Tuesday, June 26, 2018

The safety and regulation of Now


In a moment of activation, the emissaries arrive. A great meeting is being assembled.

When you find yourself overwhelmed by habitual, ruminative thinking; when the repetitive thoughts and feelings are cascading and looping; when you are caught in the trance of disembodiment and self-abandonment... just stop.

With the power and presence of the warrior’s sword of compassion, cut the storyline. No, not this time. This time I choose differently.

Slow way down and feel your feet on the ground. Breathe deeply into your lower belly and activate your senses. See what is around you with clear vision, enter into pure listening. Shift your sacred life energy out of the spinning and into the aliveness of the body. While it may appear otherwise, the safety we seek is in self-attunement, self-compassion, and holding the visitor as he or she appears.

It is an act of kindness to not fuel the dysregulating narrative, and takes practice, courage, and curiosity. Something is erupting under the surface, longing to be integrated and allowed back home, but it is raw, naked, and unknown. Rather than turn into the restless, claustrophobic, and sticky somatic aliveness, we default back into conditioned history—to the shame, blame, attack, and aggression, anything to keep us out of the tender surging tingling core of vulnerability at the center.

The invitation in these moments is into the shaky interior. Use your breath as your guide into the inner landscape. You are being asked to care for yourself in a new way. See what feeling state the very vivid and colorful storyline is attempting to take you out of, and slowly, with kindness drop underneath the conditioned history and into the hot, claustrophobic, pregnant life that is surging to be held. See, finally, if it is an enemy coming to take you down or whether it is you, in disguise, seeking reunion in the spaciousness and majesty of what you are.

A times, we must set aside our agenda to understand, to change, even to heal … for a moment. We can return to transformation at a later time once we have come back online and into the safety and regulation of Now. Replace understanding with a fiery curiosity. More interested in spontaneous primordial experience than in our interpretations of it, turning our bodies into a crucible of open awareness, filled with the qualities of empathy, attunement, and a previously unknown compassion.

In doing this we call off the war. We dare to practice peace. To step off the battlefield where the mystery awaits, and into the wisdom-field of the always blooming, awakened heart.



My latest book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is now available 


My next two events: 

The Great Befriending: A Five-Day Journey of Self-Love, Deep Rest, and Coming Alive (with Jeff Foster), September 21-26 in Loveland, Colorado 

Stay tuned for details regarding a five-day winter retreat January 23-28 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado