. 

as a somatic therapist in training, with this logic i can’t disagree. 

the practice, then, is to welcome it all. the pleasant sensations and not-so pleasant ones. without judgement. or aversion. or craving. or even labeling. just friendliness and open arms, like greeting a dear one: of course you’re here. of course you’re welcome to stay. and then, to simply notice. 

i wonder if it’s working. i find myself doubting if meditation actually does anything at all. 

what i find is, it doesn’t really. it doesn’t heal the grief or transform the grief, or make it go away - and that’s kind of the point. but the sitting with it slowly builds the muscle, the capacity for doing just that, sitting with it. 

and i’m still sitting with it. or learning how to. and might be for some time. but i’m also learning to sit with is the idea that in sitting with grief, I’m doing just fine. 

a wish for you: may you find (and take) all the space you need to sit with whatever is arising ~ in whatever way calls out to you. 

ta ta for now <3 

tea

p.s. i just finished reading this book for one of my classes - Inflamed: Deep Medicine and the Anatomy of Injustice. it takes the radical stance that most of modern day illness and inflammation can be traced out to distinct social collapse and structural injustice. it’s a mind fuck and a gut punch and gives explicit color to some of the grief i’ve felt about the world for some time, and ultimately works its way towards a message of hope. if you’re looking for a substantive, well-researched well-written read to chew on, i cannot recommend this one highly enough. 

p.p.s. sometime in jan, some friends asked me to write a satire post, about boulder or food or bathrooms. i’ll get there - i promise i have some funnier lighter things to say. just not rn.

happy… feb? happy… new year? bc the year is still new. and integration takes time. so too do transitions. 

the year is still new. if you needed to hear it today: it’s not too late. to start over, to begin again. to not be ready. to still be in process. to be emerging, still. slowly, softly, gently. it’s still winter, in fact. 

a little more than a week ago, in the light of the gibbous moon, a mountain lion leapt into my view. just out of the corner of my eye, i was just about to drive away from the apartment complex parking lot where i helped a sweet one jump their cold dead truck back to life.

right there, just a few yards away, it darted from behind the building, padded across the parking lot, and pranced into the cover of the ditch. it was regal and majestic and really fucking big. i sat in awe for a moment, full of terror and awe. starstruck and jaw dropped by the presence of this Very Big Lion. the strength, the power, the potential ferocity, the ease, the stillness of its body as it moved. 

i’ve been sitting with this lion for some time. i’ve been sitting too, with the lion in the strength card, given that we’ve now crossed the threshold from Chariot into in a Strength card year* 

*In the schools of tarot and numerology i follow, this year, 2024, means we’re currently in an “8” year (2+0+2+4 = 8), which corresponds to the Strength Card (VIII) in the Smith Raider Waite Deck (in some other traditions, 8 = Justice). The energy of this card is said to infuse the energy of the year, on both an individual and collective level, and is there for us to intentionally work with, if we so choose. 

for the past number of years, i’ve spent time with the “card of the year” with each change of the gregorian calendar – and have looked to my teachers for guidance on the meaning that they derive from it. this year, I couldn’t quite find the guidance or the meaning, or the interpretations i was looking for, that i wanted, that i thought i “deserved” – having been given this guidance in the past. i felt some indignation creep in towards those who have taught me, whose newsletters and podcasts and planners i’ve supported, followed, used. 

i wanted someone to tell me what the strength card Means. So I’d know what to expect, how to get ready, how to Be. 

took me a minute, or basically the whole month, to remember: i read tarot as an intuitive practice. not as a crystal ball, or prescriptive device, another thing to do “by the books,” or to “get right.” i see tarot as a mirror: as above, so below. as within, so without. a mirror that reflects what i really need to see, if i’m open enough to see it. 

so for the past three weeks, i’ve sat with this card, on my altar, in front of my meditation cushion. trying to be open enough to see. 

a few things came through, and moved me towards sharing, in the hopes that some of it might be moving for you too. (knowing that i am not a tarot expert, nor a professional diviner nor am i attempting to assume i know what this card means for you. just sharing what’s here for me.) 

looking at this card, I see a Strength that is connected, poised, slow, elegant, coaxing, quietly persistent, so so gentle, gradual, skillful, doing what needs to be done – and nothing more. full of presence and grace. 

