Soft Animal by Kim Gorchs

BODYWORKER | YOGA & MEDITATION TEACHER | WORKSHOP FACILITATOR

Soft Animal is a space for coming home to yourself through body, movement, poetry, reflection, and the messy beauty of being human. Or as Mary Oliver said, "You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."

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October 14 · 7 min
She said, “do better!”
I have a tendency to live in the future: to imagine, to dream. But when looking at the future, I find myself turning to the past, to experiences I had, sensations I felt, in the places I traveled through and lived in. I turn to nostalgia to light the path to the future. A futile attempt of trying to control the direction of my life. Or as Taylor Swift, in her poem of a song “Babylon” sings, you’re using nostalgia as a weapon to hurt yourselfbut darling, you end up hurting everybody elsethe self-harm of never being where you are Being where you are. Be Here Now. Presence. The lighthouse, the shining star, lighting the way along the adventure that is life. The attempt to grasp at those moments of peace we might have felt in times past and the desperate disappointment when the seeking turns out to be a vain attempt, when each moment slips through the fingers of time, and you find yourself washed ashore on the whims of your mind. The only way to reach those moments is to ride the waves of thoughts like the surfer who gracefully balances on that small piece of wood (or shall I say foam and hardened resin) with that delicate fin underwater, holding her arms out in the knowledge that the sea might just have other plans. Grounding down into the wave as she shifts and changes beneath her. Surfing the waves of our minds' whims. Smiling at them in delight. Welcoming each bump and break. What an adventure indeed. I’m currently experiencing Ireland, rural West Cork to be specific. Taking care of two milking goats and three goats simply existing and chickens, or is it chicken? I still have to look that up. Each morning I get up, I take time to read. Challenging my mind with Spanish reading adapted for intermediate learners. I have tried reading at the native level, and each time I get through a page, my mind whirls with the frustration of not understanding, trying again and again to get to the place of certainty that is so elusive. Listening to Spanish music reminds me of the days when English felt like this. A coasting along words without clarity, only melodies to hold onto. I heard someone say something along the lines of “learning is pain until it is joy” in an interview yesterday. When in the depths of digging through words you don’t understand, or a subject matter that seems to slip through your fingers, frustrated, that’s where we get to practice, to practice coasting and surfing. To practice dealing with frustration. So much frustration. It’s so easy to focus on the simple, to take the first answer at face value, to try to bypass the difficult and rather tedious process of learning, to focus on what we already know. Because surely that has to be enough. It really is true what they say: The more you know, the more you know you don’t know. It is humbling. It is necessary. Because what is dangerous is people who think they know it all. People who go through life so sure of themselves, so sure that their thoughts never fail them, that there is nothing more to understand, that they close their eyes and ears and, most dangerously, their minds, to anything that might not land for them. Coasting, not realising that they are drowning. And when I say them, I mean me. This is me, reminding myself. Because what else is there to do other than to try to remember and to do better? I don’t remember where I first heard this, it might have been during my time living in a yoga ashram, but there is this idea of a spiral. That in life we seem to go in circles, but each time a seemingly similar problem comes up, it is like we enter the next round of a spiral, spiraling inwards toward who we have been this whole time. Inwards towards our truest selves. Clarity surfacing, when we learn to make decisions that are more in line with that self. I like that visual. It makes sense to me. It is so easy to get wrapped up in ordinary life, we should get wrapped up in it. It’s, well, simply life, and at the same time many of us yearn for something else. We dream, we fantasize, we idealize. And then there are those of us who take the risks, who not only dream, but who take action on those dreams, who step into the unknown. We aren’t better than those of us who only dream. Not at all. Those of us who build their lives around the impossible, and those of us who build their lives around the beautifully ordinary, should learn from each other. Everytime I see someone so content in a life I would wither away in, I find myself admiring