Before I enter a patient room, I pause at the door.
My hand is near the handle. I feel my feet on the floor. I take one deep breath, and I imagine roots growing from the soles of my feet, down through the floor, down through the earth, all the way to its center.
My shoulders drop.
Then I open the door.
It takes less than a minute. It is the most important minute of my day.
What happens when I return
Something shifts in my body when I do this. My shoulders soften. I feel a light tingling, a quiet aliveness moving through me. I feel aligned with who I am and why I'm here.
I come into the present moment, and my heart opens. I become more attuned. My ability to listen deepens. I tap into the authentic part of myself, the part that is present, that can hear, that can offer the best of who I am to the person sitting in front of me right now.
Some of you may feel this as something larger than yourself. Some may feel it simply as coming home to you. Whatever name you give it, the doorway is the same.
Why we leave ourselves
Many of us spend our days somewhere other than our bodies.
We are in the next task, the next worry, the next need. We are the caretaker, the one who holds it all together, the one who keeps going. We learn to live in our heads because there is so much to figure out and so little time to feel.
Leaving ourselves was how we got through. It was wisdom, and it kept us going when there was no other choice.
But we pay for it. We walk into rooms and conversations half-present. We listen with one ear while the rest of us is already somewhere else. Our bodies, patient and faithful, keep asking us to come back.
The doors in your day
You already pass through dozens of doorways every day.
The front door when you come home from work. The car before you turn the key. The phone, just before you answer. The kitchen, where someone is waiting for you to be ready. The hard conversation you've been carrying all week.
Each one is a small invitation to return. Nothing needs to be added to your list. You are already walking through the door. You only need to arrive in your body before you do.
A practice for returning: rooting
You can try this right now, standing or seated.
Feel your feet. Notice the ground beneath you, or the floor under your chair. Let your weight settle into it.
Take one deep breath. Breathe in slowly through your nose. Let it go with a long, soft exhale. Let your shoulders drop.
Grow your roots. Imagine roots reaching from the soles of your feet, down through the floor, down through the earth, all the way to its center. Feel yourself held there, steady and supported.
Open your eyes and step through. Walk into whatever comes next, a little more present than before.
If you are seated, feel the full weight of your body in the chair and imagine the roots growing from there. If standing is hard today, the practice works just as well lying down. Your roots go wherever you do.
A place to return to
Alignment is not a place we arrive at once and keep forever. We find it, we lose it, and we find it again. This is how it works, in every season of life.
Healing grows the same way. It deepens each time we come back.
This week, choose one doorway. Just one. Before you walk through it, feel your feet, take a breath, and send down your roots. Notice what changes in your shoulders, your breath, and the way you listen.
Then do it again tomorrow.