A breath for these tough times

Sending out extra wishes of Safety & Sanctuary for everyone in the path of the hard things, what a scary time we are in, inhaling and exhaling, for compassion, strength, courage, swift and steady miracles.

Announcement on Emergency Calming Down Techniques

I’ve been reeling hard lately in some cursed combination of heartache, numbness, political anxiety, winter stuff and some wild panic episodes.

Have been holding on (for dear life) to my Emergency Calm The Hell Down Techniques, and it helps.

I am giving away a copy of these (ebook + audio recordings) to anyone who gives any sum of money to the appreciation funds / discretionary fund in the hopes that we can all keep practicing together, for each other and for the collective, and also for ourselves in these scary times. ❤

Re-oxygenating back to reality

Not a block

As you know, I don’t believe in writer’s block, and this is not because it doesn’t happen to me.

It’s not the phenomenon I doubt, it’s the name. I don’t think the block is a block.

I think that when I can’t bring myself to write about something, it’s almost always because the words need to percolate longer than I think, for reasons of their own.

No mystery here

And, more often than not, it’s because I know that the process of finding my way to my words will inevitably be painful…

It will be painful either because there is pain in the topic, or pain in a memory I know or suspect I will have to visit and revisit in order to do the writing.

It’s not mystery-stuck, or a mystery-block. The perceived block is simply that I am very understandably avoiding pain! What a reasonable avoidance.

Of course I would block myself here, good move, babe.

And so, I like to be tender with the tender process, and tread lightly.

Being tender with the tender process

As you may have guessed, I have been having trouble writing lately.

And this is because the topic I want to write about is also the topic I don’t want to write about, and every time I think about writing about it, my body wants to go to sleep.

This is also interesting because the topic I want to write about that I also don’t is exactly that:

That specific body-mind phenomenon where it feels like all the oxygen is draining from the room, and the familiar great heaviness is taking over, and it’s easier to just sort of pass out than to be here.

So, as always, we are going to practice Acknowledgment & Legitimacy with this, as with everything.

Safety first, right? Yes. Always. We deserve that.

Acknowledgment & Legitimacy, in action, let’s practice

It is okay and understandable that I don’t want to think about this topic, never mind write about it.

It also makes sense that it’s on my mind, in scary and uncertain times, as we are right now, in terrible senseless wars. Or when the government here where I am, in the United States, is unpredictable, and the only predictable part is that whatever the people in charge might do, it will be cruel and awful.

(I also feel this way about the Israeli government, of course, if you were wondering what it is like to be a citizen of two places where moral clarity seems to have vanished.)

Over the past two weeks, every time I would read any news at all, I’d find myself just wanting to sleep, to succumb to the overwhelming sensation of where did all the oxygen go.

Oxygen

This is also how I felt every time (three different times) this past year when a friend (three different friends) experienced a break from reality while they were with me.

As if reality was oxygen, and I couldn’t access it while they couldn’t access it.

As if just being around someone who was so not in reality was itself shrinking my sense of what is real.

And I found myself each time just wanting to disappear into deep slumber.

Each time I fought my way back to the surface, found air again. I wasn’t always able to do this with much grace, but I am not going to judge myself for that, because this is a very scary situation to suddenly find yourself in, and we do what we can.

Missing

It’s hard work missing people. It is exhausting to miss people.

I miss my friends who are no longer alive. I miss exes who don’t speak to me, even the terrible ones, even knowing I am better off without them anywhere near my life.

I miss my dad who has Alzheimer’s.

I miss my friends when they are not in reality, and when they can’t find their way back.

Here

I want to talk to the people who are not here, whether not physically here or not mentally-emotionally able to land back in the here-ness of here.

Except I can’t. Well, I can, of course, but no one can hear me.

And so, I am here. Missing.

Where is the treasure

This is a question, one of the questions, that helps me navigate my way back to reality.

It’s not that I want to force myself to find silver linings in everything, because of course, part of the practice of Acknowledgment & Legitimacy is that we make rooms for the shitty, hard things to be shitty and hard.

And, also, practicing Acknowledgment & Legitimacy paradoxically or not opens up some spaciousness.

Within that spaciousness, there is very often treasure.

Trauma and rest

I have been thinking quite a lot about the interplay between trauma and rest.

How rest can be a form of healing and a beautiful reset, and also I can find myself fighting it and resenting it, even dreading it.