them. How can they be so content in one place? How can they be so at ease within their group of friends they have known all their life? How can they be so free in their habits and the same rhythm of their weeks? It inspires me to notice the little joys, to find myself paying attention to the people I meet more and more. To smile at strangers, ask them about their lives and thoughts, and find it in my heart, if they can be so content, so at ease with who they are in that conventional life, to accept myself for who I am in my unconventional one. If people can be happy and content following these rules, these parameters, society has put on them, simply because that is who they are at their core, then I can find guilt-free contentment in a life outside of those parameters, because that is who I am. Who are you? With that being said, may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free in whatever life you have been thrown into, or whatever life you have chosen to create. Kim If you would like to work with me in a deeper capacity: * Join my membership “The Sunday Sanctuary” (cancel anytime). Self-Care Connection Sessions, Yoga, Meditation, Rituals, and more. This month, we are diving into what it means to live “free.” * Get the Holistic Partner Pulsing course now open for enrollment to help you and your partner (or loved ones) connect and gift them time to get back into their bodies and enjoy the journey of life - a powerful bodywork experience: “(Im)Pulse: (Co)Regulate Your Nervous System with Holistic Partner Pulsing”. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimgorchs.substack.com
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September 23 · 7 min
On Solitude, Books, and our Culture of Convenience
I went to this little bookshop here in West Cork, Ireland the other day and as I was paying, the shop owner telling me about his family and their connections to Germany, after hearing that that’s where I’m from, in the end he said: “Reading truly is one of life’s greatest pleasures, is it not?” Yes, it is; indeed, it is. My favorite thing to bring as souvenirs from my travels is books. I bought these two wonderful books in said shop a few days ago. One is a modern Irish fairy tale, a children’s book called “Deerheart”, a heartwarming story about three sister witches and their fight against their turned-evil warlock brother. A story on love between sisters, on asking questions, and being curious about the unknown, beautifully illustrated. The other is a collection of old Irish folk and fairy tales. Rather brutal stories on honor and war faring. Written in a way that keeps your eyes moving across the pages, wanting to know what happens next. I remember this moment on vacation with my family, I must have been 12. We were in Sardinia, one of our few summer holidays, my family is fond of skiing and winter vacationing. So that’s what we normally did. I wasn’t mad about it. I used to love skiing. But I digress, that certain day on summer vacation was beautiful, the sun was gonna set in around half an hour and my parents and sister were getting ready to go for a walk. I was huddled up on the veranda with a book, as I was so often. My family tried really hard to get me to go out with them. They weren’t met with success. When they came back, wind-worn, with big smiles on their faces, showing me pictures of a beautiful sunset, I wasn’t upset about having missed the outing. My book, I was certain, was much more interesting. There has always been this strange push and pull feeling within me that, on the one hand, I need deep connections in my life. People who get me, and on the other hand, I am quite content by myself. I like my own company. The company of a good book. All those people who had all those thoughts and put them down on paper in the most beautiful, astonishing ways. It’s interesting to me when people feel sorry for others who’d rather spend time with a book by themselves than in a group of other people. As if there MUST be something wrong with us. There isn’t. Maybe there is something wrong with a society that champions constant distraction from the inner world of one's mind, instead of letting people explore their thoughts and emotions in peace. Isn’t it just so wonderful how different we all are as humans? I have never understood the fear, or rather apprehension, of people to go to a restaurant by themself, to sit there and eat, by yourself, with no one to entertain you. Just bring a book. There are millions of people who can keep you company that way. It’s such a natural state to me. Isn’t it just so wonderful how different we all are as humans? There is something about solitude that is so appealing to me. So much so that during my Bachelor studies in English Literature and Culture I even considered writing my thesis on books on solitude. Huh. Isn’t that curious. I’m just