in this card, i am both the beauty, and the beast. the goddess, and the lion, with bared teeth. what does it mean to look my fear in the mouth? and do it with a smile? doing so is required, if i really want to get free – free from the anxieties and inherited beliefs, stories about myself that bind me, keep me small. 

only then will I be able to pounce past the ditch, into the mountains. 

in this strength card year, i’m being asked to face The Thing I’ve been most scared of. most scared to look at. most scared to do. and then do the thing. 

but not with strength that’s pushing, or straining, or domineering, or aggressive, or demanding. not by overriding my fear, or ignoring my fear, “bypassing” myself in the process – but by moving with it.

in a world that so often feels like it’s crumbling impossibly, I’m reminded that I can’t fight fire with fire. the strength that works against the patriarchy isn’t doing the things like a white man would, or has. it’s doing the thing like a fucking goddess. i can’t singlehandedly dig my way out of capitalism’s ruins by doing more, or charging more, or running myself to the ground. sharing resources, sharing time, sharing energy, sharing space, from a boundaried and still generous place, feels more important, more necessary than ever. 

it will not be easy, but where can I infuse the doing with ease? 

strength takes on a new meaning for me this year as i face naming an almost deacade-long injury (traumatic brain injury, and chronic post concussion symptoms) as a disability. one that irregularly, unpredictably, but not infrequently impacts my capacity. these past three weeks, it's affected my school work, my work work, my relationships, my ability to make art or make food or even write this email. moving with strength means not fighting the injury, or trying to “fix” the injury (as it can never be fixed), or rushing back to normal, or hating the version of myself that attempted a backflip on a concrete floor in 2016. she was simply doing the best she could, with what she knew then. 

it’s true, i know better now. and it’s true, i’m still learning how to actually be strong. strong enough to find more gentle pathways. gentle enough to regain my strength.

the strength card reminds me: i gotta have my own back. cause if i don’t, aint no one gonna. 

that’s what the strength card had to say to me. i’m curious to know what’s here for you.

ta ta for now

<3

tea

happy… black friday?! jokes (mostly) but in all seriousness, this year i’ve been IN. IT. with the black friday cyber monday campaigns and the email creation for more than one client with their last minute pivots and urgent additions. i’m wiping the sweat off my brow and the tears off my cheeks after what’s felt like a hellish push towards this capitalist nonsensical “holiday” where the brands we follow mark their goods down by such a remarkable amount you begin to question whether they have any inherent value at all (or at least, that’s what happens for me)* 

oh because also, i’ve still been in school. which has also been. a. lot. and because also also, i started this month off recovering from my second bought of covid. 

for the past month and change, my to-do list has felt like an increasingly insurmountable mount i knew i’d never conquer, but had to meet: day after day. a mount that would have felt impressive, even if i were in the best of shape, and instead, I was meeting it at my worst. the fact that I avoided a full on panic attack feels like success, feels like progress, feels like I can see the ways in which I was able to meet that mount in a way i might not have in the past. maybe it’s a small evidence of the ways in which therapy school has started to work its way into my system, a deep exercise in self-awareness and self-compassion. or perhaps it’s simply my body prioritizing survival. this month i didn’t have the option to fully fall apart. 

to be clear: i did not always (or even often) meet that mount with ease or with grace.

to be clear: my list of what i haven’t done often felt longer and weightier and more depressing than what I had. i gave up on doing my readings for class, I requested extensions for papers i haven’t yet written, showed up for group projects without any prep. i hopped on work zooms without an agenda and let a client fall through the cracks and anything personal? forget it. i haven’t called my sisters back and don’t have plans for christmas and my bike’s front tire is still deflated my car needs to be registered and winterized and i couldn’t even manage to transfer my thyroid meds to my new kaiser in CO until i had been completely out for three days. 

to be clear: i started to loose track of having done anything at all. 

but looking over my shoulder towards what has happened over this month, i’m reorienting towards gratitude and celebration of what has been done. or even, what has transpired – what’s happened for me, and with me, and around me that’s invited me along with it. 

to be clear: much has occurred. 

