The Importance of Being a Corpse
I’m sick. Haha, woke up with a fever yesterday. Texted the necessaries, went back to bed for the next 6 hours tossing and turning between chills and sweat. So. Much. Fun.
In all honesty though, after getting Covid earlier this year, I’ve learned to enjoy being sick hahaha. Insomnia has plagued me since my teens, maybe because that’s when I became best friends with the stress hormone cortisol lol. The constant drive to do better, be better, achieve achieve achieve can often feel like a runaway train that has no signs of ever stopping.
Until the body just nopes outta there completely and refuses to participate anymore. Dead stop, straight ahead. The train crashes into a side of a cliff and I’m just a pile of broken metal. I mean, it certainly feels that way during a feverish bout. Limbs are weak, can’t see straight, and all of a sudden my will to do anything means nothing. Sleep is the only thing. And it is glorious.
Our culture celebrates achievements and competition. The thought of keeping up sometimes is enough to send most of us into roils of anxiety. But what if we could do more simply by doing less?
As I lay there in my sweaty sheets, I looked into my pitbull’s eyes and realized I don’t spend nearly enough time just lying there, staring into her eyes lol. She is so cute. And loving. And affectionate. And all she wants is to lie there and stare into my eyes. And eat. And sleep. And play. What is it about being human that makes us so anxious to accomplish?
In yoga, at the end of every practice is the corpse pose, savasana. At the beginning of my practice, I never really understood why we did it. I’d usually use this time to think about what I needed to do next, or tomorrow, or the following week. And get annoyed if it was longer than 3 minutes lol. So what is savasana, and why is it so important?
Savasana requires complete stillness. You let your limbs flop open and lie there, well, essentially like a corpse. The entire practice you just did was preparing you for this moment. Stillness, meditation, relaxation. How often do you stop completely during your day to just be? To just decide to sit in a chair and do and think absolutely nothing? Or to take a walk in nature, and then to completely stop and stand still? If you’re like me, probably not very often, because there’s always something to do, some place to be, and people to see. But this constant need to get to the next thing is crazy-making. It completely defeats this moment of aliveness. Because if we’re always striving for the next thing, then our lives are in the future, and the present moment is lost. And yet our body is and can only ever be in the present moment. And so there’s always tension between the mind and body, yet they are meant to be one.
Being sick, and feeling like death, ironically, is what reminds me of what it means to be alive. To soak in everything the present moment has to offer. Savasana reminds us of the juiciness of life, the privilege of living, the stillness to appreciate it all. And meditation doesn’t necessarily mean the absence of thoughts, but rather the absence of identification with those thoughts. The thoughts will come, but they will also leave. The urge to do will come, and it will also leave. Emotions will come, and they will also leave. You are the only constant.
So my goal now is to do as many mini savasanas a day as possible. Channel the peace I feel from being sick, where nothing in the world matters (because even if it did, there’s nothing I can do about it with a hundred pound gong swaying inside my head), and just stop and be still. Notice everything around me. The way the leaves on the tree outside the window are different shades of green because of the way the light hits. The way the breeze is soft on my skin like a thousand butterflies. The way my dog smells like warm bread when she’s sleeping in the sun. The sound of Noah’s staccato laugh when he listens to his favorite podcast. The way the dryer’s rhythmic hums prepare my clean delicious sweat-free sheets for a bed where I always feel safe in. The way my body feels as it heals me toward health again. The way my hair brushes my arm like whispers as I’m writing this. The comforting drone of a lawnmower nearby. The seaside colours of my house. The vibrant life of my plants. The cotton texture of the rug beneath my toes. The slow steam of my tea. The absolute peace I feel now is always inside of me, within reach. And it’s all I need to do.
