No matter how things are going in your life, you can start right where you are. In any moment, slowly and safely, you can feel what you’re feeling and stay close to yourself.
It is through these micro-moments of slow, empathic attunement that new circuitry is encoded, where a growing sense of trust and confidence in the workability of your experience can emerge.
In a moment of activation – in the burning, claustrophobic, spinning world where the uninvited visitors have appeared – recognize what has happened, pause, and provide holding for the energy in the body to be contained, modulated, and gently integrated.
In a moment of overwhelm, it may not be safe in the narrative, which has fallen out of date by a few decades, no longer coherent in the here and now, but frozen in the time machine of the “there and then.” You can come back to the story and update it later with fresh vision, once the achy nervous system has been soothed.
In this pause, renew the vow you took long ago: I will not turn from myself and abandon my vulnerability. I will not bail out of my body. No, not this time. I will not desert myself. I will be a friend, a companion, and provide sanctuary and safe passage.
This time, I will not pathologize my emotional experience. Grief is not pathology. Nor is heartbreak, shakiness, uncertainty, or melancholy. They are the path. They are valid, workable, and harbingers of integration.
One second, then rest. Two seconds. Rest. Then three. More rest. As you send breath into the broken shards, a new groove is laid down.
Ask the earth to hold you, to share her soothing water, shade, and safe haven; and to stay near as you open. Find a friend, therapist, moon, star, or animal friend to bear witness as you turn into the raw alive somatic world. A being of the imaginal world, a family of wise owl guides, an attachment figure of light to unfold the resources within you.
The seen and unseen ones are always here to help us, to reveal the way home. In just one moment of pause, of remembrance, of sacred conversation, the veil parts.
Learn more about my new book - A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times - and read Editorial Reviews here. For a full list of online retailers, see the book's page at my website here.
To learn more about and purchase my previous book - The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You - please visit the book's page here.
