There was a pair of two wild tigers living on one side of the river banks deep in central India with their tigress cub. As part of their quotidian routine, they walked their baby riverside taking that time to train and teach her. She discovered her silent and stealth tiger ways on these walks as she periodically turned her head toward her parents for approval. In unison, both parents would slowly nod ‘yes’ so that she would grow to know her place and power.
One day during their walk there was a streak of tigers on the other side of the river. A family with two cubs vocalizing these terrifying noises like grunting, growling, snarling and roaring! And more terrifying still when they ran toward the bank of the river to fiercely protect their side. Mama tigress heard these noises like a cacophony of deafening threats and began to shake. Her greatest fear would be to witness her young being mauled by other tigers with nothing she could do. The helplessness was beyond frightening and all she could do was quicken the pace on her side of the river to get ahead of the crew on the other side. Her male escort became super irritated with her fear, knowing that he could protect them if need be and secretly knowing that the litter across the way would not cross the water. As this was something the tigress knew nothing of, her fearful response seemed unnecessary to him, and annoying. But he, in turn, did not know that she had witnessed a deadly mauling years before their union that crept out of her memories in moments like these. Memories that made her shake to the core. The prey, predator response is big in these animals as the possibility of being prey meant doing something to survive or else. So, the tiger reproached the tigress for her reactive fear diminishing her to a freeze response, silent and quasi- immobile. She could still quicken her pace, enough to short cut their way back to the lair with her young. She remained like this for several hours, the length of time it takes to flush the adrenaline and all the physical changes that happen from deep inside her tiger brain to the muscles of her strong legs. Only after all were safely home in their den could she speak without fear or the biological shame of the shutdown response. The conversation between the tiger and his tigress was a small snippet of predator prey too: ‘You should have done this, I did not know how, and you could have done that, to why should I have to.’ This was just as distressing as the threat to her young whelp’s life. She shook none-the-less allowing her body to release the fear response in its most natural way, then took a big yawn, a long rest, and returned to her normal demeanor. She concluded that there is no escape from these predator prey relationships. The tiger could not see the dilemma of his tigress without judgement and the tigress could not understand why her mate was so uncaring. Stale mate. Stale. Mate. Perhaps the tigers’ ways are more about form and function than emotional intelligence, the tigress lamented. Meanwhile, the baby girl cub felt and watched this impasse, feeling empathy for her mama and papa. She made a silent and bold claim to do at least one thing differently in her mature lifetime. “You just watch and see she roared.”
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The teeny tiny little monkey was a seasoned performer, recognized at an unusually young age for her delightful talents. She was accustomed to seeing her image in a mirror when she practiced relying on the feedback of her well-intended family, agents, and directors. When she was young, it was easy. She could easily access the inner dimensions of characters, sing, dance and express herself freely. But as she grew, she straddled a thin line between hiding her expressiveness due to critical pointers and the horrible feeling of being on display. It felt as if her whole life had backfired.
The monkey was indeed no longer free. And to make things just a bit more complicated, she desired to be wanted so much that the hypercritical inner head voice had a mission. That voice made her feel sterile, critical, and fearful in contrast to simultaneously endeavoring to express herself through her body and her music. She longed for ease, authority, and authenticity. That is how she wanted and needed the audience to perceive her! Performing felt more like sandpaper than the smoothness of clarified butter! She has basked in the realm of the creative process for years accompanied by this double bind of caring. She cared how people saw her and never wanted to be misunderstood as that was the equivalent of rejection, as if they were only zooming in on her ‘flaws’ instead of getting the realness of her performance and message. She so wanted to be free to express her creativity and talents while simultaneously having some guarantee that her people would understand her, no matter what. One evening, after a particularly restricted performance, she realized that her desire to feel free, authentic, connected, and unconcerned about what her followers’ thought was paramount. She could not fake this. It was either real or she continued with the façade as it was. So, in response, the aging little monkey developed a taste for Sake! Two small ‘ochokos’ that helped her to relax her expectations, but she knew well enough – that too felt fake. Certain that her neural pathways were set, yet