Thicker than Water: A Memoir

by Kerry Washington

she stopped talking. And we just lay there, breathing. I started to weep. I had spent thirty minutes flowing through poses that moved me into a deep physical connection with myself. I was fully awake in my body, lying on that mat, with nowhere to go—no distractions, no performance, no urge for perfectionism. Just me. I had no memory of ever feeling this way before. I felt safe, and I had spent most of my life not feeling safe. I understood the tears that were melting out of me only as confusion and disorientation at the time, but those tears were also an outpouring of grief for the hypervigilant little girl who lived within me. She had learned long ago that rest and relaxation were hazardous states of being. She had not slept for years, trying to protect herself, terrified of the things that transpired in the night. And even in the daytime, she had avoided being fully awake in her body to skirt the memories of those same terrors, and to escape the disconnect all around her and the loneliness it produced.