Learning how to spin on your axis

My astrology teacher, Eugenio Carutti, says that the best body work one can do to deal with planetary movement, and all that inner tension that it creates specially on moments of transition, is to ground ourselves and spin on our edge. 

I thought about the metaphor of spinning, or the actual work that it requires, for example, to perform a pirouette in ballet class, contemporary, capoeira, martial arts, whatever discipline it requires. There are different forces at play. Balance, gravity, center of gravity, certain impulse or cadence of movement. Learning how to spin, like learning how to fall, are all of these physical motions a good preparation for life? 

I have read that the more fear we go through, the more we are loving ourselves.

That to fulfill the deepest desires of our hearts is scary.

Behind the door of fear, there is beauty.

That truly loving someone is freaking scary. 

Even when I moved to another continent at 22 years old, I have embraced that transitions in a joyful and even playful manner. Certainly, Uranus was having an aspect to my moon, but I did not know that and it also did not feel heavy. It was surely difficult to say goodbye to my family, and to sit on the plane, but the image of what I had ahead was bigger, broader, was an absolute big need of my heart, and I did not hesitate for a moment. Six years later I know, that was a one way ticket.

 Settled down in Berlin, found a place I could stay, sorted my income, and made a good group of friends. The moment I got too comfortable, I felt like I was falling asleep. At the age of 28, approaching my saturn return, I realized I needed to pursue more in life. Why was I not performing on stage? Why was I not traveling the world? Also, why did I struggle to find a new partner after my break up? I felt like I was not in the right place or posture for that to happen, so I put myself out there and embarque in a new adventure. India  & Brussels. They came hand to hand, equally big, equally challenging, equally smooth and beautiful. 3 months in India traveling, 3 months in Brussels dancing. Life surprised me daily, I went farest I thought I could. Performed on stage, hiked the Himalayas, fell in love. 

Sounds like a dream doesn't it? It was. Then scorpio season came, and suddenly the tension started rising. I felt too unsettled in Brussels to stay, my heart was split into different places, suddenly I missed my family a lot, I felt vulnerable and scared, I just wanted 2024 to be over (is almost like wishing me dead, why would I want to accelerate life when only death is certainly ahead of us)

Fear took over me. I observed. Going to see my family and friends and Argentina to lay back and be taken care of: a comfort zone I wanted to challenge. Staying in Brussels, hanging around different friends' places, spending tons of money on food and education, when my internship was already over,  that was unrealistic. Pursuing my original plan: going back to India without any specific plan. Well, it does not really sound like it makes sense either, but anyway, that's what I decided to do. Booked the cheapest ticket I could find.

Voyage is returning. That phase has accompanied me all those months I have been in Brussels, dancing and working, since it was on the guarobe door of the first room I stayed in. Voyage is returning and I was returning, for the first time, to India. 

However that return that I dreamed so much about, was not at all what I imagined it would be. 

Have you ever experienced being in the middle of a conversation and suddenly starting feeling totally ungrounded? A feeling like you lose sense of your feet or something. If I am outdoors, and I see the sky, I would feel an horrendous vertigo. I start feeling alienated, disconnected, the person I am talking to might become a thread or my savior. I think this is what's called anxiety, isn't it? and can lead to a panic attack. I only had 2 panic attacks in my life and it was the closest feeling of hell I ever experienced. Nothing made sense anymore and I was terrified to go completely crazy. Now, imagine this starts happening the day before you leave (Brussels), and it goes on happening until the day after you arrive (Dehli). I don't know if it was horror or beauty that I experienced when I arrived in Delhi. Now when I look back, I feel that anxiety made everything more vivid to me. The memories of this first 2 days in India are now deeply impressed on my DNI. every second was so raw, was all it was there, while I was navigating this extreme emotions. Anxiety is just excitement, read as if there is something bad happening. But how did I navigate that intense emotions, that journey of madness, of sometimes regretting my own choices, of wanting to step back? That's what I would like to share with you.

1- My absolute priority for those 3 days was to avoid having a panic attack. Is kind of funny because in that state, normally we are afraid of fear. The idea of fear scares us. That's why to avoid having a panic attack, what I needed to do was avoid thinking about fear, how it would be, where it would take me. For this we need to ground ourselves. Think less, focus on our physical sensations. 

2-  BREATH. Feeling my breath, deep breath to my tummy, very important. equal length inhales and exhales, together with feeling the soles of my feet. Putting all the attention there.

3- Everything might seem confusing and stressful out there and I might want to shut all my senses. I understood that, my body needed to shut down, and I allowed that. If I had the opportunity to lay down with eyes closed, to put relaxing music on my airpods, that's what I would do. Some people might need to use medication and that is completely fine, but should be supervised with a mental health specialist. 

4- If I am with somebody, deepening the feeling this person gives me (that they could understand, or they might not) instead of pretending that I am alright, I would let them know something is on. To one friend I let know I was feeling unsettled and needed to lay down, without being very specific. To another friend I shared I was anxious, because I knew they could help me with their words, since they understood the feeling.

5- Telling myself what I need to hear. Calming messages like “I'm alright” “this is normal” “I got this” “This too shall pass” “I am taking care of you” .

6-If i need to make choices, makes whatever choice help me feel grounded. Per instance I had to cancel a trip that was planned, but I did not doubt twice. I knew it would hurt my friend, but I also had to explain to them my mental health was my absolute priority, and it always will be. Safety. To feel safe in our bodies, in our minds. There is no external beauty that can bring us joy if we don't feel that. So in times like this we need to be a bit “selfish”

6- Make decisions that would ground me in the long term. Since it might take some time for the nervous system to re-calibrate, I needed to think about how I should engage myself to activate the parasympathetic system gradually. If I know it grounds me down to dance or practice yoga, if I know it is painting or sleeping, then canceling any other things and go for that when possible. Sometimes the brain needs to have a bit of certainty about the future so if you say “ we gonna be practicing Yoga for the next week” it helps (and most probably, after practice, anxiety will be gone.

7- Drink tons of water. I respected the fact that I could barely eat those 3 days. Instead what I did and what helped me was water, and to force myself some food the moment I was able to (something that should not feel disgusting, in my case plain bread or rice) .

8- I keep my senses busy with small things. I had to look down mostly, more towards my feet or tummy, rather than look around or up in the sky. I had to stay in a quiet space or put on a meditative playlist. 

I have to say, after canceling my travel plans and going for dance and yoga, anxiety was almost completely gone. This week I could just fully enjoy a slower paced life, to have time to write this, to do some therapy, even when It can be unsettling to move some buried emotions. I try not to overwhelm my system, every step should be manageable, I try to stay tuned with my intuition and understand that it is perfectly fine to sleep longer, to reduce screener time or even to increase it if it makes me feel better. But above all, to keep this question alive: “is this making me feel good”, knowing that I deeply care about that. 

So going back to the question. Learning how to spin, how to fall, all of that is possible when we are well routed on the ground. That ballet dancers are weightless, that's an illusion. They know how to play with gravity, that's all. There is no air without earth. The world will keep on spinning and once we feel our feet well planted, we might stop resisting and start spinning with it, practicing going with the flow, softly landing, having senses open to surprise ourselves with the information that might come through us and that we can always transform into poetry.