How to Cope With Anything: The Poetry of a Mindful Morning Practice
By: Laura Di Franco
“As long as I remember where I am, and breathe, I’m okay.”
After a 30-year career in healing, I sat with the pit of my stomach and solar plexus on fire, talking to my sister about what happened.
“I wrote a poem,” I said. “It’s about being in the moment. When I sit and write, I remember who I am.”
“That’s amazing. Do more of that! You got this. I’m here for you if you need to talk.”
“Talking feels exhausting right now,” I admitted. “There’s no solution. Talking shoves me into the what-ifs, shoulds, and supposed-tos. It triggers this habitual thing when I re-hash every bad thing that happened. I have to get quieter. I have to allow the feelings to surface gently. I feel like talking is forced.”
“I get it,” she said.
A discipline of mindfulness over the decades meant feeling my body more than listening to my mind. I love the word body-fullness, instead. I learned to listen to the sensations, feelings, and messages coming from a higher place.
My body is the place I listen to. Over a lifetime’s worth of practicing, I know for sure that I will always have an answer to any question when I listen in that way. Mindfulness is the word most people have heard, but it’s being in the body that allows you to listen to the higher messages.
Being back in your body after a traumatic event helps you heal. Present moment awareness is the doorway to that shift. You must remember where you are and feel the present sensations. You have to come down out of your thinking mind and remember you have feet! You can cope with anything — heal from anything — when you practice this.
The poem I wrote that morning is about being in the present moment.
It Starts Now
I hesitate
always in fear
I write
from a place of knowing
Sometimes what I know
creates hesitation
Writing always keeps me open
to wonder about possibilities and miracles
so today, I write
What I know as reality from the past is not now
Hesitation comes from not now
Fear comes from not now
I write and I know now holds my pen
even when I’m writing about the past
And even just now
I wake up to not needing
the past re-hashed regurgitated remembered
or re-thought
Now holds the magic of everything important and powerful
I write, now
And right now it’s a mess of confusion
numbness
raw wound ache
remnants of just a day or two before now
burrowing in, planting the bite feeding
But I can feel
I feel the tiniest insult
crawling over the hair on my skin
I feel everything, right now
It’s the only place I feel
true safety hope
the breath
a place to shift fear
align with who and what I am
now
Even the worst possible five minutes ago doesn’t stand a chance
when I remember
Right now
the glowing golden dawn
wakes the tiny flying trumpets
to their posts
a sweet dark roast
slides over my lips
from a mug molded
for my warm fingertips
as I listen to their morning symphony
I know I’m held that I AM
love
light
divine justice
— — — — — — — — —
One of the ways I move back into my body is to sit at the ancient wooden desk my great aunt handed down to me, stare out the sliding glass doors into the green of the backyard, and breathe. I sip dark roast from that awesome mug. I listen to the birds sing their morning songs. I feel, now.
Mindful morning practice is an embodied state. And from that place, I write.
When my breath stops and I feel the clench in my gut, I gift myself with another deep breath. When the grip around my sparkly pen tightens, and my forearm starts to ache, I release a little and let the words move more slowly than in that cursive frenzy.
Writing from there is a magical experience — words flow. Sometimes whole poems slide through my fingers and pen to the blank page. I channel a bigger, wiser source when I write from that sacred, embodied, now space.
This helps me remember who I am.
When you remember who you are in the middle of a really crappy week, you have a very big opportunity. Healing happens. Release, surrender, healing, and even joy move through when you remember to sit in the middle of knowing who you are.
This week I remembered, with writing, and the help of a good healer friend. The text:
“Blessings for the highest and best outcome.
Miracles are without size.
Align. Breathe.
Accept. Allow. Affirm.
The Universe responds to aligned action.”
Thank you John. Your messages, both text and voice that day, reminded me to remind myself who I am.
I am divine justice. I am love.
After listening to his wise, embodied, other-level sourced words, I breathed more easily. I remembered. I stopped the sickening, ruminating mind fu*k, and remembered who I was. And it felt so wholesome.
“While you’re waiting, and you don’t know if the outcome will be good, or bad, you might as well imagine a positive outcome.” Dr. Wayne Dyer
That section of his book, Excuses Begone, was crucial for me. I realized I was wasting precious moments worrying, in fear and doubt, when I could be working on manifesting a better outcome, or at least a higher vibe in the actual tissues of my body.
Yeah, that’s one reason why this practice is so important, no matter what you’re going through, especially if it’s traumatic. The energy you practice, which happens as a result of what and how you’re thinking, lodges in the tissues of your body and then creates havoc.
As a myofascial release practitioner, I’ve learned that “the issues are in the tissues.” As a healer and writer, I know one way to move, shift, and heal those issues is to get back into my body, feel all the feels, and release. I can do that in so many therapeutic ways.
And with awareness, I get the choice.
It’s all about awareness — every moment. And no matter what you’re coping with, it’s being back in your body that will start the healing process.
It starts now.
Big love and healing to you!
Laura Di Franco, MPT is the CEO of Brave Healer Productions, where they specialize in publishing and business strategy for holistic health and wellness professionals. She has a 30-year background in holistic physical therapy, 14 years off training in the martial arts, and has published over 30 Amazon bestselling books, including nine of her own. She’s a spoken-word poet, lover of dark chocolate, and has a contagious passion for sharing brave words that help you build your business. BraveHealer.com