lamenting a new perspective, the little monkey finally felt big enough to openly, inwardly, inquire into her own self-perception. Her deepest longing was to be understood and her greatest fear was to be misunderstood. She could see that a feeling of urgency, shame, and apologizing were an effect of her dilemma. The little monkey imagined herself embodying this bind directly and knew that her whole persona developed to protect her from the angst of being misunderstood. This had pros and cons, yet the burdens were too great now, so she negotiated her confidence with the fearful part in charge, thanking it too for all the skills she had acquired. She had a big, big performance coming up soon and she really wanted to feel open and free in her musical delivery. She focused gently on the parts that felt misunderstood, holding them with care and grace. All she needed to do was appreciate the feelings of confusion and hurt to melt the projected concerns onto her audience. She felt brave for that performance and picked out an extra special outfit. Her inner work did not necessitate a need for positive affirmations like “I am confident,” so she could relax instead knowing that the part that seeks validation would probably show up and that she would welcome that part with care giving it a place in her heart. As many times as it takes. She would have preferred an on/off switch so that she would not have to deal with the rejection of being misunderstood, but alas, recognized it is more like a dimmer switch. Lessening with each performance, the fearful parts quieted, and she grew to be expressive and beautifully unrestrained on and off the stage! The two found themselves incapable of marrying all the parts of themselves, or better their psyche, into a peaceful whole relationship. Each had their disowned shadows that they were comfortable projecting onto the other and frankly neither had a clue. It came as a shock that the one they called ‘soul mate’ was not at all who they believed them to be. Someone had shared with them, perhaps as a warning, that the first marriage is often like that: After a suitable amount of time the unhealed core wounds of both individuals begin to emerge as an expectation of the other. One hurt against the others diminishing the lovers into warring children.
Some couples were willing to explore the dynamics of their own personality structure, but most preferred to blame, shame, fight or flee, and this went on for thousands and thousands of years! Out of these years of unresolved conflict and unclaimed polarity that existed in a sea of litigation, a solution slowly emerged. The need for wholeness was so deep, so real that the new humans being born expressed an emergent way to negotiate a peace treaty; a propensity to heal that split in connection with another by healing it within themselves. It developed as an outward expression of fluidity in gender and masculine/feminine expression. Now this all came about without the sage introspect gleaned from exploring the internal shadows of the feminine and masculine essence. The projected feminine unconscious of the male or more masculine partner is projected upon the more feminine partner and the masculine unconscious of a woman/feminine is projected upon the male or masculine partner. In simple terms, the masculine partner blamed the feminine for being too chaotic and the feminine partner blamed the masculine for being too unfeeling. The displaced anima and animus retracted from expectations in a relationship, attempting first an inward potential for unity. And it felt so very good to freely express both aspects to whatever degree the individual preferred. This practically promised that a whole, individuated human could meet another whole without the complications of the shadow, right? But alas it did not work as expected. Somehow the original inadequacy stories persisted, and the unmet needs of the child were still projected onto their now partner. Gravitas yet again slipped out of the hands of the great event called marriage, internally or externally, and disappointment perplexed both parties. Claiming the shadows of polarity within is necessary if we are to survive. Not just the masculine and feminine which holds the promise of wholeness but also of the self and other promising unity. Many strategies have been devised for the experience of unity and wholeness from religions to war to therapy to a life filled with checking off a well-researched bucket list. Unfortunately, what still seems illusive is that we are all each other’s mirror, reflecting shadow parts from our personal and collective unconscious. We seem to miss the gifts that mature in our collective psyche when we willingly explore our reflections for this would naturally develop into a capacity for real, not imagined, interdependence; a leaning in towards another with the utmost respect without losing our sense of self. " I can remember admiring my grandma so much, most especially when I was 15 years old," he shared. "I could feel her justified position of dominance in the family, and I longed for that superior demeanor too. Angry and ornery, grandma would hold her head high letting us know that everyone else had it easier than she did. She did not want things to be as they were and I quietly observed her denying her immediate reality, inside and out with her ‘me against the world’ attitude."
