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A song I’m loving:

This morning, I feel my young self trying to take over my current self. Before I remember who I am now, I forget I’m not a helpless infant. I feel her terror as I practice keeping my heart open, as I practice being fully here, as I practice letting love in and letting love pour out, as I practice softening and softening and softening more. There is so much pain and beauty to reckon with, to tend to, to process, to stay with. It takes so much practice sometimes, softening and allowing it all.

I feel her begging me, “come back into hiding with me. Please, put the shell back on. Please, don’t step too far out into the world. It will hurt too much. Please, keep the hurt out. Please, keep us safe. Retreat. Burrow. Tuck back in.” My throat hardens as I type this — the protectors that have built a home within me trying so hard to do their job, working overtime, so used to being on duty 24/7 that to rest still feels unfamiliar, unsafe, impossible. “Please, stay curled up. You’re safe there. Please, let the protectors keep working, keep guard, stand around the walls that keep pain from your heart.” She’s desperate now.

I swallow, let some air through, let the right side of my throat soften just enough for my breath to reach my belly instead of my chest. I’m afraid to open, afraid to move forward with less protection, afraid to let the armor fall. When I pause, though, I remember it isn’t me who’s afraid — it’s her, the helpless and heartbroken child part of me, the one who was dizzy with unmet grief, the one who was misunderstood, the one who didn’t know how to fully be here. And I get to help her remember we’re safe now.

“Look at all the hurt in the world. Remember the ways you’ve extended your heart and been betrayed? Remember the ache that widens when you give yourself over to what’s here? It’s so much easier to just stay closed. Come back in here with me.” My younger part’s voice often shakes, is higher-pitched, wobbly, nervous.

I pause and put one hand on each of my cheeks, feeling the quiver of my jaw underneath the pressure of my palms. I take a slow inhale through the nose, pause at the top, and let it out slowly through pursed lips. I smell the scent of the rosemary my husband put in a small bud vase on the table, blooming purple. My quivering jaw slows alongside my breath. I’ve got you, I say.

I’ve got you.
I’ve got you.
I’ve got you.

We can be with the hurt that will inevitably come together. I can withstand the discomfort of staying open. I can choose to protect myself when I actually need protection. I know what we need now — I know how to take care of us now — I’m an adult now. I’ve got us. I’ve got you. We’re safe now. I promise you, we’re safe now.

I start to sob now. Not because of sadness, but because of relief. Not because the fear I’ve long held in my body might ever magically disappear, but because it feels like a gift to know how to meet it now. Not because it’s all better, but because I’m here for it all — with loving presence, with a gentle reverence, with the patience of a mother, with the kind of presence and attunement my terrified parts have always needed.

I want to stay awake and open to love, including my own. The more I practice tending to the parts of me that are still afraid, still depressed, still stuck in grief, still unsure of whether or not they can unfurl in such a chaotic and uncertain world, I remember the amount of love and care I have to pour. I remember I can start within, start from the center, start from my own generous heart. I remember it is so often my own warm embrace I’m longing for, the one that doesn’t replace another but that does nurture the aloneness those parts of me often felt. I remember a warm hand on my face softens my jaw so much more than insisting it into submission does. I remember I get to practice this way of being with myself for a lifetime, imperfectly and messily and tenderly.

I want to stay awake and open to the world, to all it hurls at us, to all it asks us to witness and heal. I know in order to do this, I must first awaken to my own inner world, bear witness to the rage and terror and sorrow continually asking for my own loving attention, stay with the all-ness of truly being here. I see the ways it’s all cyclical, the ways we belong both to ourselves and to every other being sharing the air we breathe. I see the ways my ability to be with what’s happening outside of me widens the more I learn to stay with what’s happening inside me. I see the ways staying open to my own hurt allows me to more clearly see the hurt stemming from so many unmet layers of protection, so much unmet pain, so much untended fear. I see the way it starts close in, so I start there, too, again and again.

The work you do to tend to your own inner world, your ignited fear, your layered hurt, your overflowing joy… all of it is in service to the web of life you’re a part of. The time you spend nurturing your own softening heart will add to the nurturance our world is begging us for. The devotion you hold for letting your own body move through the muck and gunk in order to get to the truth is a gift in a world so afraid of being with the truth. The attention you give to your own aches is also attention given to the aches of the world, you being part of it, you being of it, you being alive alongside it.

It is no small thing to stay awake to love within yourself, to stay awake to love within the world, all the while knowing it also means staying awake to the hurt. May we remember we are rivers, forests, oceans, the entire sky, able to hold it all when we let it move, let it flow, let it be. May we thank ourselves for doing so, knowing it is a starting place for so much more healing to unfold.

Thank you, as always, for being here.

*all photos taken in 2023, during my stay at Salmon Creek Farm

No links today — just an invitation to let your mind rest, to let yourself daydream, to be with boredom, to reengage with what you’ve already taken in, to befriend silence, to notice what surrounds you, to perhaps listen to your own heartbeat instead of another podcast, to perhaps stretch your arms up to the sky and out to the side, to watch the way the sun changes the colors of the flowers and plants outside, to watch the way your body responds when you allow yourself to take in less today. Or just ignore this, if it doesn’t feel like it’s for you :)

With care,
Lisa

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