Hello Fellow Body-Mind-Hearts –

Calm and steady are often the goal of our spiritual practices and our therapeutic healing. Many folks come to my practice with the desire have more ease and less upheaval in their lives. This is a worthy pursuit especially if our life is primarily a series of being battered about with lots of highs and lows. But I think there is a misguided assumption that to be healthy, either mentally or spiritually, we should be calm all the time with no ups and downs. This is not human or realistic or authentic. 

When our nervous system is regulated it doesn’t mean that we are never perturbed or overwhelmed by life. Being resilient doesn’t mean that we don’t ever get upset or that we never feel the need to withdraw and retreat. Resiliency and regulation is the ability to have enough of the steady, calm and present moments to be able to ride the wave of the ups and downs and not get stuck in either. To be able to find our way back to a place of ease with more predictably and awareness as well as being present with the activation and the shutdown. This is similar to the spiritual teaching that reminds us that doing our practices doesn’t make life any easier but it does support us in navigating it with more ease. 

My personal tendency is towards anxiety and worry although I can definitely get to the point of overwhelm and shutdown. In my healing/life journey I have had to make friends with my nervous system, learn its ways from the imprints of the past and offer it new input and experiences to rediscover my capacity to regulate and find center. I have also built a catalog of resources that help me remember and reclaim my center and the present moment. Resources are activities, people and places that I can turn to help me find a foothold in the present moment and ride the wave of challenge.  As a result, I have an ever growing understanding of what circumstances are sticky for me and what tools and practices work for me.

Navigating this time of the pandemic is HARD. I don’t like a lot of things about life right now…I miss certain things and people, I feel frustrated at many of the circumstances, I feel angry and tired and sad and scared. I aim to give myself room daily to be with whatever emotions arise along with the accompanying nervous system state and to squeeze my sponge (see the July 2021 blog post/newsletter for more about this) in order to ride the wave and return to center. And from center, in addition to all the yuckiness, I can also feel blessed and curious and touched and surrounded by beauty and generosity. And this is the Both/And of resiliency and regulation…we get to be with the full spectrum of life! This is the opportunity of this crazy time…to deepen our wisdom and learn to be with ourselves and others with compassion and presence. 

What do you know about the way your system deals with overwhelm and challenge?  What are your ways of calling yourself back or being called back to center? Let me know as I learn so much from each of you and your respective journeys .

Guiding Lights…
For many years now, Michael Meade has been a deep influence on my thinking and being with the world in all it’s horrible beauty. He is a renowned storyteller, author, and scholar of mythology, anthropology, and psychology. He combines hypnotic storytelling, street-savvy perceptiveness, and spellbinding interpretations of ancient myths with a deep knowledge of cross-cultural rituals. He has an unusual ability to distill and synthesize these disciplines, tapping into ancestral sources of wisdom and connecting them to the stories we are living today. His LIVING MYTH PODCAST shares mythic stories that offer uniquely insightful and wise ways of understanding the current dilemmas of the world we live in. Living Myth proposes that genuine solutions to the complex and intractable problems of our world require both transcendent imagination and cohering, transformative narratives. This podcast has been a life line for me during these past few years of angst and challenge…listen in and see how it might shift your ways of seeing and being with life.

May we honor the inherent wisdom of our nervous system and seek ways to stay present on the ride

May we offer compassion to others when we see they are caught up in overwhelm and can’t fully connect

May we use the tools we have to help us be an anchor of presence for others in trying times

May we acknowledge the challenging circumstances of life and still endeavor to bring beauty and kindness forward 

Practice Prompts:

• Take some time to learn about the nervous system and how it functions. Use this information like an owners manual for your body and being that can help you better navigate life. There are great books and teachers out there and I am happy to recommend resources if you send me an email.
• Make a list of activities, people and places that help you return and remember your center. The place where you are available for connection to yourself, to others, to the world and to spirit. Use this list as a resource to help you when you’re stuck in hyperdrive or overwhelm to find a foothold in the present moment.
• Give yourself time to be in nature in whatever way it is available to you. Let the trees, bodies of water, rocks, animals teach you about being present and resilient in different ways and with different kinds of rhythms.
• Schedule a free 20 minute Exploratory Session to learn more about what I offer in my private sessions and how I might be able to guide and support you in cultivating resilience and presence.

Upcoming Live Streaming Practice Opportunities:

• Slow Flow Yoga, Mondays, 10-11:30am PT, live stream through Seattle Yoga Arts
• All Levels Yoga, Sunday, February 13, 10-11:30am PT, live stream through Two Dog Yoga
• Yoga Nidra Practice, Sunday, February 13, 5:30-7pm PT, live stream through Two Dog Yoga
• Continuum Inquiry Playshop, Monday, February 14, 5:30-7:30pm PT live stream through Body of Insight
• SAVE THE DATE…Saturday, March 12, 1-6pm PT…Spring Renewal Day Retreat with myself, Ellie Rose, Claudette and Nicole
• On Demand Yoga Practices…All Levels… through Seattle Yoga Arts (practice with me anytime, anywhere!)

Inspirational Wisdom:

The Thing Is

to love life, to love it even
when you have no stomach for it
and everything you’ve held dear
crumbles like burnt paper in your hands,
your throat filled with the silt of it.
When grief sits with you, its tropical heat
thickening the air, heavy as water
more fit for gills than lungs;
when grief weights you down like your own flesh
only more of it, an obesity of grief,
you think, How can a body withstand this?
Then you hold life like a face
between your palms, a plain face,
no charming smile, no violet eyes,
and you say, yes, I will take you
I will love you, again.

~ Ellen Bass