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. ❤️

Insearching & outsearching (a heartache, for example)

Insearching, let’s start here

A friend of mine recently coined a useful term: Insearching, to mean a kind of internal research…

As in: whenever we go inward, into heart space and mind-space, and we are there to learn.

They describe insearching as a form of “internal processing, like research within”, and why not.

And why not

And why not? We already search and are searching, we are beings who search.

We also research things — which might also be a re-search, a begin-again into the searching.

A resurgence of re-search?

And sometimes, maybe even often, if we remember, we drift-dive-delve inward for our searching.

We are insearching. Let us insearch.

In & out (searching, searching)

I like this word play of in and out.

What happens when we direct our searching both inward and outward, or from outward back to inward?

It reminds me of the way a certain yoga teacher I know often refers to “the inhale and the outhale” or “the inseam and the outseam of the leg”.

The way a different wording can make me re-evaluate or reconsider…

It’s a quirky phrasing, and I find that when she does this, it kind of asks me go back two steps to think about the words…

In other words, I am asked to reconsider the action in the body that emerges from the instruction or the suggestion as it emerges.

To reconsider the word is to reconsider the action, which is a way of refreshing my mind, which is refreshing to my mind…

In the in, and into the out

Or when I take yoga class in Spanish, and the teacher says, “inhalamos y exhalamos”, which my mind experiences as a form of union.

My mind is in agreement with this, like yes, we are in-breath and out-breath, we are circulating and cyclical.

We are in the in and in the out, and it’s beautiful. Sustenemos aquí!

Apprenticing (inwards)

This same yoga teacher who broke my brain by saying “outhale” recently made the suggestion in class that we all apprentice ourselves to our own nervous system.

Apprentice yourself to your nervous system.

And it stopped me in my tracks, wherever I was in my in-breathing and out-breathing, in-searching and out-searching…

What if my nervous system is the teacher, and I am just here to observe? Not in the zen-like sense of the pragmatic, unattached observer, but in the keenly curious way of the apprentice?

Show me your wisdom, nervous system. I AM HERE TO LEARN. I am insearching. I am your research assistant who is also the insearch assistant. I am here to pay attention. Inhaling and exhaling the wisdom.

Forever getting mad

I am forever getting mad at this teacher (and it is very much not her fault), because she likes us to name good things about being human before class starts, and sometimes I don’t have any.

It helps to hear the things that other people are able to name, and I love that for them.

And also sometimes I am really stymied by the question from where I am here, looking down the barrel of winter and gearing myself up for the practices that will help me [not succumb to the pits of despair this year].

And what if that’s okay

Sure. That’s okay. I am allowed to be mad, and maybe that is an important stage or passage in the process of insearching. Noticing my reactiveness and my prickliness and my frustration.

This will be the sixth winter since I moved out here to the canyon by the forest and I still have not solved for staying warm.

And also this week is the big despair that lives in the calendar now. Despairiversary? Is that a thing.

We can make up as many words as we want. We are insearchers. Apprentices to the nervous system. And yes, this week was Despairiversary and it was so much harder than I was anticipating.

The despair that lives in the calendar

Exactly a year ago today, I got my heart surprise-smashed by the least likely person, the one person I would never suspect.

Like if anyone was going to be not tender and loving with my heart, then certainly not this person who adored and cherished me and was devoted to my joy. Surely they would tread gently with my poor sweet heart.

And yet. There it was.

The winter was spent in the pits of despair and then clawing my way out of the pits of despair, and then I was doing so much better, but then this week was somehow reminders in the form of a thousand cuts.

Go dancing with a Texan, do not revisit the scene of the crime.

I was a researcher and insearcher of heartbreak and heartache this week.

And, in doing so, learned some things, or at least acquired some vital intel about what helps, which is go dancing with a Texan, hell yes.

Also I learned about what doesn’t help which is revisiting the scene of the crime, bad move, never again.

What else helped? Practicing a ton of NOW IS NOT THEN, repeating the words NOW IS NOT THEN, taking so many zoom yoga classes, crying, studying languages, looking for clues, saying thank you to the clues.

Create a little shelf for your heart

A different yoga teacher suggested snuggling your shoulders beneath you while reclining to “make a little shelf for your heart”, I love this so much.

I love the superpowers of making a little shelf for your heart, so much tenderness, so much care, so much adoration, look at this altar space, look at this niche in the adobe cavern of my being…

Truly they could never

I also love knowing that the person who hurt my heart could never create a little shelf for their own heart. THEY SIMPLY COULD NEVER.

Not only because they lack the emotional fluency and the self-fluency in general to act from care or to practice care or be caring, but because they are too busy to take the kind of time that it takes to nurture anything never mind to nurture heart space.

I can steal this from them.

I can steal this and it counts

Yes. I can be the maker of sweet heart-space shelves.

I can be the smoother of spaces, the setter-upper of sanctuary, the slow-motion shifter of paradigm, the softener of stacking…

This is where I reside, in the hurting heart but also in the soothing heart.

This is where I reside, in the lived reality of the pain and of the sweetness; not avoiding, and certainly not compulsively keeping myself too busy to experience the aliveness of life. I AM HERE.

And that counts for something. It counts for a lot.

More learnings from the despair that lives in the calendar

Even though I have a lot of practice of living with the calendar of my life as opposed to a calendar on the wall, I was not prepared for how impossible it was to map things onto this week.

I kept having the idea that I would be able to just have a Doing Day by declaring it so. See? Here’s my list of things that need doing, and I am going to wake up and do them. Ta da!

