For just one second, enter the fire and infuse it with presence, compassion, and holding. Renew your vow: I will not turn from myself and my vulnerability. No, not this time. I will not desert myself. I will no longer pathologize my emotional experience. Grief is not pathology. Heartbreak is not pathology. Rage is not pathology.
Two seconds. Then rest. Then three. More rest. As we send breath into the broken shards, into the lost pieces of soul, a new groove is laid down, new circuity is encoded.
Inside the core of the emotional activation, buried in the shaky embodied sensations, hidden in the unique images that psyche is bringing to you now… unrecognized wisdom, a forgotten creativity, a surging of sacred life energy.
Ask the earth to hold you, to share her soothing water, shade, and safe haven, and stay near as you open.
Find a friend, therapist, lover, ocean, moon, star, or holy roaring lioness to bear witness as you turn into the raw alive somatic world.
The seen and unseen ones are always here to help us, to reveal the way home. To illuminate the pathways of darkness and of light, each containing a particle of the mystery, a strand of love seeking you as a tender vessel through which it can come alive here.
Art by Krista Marleena
Befriending Yourself - you are invited to join me and my friend Jeff Foster at our new online membership site at the intersection of spirituality, meditation, and depth psychology. Dialogues, teachings, practices, live meditations, and a moderated support community.
The next retreat - The Deep Rest Retreat: Slowing Down and Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times - September 4-9 at Sunrise Ranch in Loveland, Colorado - registration open now
My most recent book – The Path Is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You – is available in both paperback and Kindle editions.
My next book, A Healing Space: Befriending Yourself in Difficult Times, will be published by Sounds True in 2020.