now realizing the extent of my interest in this throughout my life. There is so much beauty in solitude. Not loneliness. Solitude. It’s a thoroughly different feeling. A sense of contentment with one’s own company. Attention is magic. Attention is sacred. (This reminder came through to me as I was visiting some old remnant stones of a stone circle here in Ireland last week. But more on that another time... Too much to say here.) Do we need to be in solitude to be able to pay more attention? Not necessarily, but I do think it makes it easier to hear one's own thoughts, unimpressed by others' voices, others’ thoughts. Especially if one's temperament is more subdued. Isn’t it just so wonderful how different we all are as humans? I’ve been thinking about our culture of convenience lately. Everything is at our fingertips. One click and new shoes, new furniture, a new potential love interest, fresh food, a new course, learning, entertainment... But does convenience really make our life easier? Or does it just make it... seem that way. If the journey is the destination and we take away the journey, what is left then? If you could snap your fingers and, in an instant, you would be able to master all advanced yoga poses, your body strong and agile, would you do it? If the asanas and hatha yoga’s main goal is to prepare the body for stillness, the use of our physical form so we can turn inward and examine what else is there. Then, if you just snap your fingers and get there, there is really no point. My body is slowly healing from all its breaking and falling apart, the process of knitting itself back together, slow but present. A process indeed. No rushing there. No snapping of fingers. No convenience. Only a slow process of patient waiting and tending. Like flowers delicately but relentlessly pushing through the dirt and growing to their full glory in a garden. The journey. No shortcuts. No optimizing. Where do you want to en-joy the journey more? Enrich it with joy. Engender it with joy. Enmesh it with joy. Engross yourself in joy. Or maybe finding something new in solitude? What are you afraid of? Or maybe you aren’t. Maybe you embrace it. Put your arms around solitude and give it a big squeeze of gratitude. A smile on your face. With that being said. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be free. With gratitude for your magic and sacred attention, Kim PS: If you would like to work with me in a deeper capacity: * Join my membership “The Sunday Sanctuary” (cancel anytime). Yoga, Meditation, rituals, and more. This month we are diving into the question of what it means to be “healthy,” and I’m sharing practices from different perspectives to help you live your healthiest, most alive life. * Get the Holistic Partner Pulsing course now open for enrollment to help you and your partner (or loved ones) connect and gift them time to get back into their bodies and enjoy the journey of life - a powerful bodywork experience: “(Im)Pulse: A Practical Course to Co-Regulate Your Nervous System with Holistic Partner Pulsing”. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimgorchs.substack.com
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September 17 · 8 min
Shores & Transitions
So in Human Design there is this element of your chart that’s called “Environment” (don’t ask me about it, I’m not a Human Design pro - Pascale "Poppins" Recher is :) - , but this is going somewhere, I promise). This is what Google says about the “Environment” part of your chart: “In Human Design, your Environment represents the specific physical and energetic setting where your body naturally relaxes, functions with ease, and absorbs nutrients from your surroundings.” My Environment is SHORES, which AI explained like this: “In Human Design, Shores is associated with being at a boundary between two different environments — places where two worlds meet. Think: * land + water * city + countryside * inside + outside * familiar + unfamiliar * movement + stillness * one culture/community + another * places where there is transition, exchange, and permeability” It caught my attention when I first read about this element of the chart in a newsletter I’m on and made me look up my own (it was a bit of a struggle to find a site that shares that info - this one does, if you want to look up yours). For a long time I’ve been trying to find “my” place in the world. One choice. Where do I want to live? What do I want to do? All those questions that many of us (especially those of us called to traveling and nomadic lifestyles) have probably been asking often. A choice. This is going to be my base. Forev... WHAT? Forever? NO. Can’t commit to that. Not out of a fear of commitment. But rather out of an inner knowing that somehow, for some reason, I don’t think I’m meant to commit to just one place. Shores, transition, movement, exchange, edges. When