" “I don’t want my life to be this way and I don’t want to be spending my time doing what I must” she would snarl. She tried very hard to secret away her rage, but her body would reveal these feelings in milli-moments that looked quasi demonic and equally as strong." He shared that suppressing rage for her was like holding a beach ball underwater, all day and all night so it pinched, poked, and pulled within her body. His grandma grew to hate her tense body and all its tiring effort to obey her mind’s beliefs and control. She began to limp and walk with a cane. "In truth, she would rather have a life of safety and freedom and especially, one in which she could really appreciate her body." Instead, she passed these positions of mental and physical posturing to her daughter and her children too. "Now I, her proud grandson, was especially tuned in to the unacknowledged rage in the women of the house. It tasted of pain and revenge, and it felt vaguely reminiscent and familiar of a time that I know not of. I was happy to betray anger’s silence and express this hostility where it seemed safe to do so. This gave me power, a way to perpetrate and express this secret vow of the victim. I did it for them and I did it for me. Proudly. Happily. Only it really got me in trouble." " I began to crumble under the weight of punishment, feeling guilty for what mom had to do to cover my tracks," he continued." I could feel my heart sink as I morphed into a victim too watching the women of the house turn into proud guardians of my life. We switched roles and now it was my body and my ego that began to wither." He was aware that pure power was too illusive, that it had not been expressed in his family for many generations. Instead,they experienced power by intertwining the inferior victim and the arrogant bully. He was stymied, hurt, and unable to find a way forward. No one was there to show him a different way to be in his world. So, as he grew he experienced many obstacles that revolved around this impenetrable pattern. One day he married and naturally the pattern continued between him and his new wife. It dawned on him that should they have children, this way of being would continue. Deep in thought, right there and right then he realized; I am the way and the way I am. He repeated it quite a few times, taking it in as a new and inspired revelation. "I am the way and the way I am!" For him it was that simple. In a moment of grace he surrendered to the mystery, saw that he could discipline his mind, and learn to live from his deepest knowing. That is the power of true power. In just a short time he overcame the temptation to dominate others becoming wholly responsible for order and honor. This feeling of power aligned with his Soul from a time and a place that he knew not of, but he felt truly grateful. "Now grandma and mom were a bit befuddled at my new ways" he continued. "They preferred the old way and kept their distance, skeptical of my new life. So much distance that holidays passed without invitations, just cards filled with updates and a picture or two. And that would have to do." The tiny piece of green sea glass had floated between continents tumbling on to vast and different shores across the globe. With each beach landing she became more and more polished and transparent. She enjoyed each beach for the duration of her stay, following the currents of wind and water that shaped her continuous journey. Occasionally her moves were determined by a person that had picked her up and thrown her, willy-nilly, back into the sea.
One day, at the mercy of the weather, she landed on a tiny island that seemed to promise long, sunny days with few people roaming the beaches. She realized that she did not want to risk floating aimlessly between seashore settings anymore, living with the fear that she might be displaced as a memento or placed in a piece of art! She was excellently practiced at hiding in plain sight which always took some work because of her brilliance and stunning color. It dawned on her that if she were to stay on this tiny island, she would rather come out of hiding to really enjoy the sun and shine with new friends. This seemed paradoxically exciting and frightening all at the same time. She would need trust and a healthy dose of willingness to seek out a potential beaching spot. And this would require agency and choice, two things she knew very little of. She had grown to dislike the subservience to elements that had consummated her insecurity, especially since she longed for the confidence to acknowledge her new longings. She sought counsel with others like her asking how they thought that she could conjure up such courage, but no one had the answer, for they too were exclusively at the whimsy of life. And she worried that any decision made for her own benefit might backfire and in turn come to haunt her for reasons she knew not. But fate and grace had landed her on this beautiful sand spot with the possibility of being gloriously out in the open! She did not know how many days she had left before she was washed down to a sizeable nothing, so she dared to reveal her beautiful green and relaxed; finally, and totally relaxed, napping in the sunshine. She embraced her destiny with no harm done, taking refuge in the equality of her choice intertwined with the mystery of fate. Have you ever met a problem detector; someone who can see everything that is potentially wrong in any situation? This wee girl learned to be this way as she grew up during the war that devastated her country, her neighborhood, her family, and her life as a teenager. She felt like a huge, disorganized cloud of fury and chaos, not able to breathe while averting panic with every step.