i allowed myself to come in and out of a four day contact improv workshop with one of the oldest dancers of the form, Nita Little. i allowed myself to meet my edge, to name what i needed, to discover new pathways in my dance. 

i carved pumpkins with new friends, who have been feeling less new, a little more like home, and concocted a festive fall n/a shandy*

*Smudge an orange peel around the rim of your glass and dip in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. Fill with ice and add a thin round slice from orange . Fill half-way with apple cider, and then top off with Athletic Brewing n.a beer. it will foam and look so pretty.

i “survived” another scorpio eclipse season. (and hope you did too). meaning i got wrecked by insights and pivots and things not going the way I had hoped or planned and i tried to stay grounded as the world felt a little (/ a lot) extra shaky. 

my body caught covid, and demanded i rest. i did my best. 

I took a bath with epsom salts every day for 10 days. i canceled my meetings. and i didn’t go to class. 

i waved at 3 sweet friends through my side porch screen door and let the tears arise as I felt what it feels like to receive care through little deliveries of soup and tea and NyQuil and farmers market veggies. also tears of loneliness, and just wanting to be hugged. 

i rearranged my room. then arranged it right back. 

i talked to my moon friend on the day of the new moon within an hour of it’s newness and read Sarah’s Moon Book in real time for the first time in weeks. months?

on that same day I attempted a bath spell: on a small piece of paper I wrote down something I felt ready to compost and put it in the steaming water alongside me, and some rosemary, for protection. i stayed in the water for nearly three hours and sobbed uncontrollably as i felt my readiness to really – like really really – let that part of me go. 

i hung out via zoom with my napa friends and watched The Craft for the first time ever, and worked through all of We Are Lady Parts by myself and season 2 of Our Flag Means Death with jonah and watched Bottoms two times and shrieked out loud out of laughter and pure disbelief. 

I made an alter for the day of the dead and left my ancestors a glass of orange wine and shared a madeleine and read all the known names of my ancestors out loud. perhaps for the first time ever, i felt a deep sense of lineage, of connection to my family tree. of the truth that I haven’t had to do any of it alone. 

i got better, eventually. the next day, in fact. i wondered about miracles. 

to celebrate, i made a giant pot of roasted pumpkin soup. and let myself be hugged for a long long time. 

a few days later i picked up my long term long distance from the bus stop, visiting me in CO for the first time in a few months. during a sunset walk we looked right at the things that were the most hard to look at. 

i cried. a lot.

i also went to brunch. i made a salad. i also went to Diwali, i made a mandala. i went back to class. I wrote a poem. 

i also began to name some patterns as disassociation. i let that be grounding. I let myself celebrate the ways that my body has adapted, in order to survive in a world that makes no sense. in bringing more awareness, i offered myself more space for more choice: in some moments, i let myself make the same choice. to leave my body, to disengage. in others, i let myself choose a different path, one with a little more presence. 

i made the choice to introduce two people who mean a lot to me, and felt the edges of disassociation, and of joy. and of spaciousness. and of fear. and of love.

prompted by an in-class discussion around gender and difference, i started to process how my “orientations” have never been easy to describe. how i’ve never had a single moment of coming out, how instead i’ve had 12 years of micro moments and small conversations about who i love or don’t and why and how i identify and how even now my she / they and queer sometimes feels like a cop out. and how even now, in some locations, i still hide. don’t publicly name. and who are these labels for anyway? they too are just boxes, they too are a tool to upholds the norms of heteronormativity. a way of clarifying “otherness.” 

in a moment of visible otherness, i wore a dress, holding the hand of someone wearing the same. 

in a moment of togetherness, i felt that word “love” form anew on my lips and let it linger there, soft and warm and heavy on my  palette, before swallowing it whole, not yet ripe for the saying. 

AN INVITATION: On this day of more and more and discounts, take stock of what it is that you already have, or what you have done. Shop your closet. Turn the to-do list upside down, or inside out. Make a list of all the things you did do today, this week, or this month. Allow yourself to feel the “doing” that’s been happening with you, even if there’s also been a lot of not doing. A lot of undoing. Because that’s doing too. 

wishing you a full belly, a full heart, and at least one full-ass moment of not-doing a damn thing this weekend. 