I think of where I’ve been most comfortable from all the places I’ve lived in the world, it has never been right inside a city, never been in the heat of it all, always on the edges. Figuratively and literally. * I LOVE my “sunroom” in my home in Mexico; it’s a light-filled room with a full windowfront. I always keep the outside door fully open to the garden. The dogs come and go. I work, write, read, meditate, live there. It’s my favorite place in the house. * My apartment in Germany has a “winter garden” that I adore. Full windows on all sides, a view over the rooftops of the other houses, and fields. * When I recorded the yoga movement medicine session for my membership yesterday, I did so in the hallway of the house I’m currently staying at here in West Cork, Ireland, and housesitting for. * The first space I was desperate to renovate in my apartment in Germany was the hallway. It felt so clinical and uncomfortable. I painted it dark blue. It created a deeper, more interesting space. Transitional spaces have always intrigued me. I remember in my early 20s, when I was solo traveling through Portugal before a workaway stint at a fig farm, sitting on the cliffs around Sintra after a yoga festival I had just attended, reading poetry by Rupi Kaur, “Milk & Honey.” I randomly found it in a bookstore in town and bought in on a whim. That moment is burned into my memory. I felt so alive, so present, so moved, sitting among those cliffs with the wind rushing by, the roaring sound of the waves crashing below me. Just barely perched and yet nestled safely in the stone. Home on earth, held and free. Shores. Just this morning I was walking along a beach here in West Cork and remembered this part of my Human Design chart. I don’t take astrology and things like Human Design as gospel, but more often than not they inspire new thoughts. They help shift my perspective. They guide my consciousness along new paths. They give an Im-Pulse. “Trust the (Im)Pulse” is what my T-shirt said while I offered Holistic Pulsing healing bodywork at the Mind Body Experience in Cork last weekend. Trust the Impulse. The impulse to start this writing, the podcast, Soft Animal. The impulse to share Holistic Pulsing at an expo in a random place in Ireland. The impulse to stay at not one, but two, housesits afterward, caring for a total of 15+ animals during the 6 weeks I’ll be here. Random. So alive. What impulse should you be following? What has your heart been saying lately? Or maybe it has been screaming? Or whispering? Or singing? Last week I shared my struggles getting here; there were many moments along the way when I didn’t think I’d make it. The illnesses, dislocated knees, tears, and pain. But I continued to TRUST THE IMPULSE. And I’m so glad I did. Here are a couple of Man-tras (tools of the mind) that helped me through the last few weeks: * “This too shall pass.” * “Be here now.” * “May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I be safe. May I be free.” How can we care for our bodies and minds when s**t hits the fan? Having tools and practices to support you when things get hard is essential. My daily practices over the years are what saved me. Meditation. Yoga (not just asana, but the philosophical and practical backdrop where Hatha Yoga and asana are just ONE part of it). Yoga Nidra. Shores. Transition, exchange, permeability. Letting life in, and move. A lot of my work centers around that question of how can we get energy moving again, thoughts moving again, emotions moving again. Connecting the dots. Your wild life rooted in motion. Through bodywork, movement medicine, meditation. I love it so much! With that being said... May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be free. Until next time, Kim PS: If you would like to work with me in a deeper capacity, here are a few options: * Get the Holistic Partner Pulsing online course now open for enrollment to help you and your partner (or loved ones) connect and gift them a relaxing and simple bodywork experience: “(Im)Pulse: A Practical Course to Co-Regulate Your Nervous System with Holistic Partner Pulsing” * Join my membership “The Sunday Sanctuary” (cancel anytime). This month we are diving into the question of what it means to be “healthy,” and I’m sharing practices from different perspectives to help you live your healthiest, most alive life. Yoga, Meditation, rituals, and more. Join here (7-day free trial available!) * Reach out to me privately if you would like 1:1 support. I can help you (re)establish self-care practices that support you in living a more aligned life through the lens of Yoga, meditation, and bodywork. Just send me an email to kim@kimgorchs.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimgorchs.substack.com
- Transcript
S1 · E3
September 9 · 12 min
Did You Know Tetanus Can Break Your Neck?