Her job was to stay uber-attentive, trying to sense, see, and hear what might be happening next. Outside, inside, anywhere, everywhere, she was figuring out how to be okay with chaos in her family and her country, but the pressure was insurmountable. She was full of ideas about how and what to do, but sharing was pointless. She swallowed her words and became a handful for her parents who had essentially given up in the face of terror and uncertainty. This girl became a highly educated woman who fled her country through marriage. She became very successful, and professional, raising her child with perfection. But her second husband and his son were chaotic, troublesome, and desperate. She recognized these feelings as if she had grown up drinking a measly broth of them every single day, and she hated it. She had so many ideas on how to fix her husband and stepsons relational dilemma. She spied on them from the next room over in their upscale home preparing to fix them with her expertise. She was prepared. Ready. Precise. But they would not listen to her. The innocent arrogance that she had developed growing up shaped her sense of self so thoroughly that she could not, would not, let go, and it threatened her marriage and peace. She had it all and her problem detector protector part was still vigilant. She lost sleep, was giving up, and more, began to disrespect her beloved husband. The desperateness in her saw the desperateness in him. That is the rule of thumb: What I don’t like in you, I don’t like in myself, and what I like in you, is what I like in myself. Whoa – a mirror! The desperate feelings of her youth crawled out of the depths of her deep, deep belly and sat right in her chest. Feelings of loss, being panic stricken, not belonging, and especially, loneliness. These feelings were as big as the fancy living room she sat in, filling her heart and home with agony. But now she could at least feel, sense, and see them herself. She felt them for her teenage part since she masterfully hid them beneath her problem detection systems. She breathed easier, releasing years of denial that softened the way she saw her husband at war with his son, and herself at war with her husband and original family too. She felt a soft empathy rising and a sense of belonging that reminded her that she has always known that angels were listening to her deepest desires. She sensed their grace now opening the channels of her heart, inviting her to relax into the life of her dreams. L – living in between two known ways of being I – immediate anxiety M- meeting old fears B- becoming a new dragon O- opportunity After 25 years of stasis, the warrior dragon found himself in limbo. He so disliked this horrendous, in-between state of unknowns and uncertainty. His greatest fear was not leaving the known but encountering himself in the middle terrain of dread. He knew what this could mean; loneliness, regret, could haves and would haves, and worse, those really bad habits. It would be easier to run to the next secure state no matter how disruptive, but he promised himself to resist temptation and hold steady. Staying steady while experiencing shame and self -medicating patterns was just impossible so he sought a different way to cope. And he clearly did not want to be told to breathe, pray, and meditate, as he taught other dragons how to do this and it simply was not working. He had already begun to sense that raw, niggly feeling of loneliness blended with a fear of being left behind. The little dragon had been a bastard child kept on the fringe of the family as a sad, bad, reminder of what was. It felt like a nauseating black hole of an existence that made his need for security quite clear. He knew that leaving the known meant that the feeling of not being cherished, much less wanted, would return as a gripping despair, one that he felt in his mother’s womb. “Oh, what to do,” he asked, wringing his front claws. The dragon had shown up with a picture of himself as a hatchling, white and pure. I could smell the distinct scent of innocence just by looking at that picture, no matter the atmosphere of guilt that he was born from and in to. We admired this about his little self. Exempt from guilt and accusations he was innocent, even in his unwelcomed arrival, he was innocent. He had been indoctrinated into the realm of guilt and inconvenience and taken it in to be his truth. His head drooped and his voice became meek. Opportunity was the word that kept repeating in his head. He had interpreted this as a new way of being, a new life, and a new relationship, but he began to see that the opportunity was to integrate old, old feelings of being unwanted and disregarded. True to his dragon nature, he beckoned courage, trust, and willingness as his allies and met the baby dragon within, the one he saw in that photo. And he loved, loved, loved that baby, so much. This time his head bowed to the child within instead of drooped, and his voice quieted rather than being meek, and he spoke as a mighty father would, welcoming his child-self into his heart. He realized that he had rejected this part of himself just as his parents had. Rather than waiting for his parents’ approval, he gave it to himself and the freeze of shame within began to melt. This was his new limbo state, a time of welcoming and softening. This time he wiped tears from his face very gently, sharing that he usually wipes his tears away with hate and haste. What a difference; a newfound gentleness that he had time to integrate too. No hurry. He felt ready to linger in limbo, as long as it took, without a need to escape grief or hide from his hatchling history anymore. He felt like a true dragon now, strong, secure, and mature! The kid was bullied so many times as a seventh grader and up, that he crouched, cowered, and shut down in defeat. His parents tried to help by placing him in a 2-year program at a local school for the deaf; a pilot program for all kinds of ‘misfits’ as he called them. He eventually found it easier to be a misfit then to fit in at ‘regular’ school, although his math and sciences ‘tanked.’ When the two years came to pass, he dreaded the impending return to regular school, experiencing panic attacks and sleepless nights as he recognized that lingering feeling of helplessness. The bullying picked right back up and he regressed to an all too familiar state of weakness and rejection.
