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 / last chance for 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 from a long time ago, and it’s been helping.

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. ❤️

A useful practice

A useful practice

A useful practice, if you are someone who is interested in self-fluency, which is probably you if you’re here, is developing the ability to notice when we get upset or distressed or activated in some way, and maybe something about what sets us off.

This is a skill that we finesse over time, adding compassion as we go, making room for ourselves and our experience.

As we notice what we are noticing, of course we can add Acknoweldgment & Legitimacy, we can try to bring some sweetness into our noticing.

Spaciousness

Again, we work on creating a cozy yet spacious container of sanctuary space, in which it is safe for us to be feeling whatever we are feeling as we experience it.

Yes, I am feeling angry and upset about this, I’m allowed to feel that way, it makes sense that I feel that way, these emotions are moving through my physical body and I am making space for them to move through me…

Sometimes the emotions feel as though they are bigger than us, and we need to come back into right perspective, we contain them and not the other way around. They are temporary, and we contain the wholeness.

Noticing

Sometimes our noticing practice is about providing context: Oh, I notice that I feel upset in response to [x category of behavior or y words], and I am also noticing that my emotional state is more intense if I’m premenstrual or it’s hot outside or I have a headache, etc.

So there’s acknowledgment and legitimacy for my reaction and my reactiveness, and also the recognition that these emotions might be heightened due to circumstances.

Sometimes this is good and useful! Maybe if I wasn’t having that heightened experience, I wouldn’t have been able to clock my reaction to the same degree. Maybe I need this extra burst of emotion to really let myself be as upset as I need to be.

Situation [now] reminds me of situation [then]

Sometimes I can notice that I am feeling MORE intensely, if the current situation is reminding me of a past situation.

As we practice this over time, you might find yourself becoming more adept at this — noticing faster, recognizing that we get reminded of the same hurts because they still hurt more than we think.

This week I wanted to tell you about a situation in my life currently that really only barely has to do with me that has been stirring up all kinds of big feelings for me, and it turns out these big feelings are yet again about something else!

Practicing, in action, in community

This is the practice of noticing, in action, in community.

Or: I am experimenting with modeling what one form of this kind of noticing might look like, in case this is helpful for you.

Obviously, we bear in mind that People Vary. We are all different people having different experiences, your mileage may vary etc.

You are welcome to take any clues that might apply, and tweak things in a way that works for you.

Noticing, take one…

The situation is my friend’s

My friend, a skilled, competent, warm-hearted yoga person, has run an excellent and very thorough yoga teacher training for some years. If I could wave a magic wand and have everyone who teaches train with her, I would.

Someone else is starting up a rival teacher training in the same extremely small town, and this person has been publicly saying negative things about both my friend and my friend’s training that simply are not true, in order to grow her own program.

This is not what is setting off feelings for me though

This all is, sadly, extremely normal boring yoga world drama, and all it makes me feel is sad that my friend is going through this.

Sad and also frustrated that people who study yoga deeply often still can’t work with the basics (speaking truth, for example), and just sort of generally disillusioned with everything.

But not big waves of feeling. Just a slow lapping at the shore of feelings, if that makes sense.

Where the big feelings come in

Where the big feelings come in is that my friend does not wish to correct these lies because my friend does not wish to “compete”.

My friend wants to believe that the truth will prevail, and light over darkness, and all that.

Which, putting aside that this is not the world we live in (points to plummeting vaccination rates and measles outbreaks) is not the world that I live in, and that’s where my big feelings are coming from…

Scooby-doo rewind

Many years ago, my former teacher and mentor spread untruths about me online, in a very public way, and I don’t know what was going through their head at the time or at all, so I can’t make guesses about why or how this came to pass.

Perhaps they had been lied to by someone else about me, and believed those lies, or maybe something else happened, no idea.

What I do know is what happened as a result of this.

Teapots, fires, mixed metaphors abound

Here is what happened:

I did not defend myself or stand up for myself or try to correct these false statements in any way.