Tuesday, September 8th, 10.30 am, Germany: My right knee dislocated today. It’s not the first time. It has happened before. In fact, I had surgery on my left knee when I was just 19 to help fixate the kneecap better. But it hasn’t happened in at least 10 years. I’m shook. Dislocating your kneecap is as painful as it is shocking. My nervous system is not happy. The last few weeks have been somewhat intense. I was very sick with fever, shaking body, freezing, sweating, followed by racking coughs, not being able to breathe, the whole thing. It wouldn’t go away. I was so upset, as I had a yoga immersion booked for last weekend that I was so looking forward to. And paid a lot of money for. I had been looking forward to coming back to Europe for the summer for months. Everything in me was screaming “this isn’t fair”. Yet, there was nothing to do but to lean in. Being angry and sad wasn’t gonna help my body heal. So I leaned in. I did all the things. Immune support medication, Sri Lankan Ayurvedic tonics, essential oil treatment, inhalation, Western painkillers, everything. After 10 days of still being so sick that coughs wrecked my body every few seconds, I got a blood test. Slightly elevated inflammation markers, nothing so high as to where the doctors here in Germany would give me antibiotics. They said, “rest, stay in bed, cover up, drink tea.” Drinking tea for health reasons is almost religious here in Germany. The pharmacies are filled with strong teas for everything, from coughs to stomach upset to anxiety. Normally, I love that. But at this point I was simply desperate and thinking, “Just use some Western medicine magic and make me healthy again. Give me the hard s**t.” That was last Monday. I had to surrender for 5 more days. On Friday I was meant to take the train to Vienna for my Yoga immersion. So I did. I surrendered. I did the teas, inhalation, nasal douche. It worked, more or less. On Friday I felt okay to travel. It was worth it. The weekend broke something open within me that I didn’t know was stuck. We moved, we shared, we breathed, we explored. The Yoga of Sex, Death and Wealth. My teacher, Emily Kuser, is amazing. She is able to take these loaded big topics and break them down into the ordinariness of life. Neutralize their charge. Break them open so you can look inside and think “huh, that wasn’t so bad”. Connect them in a way that is still moving within me. Something broke open within me. And then my body broke. The moment my knee dislocated all I could do was scream and bend over hoping, praying that it would snap back in right that moment. I lost sense of time. It could have been 5 seconds, it could have been 10 second, or 5 minutes. But eventually it did. I broke down crying. Shaking. Losing all sense of control. This hasn’t happened for so long. 10 years to be exact. Why? Why now? I’m supposed to fly to Ireland to teach Holistic Partner Pulsing at a conference in Cork this weekend. I’m flying Thursday. It is Tuesday as I am writing this and all I can think is “How? How am I supposed to do this?” I was planning to get my stickers, signs and tshirt for the conference printed today. I have to surrender. It’s not going to happen the way I planned. Surrender. Let go. It’s okay. Asking “what can I control right now?” I can: * Regulate my nervous system. I did. immediately pracing the new exercises I learned last weekend. Holding myself. Humming. I did a yoga nidra. It’s helping. I’m closing the cycle. * Digest the experience. I’m doing that now. Writing. Sharing. Gathering my thoughts. Creating. Getting back to my body. Releasing my jaw. This. This is it. * Rest and heal and observe. I will need to check in with my body over the next two days. Does the pain subside? Can I bend my knee? Can I walk? Gentle. Surrender. Kind. That’s all I can do. * I will have to ask for help. I will do that. I will strip it down to essentials. What do I actually need? If all I will have at my stand is going to be a yoga mat and two signs about my Holistic Partner Pulsing course and a feedback form, then that’s what’s going to happen. Than that’s what I’ll do. The most important thing is there. My knowledge. My presence. My experience. My question to you is: “Where do you need to surrender? Where do you need to ask: What is actually in my control?” The body moves in pulses. That’s one of the reminders on the stickers I had planned. The body moved in pulses. Pulses bring aliveness. Pulses move energy around. Pulses get stuck things moving. Pulses bring presence. Where can you pulsate, breathe, shake, wiggle? When my knee dislocated my foot stayed one way, my leg moved the other. It got stuck. I don’t believe that it necessarily happened because I needed to learn something. But now that it HAS happened, what CAN I learn? How CAN I take somthing positive out of this experience? How CAN I reframe it? What is in my control? Breathe. Breathe. Sigh. Wiggle. Here. Be here now. Now. What is in my control? Release my jaw. Shoulders. Breathe. Shake my hands out. Massage my neck. Breathe. Be here now. Surrender. For this moment. To this moment. What do you need to surrender to? What CAN you control? This was not on my bingo card. But here we are. Health is wealth. Be well. I know I will be. Well, that is. Take care of yourself, friend. Tuesday, September 8th, 6.49 pm, Germany: I read this story not long ago about a woman who cut herself and got Tetanus. In German we call it “Wundstarrkrampf,” which literally