How sometimes rest shows up as a form of freeze and appease, dormancy as escape when you can’t physically escape, and all the complicated feelings I have around that experience.

And about how I am trying to be in flow with rest. I am not much of a napper generally but last week I napped four times. This too is part of the healing process, and the trauma recovery process, and I don’t have to like it.

Where is the treasure. Let’s find some.

Earth

For me, when I have been around someone who is out of reality, and I am trying to get back to myself, it helps to walk.

I like feet on the ground. I think of what Jen, my former dance teacher would say, about not walking on top of the ground but instead drawing power from the earth with each step.

Send and receive.

Send and receive

Drawing energy up, sending it back down. Being of the earth, moving from ground.

This helps me fill up on oxygen and reality. Right here right now. Sensation, be my guide.

Is there pleasure? Something beautiful? Something delicious? Even better.

I welcome pleasure. Aliveness. Vitality.

And maybe something that doesn’t have a name yet but a sort of Grounded Effervescence.

Can I send and receive with this in mind?

Guided

Reset restart.

I seek and receive any clues in a storm, any joy sparks in a storm, and I focus on feeling the ground, holding faith for the return of steadiness.

Good things are possible, sometimes miracles are possible, perfect simple solutions are possible.

I am taking it slow, feeling into the earth.

Here I am, trying to channel some receptivity for good. I am open to being surprised by good things.

Harder things than this have solved themselves and will again. We’ve beat the odds before, we will do it again, maybe differently this time.

Maceration

In cooking, maceration is a process of breaking something down and extracting or combining flavors through this process.

Yesterday I found some frozen strawberries and peaches in the freezer. I added the ginger sugar that was left over from making candied ginger, a splash of a fennel simple syrup I made, some salt, spicy gochugaru chile flakes, and cinnamon, and let them hang out together in a bowl overnight.

To do their thing. Which is to say, to all melt into each other until something new emerges from the mingling.

Reasoning and seasoning

I wanted to talk to Michael about this, my beloved chef friend, but Michael is dead. I think he would be delighted by the flavor combination.

There are so many people I want to talk to and cannot, for the most bewildering and illogical reasons, death among them.

Sometimes for reasons even more devoid of reason than that.

I want Michael to tell me what he thinks. I want another season of seasoning with him, and I don’t get one.

Bewilderment

This too is part of trauma, right? The bewildering nature of it all.

There is the bewilderment of the moment, like when your friend is suddenly outside of reality and you have to figure out what is real and what is not, which includes figuring out that they cannot do this.

There is the moment of second-guessing yourself. Watching yourself react. Feeling yourself begin to slip away.

The recovery process, which requires care, but maybe care is not offered to you, because you are always the one who gives care.

So once you find your way back to oxygen, you also have to find your way to care.

Occam’s Razor

My friend who is a therapist likes to say that when people are in a trauma response, they can’t access left-brain or logical processes.

You can’t logic with someone who is outside of logic. You can’t invite them back to the place where logic resides. You can try, but they can’t join you.

But also then it becomes difficult for you to logic. The most obvious answer that comes up to explain what is happening itself doesn’t necessarily even make sense.

Sure, aliens, why not

When I was in a car last fall with my friend who was outside of reality, the only explanation my mind could come up with in the moment to explain what was happening, was that he had possibly been taken over by aliens.

Which is to say, the other times I have been around people who were outside of reality, it was pretty obvious. They were ranting and raving. They were paranoid. They were very obviously disassociating. Their eyes looked different. Their voice was altered. They were in an obviously altered state.

But in this case, it still looked like my friend and sounded like my friend, and the words he said kind of made sense but the content was mysterious.

He was there, but he wasn’t there. Like in a nightmare.

Simple, simpler, simplest

I tried to apply Occam’s Razor, aka the simplest explanation is probably correct, but the only simple explanation my mind could come up with was, maybe my friend’s body-mind was taken over by aliens.

Later, once I no longer felt like I was on the verge of passing out and could breathe again, it was more clear what the simplest explanation was.

My friend currently can’t stay in reality for any length of time. That’s the whole story. No aliens involved.

Near, far

He’s not far away from reality. His delusions are mostly quite minor.

If you can imagine that consensus reality is the shore, and fantasy or delusion is the water, it’s as if he put one foot in the shallow part of the water, and then stood on that foot.