In part because of the same line of thinking as my friend: the truth will prevail, people know I’m a good person with a good heart and good intentions, and that will be enough. They will see this for what it is: a bizarre misunderstanding, a miscommunication, and it will be okay.

And in part because everyone in my life, from my business partner to my attorney to my friends, said that this was a tempest in a teapot, and it would blow over on its own. To give it more attention would just be to adding fuel to something that needed to burn out on its own etc.

Regrets etc

The main thing I regret is that by not standing up for myself, I also didn’t stand up for my own students and their teaching and the beautiful work we had done together.

I hurt them, and let them down, and that is awful. I am so sorry about that.

I think in the moment I was trying so hard to course-correct for my teacher’s misunderstanding (his perception that I did not respect him despite having devoted a decade of my life to spreading his work in the world?) that I didn’t want to say anything all that could be even remotely perceived as undermining him and being actually disrespectful to him.

So in that sense, you can say that I prioritized his comfort over the people who I owed something to, the people I had trained. I regret that. I also regret that despite my best efforts, I was not able to resolve the misunderstanding with my beloved teacher.

Noticing, again

So, I have this past painful experience, that majorly fucked me up, and that experience taught me, right or wrong, that the truth does not come out unless you actively put it out there.

And who knows, maybe even then it still doesn’t come out, but at least you tried?

In my experience, for the most part, people did not trust my good heart or trust that I had my own reasons for not defending myself. They were upset and they walked, and it is on me for thinking it could be otherwise.

I see my friend choosing Not-Competing, and what I see is someone declining the opportunity to set the record straight. I wish I had set the record straight, or at least tried.

I wish I had stood up for my students even if it meant that my teacher received that as disrespectful when all I wanted in the world was for him to know how much I respected him and his work.

Reactiveness

Every time I talk to my friend about what she could do to promote her program, I advocate for being really clear about all the great elements of her program, and correcting the misinformation floating around.

She doesn’t want to do this because she thinks love and light win, or something that sets me off completely, and then I stomp around about this on my own time, in my own stuff about it.

What is useful here?

My job here, in my relationship between me and me, is to provide comfort and compassion for the pain and painful echoes of these past experiences.

It sucks that I went through these painful losses, losing my beloved mentor and my beloved students and an entire community, it sucks that people believed and potentially still believe things about me that are not true, it sucks that I still regret acting according to wise and well-meaning counsel that came from people who love me, and so on.

Safety and sanctuary for past-me, for these big feelings of loss, grief, sadness, remorse, shame, hurt, regret and so on, and for all the stirred-up pain from the surrounding narratives, or other life wounds that feel connected to this experience.

My job as a friend is to be loving and supportive for my friend, and to not make this about me and my pain.

Wise counsel: it depends

In retrospect, I think the wise counsel I received from everyone in my life does apply, most of the time, in most circumstances.

Quite often the best move is just to let things blow over, don’t fan the flames, I am going to keep mixing metaphors on this one forever…

In this specific case, I don’t think it was the right move. And if I got to have do-overs, I would make some kind of public statement sharing as much as I could, in as warm and loving a manner as I could, in the interest of everyone having as much information as possible.

Might that also have wildly backfired? Sure. And I still wish I had set the record straight, and been there for people who needed that from me.

Making space, again

Something I have to remind myself when these big feelings come up for me in response to my friend’s situation is this:

Now is not then.
Our situations are not the same.
I can share with her as much as I want or not from my own situation, and ultimately she will receive her own decisions and make her own way, and learn what she learns.

I can’t solve my past pain through trying to solve someone else’s current pain.

What I can do is keep noticing all the ways that my past pain pops up now, and try to layer on experiences of safety and warmth and kindness for myself. I can work on meeting my pain with love, with acknowledgment and legitimacy, and recognize all the ways that it shapes my life.

What is the next step after noticing

So noticing has layers, and noticing is an ongoing step, because there is always more to notice. We notice, and add compassion. Notice more, and add more compassion.

We apply some Now Is Not Then. We take a breath for that.

