Author: Diana Scalera

Gravity is unconditional love. I learned to understand this in a drumming workshop many years ago. The presenter was a beautiful woman named Aida, and we drummed all day and throughout the evening. Our energy levels were high from the vibrations of the drums, tambourines, and cymbals. All worldly concerns disappeared, and we didn’t want the experience to end. However, what stands out most for me most is what the presenter taught us: “Gravity is unconditional love.”

Aida explained that Gravity holds all things to the Earth without prejudice or judgment for prophets or sinners alike. Therefore, when anyone needs to feel grounded or is looking to feel loved, we only need to sense how Gravity feels in our bodies. So, what does it feel like to connect to Gravity?

Gravity, Love and Silence 

I traveled to Flaming Gorge, Utah, to one of the least populated places in the United States. Being from the east coast of the US, I have always lived in highly populated areas. Noise, pollution, and the vibrations from all the motors that run the systems we use to support such large populations; they  are the background of our lives, and we seldom notice them. 

Being in Utah gave me a chance to reset my awareness. Once my friends and I got to Flaming Gorge, they chose to hike. I decided to sit alone in an open space on a high cliff overlooking the river gorge. I suddenly became aware of the intense silence. There was no car, airplane, or boat traffic. I didn’t hear any sounds of motors. The lack of human presence eliminated speaking and breathing sounds. Nothing was present that usually would fill my environment with noise.  

Gravity, Silence and Me

As I sat on a rock and relaxed into the what seemed like complete silence, I began to hear my heartbeat. For some time I held space for this new experience marveling at the sound of me. Who knew that I had a discernible  sound? Eventually, I noticed other sounds like a pattern as if  someone  was walking on gravel but not so loud. It sounded like tiny feet crunching on dirt. It wouldn’t go away. I started to look for what might be making this sound. At my feet, I found an army of ants walking in a line in rhythm across the sand. The sound matched perfectly with their movement. 

I had never thought that ants walking could make any sound. I realized that I do not hear or perceive certain sounds because other sounds typically drown them out. This experience was the first time I had a chance to listen to things unrelated to humans. I then started hearing flying bugs from a long distance. It was like an army of insects (of which I have a life-long fear) had decided to show up for me. I wasn’t afraid; I was amazed that I was missing so much of the world because I mostly live in a noisy place.

Gravity, Love and Wholebody Focusing

A few years later, when I began learning Wholebody Focusing, I remembered this experience, and it helped me learn to ground. Many energetic practices ask us to “ground” ourselves before starting a meditation or other techniques that help us connect to our bodies. So the first thing a Wholebody trainer might say is, “notice your feet and include your buttocks if you are sitting or your whole body if you are lying down.” Some people understand this as a metaphor for relaxing or letting go of whatever is in your consciousness. However, what would it feel like if it were not a metaphor? 

What if we focused our attention on how our feet, buttocks, or whole bodies feel the connection to Gravity–the Earth’s primary energy. All we need to do is to shift our attention to where our bodies touch the ground and wait to notice what that sensation entails. Sometimes the area becomes energized, and sometimes we can feel energy outside the part of our body to which we are sending your attention.  We shift our attention to a part of the body connected to the Earth and let go of the noise, thoughts and other stimuli. It will give us the ability to consciously connect to the Gravity of the Earth’s energy.    

It may, at first, seem indiscernible, but with a bit of patience and willingness to hold our attention to our connection to the Earth,  a bodily sensation will emerge. 

 Sensing Gravity’s Love

Whatever does arise, recognize it, thank it for showing itself. We have newly connected to the most potent source of unconditional love. This energy has been with us from inception and will stay with us throughout our lives. It provides us with the stability to move and function that we may be taking for granted or not noticing.  

Recognizing Gravity as an energy force will give us a greater sense of its constancy, inability to use judgement to determine its actions , and how you share this bond with all sentient beings and other objects. Gravity can also reinforce the sense of being loved within ourselves, especially if we are not generally in touch with the love that surrounds us. It is energetic love, not emotional love. Energetic love functions without requirements. Emotional love often comes with limits.  The greater the connection we create, the more we will begin to notice and trust the energetic forces that are our birthright and constant support. We are a part of a collective force that creates our reality.

Gravity as an Energetic Force

What we are doing is giving ourselves a chance to appreciate how nothing will get between us and the Earth no matter how hard we try. Gravity is always holding us, even in airplanes. So the first time we try connecting to Gravity, set goals aside and just experience what happens.  

We can always take a few minutes out of our day to reconnect our body to the Earth. For example, sitting at a desk, reconnect to the floor below you. Standing at a bus stop,we connect feet to the ground below. Keep  noticing how Gravity shows up . The act of recognizing grounding to Gravity as an energetic bond will strengthen our energetic connection to ourselves in any form of bodywork you do. 

Gravity: Accepting Life Itself Unconditionally

Photo Credit: Ellie Brady Flaming Gorge 2018

Whose body?

