Oregon law allows bicyclists to use a full travel lane while turning left, passing another cyclist, or avoiding hazards such as glass, debris, and suddenly opened car doors. Stickers such as this one publicize the law, because many drivers are unaware of it and behave rudely when they are impatient to pass.
Humans are allowed full use of our bodies all the time. Many of us, especially women, are encouraged to make ourselves small, take up less space, and make sure we do not inconvenience those around us. Others of us, especially men, are encouraged to take up extra space without noticing how it affects those around us.
Your own interior space
We own our interior space out to our edges, front to back, side to side, and crown of the head to soles of the feet. Take a moment to sense your edges and interior space. Can you feel your clothing or the air against your skin all over, or are there places where you are numb or absent? Can you sense the quality of your skeleton’s support?
Sense out to your edges in different environments over the next few days, or imagine yourself in different environments now. When do you tend to curl in protectively, and when do you allow yourself to relax? How much space do you own at home, as a guest, at work, on transit, in a car, on a bike? Do you ride your bike in the middle of a travel lane when you need to?
How much interior space do you own when you are standing near someone you know? How about next to a stranger? How does your relative level of privilege in society affect how you take up space near someone else? For example, imagine standing near a taller white man in a suit. Now imagine standing near a smaller Laotian woman in jeans. We subconsciously calculate how much space we deserve relative to others, responding to subtle signals of entitlement or deference.
Confidently occupy any size body
Fat-shaming is another way we are told to take up less space. The stigma around being large has little to do with health, since it has been repeatedly scientifically shown that “overweight” people live longer than those who are erroneously called “ideal weight” according to BMI charts.
It has also been repeatedly scientifically shown that intentional weight-loss diets rarely results in sustained weight loss, and often result in overall weight gain in the long run. Our size is determined by complex factors, most of them outside our control. We deserve to confidently occupy any size body all the way out to the edges.
Trauma interrupts body awareness
Trauma almost always interrupts our ability to own our interior space. Sexual assault, physical assault, and even emotional abuse all give us the signal that others own our bodies. Taking back our bodies is a big part of the healing process.
When part of us gets frozen at a young age because of trauma, the sense of our body size is also frozen. Our internal bodymap may say our shoulders are only as wide as a four year old’s even though we have grown to adult size. We can gently bring our perceptions up to date by sensing the details of our current size.
Our internal bodymap stops updating because we withdraw our awareness from that part of the body. The sensory memories stored there were too overwhelming back then, so they were sealed away. As we send exploratory awareness into that part, we may need to integrate the emotions and memories of that younger self along the way. Make room for that process to take all the time it needs.
Sense the width of your shoulders, all the way to the outside of both upper arms. You can lean against a wall near a doorway or corner, and touch the wall at your outside shoulder. Leaving your hand in place, turn around to see your full width. Or, ask a friend to draw around you on a large piece of paper.
Your shoulderblades are toward the outside of that width. Put a hand over the top of the opposite shoulder where your arm connects. Curve your arm forward and then back and feel your shoulderblade move. The shoulderblades may be further from your spine than you expect. Your arms are suspended from an extension of the shoulderblades to give them space from the ribs.
Deep, wide, short lungs
Now move your hand down to the side of your torso, under your armpit. Breathe in, and feel your ribs swing up and your torso widen as your lungs expand. Let the breath flow out, and feel the ribs settle back to their resting positions.
Your lungs start above your collarbones and descend to the top of the diaphragm’s dome, right at your bra’s band if you wear one, at around the seventh rib on the out breath. At no time does air enter your belly, although the intestines do push outward as the diaphragm descends to pull air into the lungs.
Your lungs are deep, wrapping around the spine in back, and wide, filling the torso, nestled around the heart. Breathe in, allowing all that space to fill with air, and then allow it to empty again.
Place your hands gently on the opposite upper arms and sense for movement in your shoulders and arms as you breathe in and out. If they are not braced, they move with the ribs they rest on.
Now rest your hands on the widest part of your hips. Keeping them at the same width, move your hands out in front of you. Is their distance surprising? Your hips may be narrower or wider than you expect, and you might have absorbed cultural judgments about what size they “should” be. How does it feel to give them permission to be exactly as wide as they are?
Imagine a stressful environment, where you walk or roll while taking up as little space as possible. Shoulders and hips are narrow, breathing is constrained.
Now, imagine an environment where you can walk or roll comfortably and confidently, allowing your arms to swing from the full width of your shoulders. Your lungs have a lot of room to expand in your wide and deep torso. Similarly, your legs swing at the sides of the full width of your pelvis, without restriction.
Which type of environment is more familiar? Which takes more energy? Notice who, if anyone, is present in the two scenes, and what else differs between them.
When we make ourselves small, we restrain our emotions. When we are connected with all of ourselves, we make room for our emotions to move freely through us, each one cresting and then ebbing away in its turn. Emotions usually feel less overwhelming when they have more space to spread out.
As children, many of us were told not to be so loud, and not to have such extravagant emotions. “I’ll give you something to cry about.” “What gives you the right to be so happy?” “Something will pop your bubble soon enough.” As adults, our emotions are allowed to take up space. We do not need someone else’s permission or group consensus to be sad enough to cry, angry enough to stomp around, or happy enough to dance.
Trauma and society push us to stay numb and endure. Our inner aliveness pushes us to expand, feel, breathe, play. Our bodies move more smoothly and easily with full awareness. Claim your inner terrain for yourself – it is your birthright.
Here is an interactive image of human lungs showing their position relative to the rest of the torso.
Sticker image from Microcosm Publishing.
Oregon law 814.430 regarding improper (and proper) use of lanes by bicyclists.