The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection through Embodied Living

by Hillary L. McBride

At the next break, I overheard one of the men approach another man and say, “Will you walk with me while I cry?” The second man simply nodded, unphased, and the two of them walked together out toward a crop of walnut trees. When we came back together after the break, the first man shared that the walk was the only time in his life he had cried with another man present. He described feeling that for the first time, almost unbelievably, he knew he did not have to be alone in his sadness. Because he was not crying alone, his sadness was bearable and began to dissipate. I was in awe. His courage and authenticity were so moving that most of us sat with mouths agape. It was a stunning, real-time demonstration that change is possible and that when we are not alone, we can take risks to feel the pain that was otherwise unbearable. Each of us was reminded that emotion itself is never the problem; the problem is the stories that keep us apart from each other, create conditional belonging, or require us to shove things down in order to stay connected. I think of this memory often because I never want it to leave me. It gives me hope. In fact, I can’t imagine a better picture of hope than those two men walking close to each other on a path into a grove of trees. One man cried, and the other man helped him write a new story—a story in which being a body, with all its feelings, did not have to exclude him from connection but could draw him more deeply into it.