translates to “Wound rigid cramp” - well, kind of. Did you know that you can die from Tetanus by breaking your own neck from the cramps? Your body goes so rigid; it spasms so much that your bones can break. Isn’t that utterly horrific? What I forgot to mention is that a dog nipped me and opened a small wound, which led to me reacting too fast and out of instinct, which led to the dislocation of my knee, which led to this story. The wound was tiny, but it was open and from a dog. Dog bites can lead to tetanus. Which leads to why I shared the horrific story. I decided to go to the doctor after all. Not for my knee. But to get a Tetanus booster shot. My last one was 10 years ago. Tetanus shots last 10 years. I went. I’m glad I went. Did all of this happen so I would get my booster while I’m here? Was that the reason? Maybe. Maybe not. Who cares. It’s done. I won’t break my own neck. So that’s cool. Silver linings and all that jazz. Wednesday, September 9th, 8.08 am, Germany: Maybe the fact that I have had my knees dislocating so much within my teens has really forced me into the direction of developing a high body awareness. I need to constantly check where my body is in space. Fast-paced sports are not on the menu. I slowed down early. Got into Yoga at 19 and from there more and more into mindfulness out of necessity. What have your past experiences, even the ones that are labeled as negative, taught you? How have they formed your gifts in life? You don’t need to love those experiences. I certainly could have happily done life without a hypermobile body, dislocating knees and twisting ankles, but here we are. This is what my body is, and I love it just the way it is. I tend to it as best as I can. Accidents happen, but how can we recover? I, for one, have finally booked an online assessment session with a physiotherapist specializing in hypermobility to get help caring for my body even better. How can you tend to yourself and your body today? As my favorite Buddhist meditations say, “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be free.” Until next time, Kim PS: * Meet me at the Cork Mind Body Experience this weekend and let’s surrender together. * You can sign up for the Holistic Partner Pulsing online course waitlist (opening this weekend at 50% off for the waitlist only) to learn the wondrous bodywork practice of Holistic Partner Pulsing together with your partner. Relax. Release. (Re)connect. * If you want regular meditative, embodied, real, from-the-trenches-of-life self-care support every Sunday, come join my membership “The Sunday Sanctuary”. Yoga, me… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimgorchs.substack.com
- Transcript
S1 · E2
September 2 · 7 min
The Creative Act
I keep coming back to this quote by Mary Oliver: “The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.” Creating. May it be with colors, with words, with your voice, your body, with sounds. The creative act. So often gratification in itself. The point is the process. Artists. Creators. Isn’t it all the same? Calling oneself an artist feels far-fetched. A creator? Much easier. But isn’t a creator an artist and an artist a creator? When people say they are a creator but not an artist, doesn’t that simply remove a certain privilege, stuffiness, and all those prejudices and preconceptions attached to the concept of artist? The pictures of what an artist looks like, sounds like, acts like are immediately available to your mind. No, no, you are not THAT. Of that, you are certain. Words have so much power. All those centuries of assumptions dragging their dirt through minds from one person to the next, generation to generation, from one medium to another. Concepts that are invoked through the sounds of words. Heard inside your head as you read these symbols, or heard out loud as you listen. Different medium. Let me ask you: Does my voice change your experience of this? How? The other day I read an article that talked about how our elders judge our generation for constantly being on our phones, mainly looking for a connection with others that somehow always seems to escape us. Yet, they have done so themselves. The only thing that changed is the medium. First, it was watching out of windows, then watching TV, cord phones, chat rooms, now smartphones. Always the same goal: connecting. Somehow, trying to communicate that solitary experience of being alone within our own minds, and trying, trying so hard to gauge whether others are having the same experiences. Is there someone out there feeling like I do? Are they having the same thoughts I do? Do they see color the same way? We will never know. How can we? We can try. Through language. Through art. Through movement. Through creating. But really, how will we know? I studied literature and language at university. I loved it. Talking about and exploring how language creates the world and not just represents it, the sender and receiver, the medium and all those misunderstandings and mis-concept-ions that can happen along the way. When one person speaks, and the other listens. When one person writes, and the other reads. When one person moves and the other watches. Those explorations of the mind have informed my yoga practice. Have informed my bodywork. Our bodies have a language. Much of what is communicated in the world is done so through the medium of the body, the face. Tension and release. A slight twitch of an eyebrow. A wrinkle of the forehead. A tension