Years later as a married man he often felt assaulted when his wife expressed her emotions in what he called’ a more dramatic way.’ He had a more subtle emotional experience that was quite different from hers. In fact, her behavior caused him to feel impatient along with an urgency to be right, while also feeling unseen and disrespected. He could not witness his woman feeling and expressing, as her behavior seemed to rob him of a sense of order while unleashing an ancient rage. All his spiritual training reminded him that this unruly rage was inappropriate, but his body begged to differ as he efforted to maintain control. This rage felt self-centered and arrogant, and so strong that he felt ready to fight, to destroy! So, he plotted and planned, but never dared to take action. He was trapped, feeling an empty void in his upper belly like a hidden sensitivity filled with the agony of being overlooked. He questioned how to deal with this inner chaos and loss of freedom. His quest led him to Peru where he was fortuitously taken in by a Peruvian family. They gave him a plot of land so he could grow food and participate in weekly ceremonies with their family’s lineage of making ayahuascua. For this young man seeking peace, these ceremonies paradoxically offered him opportunities to meet the destroyer energy within. This archetype embodies repressed rage about structures and experiences that no longer serve life. And he was forced to meet his inner structure of rage and hurt created by the ignorance of kindness around him. The young man was led to offer space for this inner structure of sensitivity, tender and hollow. With no bypassing or hiding, this sensation had plenty to say. The strength of his quiet words was saturated with self-worthiness and the need for respect. This truth was intermingled with hurt and the full feeling of retribution, the longing for justice and the need to feel safe and treated fairly. And this allowed his whole inner structure to soften, the feeling of dominance dissipating in the energetic reality of wholeness. He could now imagine his wife expressing her own inner chaos without it triggering his own inner defense. It took welcoming, allowing, and integrating this energy fully to reconfigure the inner networking. God knows he had tried to override this in so many ways, mostly positive, just incomplete. In retrospect he remembered that his mother was a warrior, dominant, controlling, sensitive and reactive while his father was submissive, often retreating into his art. He could see that he was called to find a different way than his father had demonstrated by honoring both the helplessness and the power within. And that this pattern fully played out for resolution in the consciousness of his evolving family lineage. He could see the bigger picture and how these bullies had helped him evolve out of retreating and into the authenticity of warriorship and authority. He also understood that none of these stories were real for his true Self. That the living energetic structure of his past made living this truth challenging. He was truly intent on healing since he was often hijacked by this perception of being attacked, even when it did not exist. In truth, he understood the value of ‘waking down,’ the awakened journey into the knots and lessons of life. He was not only awake, but a hero and a warrior in his individual story here on Earth. * I offer virtual one-on-one sessions anywhere in the world. You can contact me at amulya@thebreathingspace.org The trailer was tucked in, way down and back in a holler just east of the Piney River in middle Tennessee. There were several generations of relations living in surrounding trailers that were too close for her comfort. At night the little girl would go to bed and the yelling would begin. Momma started the nightly confrontations, standing up to be seen and heard and felt and understood. And damn, it never worked, so she kept pleading, her passion mixed with a strong set of country lungs. The little girl could hear other noises too that were sharp, loud and unrecognizable.
During the day, in her best efforts, Momma was strict, religious, and full of a guilt that she spread throughout the household to maintain a sense of control and structure. In response the little girl’s body tightened into a fiery ball of tension right in the middle of her little chest. She absorbed the circulating rage in the rooms of her home with her own rage and fear, making her even more quiet and mild mannered. She never understood exactly what was happening but, as it goes, rage became her nemesis. At first, she tried yelling at her parents to stop. As you might imagine, that did not have an effect at all as Momma would shout, “stop being ugly” and “go back to bed.” The little girl fumed knowing how ugly her Momma was being. She became rebellious, especially after her Poppa left, abandoning the family when she was only eight years old. She did not know that her Poppa was an addict, that he went to jail, and that she had half sisters and brothers in the next holler over. The little girl grew into an avid fighter, happy to reveal her anger at the hint of the slightest confrontation, especially with her now ex-husband and countless other romantic partners. This landed her in jail too, one time too many, so after being released the last time she was mandated to attend an anger management class. The auto-correct she learned in that class shut down the anger in her completely. She became meek and mild once again, unable to recognize even the slightest of frustrations, secretly wishing these feelings never existed. One spring day the neighbors’ dogs escaped their fence and began to dig into her front garden. Listen, this was the one nice thing she had worked so hard to make, a nice garden. She so wanted just one nice thing to cherish. She could not have this with her own children or grandchildren, her life, her health, her work situation, so that garden was everything. She