X

tea  

ps. oh and also somewhere in there i wrote and rewrote an unhinged amount of bfcm emails for a client i care deeply about and i think is doing really important and inspiring and totally chaotic work in this world. if you want to get these emails, you can sign up here (tho be warned). tho if you’re someone with a period, buying their shit rn is truly the most affordable way to flow. period. www.period.co 

pps. you can also get some slightly less chaotic emails about thoughtful, small batch, all-natural skincare, that is also on sale, right now, right here: www.erinsfaces.com

ppps. i get no commission for these selfish plugs, only the satisfaction of tracking backend analytics : P 

there’s too much happening in the world right now. there’s been too much — and will continue to be. 

there’s been too much happening in my life right now, to sit down and send you an email — (or so my story goes) – despite thinking of you & this space often. 

for now, I just want to say hello. say I care. and that I’ll get back to you with some somatic dares… but for now, just be gentle. be gentle with yourselves, in the midst of global crisis, in the midst of seasonal transition, in the midst of our soon-to-be eclipses. 

be gentle. with yourself, and with others, and with the spaces in between. be gentle, this weekend, and in all the ways you find to give yourself exactly what you need. 

X 

tea 

p.s. i haven’t not been writing, there’s been a lot of writing for school. a lot of writing where we’re allowed a lot of choice in what and how we write. some of what i’ve written is perhaps more share-worthy than the rest. two small selections I’ll share with you here:

all the ways i ever learned how to move: a few verses that were read aloud as an invitation for movement, as i invited my classmates into a story about my personal history with dance. it includes a snippet of a video piece collab btwn moi + jonah david, which I had playing as a backdrop. 

awakening to privilege: teagan’s story. a very vulnerable and raw and very incomplete narrative about my journey into discovering a few of my locations of privilege. told in the hopes that my vulnerable reflections might allow you to do the same. 

big love and gentle wishes <3

now, in these three minutes, i’d like to reference them with you. 

an invitation to join me. to try on these references to whatever extent feels good. 

reference #1: following joy. unbridled joy. uninhibited joy. dancing in the entryway hallway with my sisters for hours joy, there our stage. little leo rising joy. so happy I’d be now, if you’d join me in an expression of joy. 

quick transition to reference #2: the inhale of rigor. the rigor and effort and strain of 30hrs a week of practice, gymnastics, then diving. the sharp suck in of the abdomen, a pirouette on a 3-in balance beam. a gasp. a dive, off a platform 33 feet high. is there a place, a movement, a gesture that connects you to rigor? to effort? 

now reference #3: losing oneself in the chaos. the chaos of a little too much, the chaos of not enough. after years and years of sucking in the effort, the chaos is the only place where i know release. i know how chaos feels for me, how does it feel for you?

a brief nod to reference, #4: hitting the floor. meeting rock bottom after whipping through the whirlpool, making friends with despair, disintegration, disease. i’m not asking you to fully go there with me.  

bc now reference, #5: emergence. finding the rock, the slide, the stride, slowly, softly, gently. To use those words that are not mine. finding where my feet are. slowly coming up to stand. 

reference #6: moving “authentically”: what does it mean now, to move with authenticity with all of you? with all of me? a softening, an allowing, a meeting the moment through movement. 

here, I gathered the edges of myself. traced the perimeter. 

of my white body. of my assigned female at birth and still quite feminine body. of my athletic and strong, but not always graceful body. 

here, I learned to meet my body. here I re-learned how to move. 

but still, I long for connection. 

but still, I long to be “dancer.”

now our final reference #7: noticing and following and chasing the point of connection. if it feels safe, which it didn’t to me, for months and years, there’s an invitation now to move towards each other, now, towards the center of the room. 

what does it feel like to be here, with all of you, with all of me? maybe you find a shoulder to lean on. notice the sharing of weight. maybe you find someone & sit back to back. sharing a breath. 

maybe you move just close enough to notice, or like me, slide just far away enough to witness. 

so much notice. here, with this move towards connection. with this idea of together. what does it mean to be here – to move – with all of me, with all of you?

video: music and visuals by jonah m. david. movement and voice by teagan l. 2022.