in the shoulders. When I say yoga and bodywork made me a better communicator, I mean this... The awareness of how I’m moving through space and conversation. The realization that my innate ability to easily navigate difficult conversations is intrinsically connected to my body awareness and being able to put people at ease through that. To a degree, I have always had that. Yoga made it more pronounced. It gave me daily space and time to check in with that, to cultivate it. Just like a singer might cultivate their voice or a painter their sight. My body has been my medium for so long that trying to transport a fraction of that experience with my words is thrilling, the rough edges of internal experience scratching along the boundary of my skin. Not quite right but also not wrong. Not quite the real thing but also not…not. I’m sitting on a bench at the edge of the woods where I grew up as I’m writing these words. Stunned and still a little sick. The perpetual sniffle and cough always waiting to make its appearance. But it doesn’t take me out of the moment. It is so much part of the moment. So much part of the now. Just as the songs of the birds whose names I do not know. Just as the sound of the church bells in the distance and the crackle of little animals scouring through the undergrowth right behind me and the sound of the wind in the trees. Just as much as the irregular voices of people spending their time in nature talking on their phones or with each other. A full circle moment as I’m coming to the end of my creation. The creative act. Gratifying in itself. As my favorite Buddhist meditations say: May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you be safe. May you be free. Until next time, Kim Want more? 1: Let’s meet in person at the “Mind Body Experience” in Ireland here (Sept 12th & 13th). (It’s free!) 2: Join my online membership 👇 If you have enjoyed these musings, join us in my membership, “The Sunday Sanctuary,” right here (7-Day Trial available). I’ve been running this space for over three years, and you will get immediate access to all that content + every Sunday you get a new live or recorded session to connect with yourself. It provides the reflective self-care structure that is so often missing from our lives and helps you to stop living on autopilot! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimgorchs.substack.com
- Transcript
August 26 · 12 min
Coming Home to Yourself: Why I’m Finally Sharing My Soft Animal
I have had this idea about starting a long-form content concept of “Soft Animal” for a long time. It mainly lived as a Podcast in my brain and second brain, aka Notion. And there it has stayed. Until now. Soft Animal, words that have been at the tip of my tongue for so long... it is a line from my favorite poem “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver. The beginning of the poem goes like this: “You do not have to be good,You do not have to walk on your kneesfor a hundred miles through the desert repenting.You only have to let the soft animal of your bodylove what it loves.Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mineMeanwhile the world goes on...” These words touch something so deep within me (and within many, many other people around the world) - they are so universal in the human experience: The need to be good, the feeling that we have to prove ourselves, yet the realization that the human experience is often much more about just that - experiencing. I have realized something about poetry, about how poetry, bodywork, yoga, and meditation all converge inside me. They melt into one experience - visceral. I have also realized this is not the case for everyone (and that is good, we are all so different), yet I have also realized that by holding back from sharing this visceral experience I am having by simply, well, existing, I am not doing my duty. I am not doing right by you. When we have something to share, when we have a “gift” or rather a unique perspective, a unique experience, I do believe it is our duty to share this. Isn’t that what we are here for? To learn about who we are at our core, to fully embody that person and share our individuality with the world so that we may experience community and connection even in our differences? Convoluted? Maybe, yes. Still valuable? I hope so. Coming back to my podcast idea, I might still do that; I do want to share my words with you, spoken out loud. I enjoy it greatly. Yet, this is a start, a beginning. And while beginnings can be terrifying, they are necessary, because how can we grow something that has never begun? A few other things have happened in my life recently that prompted me to do this: * I came across a book... I’m currently in Germany, visiting my family and spending quality time with the people I love. The other day I was in the city with my sister; we went to a bookstore, and she told me she wanted to gift me a book and I got to choose it myself (BEST GIFT EVER btw - if you ever want to gift me something, make it a book). So I started looking through the thousands of books. Nothing spoke to me. I went to the back of the store and found that they had a small selection of English books. Something inside of me lit up. While English is not my first language (you might notice a few strange phrasing or errors in my writing; that’s okay), it is the language of my soul, of my heart. It is the language in which I feel like I can express the deepest part of myself in