A Restorative Lesson To Retract Your Senses

When life gets tough, get on the floor.

I’ve been feeling low with the many things going on in the world, the fires in Greece are tragic, as is the unwillingness to commit to collective action to save our planet. When will we take this seriously?

The passing of Sinead O’Connor has also floored me. She was such a precious soul. I admired her courage in speaking up for the voiceless and offering her solidarity to the marginalised. I was in awe of how she promoted herself in a way that she wanted to rather than being sexed up by the music industry. She was a truth sayer whereas many of us distract ourselves with food, alcohol, drugs, social media, shopping and keeping busy to not have to think too deeply about the quality of our lives. 

Writer and poet, Nif Muhammad posted this: ”Sinead O’Connor was among many other better things, a victim of society’s gleeful never-ending obsession with prolonged punishment, with punishment as a spectacle. She was also someone who suffered openly, vulnerably. She was open in her songs, in her writing, in the pleas she made on the internet. The world is not equipped to hold a person’s suffering, gently or otherwise.” 

I’ve thinking about that damning last sentence. I am not grieving that she has died, although of course this is a tragedy. I am in grief about the cruelty of a world that delighted in breaking her. Such casual cruelty, served up as entertainment. It makes my heart ache. 

I feel like I’m grieving so many things. All I can do is to put myself into a gentle pose to retract from the world and tend to myself. 

Try this short lesson for paid subscribers so that you too can tend to yourself, whenever you need it.

With love,

Nahid x 

PS Watch the brilliant on Sinead O’ Connor documentary Nothing Compares by Kathryn Ferguson, it is so moving. An interview with the director here.