Living in a house with five other women, I am not often alone. Yet this week, I was able to return to my hometown in Hingham Massachusetts for a couple days. Because of this break from my communal housing, I was able to fully immerse myself into the “Body, Noise, Space” exercise. Over the summer, I had attempted to get into meditation, but I found journaling was a better emotional outlet for me. When meditating, I find it extremely challenging to silence my mind. I am fully able to physically relax, but I haven’t mastered silencing my mind. Hence why I decided to try this exercise in my home when my father was at work and my sisters were at school.
I began the exercise by choosing my living room; this room has the most beautiful natural light during the midmorning which helped me relax. I did the exercise alone; I don’t think I would have been able to wholly commit to the exercise with even my mom in the house with me. Once in my safe space, I did perform four actions to make myself comfortable. I had brewed tea and finished my cup, lit my mother’s pumpkin candle, I wrapped my legs up my great grandmother’s old quilt, and I took ten deep breaths. Once I did this, I got into a comfortable position on my couch, closed my eyes, and completed step three. Staying completely still was not as hard as I originally thought, yet an unexpected challenge arose. I had not fully woken up therefore I was fighting my midmorning sleepiness. For step four, I chose to do some yoga for my continuous body movement. I chose to do a sun salutation I had learned in high school, including some downward dog, cat and cow. I may have not chosen as much of a high energy movement as the exercise suggested, but I ran through the sun salutation twice. Then I screamed. I didn’t know how long that had been building up, but I needed to scream. It felt so freeing. I forget that sometimes, we just need to scream to let it all out. Then to finish off the exercise, I laid curled up like my cat on my couch for a full minute. I felt so calm, like all the stress from the week prior has disappeared. The scent of my mom’s candle lingering soothed me. I believe this exercise recentered me, it felt like my mind and body were once again connected. At school, I often forget to prioritize time for myself, my journaling, or just time to be alone. Once this exercise acted as a reset, it reminded me that I need to make an effort to prioritize that self-care time. The post-exercise calm wore off because I spent the entire exercise in silence, then my mother returned home from the store with my big, loud dog. It threw me off, but I was so excited to see my dog that it was such a treat!
After performing this exercise, I had to re-read Goldman’s reading of Lincoln’s scream to compare our experiences. When I first imagined Lincoln screaming onstage, I pictured a loud, powerful cry of pain because Lincoln was fighting against so much more than the stress of getting my papers written in time. When I screamed, it was more out of stress, frustration but sometimes, we all need to scream.