the clearest manner.But I digress.As I was scouring the English books, I came across one title that somehow stood out to me. A simple white cover with black writing, but my body had a reaction to it, and I have learned to listen to that.I pulled it out.The title read “The Gift of Not Belonging: How Outsiders Thrive in a World of Joiners”. A book by Dr. Rami Kaminski, a clinical Psychotherapist and researcher who has suggested a new “personality typing” as an alternative to the introvert/extrovert binary. The “Otrovert,” a concept, when described in the plainest of terms and how I understand it with my limited experience, that describes people who, while they are accepted and often even cherished in groups, at work, friend circles, and parties, often internally feel like they don’t quite belong.People who enjoy 1:1 conversation and connection tremendously and get energy and joy from that, when in a larger group, always feel a bit out of place. While often charming and charismatic, when given the choice, they would rather choose to stay home, read, learn, or do something that lights them up. Except when they have a clear role to play, like being a speaker, a leader in a meeting, or something similar, then they can maneuver the group experience with ease.Now, this being a popular science book and not a scholarly article, I know that the presentation is simplistic and generalizing, but a lot of points in the book spoke to me, and I can clearly see myself in the concept. Not in a defining and limiting way of taking on the full and only identity of “Otrovert” but rather in the helpful way of “Oh, I am not thoroughly alone in my experience of the world, and this concept is a helpful reminder that it is okay to simply be, well, ME.” * I will be sharing the bodywork of Holistic (Partner) Pulsing at the Mind Body Experience in Cork, Ireland on September 12th & 13th...It’s terrifying me. Not because of the public speaking, the guiding of a workshop in person, and also not because I’m nervous about being visible.That’s not it.I’ve spent the last decade honing my skills of speaking, holding group classes, workshops, and offering 1:1 bodywork. It is terrifying because I’m sharing a bodywork that is not known a lot, namely Holistic Pulsing, and I have developed my own spin on it with Holistic PARTNER Pulsing, a practice that you can do with a partner or friend. A practice that is simple but powerful. A practice that I LOVE. It’s terrifying to think that people could walk away from it saying “Oh, that was not impactful,” or “I didn’t like this at all.”I have been sharing yoga, meditation, and movement practices with the mantra of “If I help ONE person today, I have done my work right.” And this is the mantra I’m bringing into the sessions, too.Yet it feels different.It feels like I’m finally stepping into that next identity. Similar to my “Soft Animal” idea, the Holistic Partner Pulsing has been something that has been an idea in the back of my mind for around five years. It has brewed enough, and it is ready to be shared.Same as “Soft Animal”. * I have realized that I can continue to live my life in the unconventional, slightly disjointed, but wonderfully ME way that I have...For those of you close to me, you may know that I have been fighting this internal battle of “Where do I want to live?” for YEARS.“Do I want to stay in Mexico?”, “Do I want to move back to Germany?”, “How about Spain?”, “Maybe Ireland???”, and on and on it goes... Fun right?I made a list yesterday. It is called “Things I love...”, here are just a few of them: * Sunrises * Sunsets * Routines * 1:1 conversations * Working by myself * Flowers * Plants * Forests * Movement * Animals * Books * ...and so on it goes (for quite a long time) They are little things, yet so big.They are things that can be done almost anywhere. They are what makes me happy and truly content. It doesn’t matter where I live, it will probably change many times in my life still to come, and that’s a good thing. I can take the next step without knowing exactly how it all will work out. Isn’t that exciting?I love living in a way where I am “home” aka in my base with the dogs for 3-4 months, and then “on the road” for 2-3 months and so on. It’s exciting and gratifying at the same time. It keeps life very interesting and still comfortable. I love that!So there it is, not a decision on PLACE, but a decision on LIFESTYLE. Something inside of me has settled and taken a huge, long breath out. Maybe it is, again, a simple acceptance of who I am at my core. A settling into myself. Phew. * And last (for now) but not least, a couple of days ago I downloaded an app called “Be Present” to help block social media apps...I spend a lot of time working online; that also includes social media. I don’t mind that. I actually enjoy the connection you can have online a lot. Yet, I am not immune to the trap of mindless scrolling. It is sooo automatic to click on those little icons on my phone and to lose myself, 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, time is robbed so easily on there. So now, as they… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit kimgorchs.substack.com
- Transcript

Showing 1–6 of 6 episodes

Soft Animal by Kim Gorchs

Episodes 6

She said, “do better!”

On Solitude, Books, and our Culture of Convenience

Shores & Transitions

Did You Know Tetanus Can Break Your Neck?

The Creative Act

Coming Home to Yourself: Why I’m Finally Sharing My Soft Animal