When I  was a young girl, my mother and I had a battle for “Whose body is this?”  Mother felt the need to control all aspects of my life: what I ate, how I ate it, what clothes I wore, and how much space I deserved in family interactions.  She decided my body was her body and controlled me based on how her parents raised her.  Her behavior led to regular battles for control.  

Leave my Body Alone!

This story showed up a few months ago when I was facing some medical issues.  Questions of “whose body is this” emerged when I needed to have someone else decide whether some part of me needed to be removed or not. I woke up and started preparing for my upcoming visit with my surgeon.  I had oral macular cancer in 2017. One of the side effects of the radiation was cancer of the tongue from these harsh treatments. A few months earlier, I had a lesion removed from my tongue where the radiation was strongest.

I quickly took a look at my tongue to do a check like the surgeon told me to do.  Unfortunately, I saw something new where the cancer was removed from my tongue. I contacted my surgeon, made an appointment, and went on with my day.  There was a black dot in that space.  It looked like a poppy seed was stuck in the area where the surgery was performed.  It’s a poppy seed until I hear otherwise.  I’ve learned from my three bouts with cancer, “It isn’t cancer until the biopsy says so”.  

Asking my Body!

I had a session with my shaman partner, Susan. We held space for what was at the root of this new disturbance.  What came to me was something that had shown up before.  A focuser partner and I  found that the dinner table was where we learned to be ourselves. It was a place of constant reinforcement of our roles in the family:  This is where we were trained to be who we “should” be.  My wholebody sense was directing me to revisit that place; my childhood dinner table experience.  I doubted that this had anything to do with my new illness. However, I have learned to trust that my body knows more than I do.  

One of the rules in my family was that we had to eat all the food on our plates. My grandmother, mother, and father all lived through the Depression of the 1930’s and had deep wounds from going hungry over a long period of time.   My  Italian-American family treated food as a gift that could not be wasted. They often ate things that were eaten in Italy but unknown in the US.  For example, there were meals of  Lamb’s brain and Cow’s stomach offered as a special delight.  One needed to eat every mouthful on our plates.  

When my Body finds me!

As young as 5 or 6 years old, I developed a fear of these non-American meals. I feared that these meals were poisonous. My mother viewed these thoughts as belligerence.  She was incensed that any of her children could reject the food set on the table after the family’s experience during the Depression.  There were no alternatives offered. On a particular night when a more normal meal was presented to me, I noticed that I had developed that same fear of poison, even though I might have previously eaten that particular food successfully.  

This time, I felt a definite NO. It seemed like my fear of food was starting to extend to everyday foods.  I told my family that I could not eat the food on the plate because it would make me sick. My mother was beside herself.  She picked up my plate and dragged me to the stairway that led to the basement, where my family ate dinner in the summertime. I was sitting on the top step, face-to-face with my mother. She held my plate, demanding that I put the food in my mouth and swallow. I told her again I couldn’t because it would make me sick.  She demanded that I put the food in my mouth and swallow.  

I did what she asked. The result was that my body rejected the food. After a few minutes,  I involuntarily vomited the food onto my mother’s face. She was initially really mad, but something shifted in her.  Mother realized (maybe) how inappropriate she was being. She never forced me to eat anything again!

My 5-year-old  emerged

When I finished describing what happened, Susan suggested I ask my earlier self to tell the story. Susan’s words shifted energy in my body. My arms and hands rose and moved violently, my voice shifting to a deeply disturbed, almost growling sound, and I began the story again from an inner place I had never felt before. In general, my mother was very controlling over many aspects of my life. My younger self let me know this interaction was about ending my mother’s control of my body.  

The physical depth of the growling sound helped me understand why this moment was so important. This was an act of bravery by my younger self that led to my mother having less control. I was grateful to meet this powerful part of me that knew what it could and could not tolerate, given the lack of adult support.  Unfortunately, the fear of food continued to show up deep into adulthood, and once in a while, it shows up again when I feel threatened with a possible new medical diagnosis or other threats. For example, as Trump’s violence against immigrants gets more intense, that fear emerges, and I have to be more patient with myself about what I eat.    

Susan told me that when my younger self was present, I was surrounded by an extraordinarily bright white light.  I am so inspired by my 5-year-old self that successfully fought against being forced to eat things she feared by a traumatized, out-of-control mother.  My five-year-old self’s steadiness, bravery, and body wisdom in that moment changed the course of my life. It limited my mother from trying to control me in all sorts of ways.  She may not have wanted to suffer that moment again. While she was never able to treat me with kindness, my mother seldom tried to impose her will on me from that point on. How much to control children?

NB  

Many years of Wholebody Focusing and Method Acting training have given my body the capacity to connect physically and emotionally, expressing long-lost experiences.  Susan’s words and energetic presence gave my body permission to show me what I experienced in that moment and how it would influence the rest of my life.  It also convinced me that I have the power to live more authentically.

NB2 The problem with my tongue was quickly resolved. It was a small suturer placed in my tongue during surgery that broke through: thus the black dot. The Surgeon removed it quickly.  The final result is that the black dot was not completely removed.  The extraction led to a reduction of pain.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence/201903/parenting-adolescents-and-how-much-control

Becoming a grandmother