SEEING 

Growing up in suburban Texas, there wasn’t really race to see. Only white, amidst the fake vanilla pines and far-too-spread-out vanilla streets and big vanilla box stores. There was no variation in anything, not even the houses. My best-friend in fourth grade was Indian by descent and had the darkest skin of anyone I knew at the time.  She was my best friend – but also a bully.  She was confident and mean and I loved and hated her and maybe even felt the buds of what I now wonder were romantic feelings towards her, and still to this day I have wounds that arise, with their roots traced back to our friendship. My feelings had nothing to do with the color of her skin. Or did it? At the time I didn't think about the ways she might be acting out of her location of oppression towards me.  

Throughout grade school, my siblings and I talked in accents to each other, and our mother. Including an Indian tone. We thought it was the funniest thing, to speak in different intonations. I’m not sure my best friend did. Years later, my father, prone to making ill-informed and poorly-timed comments on just about anything, once asked my Spanish teacher at a parent teacher conference “Como se dice – “how much to cut the grass?” I was mortified, and knew it was wrong, and deeply insulting, but couldn’t tell you why.  

I somehow made it through grade school and knew I had to leave the Texan flatlands, and landed on the east coast somehow, at a prestigious institution. This disparity of wealth was greatly felt. I felt out of place and confused and slower and poorer and less smart than other people there.  This “progressive” institution gathered us together for one afternoon as a freshman cohort to talk about race and difference. I can’t remember if the words “privilege” or “intersectional” or “justice” were ever mentioned.  

STRIVING   

These words (and more) were explicitly named, many a time, over the course of a free 12-week volunteer run course called FemSex (now called GenSex) which I did sometime around 2017. It was the first time I was looking at my queerness and my gender identity in a “safer” space with other femme-bodied humans. It was the first time I really thought critically about race. We talked a lot about difference. And privilege. And justice. We did an exercise of moving across the room one step for every location of privilege that we identified with. One step back for the places in which we’ve been marginalized, with eyes closed until the last word was read. It was (to use a glaringly accurate pun), eye-opening, to say the least. I remember feeling on the verge of tears, as one of our BIPOC cohort members was left standing far behind the others in the room.  

My partner at the time was a Japanese-raised Pilipino designer, and I loved his strangeness and style and his smooth brown skin. To this day, I still feel an ick around naming that, something inherently wrong, to have loved this particular location of our difference. To this day, I still consider this strange man one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever been with.  

This partner worked a really stressful job in a really stressful firm with a really ego-centric boss and he clearly wasn’t happy there, but felt tied to his place of employment, because they were sponsoring his visa. I was only 26 and we’d only been dating for 6 months and there were a number of ways that emotional abuse was present (I had chalked it up to cultural difference), and I was the one who brought up the idea of marriage. If just for the sake of a green card. Maybe then he could quit. Maybe then, freedom. We broke up three weeks later.  

Before that happened, he came home with me for Christmas. Before meeting my family, my dad asked if my partner could speak English. At the time, he had laughed (in the dark way he sometimes did), and for a moment, entertained the idea of pretending that he couldn’t.  

GETTING IT / NOT GETTING IT 

Where this process finds me now: still in the process of getting it. And realizing that I still don't get it. Undoing what it means to “get it.” And getting it again.  

The riots of 2020 rocked me hard. Fear and shame and anxiety and guilt built up and spilt over into my body. Whether or not to post a black square. (I didn’t). Whether or not this person or that one was canceled. How to show up. Is showing up to protest and giving money and talking with friends and family enough? What is enough? I made a “book club” with my mom. We read Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Between the World and Me together. Each time we talked; I felt a tightness in my throat. 

Towards the end of that year, I worked with the small non-profit I was employed by at the time to recommit to justice. As a programs manager, I demanded trainings for staff and set up workshops for the public to encourage these Important Conversations. I deeply felt the Importance of this work. I constantly had to check my ego: was I being a good enough white person now?  

The intensity of the moment eventually faded, and so too did my steadfast and tight-grip commitment to Justice. I moved to California to work for a bougie internet wine brand where there was but a single black employee out of an office of 50 and we had no internal policies about diversity, equity, or inclusion. I was the only person who introduced myself with a “they/them” pronoun. No one ever referred to me as such. I saw it, to some extent, before I started. I don’t think I’ll take the job, I remember telling friends. Our values aren’t quite aligned. But when my offer letter arrived in my inbox, they had named a price I (thought that I) couldn’t refuse.  