Then he’s like, oh no I can’t find dry land!

And from where I am standing, all he needs to do is put his other foot back down where it was, on dry land. Then if he just bends that knee, he could push back up and have both feet in reality.

But to him, it’s as if reality is thousands of miles away, inaccessible by any means.

I’ve been there

I have been there. And now I am here.

Where the oxygen is. Delicious oxygen, I love it. I love the ground. Terra firma.

But sometimes when I think about all the trauma I have been through this past year with these experiences of being adjacent to not-reality, I feel the same as I did in that moment, wanting to pass out into the inky pool.

When I feel this way, sometimes I go back to bed and other times I go for a walk in the pasture or roll around on the floor. Hello, ground.

Hello, ground

I do love the ground. And my friends Steadiness and Solidity. My friends that teach me about give and take.

And I remind myself:

Draw energy from the earth, send it back into the earth.

Relational with the ground. Held and supported.

When is it useful to be in a shock

Here are some clues that came up about shock while I was hiding in bed in a recovery-from-shock episode, watching a procedural drama…

Clue: You went through a trauma, you’re in shock, that’s normal, babe. You need oxygen, water, comfort and time.

Clue: Even though I often think of shock as not-awesome, sometimes I need to shock my way out of a depressive episode. Sometimes a shock gets me moving agin or interrupts the wanting-to-pass-out for long enough that I am able to take action on my own behalf.

Like a splash of cold water. Sometimes this can be good or useful or a form of treasure.

Clue: not wanting to talk about it makes sense but ignoring it just makes you angrier, and both of these can be true at the same time.

Loving the questions, lovingly asked

I like open ended questions like that. I like how they can be kind-hearted in nature. Explorations that go where they go.

Like tossing a stone into the water, and watching the circular patterns ripple out.

A clue about resilience

Here is another clue I got from Sarah Marshall on a recent episode of You’re Wrong About:

“I kind of think what we mean when we talk about resilience and [kids] being resilient is they can get through anything while it is happening, and then years later they are going to have to figure out how to deal with it. I think we confuse the ability to survive extreme situations while they are upon you with them not mattering to you that much.”

This landed for me.

I have had to be resilient, and now I am in the falling-apart that comes after.

Now resilience comes to mean the slow, steady, patient work of healing, aka adding on layers of safety and sanctuary, reinstating boundaries, re-establishing trust with myself.

And another late-night early-morning realization

Realization: All scary moments involve the perception of reality shifting rapidly.

Like an earthquake. Or a bombing.

Things are one way, and then they are suddenly completely not that way. There is a rift where there was earth.

And you have to adapt speedily. But sometimes you can’t, and that just is what and how it is.

Can I channel sweetness, compassion, understanding and attentiveness as I meet that knowledge?

I am certainly going to try.

What do we do with this?

What do we do with any of this? What do we do with all of this?

I think, for me, it always comes back to the process of meeting myself where I am, in this moment, with as much grace and kindness as I can muster, if I can.

You are here, babe. Right here. Here is the ground. Here is the sensation of chaos and here is the re-grounding. Making room for all of it. Touching the ground.

One breath and then another breath. One [unit of anything] at a time. One movement at a time, one song at a time, washing one dish at a time, kissing the palm of my hand and placing it on my cheek.

Here, here, here, here, here. Where the oxygen is, doing my level best.

We can do this

We can practice.

We can laugh at silly videos. We can feel our feet on the floor. We can give ourselves a foot massage or hand massage if that helps.

We can go outside and take sixteen breaths, or if we can’t right now, we can imagine going outside and still take sixteen breaths.

We can become the world-experts in how we apply comfort and care and kindness and attentiveness to ourselves. Everyone is different, people vary, and you can be the one who is figuring out what helps you.

There is beauty in this process too, even though sometimes that’s not the first thing we might notice.

I am wishing steady comfort and healing to all of us, or whatever it is we need most, and lighting a candle for best possible outcomes, for each of us and for the collective.

May it be so, or something even better

Here’s to choosing life and aliveness, and being here, even when it is so fucking hard (and often it is), and to learning about ourselves, and finding some sparks if we can, or staying receptive to future sparks if we can.

I love you, I love that you read my thoughts here, thank you for that. It means a lot to me.

Let’s source some wild joy, some loving clarity, or whatever is needed most, let’s play.