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. ❤️

The Scale of Aversion and a bridge of bridges

Just some background stuff

In my world:
I had to evacuate due to fire so a) my mind is a little all over the place, b) I am also all over the place, c) please think good thoughts for my sweet home and beloved tree friends, and if you want to light an imaginary candle or plant an imaginary tree of good luck and safety, that’s welcome too.

In our world:
I know we are all going through it right now, for a variety of reasons, and there is no shortage of scary stuff going on, geopolitical and local and in all ways.

Fluent self, fluent world, ideally

I know it’s hard to focus on anything right now, with all the scary situations. And maybe it seems frivolous to be focusing on internal work.

And yet…

In my experience, playing and working with self-fluency supports our ability to exist in the world with more stability, to hold steady, and to be a glowing source of good energy for the world and for people and situations we encounter.

So we are turning inward and playing, in the interest of curiosity, and also to support the greater good in a way that may seem small in the moment but is still meaningful in a fractal way. Let’s explore.

Time to do what’s indicated

It’s time to do what is indicated, which for me involves getting on the road and being a cowboy on the move, but it mostly involves breathing, doing grounding practices, turning inward, tuning in, paying attention, accessing tenderness.

Today I am sharing some notes from a little coaching call I did related to last week’s experiments in emptying….

Big thanks to Darcy for being courageous and open-minded and playing with me on this one, and for letting me share our fun processing experiment here.

The situation

Our friend Darcy was feeling some feelings about EMPTYING, both in relation to some Emptying Meditations someone had recommended she listen to, and to emptying things from her home.

With her permission, I’m sharing notes from our mini-session so that you can replicate this on your own at home if you like, inserting whatever word is bringing up stuff for you.

H is me and D is our friend.

The Scale of Aversion

The first thing I like to do in a situation with this is to check in on the Scale of Aversion / Disinclination / No Thank You. In other words…

Havi: Okay, so imaginary scale! How much do you think you resist the word or the idea/concept that is stressful or not working, on a scale of one to ten…

Darcy: Medium? Probably not that bad, maybe a 5, in the in-between. Maybe some aspects are really uncomfortable, and in some context emptying gives me the willies, but also in other contexts the idea of emptying feels really good and appealing.

Useful

H: What do you think would be useful to you about being okay or more okay with EMPTYING, whether that’s being able to listen to the meditations, or not needing them at all, or emptying in other forms…?

D: I honestly wouldn’t mind if I were pro-emptying in that way, whatever my beef with emptying is probably isn’t happening at a conscious level, it’s more like there’s an internal hitting the breaks, I listened to first ten seconds of the meditation and was like NO THANK YOU, I’m not doing this, and can’t tell you why…

Acknowledgment & Legitimacy

For me a huge part of self-fluency is practicing Acknowledgment & Legitimacy, over and over again. It is okay for us to be where we are. It makes sense that we are feeling what we’re feeling.

Completely reasonable to have aversion to emptying, or to a meditation on emptiness!

So I always like to just pause here and take a breath for Acknowledgment & Legitimacy.

We name what’s going on, we make space for it to be what it is in this moment. A safe space to experience what we are experiencing, nothing is wrong with how we are experiencing it…

Memory, insight, spaciousness

D: I remember now what he said in the meditation: “listen to everything going on around you”, it was probably just birds and a train whistle but i didn’t want to be hyper-aware of my surroundings…

Insight! We love this.

We take a breath of Acknowledgment & Legitimacy for this too. Not wanting to be hyper-aware of surroundings, not wanting to be aware of aspects of our surroundings that are upsetting. So reasonable, so understandable.

We also sent up a little prayer for the kids playing loud sports and the old-timers on loud seated lawnmowers to choose a different path, a quieter path, to take up a new fun quiet hobby, or to relocate their noise to a different location…

It couldn’t hurt. Meanwhile we are just naming what we are noticing about how we feel and how we are reacting, and making space for that.

Six hums

I wrote about this humming exercise the other week, but the basic idea is that it’s sort of a resonance exercise.

You block your ears with your thumbs and then press fingers between the brows, or cover your eyes if you like, and you take a lovely breath and HUM.

We did six slow hums, and then sat quietly just breathing to notice what that experience felt like.

D: Oh, I have my own personal private white noise machine that is in my head that I didn’t know existed! I was unaware that I could do this! That was so cool! And it is interesting that we were just talking about emptying because it did have an emptying effect on me, it basically filled the space that thoughts would normally chase each around in, the humming crowds everything else out!

Naming the negative associations with the word

What are the negative associations with emptying?

(I wrote about my own negative associations with emptying last week if you want to read that.)

D: I think the highest consciousness brain level of it is if I’m thinking about emptying my house and getting rid of things, and there’s a moment of panic like what if you need these items later, or regret it or you can’t replace them? It feels like anxiety about LACK and not having access, or a perceived future lack.