For the last few years, my workplace and the wine industry at large and my residence in Napa were very white and very privileged. I danced in primarily white spaces, for contact improvisation is a white hippie’s dance (which I feel complicated about, but not complicated enough to not dance). Though I felt the loss of doing a kind of work and being in a kind of community that had felt so deeply Important, I was also catching myself getting used to the comfort of being comfortable.  

Bringing us here, to now. My social justice practice, for that’s how I see it, a practice, is not an insignificant piece of what brought me here to Naropa. Brought me here to grad school, at a school that claims to teach from social justice lens. Despite being mostly white in a mostly white town with a lot of wealth, and a lot of privilege.  

Bringing me here, to tears at a Saturday morning movement intensive, as I realize again, another site in my locations of privilege: my ability to tune out. To miss that a comment was racist, or ableist. To keep going – even after harm has occurred. To continue rolling around on the floor, to keep trying to find my pelvic floor, perhaps at the expense of another. Another site of patriarchal and capitalist values: must stamp out the emergence of discomfort in order to keep learning from the expert standing up on the stage.  

Now noting a longing, an ache in my chest to get it right. To figure it out. Again, I feel the crippling fear of getting it wrong.  How to best show up? And who is this work “for”? In the current state of my rusty toolbox, nothing but burning questions.  

Again, I’m reminded. Non-closure, non-closure, non-closure. Part of doing the work is knowing that the work is never done.

reference source:

(1) Anderson, S.K., & Middleton, V.A. (2010). An awakening to privilege, oppression, and discrimination: Sharon’s story. In Explorations in diversity: Examining privilege and oppression in a multicultural society. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole, Cengage Learning.

but here we are today. in the pass of a virgo new moon. 

and today I didn’t want to write. i didn’t want to yesterday either. yesterday, i said nope to everything, and took a bath. 

or well, let me reframe: i took a bath, after other people said no to me. 

making me think about my “no.” 

to be honest, I’m not great with consent, in its various forms. i’m not great at consent, because i more often than not believe i don’t know what i want. i say yes to things when i really mean no, and no to things when i really mean yes, and most of the time say “sure?” because i tell myself i don’t know how to feel. 

in class, my professor reminds us, “your ‘yes’ means nothing without your ‘no.’ I can’t trust your yes, until i can trust that you will tell me no - and mean it.” 

we talk too about people pleasing — how healing and teaching professions draw in a certain “kind of person” who says yes to everyone else. making space, making room, receiving more than perhaps they can hold. how people pleasers often deny that they are even that. 

i too deny that i am a people pleaser. i’m far too selfish for that. 

but then i’m feeling almost sick and tired and sad and my head hurts like hell and i just want to take a nap or take a bath even though it’s only 3pm but i had told a new friend we’d hang out today, and i don’t want to let her down. i come up with various messages in my head like “was so excited to hang - but can we raincheck (it’s literally raining)!” 

instead i send “hiii excited to see you! want to come over for tea?” 

she responds 30 minutes later with a “today is feeling a little out of reach for me. can we meet up this weekend? def not an indication of my desire or care to hang.” 

i am relieved. and also jealous. why couldn’t I be the one to say no — to say no but with care? 

i check out my hazy reflection in the dirty kitchen window. is that a people pleaser staring back? 

it also makes me wonder: what’s the line between people pleasing and care? 

most of my friends from other parts of my life (ahem providence, cough napa) are all people who give generously in relationship, and show up hard for the good of the group. my friends cook dinners and make pies and stay up late packing boxes in fancy dresses and pick you up from the airport without a blink. my friends say yes a lot. 

it was (it is) so fun it is to say yes to the people, the groups who say yes to you. so meaningful too. life tastes better that way. 

now that i’m entering into a space where most of my friends are soon to be or are now therapists and healers i’m noticing a different kind of boundariedness that’s causing me pause. 

how will making space for others as my profession effect my ability to show up with a big YES for my community, my relationships, my friends? 

i’m afraid that it will. 

because even though want to believe that time is not linear nor finite and energy can be exponential and love, when tended to, only grows, we live in a world and a system that has made us believe, that has made us agree that there is not enough. 

and for now, this is true: in this body, living in this system of capitalism and patriarchy and individualism, I do have limits. 

limits that I have to honor, if I want to be healthy. limits that I have to honor, if I want to be in relationship, limits that I have to honor, if I want to be of service, limits that I have to honor, if I want to fight the system. to create real change. 

limits that I have to surrender to, be humbled by, and open to. and these limits are what i’m trying to give space to in the darkness of this virgo new moon.

because I so desperately want to say yes. to life. and fully living it. 

but first, I have to say no. 

