Take a moment to notice where your body is in your space, in your environment.
Notice your feet against the soles of your shoes or your bare feet on the flooring or your heels and legs against the couch. Notice the heat of this meeting between your feet and what they wear and perch upon. Or the coolness. And, notice the gentleness or roughness of the carpet, upholstery, socks, air. Notice.
Notice where your arms are. On the table. Or against your body. What does that feel like? This meeting between your arms and something else?
If sitting, notice your derriere in your seat. Is your seat soft, hard, warm, cool?
These noticing are through your skin, your largest organ, interacting with the external environment. Now, let’s move our attention inward. I invite you to travel inside your body. To the middle of you, to your bones.
Sense your bones.
Sense the bones in your feet traveling into the bones in your legs.
Sense your hip bones.
Sense your rib cage.
Sense your spine.
Sense the bones in your arms, shoulders, neck, and jaw.
Sensing your bones, I invite you to travel inside your bones. For now, just pick one bone, like your jaw bone or a bone that seems to want your attention. Travel into the living essence of this bone. Into the marrow. Into where blood cells are made.
Describe to yourself what being inside your bones feels like. What looking at your body from inside out is like.
Is there anything you would like to ask your bones? If so, ask.
Listen for a response. A response can be nothing or it can appear in images, felt senses, or words. As you listen, be gentle with yourself. Take note.
And breathe asking the universe or God to remain curious with you about your bones.
Now, slowly move back toward the outside of yourself, out to your skin. To get there, travel through the rest of your body—your organs, tissue, bodily fluids. And when you are back in your skin, so to speak, I invite you to open your eyes and return to the room.
Based on a practice originally written for Wartburg Seminary’s Trauma-Informed Worship class, September 18, 2023.
Please shift this practice to meet the needs of your body.
Jennifer Ohman-Rodriguez 