But that’s not how Despairiversary works. My body needed to panic, my body needed to shake, my body needed to disperse energy, my body needed to grieve big time, so much grieving, so much hurt, so much pent-up rage.

There were big feelings living in the calendar, and even though I spent the entire summer perceiving that I had fully moved on from my hurting heart and was done with the big despair, the big despair was not done with me.

And that is not not-useful. It’s not fun, of course, and also there is some utility there too.

More learnings from the anger

“You honestly sound kind of vindictive,” said my friend Thomas over the phone, listening to me talk about how I wish to be the dream-stealer of my enemies…

Which is to say: every time someone has a) hurt my heart, b) been aware of the fact that they hurt my heart, c) not apologized for the way they hurt my heart, I steal a dream of theirs by doing something they always wanted to do but never did. It’s a little hobby of mine that brings me joy.

And if honesty is the key point here, then I think my friend’s observation was perhaps unnecessary. YEAH THAT’S RIGHT, I AM KIND OF VINDICTIVE AND GUESS WHAT, IT IS FUN.

We are sourcing joy where it is available

Actually, more important than that, this is about identity as much as it is about joy.

I am of the harpies. We are harpy-ing it up and harpy-ing it out.

Embrace the shadow, babe.

Let’s go

In other words: there’s some pleasure available inside of Vindictiveness, and pleasure is healing, and…

What if it’s good and useful to get mad about being mistreated and then do something symbolic about that, even if it’s extremely petty. Maybe even especially if it’s petty.

Yes, I am a harpy and a dream-stealer and a high desert cowboy, and I make a shelf for my heart and light candles for things getting better.

I contain multitudes and source joy through pettiness and it’s fun, let’s gooooo!

Use what you’ve got (use it or you won’t lose it!)

No, I refuse to feel shame or remorse about my vindictiveness, and I am not going to try and curb it or temper it.

I am going to use whatever I have going on as fuel, or as a door, or as a form of practice.

And what I have right now, as a result of this experience, is a lot of anger and some good old-fashioned vindictiveness, and I’m okay with that. Let’s use it. Let’s let it be an in and an out.

Guess what, I am not only an apprentice of my own nervous system, I am also an apprentice of my own incandescent rage. Show me what you can become, my sweet fury. Let’s fly.

Learning from the fly / learning on the fly

There was a fly in my tiny house and its buzzing was amplified by the odd acoustics of the space, so it sounded like ten thousand flies.

None of my tricks worked and it wouldn’t land anywhere, it just kept buzzing in circles and dive-bombing.

Eventually I was able to swat it into the kitchen and close the door, and then played rain sounds loudly so that I couldn’t hear it.

The next morning, it was waiting patiently on the front door by the latch, and so I opened the door and it flew right out.

I think it is the same with fury and vindictiveness. I don’t need to quash them or battle them, just give them a room. Make a room for them with the same amount of care that I make when I make a shelf for my heart.

They will exit when they are ready. They will out-search when I am done in-searching.

Hell hath no fury

In the meantime, I am back on Assassin Training with the League of Assassins from Nanda Parbat, and it does not bother them in the slightest how much vindictiveness I have on a given day, as long as I show up to train.

I can handle being scorned, that’s not the end of the world.

What I cannot handle is that the person who promised to be tender with my heart and to treat me with exquisite care could not channel an ounce of tenderness or care when those were most needed.

And it’s okay that I can’t handle that. Maybe it’s even good I can’t handle that. Why would I or should I be able to handle that? The bar is too low. The bar is in hell. That’s why I train.

We train hard, we train soft, and everywhere in between

We train, we research, we re-surge (like a resurgence, a renewal), we insearch, we touch in, we breathe (the in and the out of it all), we rest, we restore, we fly, we land.

We make a shelf for this beautiful heart, and we make space for the fury. Hell hath no fury like this one.

Remembering the training.

I am not the decider, I am the insearcher

This week I was reminded over and over what I learned many years ago from Bryan Kest about decision-making, and how there is no decision-making, only decision-receiving.

He meant this in a yoga context but of course he meant this in all contexts:

“You don’t make the decisions in here, you honor the decisions that are already being made.”

So it doesn’t matter if I “decided” that a certain day is a knock everything off the list day if it’s actually a grieve your heartache day.

You don’t make the decisions here; you honor the decisions that are already being made. By your body, who is sharing the information with you! Pay attention!

In other words…

In other words, this means: what if I try being an apprentice to my own body, so that I can learn from listening and attentiveness and consciously, intentionally not-fighting.

I don’t agree to fight with myself. I am going to be with my despair and my vindictiveness without being in a battle with them.

This doesn’t mean that I give them free rein. It means that I am going to CHOOSE to actively and intentionally NOT-FIGHT these aspects of self so that I can learn and train and hone my skills.

Where to next?

A thousand points to me (at least) for making it through a hard week. And to us, if you’re going through some stuff too, which I hope you aren’t, but if you are, I am lighting a candle for things getting better for you.

Now it is time (for me) to strategize for winter. I made a cardamom rose syrup for delicious hot beverages.

This weekend I plan to bravely take steps on emptying the shed, but also I will honor the decisions being made by my body-mind.

It is a time for things to move and shift, and I am going to keep being the apprentice of my own nervous system while they do just that.

Here’s to something better and the fractal magic

Here’s to something better, here’s to one step and then the next step and all the fractal magic that can happen in the spaces in between.

Here’s to training hard and resting hard and being a harpy and an apprentice and a shelf-maker all at the same time. Is that something good about being human? I think it might be. Let’s keep going.

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.