After some days of wrestling and reframing my approach to the structure of 100 Liminal Days, I am feeling a mix of relief and hopeful, excited energy. I have adjusted my schedule accordingly and immediately made time for a little art. In today’s post, I’m sharing some of yesterday’s creations and some ways I will begin attuning to my physical body.

100 Liminal Days is an experimental project of embracing my current transitional season after exiting my business by sharing an honest, real-time account of my self-initiation experience in daily posts. I’m using The Artist’s Way as a guiding tool, and sending shorter weekly recaps only via my newsletter. Visit Day 1/100 to learn more and sign up in the footer of this page to get the weekly recaps delivered to your inbox.

Yesterday was the first day in ages that I have spent time outside of my Slow Second Saturday events making art, and it felt so good! After writing Day 34/100, I updated my calendar’s time blocks for this writing project, qigong, workouts, and making art. Then I spent about 90 minutes painting, updating the third piece of my Into the Wild series. It’s still in progress, but I had fun tracing the edges and ends of the deer skull. I’m still deciding what color and style to paint the antlers.

Artistic expression extended into the evening with dinner. I cooked crispy chicken thighs and roasted sweet potatoes and broccoli. It was a challenging recipe with a special sauce made with orange marmalade. It turned out so good!

In addition to increasing my creative expression, I am committing to some intentional attunement to my body. In Day 33/100, I shared how I am in a season of building my Huang (a word in qigong used to describe the connective tissue including the fascia), and I see this as both literal and metaphorical. I am investing more time into my qigong practice and workouts, which cultivates the physical aspects of Huang. But it’s about more than that for me.

It’s also symbolic for learning to balance all aspects of being in the middle space, the liminal, the fertile darkness of becoming.

It feels good to say that, but I need action behind it. As a way to take action towards my goal, I am also committing to bring somatic experiences into my meditation practice, my hikes, and other parts of my day to really listen to my body. This includes:

• Body scans during meditation and qigong
• Acknowledging pain in my body versus ignoring it
• Taking hikes or sitting outside and naming three things I notice through each of the five senses
• Posture check-ins with myself to notice how I’m feeling while sitting, standing, or walking

I hope these new practices will help me to become more aware of my body and what I am physically feeling. My body has been the messenger telling me when certain things in my life needed to change in order for my body to feel better, but as my physical body healed from the changes, my emotional body found healing, too. My body seems to be leading me closer to authentic alignment with my purpose.

After all, qigong and breathwork are practices I picked up because my body was in pain and these practices brought me notable pain relief. I’m curious to see what else might reveal itself to me if I start paying more attention to my body.

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