My hope is that after reading this update you will feel more curious and compassionate towards your feelings, find trust in the storms of life, and recognize the journey is non linear… It’s a spiral with no destination and YOU ARE NOT regressing!
“Contraction Follows Expansion”
When you prioritize the health of planet YOU and revitalize there is an expansion… your unconscious unresolved holdings (emotions, memories, fears etc. that you haven’t had the time, energy, space or willingness to be with), will naturally bubble up into the space to be witnessed and healed.
New ENERGY means we have new CAPACITY to finally welcome, meet, melt and move what had been inside us all along. If we can meet what arises with LOVE and compassionate curiosity, we can melt through to more free flowing health aliveness and authenticity.
In the West we are taught to orient towards emotions as “good or bad” and so when feelings naturally bubble up to be integrated we may decide they are negative, unwanted, unenjoyable and send them back down into the shadows instead of welcoming them with love to finally melt and move.
The concept is simple.
Our new vitality increases our capacity! Our inner trapped wild weather can finally move through… rejuvenating and refreshing our inner landscapes. Health is flow…. so when we can welcome the storm it also allows that trapped weather to finally pass on through…. making way again for sunshine and blue skies. It is exhausting trying to hold a storm… or to much effort always to stay ahead of it. Instead welcome… witness… and let it flow….
You are never “losing the good feeling”… you simply made S P A C E… and gained new CAPACITY to FEEL and HEAL even more.
I needed to remember and embody this teaching as the past few weeks for me have been wild and stormy… literally! To return from co-hosting our nourishing retreat “Self Care for Climate Care” into a sudden epic ice storm, wiping out trees, our power system (and internet!) for 6 days…. my husband suffered a serious back injury and could not move, and our children were under the weather. I was instantly launched into caring for my family, parenting my little ones solo, hiding Easter Eggs by headlamp, homesteading and tending to our sugar bush (it was the peak of Maple season at HeartWood!)… it was…. A LOT…
The overwhelming responsibility brought up my familiar root trauma feelings of being “alone in it all”. Easily I could have collapsed into feelings of loss…. of the inspired, energetic, expanded state from our beautiful retreat… into chaos…. but truthfully I knew the retreat had prepared me for this. I had an increased capacity to see, feel, and heal more of what awaited inside of me to be integrated.
Thankfully I did not miss the gifts of the storm, it’s triggers, and the opportunity to practice asking for support. Rather than being swept out with the riptide of fear-based overwhelm and isolation.
Nourishing ourselves brightens our lights…and boosts our capacity to be with what has been trapped inside us out of view. Vitality is key to increasing our capacity to be with what’s hard and receive the gifts of every inevitable new challenge we face..
Instead of resisting the contraction, congratulate yourself for the self care that increased your capacity!
After all… night was always coming anyway… just as the light of dawn will follow the darkness. We need this balance to keep growing heart first. Just as in birth… the contractions are helping us on our journey.The darkness I experienced during the icestorm sprouted incredible new illuminations for next level care for my self, my family, my marriage and my passionate work in the world. It was an intense couple of weeks… but staying open hearted and surrendered to the journey allowed me to receive the gifts. I feel clear and refreshed… and trust these storms are growing me.
The light returned just in time for me to host our Let Love Win Women’s community TeaTime guided journey into Feminine Masculine Balance.The journey brought us all, myself included, new profound inner awareness and heart guidance towards deeper sustainable self care and balance. It’s staying open hearted that keeps us receptive to our innate joy, creativity, and infinite resiliency.
When our hearts are open we can tap into what my dear friend and late teacher named:
“Unreasonable Happiness”
When we live from our hearts we no longer need to choose between grief and gratitude, pleasure or pain…The heart can embrace paradox and gives us permission to dance in the rain! It’s our hearts that can hold it ALL because love is only interested in GROWTH…. Love is a bridge incapable of polarized thinking. There are no good or bad feelings, all feelings are important, and can co-exist. When we can witness and welcome a full spectrum of emotions like a passing storm (without becoming the storm!) we are open to the restoration, purification and new growth that wild weather can bring.
I want to remind us all that it is often the stormiest of times that catalyze healthy changes. With practice we can learn to expect and welcome every storm, and even get curious and excited about the gifts, guidance, and new growth that each storm brings.
WHAT IS YOUR FULL BODY YES? SELF CARE FOR CLIMATE CARE INSPIRATIONS
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