What does this remind us of?

H: What does this remind you of? Or, is there an image or association that comes up when you think about that?

D: This might sound silly but the only thing I really deeply regret getting rid of was an orange mini skirt with black fringe, it symbolized dance and fun and going out, and I wish I still had it even though I wouldn’t wear it now.

Naming the positive associations

When does emptying feel good or appealing or enticing? Or what are you reminded of?

D: An example of emptying that went great is I had a jewelry chest that belonged to my mom, and I hated it and it was not my style, but it was where I kept my jewelry, but finally I knew it needed to leave, and every single I walked into that room after it was gone, I felt relieved, for months, and even though I still don’t have a good place to put my jewelry, it’s fine, I’m just glad that jewelry chest is gone.

What is the bridge?

H: What is the bridge? Or: how do we get from one to another, from the place of Anxiety About Lack to that feeling of spaciousness and freedom you just described?
D: I visually see a very long bridge that you just walk over and it’s easy to recognize that you are walking to the beautiful place, that’s where the emptiness is that makes me happy

H: And do you need anything to help you cross the bridge or take it somewhere?
D: No, its like gliding. Like a people mover at the airport, It’s just walking me across.

What is needed, if anything

H: Is anything needed here?
D: I’m going to put a statue of the skirt at the outset of the bridge and a statue of a shelf of empty space at the other end…

H: I love this imagery because of the spaciousness in it! It feels like if you were missing the skirt you could just walk across and visit the skirt statue and say hi.

D: Yes! I have access to the spirit of the skirt even if the skirt is long gone!

What else is the bridge for

H: So now you can be people-moved across the bridge to the side of freedom, what else is the bridge for? Or is there anything else you need from it?

D: I love this bridge and can see how I can use it for clearing out my sewing room, because there’s glorious emptiness on the other side. It’s almost like you can’t take a bunch of stuff over this bridge, it’s not very wide. You can’t be carrying cartloads of crap; you need to be your unencumbered self just sailing over this space.

Messages

H: Is there any message the bridge has for you?
D: It’s saying, Come on!!!! Like a welcoming beckoning! That makes me so happy. Now I have a little mantra and a visualization to tune into when I’m getting ready to do some emptying.

A winding down

We did another six HUMMING breaths with ears and eyes blocked.

And on the last hum, I saw her bridge, clear as day. A beautiful vision.

We checked in again with the Scale of Aversion to see if D was still at a 5 or if something had shifted.

D: Yes, I feel like I’m at HELL YES LETS EMPTY! Ready to just glide along that!!!

A checking in

We checked in the next day and D said:

Thank you!!! That was great! I feel so happy now! 🙂

I know you already said and realized this, but the idea that I can go both ways over the bridge is so freeing! I can visit the things I release with my mind, and that’s enough!

A breath of relief, what a beautiful thing

I hope you enjoyed living vicariously through this beautiful and inspiring shift through the experience of reading it, and I hope it sparks new experiments for you that can facilitate shifts of your own.

Or maybe there is nothing that needs to be done and you are doing great!

A breath for the idea that just reading this was enough, and the fractal work is already happening for you beneath the surface, on multiple levels.

Here’s to that too, here’s to possibility and all the good things that are possible.

Any moments of relief and sweetness: this is what matters

I am happy for any moments of relief and sweetness in these hard, overwhelming, scary and challenging times.

Let’s hum our way through this together and keep dissolving little bits of stuck, for ourselves and to support each other and our world.

Making space, inside and out, in community, for the collective, supporting our inner selves and the miracles.

Rooted in gratitude

I am being asked by my own current situation* to really deep-dive into Compassionate Detachment.

* My own current situation being that my road was evacuated due to fire, I wasn’t able to take anything with me because I wasn’t there when this happened, not knowing if I will lose my beloved home and everything I own, too close to call!

And to stay rooted in gratitude, as I meet my fear, a fear that is very close to home, literally and figuratively.

Rooted in gratitude: I am physically safe, I am alive, I have somewhere to go, there is no one I need to take care of other than myself, I am blessed with kind, loving friends who are checking on me every day. The rest is not in my hands.

The rest is not in my hands

It’s out of my hands.

That is another form of emptying, right?

Something else to practice, and sit with.

The rigging of my ship

These are perhaps bigger and more complex topics for another time, but I am inviting us (and myself) to stay curious and receptive to these qualities and practices.

Things can be scary and hard (and they are!), and also I can call on this grounding, centering center of rooted in gratitude.

Rooted in gratitude is the rigging of my ship. This is how I return again and again into my thank-you heart.

A breath for this, and for how brave it is to keep practicing. We are allowed to be scared. And we keep practicing. Let’s keep practicing.

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. ❤️