The Magic of Accompanying
- Mar 10
- 5 min read
It is Monday evening, as I sit here writing these lines, and it’ll be Tuesday or Wednesday when you’ll be reading this blog. Today I start with sharing two new single releases composed by Kerim König and interpreted by himself and Mayako Miyata, Christophe Horak and François Thirault. I listened to both of them today for the first time and they have touched me. Here they are:
Today was a day of accompanying experience for me. I accompanied my 98 year-old mother-in-law, who calls me her third child. She had to go to hospital for some blood tests and an examination, due to a health issue she had. We had a magical day today. I know that for her it was important and for me it was a magical time, as being with her changed my perception and experience of time.
We both were accompanied by a private healthcare person, who took care of her in the wheelchair, took us to hospital and drove us back home again. He accompanied both of us, and in his care I could accompany her and she by feeling well taken care of gifted me with her presence, thoughts and tender contact.
I love thinking about the quality of accompaniment and the act of accompanying. It opens vast spaces in my heart and in my thoughts, and it is a mental and emotional journey each time for me to accompany and be accompanied.
In my line of work accompaniment is of great importance, actually the quality of accompaniment is the key. For me it first starts with how I accompany myself throughout an action. The way I am embodied in myself, and being well grounded in my body, aware and in touch with my emotions and thoughts are not acquired states. They exist through daily practice, which allows me to first feel how I am and then acknowledge it and then I consciously and willingly work on being there in myself. It is a practice of concentration, and it is a physical practice too. I do it through movement. A couple of exercises on the floor with my body, starting from the floor, then in mid-level and then in a standing position, help me to harmonise my movements in that moment, and help me to recognize the mood my body is in… and my mind? Well, as soon as I focus on movement my mind tunes into my body. After years of regular practice it takes little time to tune the mind to the body.
Once I am accompanying myself regularly, I can accompany the people who I work with.
Accompaniment or act of accompanying in Somatic Dialogue has many forms:
being there
staying with
witnessing
listening
These are some of them, and each one opens into unknown spheres of our being. I will try to explain some of them by going back to my experience today with my mother-in-law.
From the moment we met in her room and throughout the whole adventure in the hospital until when I took her back to her room in the home where she resides, she held my hand (sometimes both) 80% of the time. I don’t remember when we had this much physical contact. She also hugged and kissed me multiple times. It was all very light, charming and sweet. A lot of affection and love was flowing in between us.
What did this do to me? More than I could ever imagine. First of all the obvious: that she loves me and that she appreciated my presence. And that this is the only way she can make me feel beyond her words, how much she appreciates me. Her hands and body spoke to me, words were not needed. But this is not all, her touch made me realize that I was in a completely quiet and peaceful state of being. Which was not the case previously, as my mind thought. I was thinking a few days prior to my being with her, that I am so overwhelmed, that my mind is full with thoughts, also some worries, stress, tiredness…you name it, it is not an easy time for me. But today with her hands in mine, her little soft hands constantly caressing me just put me back into myself, from my mind I stepped into my body.
There in my body I felt ready, with a sensation of space, peaceful. My body is a peaceful receptor, a vessel for life to pass through. Her touch reminded me how ready I was, ready to be with her for most of the day, accompanying her step by step through her journey. She also nourished me emotionally and affectionately, I didn’t feel alone… so I was feeling a little alone in my struggles previously I realized. But there with her during this day I felt well in my feeling of loneliness. How beautiful it is to be reminded of such a sensation.
Now thinking about this experience, I imagine: if I would have stayed in my state of mind as it was before being with her today, I would have maybe lived this experience in a different way. Having a full mind, an unsettled emotional state, and not being in the body makes receiving a touch more difficult. Her constant touch might have awakened annoyance in me, or even impatience. Being only in my little uneasy thoughts about my life etc. would have surely changed this experience of today.
I don’t know if I am clear… So I will try more to explain myself: I think that my body saved me. My body, being also the holder of my mind and thoughts, recognized the quality and the information conveyed by my mother-in-law’s touch before my mind could create any kind of annoyance or unreceptiveness. So the receptiveness of my body took over and I could dive into the positive side effects of accompanying her.
I relaxed and immediately my perception of time changed. During the waiting I could perceive her mood, her memories, her questions and her very funny remarks. We both nearly forgot that we were in the hospital.
It was an immense physical effort for her to make this journey, but she did, and we pretended that we were on a little trip. We talked about life and death again and again, holding hands, caressing each other’s fingers.
I could feel her delicate skin and imagined all the traces of life that are flowing in between her cells. I was happy accompanying her, but she was happy being accompanied, and she didn’t realize that she also accompanied me throughout the day, making me travel in sensations that were sleeping for long in my skin. The tenderness, the motherhood, the past moments of touch that will never repeat. I remembered how I used to touch my daughter, and how she would, as a baby, relax into our common contact (impossible now, as she is 15 😂). I remembered how my grandmother would touch me, how she would massage my skin with olive oil, how my great-grandmother would hold my hand… and her hands had the same thin, fragile and yet soft skin like my mother-in-law’s.
Today I drifted a bit, but really I do believe that thinking about the magic of accompaniment is worthwhile. It is so intimate, that each one should have the chance to think about it for themselves.
I would love to continue but it is already time for me to take Gigi for an evening walk. But before I will take some time to caress her 🙂
Don’t leave yourself alone… and if you have the chance to accompany someone, do it fully… and indulge in being accompanied.
Love, as always
B
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