Less commandments than observations, gathered over years of learning to listen to the body instead of override it. They are the foundation this journal is built on.
You do not have a body. You are a body. Every thought, every decision, every creative act begins in tissue and nerve and breath. We are taught to call the overriding of it discipline. More often it is dissociation in a productive mask.
The attention economy treats your focus as raw material to be mined and sold. Somatic attention treats it as the most intimate thing you own. Where you place your attention is where you place your life.
Call it laziness, avoidance, privilege; the culture has called it all three. What stillness actually is: a refusal to fill every moment with production. The pause between breaths is where the body recalibrates.
The tightness in your chest, the ache in your jaw, the restlessness at 3 a.m.: the body's honest reporting, not problems to be solved. Learning to stay with discomfort, without numbing or fixing, is where self-trust begins.
You do not owe anyone a recovery story. The body heals in spirals, in setbacks, in seasons. Some of the most important work happens in the weeks when nothing appears to change.
A boundary can feel like rejection to the person meeting it. Really it is the structure that makes genuine connection possible. The people who respect your limits are the ones worth keeping close.
Culture rebranded rest as a reward you earn by producing first. Your body treats it as a biological requirement. The nervous system does not negotiate; it simply keeps the score.
These principles keep changing, as I do. What stays constant is the commitment to paying attention with the body, not just the mind, and to writing honestly about what that attention reveals.
Written in Portland, Oregon.
Updated as the practice deepens.