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My First Teacher and Practices

My First Teacher and Practices

Phoebe Leona

My First Teacher and Practices

by Phoebe Leona

Dad was probably the biggest instigator of creating the chaotic energy within me and around me but also one of my first teachers in connecting me to the energy of my body and the space. He taught me how to control my energy through breath. As a young child, I got overwhelmed and cried myself to hyperventilation. When Dad was good, he was there to calm me; he would hold me, tell me to breathe, show me how to sit and put my head between my legs, and sometimes offer me to breathe into a paper bag. He would guide me to slow down my breaths, acknowledge how the energy started to slow down, and then calm me down.

This was a powerful practice for me to utilize alone when Dad wasn’t so good and he was having his own episodes that he seemingly could not control.

I found my way to other practices that kept my mind and body calm when it was hard to contain all the energy of my chaotic life. There were nights I lay in bed, tossing and turning. Somehow intuitively, I flipped a switch on in my “brain vacuum” and watched the thoughts of my day get sucked out from the back of my head into the pillow. I watched each event and each thought disappear, leaving me to sleep peacefully and dream up new possibilities for my life.

If any thoughts were resistant to the suck of the vacuum, I would pull out my little diary and pen, write down all the thoughts and feelings that still lingered, then lock them up. I would stow away the tiny key in the sugar bowl of the antique tea set I used to host tea parties for my stuffed animals and special human guests. My thoughts sometimes scared me when I began to realize how powerful they could be, so I felt they needed to be erased or locked up when I sometimes would see a thought unfold before my eyes. This can be very cool as a kid, yet very disturbing, especially when having thoughts about others that are not so good. You will see what I mean as we dive more deeply into my past.

My greatest practice, by far, was the gift of dance. Mom still says I danced before I walked because I spent hours in the jolly jumper, hopping up and down to the beats of whatever was playing on our record player. It could be Aretha Franklin, Elton John, Stevie Wonder, BB King, The Cars, Blondie, my Uncle Tom’s made-up songs about my moony eyes, or Gramma and Aunt June playing “Alley Cat” on their pianos.

Whatever it was, I found my way to dance to it. This continued once I got on my own two feet into jazz, tap, and ballet classes, and most nights in front of my parents for a post-dinner dance performance. It brought me so much joy, and I believed my dancing brought other people joy too. Even after a long day of work, I’m sure my exclusive performance of the entire Miss Piggy’s Aerobique Exercise Workout Album made my parents’ lives more enlightened and enriched, especially with the showstopper “Snackcercise.”

I danced at all hours in my room and my basement when I was in rehearsal mode. Then, as I got older and things got more complicated, I danced my way to a place to make sense of my world. It was the one place I felt safe when the outside world was more unpredictable and chaotic.

It was a place that opened other worlds for me to connect with and helped me believe there was a way to feel that anything was possible again.

All these practices were gifts, but I didn’t realize how much they were until later in life. When I filled out an application for a yoga teacher training program, I asked, “How long have you been practicing yoga?” I realized, after looking back at my recent history of taking yoga classes, I began to trace back the actual practice all the way back here: breathwork with Dad to calm my anxiety, meditation and contemplation to clear my thoughts, and movement to get my “ya-yas” out, as my yoga teacher, Jeanmarie, would always say in class.

As I reflect on my childhood as an adult, I often wonder who or where I would be without these practices. Would I have followed in the footsteps of Dad being homeless and/or thrown in jail? Would I have shut myself off from feeling my feelings with drugs because of the traumatic events of my childhood? Would I have shut myself out from the possibility of healthy relationships and dream job opportunities because the outside world had abandoned me way too many times?

Maybe I will never know. Maybe another version of me is playing those lives out in alternate universes. What I do know is that I am so very grateful I had these practices that saved my life, my inner voice that kept me safe, and those neural pathways that didn’t lose their connections.

Reading the Signs

There were so many moments I felt loved unconditionally by my parents. When they were still together, and when those times were good, I could always run into a room and get a hug. Often, I would walk in and see my parents snuggling together, asking, “Can I join in?” They would open their arms, and I would pile on top of the two of them to receive hugs and kisses from them both as if they were just sitting there waiting for me to enter. The nights I woke up from a nightmare, I would cry out from my bed, run to their room quickly to avoid the monsters, and crawl into bed between their warm bodies as a shield from what haunted me in my own bed moments before. I would feel safe again.

In those calm times, I knew the monsters in my dreams could not get me if Mom and Dad were close. But as I got a bit older, I started seeing those nightmares as a reality I could not wake from. Often it was my very own Dad who was the monster because his demons were catching up with him. When I feared him, he could not hold me close, guide me to breathe, and tell me everything would be okay. I had to learn how to watch the signs and plan the swiftest way to safety on my own. I had to learn to find my way out of that darkness and find a new path to the light. I soon learned my parents would not always be there to guide me in the spaces of chaos. It was all up to me to feel the energy and figure out the best way to stay safe.

My First Teacher and Practices is an Excerpt of the memoir “DEAR RADIANT ONE” By Phoebe Leona. Published with Permission from GracePoint Publishing Dear Radiant One is available on Amazon.

Hear her Interview with Victor Fuhrman, On OMTimes Radio

See Also

About Phoebe Leona:

Phoebe is an author, speaker, dancer, teacher, and transformational guide who helps men & women feel more embodied through somatic, movement, and expanded awareness practices to become more empowered in who they are, who they are becoming, and have a greater sense of belonging. She has been a teacher and guideDear-Radiant-One- for over 25 years. Still, it was after a year of extreme loss in 2013 when she found herself in the vast open space between her old life and a new life, that she dove deeply into her work and began her company, nOMad to help others through their own transitions and spaces in between.

Throughout that time, Phoebe also developed her own movement/somatic practice, Mvt109TM for students to fully embrace the freedom of moving in their bodies, transform old and held patterns, and reclaim the vibrations & stories they want to bring to life. Phoebe also finds joy in sharing her story to help others in their own healing. You can learn more about Phoebe’s story on her TEDx Talk, her podcast The Space in Between, and her book, Dear Radiant One published by GracePoint Publishing.

 

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