DEAR DIARY: where is my “yes” a leaky yes? where is my “no” not clear? 

SOMATIC DARE: say your clearest “no” to something this weekend or next week. anything. track how it feels in your body to say no, without hiding it behind a “maybe.” do you feel anxious or fuzzy or rooted in your power? is it easy breezy or confusing or highly uncomfortable? 

Tell me about it? Or don’t. 

& a wish ~ for a little more “nope.”

XO 

tea 

here we are. hey teagan goes to therapy school. 

so yes, i’m technically in my second week of school, but to confuse me and everyone else, let’s call this week 1. because the best place to start is at the beginning, no? 

or at least, it’s a place to start. 

so where do we begin? 

1. anchoring 

during the very first activity* at our very first cohort gathering, full of dewey-eyed wanna-be-therapists, we’re instructed to find an anchor. three, to be exact. 

*naropa as an institution is big on experiential learning. there’s a lot more to say about this very unique institution and my initial feelings & assumptions about it, but for now, the note is this: here at naropa, we call these moments of active or ~ embodied ~ learning “experientials.” i think this is to be a strange, slightly-unsettling, vaguely non-grammatcial nonesense word, so I will henceforth refer to them as “activities.” 

first, to journal about our anchors, in order to summon them into words. second, to take a moment to actually feel what it feels like to be anchored to this anchor. to have an embodied experience of anchor-ing. 

ok ok, back it up. what do you mean by anchor, you say? well (in the style of a naropa professor), what does “anchor” mean to you? 

anchor. maybe, (likely), you think of a iron-clad moss-covered heavy-ass double pointed-thing on a really long metal chain, that’s often found on boats (honestly, my best verbal description of an anchor. these things are weird, when you really think about an anchor, or say the word too many times). 

anchor. when dropped from the side of a boat, these iron-clad moss-covered heavy-ass double-pointed metal things (attached to the boat by a really long metal chain), are pulled by sheer force of gravity to the bottom of the ocean, or the emerging shore, in order to stop the boat from moving. how long or tight the chain is effects how much or how little the boat is able to sway in space. 

anchor. you may think of the ground, the bottom, a root, a cord, a chain, a weight, a safety measure, an emergency exit. 

if the anchor is working, the boat won’t be carried off on a wave it hadn’t planned on, on a path it didn’t ask for. 

so, the question re-sounds, what does it mean then to find an anchor — and why might you need one?

maybe the anchor is someone or something external, the thought of a friend, or a plant or a pet — something or someone that brings warmth to your heart, and reminds you that you’re loved. maybe the anchor is internal — a place in the body. the touch of a warm hand to the belly, or simply the sensation of your left elbow. maybe the anchor is a movement — a shaking, or tapping or bowing or curling in or stretching out that is reliably a way you transmute energy. 

the anchor as a place to return: to come back to. when the movement becomes too much or the anxiety unbearable, or the worry all too worrisome, the anchor is there, ready to be dropped, to help you drop in. 

the anchor as remembrance. a reminder of wholeness. 

DEAR DIARY: what are my anchors? are they intrinsic (inside of me) or external? are they thoughts, movements, or sensations? 

for me, a few anchors that came through: 

water: the feeling of the ocean (an ironic choice for an anchor, perhaps), specifically a memory of swimming naked in a cove at Beavertail State Park at sunset, but also the water i drink from the plastic bottle that’s always by my side and the hot water of a bath. 

little bella: just thinking about this sweetest stupidest little ancient lady rat dog sleeping on the backs of couches or insides of suitcases (even though she snores impossibly loud) is enough to bring a smile to my face and a warm expansion to my chest. *please see photo below.

my feet: i’m often in my head and spinning upwards and outwards, and then sometimes hitting my head, and remembering that i have feet and they are connected to the earth is an incredibly (and literally) grounding thing. as i’m standing on my feet, i can feel the ground underneath, and as i’m sitting on the floor, i can use my hands to rub my socks to remind me that feet are there. 

anchors. you need them because sailing the wild seas of relationship can get pretty rocky. 