ran out the front door and started yelling. The words and intensity escaped like a bat out of hell, and she let it rip. Those dogs ran for their life, and she smiled watching them high tail it back to their own territory. It worked, but she hoped the neighbors had not seen or heard. At work, her manager forbids her to speak at the weekly meetings, mostly to protect her from the ten other men that she works with. They all ignore her, and she hates this, by God, as she has to funnel her complaints through the manager who would address the group for her. He was really trying to keep her out of trouble, but the price felt high. Quieted again. Unheard. Unseen. Unappreciated. Outraged. In the end, all she wanted was to enjoy the moment with some peace and quiet. She learned that this was only achievable if she were on her own with no one to have a confrontation with. Not a boyfriend or a housemate or her children. So, she spent her evenings making music and reading books that her children recommended, books about trauma, CPTSD, and parts work. By the time I met her she had a working vocabulary for her predicament, but still felt so trapped and doomed to live alone. Our first conversations were about how frustration can lead to anger and then to rage if unaddressed or misunderstood. Could she allow the feeling of frustration without fearing jail-time or destruction? This would take time, and skill, something she was ready for. She had never related her rage to her childhood or addressed how she must have felt as a child. But when talked about the tears began to flow. At first, she tried to suppress these as much as she did the anger, so it was a slow process toward vulnerability and learning to be gentle with her own body’s sensations and feelings. New territory. Like those dogs she would have rather yelled to keep the tears away, but she is ready to try something different. She does not think that she will ever meet a man that is kind in confrontation. But for now, she is content with figuring out that same part of herself, way down there in the hills of middle Tennessee. You may not know this, but most people have been shaken to their core. More than once. And each time this happens there is a deep freeze effect in the breathing diaphragm, muscles, and breath. This freeze causes us to think critically about what frightened us and why, often in lieu of feeling the response to the event. So, processing mentally can be a first step to healing, but is just that, only a first step. We must include the body to heal our heart.
When something happens in our life that elicits a feeling of sadness for example, and we are not comfortable with this emotion, then the effort to keep it from expressing causes a state of depression. This massive effort then creates a ripple of stress throughout the whole body. So, where does one begin? Years ago, eighteen to be exact, I had a cat named Lilla. She was only a year old when I found out that her liver was failing. I was naïve about spending money to save her life and so I paid for surgery and procedures to save her little life, but to no avail. My little Lilla had no positive prognosis, and I was sent home to be with her in the time she had left. I decided to clear my calendar for a week so that I could have time to mourn her impending death. The sadness I felt was enormous, and frankly a bit confusing, so this seemed like an interesting remedy. It started with mourning her loss and then immediately the sadness for the divorce I was going through at that time, and with each day that passed there many more un-felt losses from years past. They were very personal at first, and after these cleared there were the losses that I felt for family, humanity, women, the earth, and it just kept going. At this point I realized that I was in a relationship with sadness, not that which caused the sadness. So, I dropped all the stories and felt fully, awareness and sensation, rather than feeling and thinking about these stories which only seemed to make the stories bigger and more powerful. Sadness experienced is felt as a series of sensations in the body, so I allowed the tears, tension, warmth, and heaviness with gentle and spacious welcoming. ‘Turning toward’ I called it, a neck down exploration into the depths of sadness. After seven days of surrendering to the stored-up tank of grief, I woke up and realized that I felt empty and complete. My dear Lilla passed that day and I could grieve her with sadness and joy in my heart, a true state of remembrance. Upon reflection I also realized that my body knows exactly how to grieve. It was my mind filled with the myths of feeling that blocked this very natural process. Myths like if I feel I will be depressed, or unable to work, or lazy. But it is quite the opposite. Upon feeling, that is letting emotion, or energy-in-motion, move, I felt relief and peace. In fact, when sadness rose what I could feel best is how my body had learned to shut the grief down. A tight jaw and belly, legs pulling in, and breath held were what I could focus on to relax the effort of shutting down. From there the body is fine. Later I learned that when an emotion moves through the body in this way, it takes 90 seconds, one minute and a half, and it is complete. No emotional hangovers, or processing needed. And I could sense that in allowing this movement there were other messages to be recognized. For example, sadness is intertwined with love, anger is mixed with need, and fear can be coupled with compassion. Living from the body as the energetic constellation and system that it is naturally allows for integration and expansion - if allowed. I am so grateful to Lilla for the lessons of letting go. She gave me the opportunity for a life changing experience that I still share with people when helping them learn how to feel and integrate loss. |
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April 2024
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