Cultivating Your Aliveness

We are made of stars. We burn as brightly as we can in this life, and when we die, we empty our contents back into the fires from which we came. And in each of our moments here, we can only ever be where we are; it is simply not possible to be anywhere else—brilliant and developed in some areas, underdeveloped in others, learning and growing and making mistakes as we go.

Lately, I am stalking a deeper level of connection to myself in my body. I long to feel the warmth of presence within me. Even as I welcome each experience I am having on its own terms—as is the way of self-love and basic sanity—this longing to palpably feel the glow of life-force within my cells remains.

When we have warm, attuned, present caregivers, we have the opportunity as children to develop a felt sense of cohesion—to feel present in our bodies, present in our cells. Feelings arise and are reflected back to us, and we begin to feel ourselves: Here I am. There is presence inside and presence outside. We learn that we belong to ourselves and to the world.

When this mirroring has not been available due to trauma, addiction, or other obstacles, the impact can be subtle, pervasive, and profound. A child may experience themselves as fragmented, invisible, disconnected. I—and perhaps you?—have spent much of my life walking through the world feeling these ways.

It is one thing to be overtly harmed as a child. It is another to be left alone, ignored, unattended to. The wound of neglect leaves no obvious cuts or bruises, and recovery can be more elusive.

As these wounded children become adults, we may become caregivers, codependents, or people who feel most real through external validation. Or we may retreat inward, finding fleeting reflections of ourselves through creativity, fantasy, or imagination. But underneath it all, we can feel ghostlike—citizens of the world without a felt sense of self.

Listening for the Self

In the mornings, I sit holding my belly and my heart as sunlight filters through rippling leaves, warming my forehead. I breathe into my belly and feel only emptiness—an unattended void that is my current experience of self.

I shift my attention to my hands pressing into my body. I feel their warmth and remind myself: I am here. I am holding myself now. I am patiently listening for myself, present with myself, loving myself.

I sit and breathe and stay present with myself like this until reconnection begins to be felt. Until, through interoception—the practice of attending to sensations within my body—new neural pathways begin to form, gradually developing an internal mapping of self. Until the deeply habituated felt absence of self slowly begins to dissipate and aliveness emerges.

We sit together: me, the loving presence expressed through warm hands, and me, the vacant belly—numb and dissociated.

This moment feels tender, almost pregnant.

I know you are here.

I know you are worth waiting for.

I will wait as long as it takes for you to be here with me.

Building Internal Scaffolding

So how do we develop internal presence when it did not properly form?

Slowly. Breath by breath.

Hands on heart and belly, we begin again. At first, we may feel only external sensations—the warmth of our hands, sunlight on our skin, the movement of breath. We long to feel the fullness of presence on the inside, too, so we apply:

Patience.
Listening.
Breathing.

A single tendril of connection makes its way across the void. And then, suddenly, a flush of warmth rises from within, accompanied by a feeling:

Here I am.

This recognition may bring tears. It is one of the sweetest things in the world to feel presence within our own skin. We stay with the warmth, with the loving presence of our own hands. When our minds drift, we gently bring them back.

This—right here—is the work: the quiet, ongoing birthing of a self.

A Wider View

In meditation, I sometimes rest in a vastness where everything is already perfectly whole. From this vantage, the project of “birthing a self” sounds almost humorous: Does a tree need to birth itself?

And yet, here I am—learning how to feel myself, learning to inhabit this particular expression called me.

Both things are true.

We are already whole, and we are also learning how to inhabit ourselves.

We begin where we are.

We stay present.

We listen.

And slowly, slowly, we make our way back home to ourselves, back home to existence.