(see what i did there?) 

2. setting space 

one of four pillars of Naropa’s ideology is a contemplative approach to education. aka if your students sit in a circle on meditation cushions during class in a non-hierarchical format, the learning will be more enlightening.

jk. kinda.

mostly, it means that sooo much of our work here is becoming highly skilled at oscillation. oscillating between noticing the self and then other and then space and then back to self and all the while, noticing what one is noticing. noticing what one is noticing helps a bb counselor (and/or anyone who interacts with anyone else ever), track the emotional landscape, identify internal stories and biases as they emerge, helps one quickly discern — what’s mine in the space — and what’s yours? 

a great skill for existing in any kind of relationship, really, this noticing what one is noticing. 

and the way to increase one’s capacity to notice what one is noticing is contemplative practice. or at least, that’s what they say. 

just saying the word “contemplative” — what comes up? maybe a robed bald man under a tree, or a robed bearded man named jesus, or a robed man (yak yak yak)… but no, really. 

calling anything contemplative can have an immediately off-putting rotten egg effect on someone who doesn’t “do that.” but in actuality — all of us have moments of mindfulness or contemplation, at least some of the time. whether that’s walking the dog or singing at church or folding laundry without tv, or loosing yourself while playing music or zoning out while driving… it’s likely we can name something that helps us feel a little more like “ourselves.” 

it can also look like sitting on a cushion. or bowing down in prayer. 

but the trick with calling it a “practice” is this idea of going into that activity with intention. an intention to notice. and really be with (aka notice) whatever comes up. 

and one way to help us set intention is to set the space. 

setting space can be setting aside time (for 5 minutes this morning, I will notice my breath, or for 10 minutes at the end of each day, I’ll do some mindful stretching). 

setting space can also be physical: a rug to lie on, a cushion to sit on, an altar to tend to. 

setting space can also be a ritual: a candle to light, an incense to burn, a tea to drink, a salt to put in the bath. 

it can be sweet space or sacred space, or serious space, or sensual space, or some other kind of space you need that doesn’t start with an s. 

because setting space for your practice is also setting space for you. what kind of space do you long for? what kind of space do you need? what kind of space setting helps you to notice - and remember - you? 

DEAR DIARY: what kind of space would be supportive for where I’m at right now? what’s one small way can i set space for myself this week? 

& A SOMATIC DARE OF THE WEEK: tell your diary or your notes app or your voice memos or your boo thang or your best friend about your anchors. maybe it’s one. maybe it’s three. maybe it’s ten, but maybe not more than ten. 

then, spend 5 minutes trying on one of your anchors. yes, set a timer for 5 minutes, and invite the anchor into your mind.  you can visualize it, or say the word or the name in your head. how does it feel? where does it land? what do you notice?

it might be something like warmth around your heart, or a tingly anticipatory feeling, or a a drop of energy as you find the ground. 

maybe go back to your diary and tell it more about that process, too. 

lmk how goes? for real tho — respond in the comments! send me an email! i want to hear how it all starts to land in your body, for you, right now.

& a little wish: may you set space and make space and take up space this week. the world needs more of you, so make some space for that. 

xoxo 

tea

*disclaimer 1: this therapy school newsletter is not a replacement for therapy. even us therapists in training still need (/ are required to) see a therapist.

**disclaimer 2: i am not an expert in any of these things, nor do i claim to or pretend to be. i am just a student and a writer and an artist.

**disclaimer 3: you may be thinking… wtf teagan you’re telling me basic ash∗taboutbasica sh*t i already know a f*ck ton about! yeah. that’s kind of how i’ve been feeling for the last two weeks of starting school tbh. but then i actually do the things and feel the things and journal the things, and remember that we’re always starting over. and how much we learn from being here again, back at the beginning. but and also see above disclaimers. but and also also if you want to unsubscribe, you totally can do that here.