We notice any monster-stories we are telling ourselves (nothing will ever change, this pain will never stop hurting, nothing ever gets better, nobody loves you, etc), and we investigate, with love, but without giving them too much credence.

We introduce fun and playfulness where we can. DANCE PARTY. Tell the monster-stories in a silly voice. We find the good / where is the treasure.

And we keep noticing how we are feeling, how we are reacting, what we need, what might help. We stay curious.

Stay curious

This is really the practice at its essence, right? It’s the point of all the noticing.

We stay curious about what our needs are, about what might change for the better, what is possible…

We stay receptive to useful clues, fun insights, all the ways that life sometimes offers up surprise moments of healing and joy and loving-clarity…

We try things. We ask what is needed. We look for the next indicated step. We find pleasure where we can.

My focus right now is on being a good friend by glowing supportive thoughts, and making suggestions where I can, and then treating my own pain on my own time, making room for all of it.

Applying this

I’m sure there are scenarios coming up for you, and maybe you will feel drawn to journal or do art or otherwise process on some of these themes or clues or sparks.

If that feels too intense or too close to home, then going for a walk or doing some rolling around on the floor counts as good self-fluency practice too. Safety First!

Maybe it’s just enough to let some of these ideas skip out like stones across the water of consciousness, and there is nothing more that needs to be done for now. The work is working itself out, it’s all solving itself.

Into the wishing cauldron

I am wishing for safety, sanctuary, love, clarity, and joy, or whatever is needed most, for me and for all my former teachers and former students and for my friend, and for everyone reading.

I am wishing for support and strength in training this ability to separate out now from then.

And I am wishing for solace for the painful times and painful situations, past and present.

Certainly there is no shortage of current challenges that are also reminding us of the past, very understandably. I am wishing for simple elegant solutions, and for miracles, and extra ease and comfort for everyone who needs some. Let’s keep going, let’s keep trying things.

Noticing plus softening. Noticing plus breathing. Noticing plus compassion. Noticing plus play. Let’s play.

Come play in the comments, I appreciate the company

Leave a pebble (o) to say you were here, so I know I’m not doing this alone.

Also it feels good to pick up a pebble and place it somewhere, I have noticed.

You are invited to share any related situations or musings of your own if you like, or name any wishes that are in process.

And of course you are welcome to share anything that sparked for you while reading, anything that helped, clues received, or anything on your mind, wish some wishes, process what’s percolating…

I am lighting a candle for us and our beautiful heart-wishes. What a brave thing it is to allow ourselves to want something better for us and for the world.

Or if there’s anything you’d like to explore further or toss into the wishing pot, the healing power of the collective is no small thing, companionship helps.

Whatever comes to mind or heart. Let’s support each other’s hope-sparks…

Housekeeping note: You can subscribe to posts by email again!

If you aren’t seeing these updates in your in your email and want to, you can can solve that here.

This will pop up a new page on Follow.It that lets you subscribe via email, newsletter, or RSS reader. They say “expect 50 stories a week”, and that’s a very imaginary number, once a week is the dream.

I am emailing copies of the Emergency Calming Techniques package!

Anyone who gives to the Discretionary this week (more info below) will get my Emergency Calming Techniques package by email as a pdf. I am only checking email twice a week because I no longer have wifi at my place, long story, so be patient with me but if it doesn’t show up within the week then let me know!

I have some ideas for the next ebook too but if you do too, shoot me an email or share in the comments.

A request!

If you received clues or perspective or want to send appreciation for the writing and work/play we do here, I appreciate it tremendously.

I am accepting support (with joy & gratitude) in the form of Appreciation Money to the Discretionary Fund. Asking is not where my strength resides but Brave & Stalwart is the theme these days, and pattern-rewriting is the work, it all helps with fixing the many broken things.

And if those aren’t options, I get it, you can light a candle for support (or light one in your mind!), share this with someone who loves words, tell people about these techniques, approaches and themes, send them here, it all helps, it’s all welcome, and I appreciate it and you so much. ❤️