On Arriving Through the Body

A brief note: This conversation was shortened and very lightly edited for length and clarity.

What does “arrival” mean in the body, not as an idea?

MAIRA: Arrival, for me, is when attention comes out of the mind and into the body—when we are no longer living 90 percent of the time from the neck up. It’s the moment we begin to sense our lived experience directly: the breath, the sensations, the movement, the contact with the ground or the chair.

Often, arrival begins with something very simple. Just noticing the rise and fall of the breath is one of the most direct ways to become grounded in the present moment.

What’s a small sign you’ve arrived—something you can actually feel?

MAIRA: There’s often a sense of softening or spaciousness. Thinking quiets—not because we’ve forced it to, but because attention has left the mind and gone into the body.

You might notice that your jaw unclenches, your shoulders drop, or that your breath becomes easier. Even if nothing else has changed, you feel more here.

What do you do when the mind wants to rush ahead or fix what’s happening?

MAIRA: I return to awareness rather than control. Not breath control. Not improvement. Just noticing.

When we consciously focus our awareness on something—like the breath or a sensation in the body—that something begins to shift and unwind. We’re not interested in the story of why we feel the way we do, only in staying close to the felt experience.

What helps you stay with feeling without amplifying it or turning it into a story?

MAIRA: The key to eventually feeling better in a sustainable way is to get better at feeling.

More specifically: learning to feel the fullness of our emotions and relating to our emotional experiences with compassion. We so often place conditions on our feelings because they feel too threatening or intense to handle. We distract, stay busy, or live in our heads instead of staying with what’s happening in our bodies.

It’s imperative to learn that our emotions won’t kill us. Feeling better immediately isn’t always the answer. What’s vital is learning to stay with the fullness of our feelings—meeting them with curiosity, patience, and compassion.

When you’re in a tender or unsteady season, what do you return to?

MAIRA: I return to support—both earthly and spiritual—and I ask for help. I allow myself to feel gutted, cleaned out, and washed through, without amplifying or acting impulsively on what I’m feeling.

I’ve also learned that half of the creative process requires periods of incubation, rest, and stillness. When life gets difficult, I give myself time to rest in the not-doing—allowing for solitude, gentle inquiry, and following my natural impulses. In that unbusy-ness, energy flows back in an organic way.