It’s 7 a.m. on a Tuesday morning, and both the heat and the sun meet me with some intensity as I start to write. I am thinking about the past few days, weeks, and even months, which have been full of life. There have been many moments of insight, where intellectual and conceptual knowledge drop into embodied and experiential understanding. These moments are surrounded by contradictory felt senses. In the same moment that I feel lost and confused, there is a larger aspect of me that helps me to know and be at peace with the disorientation and anxiousness.
Life, lately, has felt unusual for me, yet something incredibly alive and well is present. I say unusual because I’m coming into greater awareness that the circumstances of my outer world are just pressing play on the drama that lives in my inner world. This awareness shows me that it is not the external circumstances calling for my attention and presence, but the child within asking for me to re-orient and re-organize stuck past into a healed present. I say alive and well because I know this kind of transformation can only happen in the tangible presence of safety and health.
This has been a time of incredible evolution catalyzed by moments of revisiting painful aspects of the past and supported by a vast and encompassing stillness. I’m learning the meaning of “still waters run deep”. This stillness is a container that is currently larger than my own capacity and representative of the ways this growth is expanding me.
Every present moment gifts us the opportunity to grow into the person we pray or long to be and have connection with. In these moments, we can be who we used to be, or we can bring to life the version of us we hope to exist but does not yet.
These moments of growth contain so much life. There is fear: fear of the unknown, fear of failure, fear of being or becoming different—different than I used to be, different than people may expect me to be, different than I know myself to be. There is courage: courage to step into unknown space, courage to be curious, and take responsibility in co-creating with life. There is a required commitment and devotion of me in order to bring forth and birth more of me into life. Along the way there are often profound moments of “regrief”--simultaneous relief and grief. This regrief seems to happen as a result of shedding bits of frozen past that have no more use. Relief that I am carrying less of the painful past with me and grief that I carried it for so long unknowingly. Relief in being able to move through processes with gentleness and compassion for what happened, rather than self-blame and shame. Grief for all the time spent in ignorance and blindness that opens to me a clearer understanding of past experiences. Holding and allowing all of this is a deep well of grace that continues to expand as my relief and grief come in bigger waves before settling into a quieter stillness. It is within that graceful stillness that I come into contact with humility and sincerity that soften my edges of perfectionistic ideals. In that is freedom.
As various ancient wisdom traditions have taught and eluded to, this is a journey into the emotional body. With in the emotional body are all the experiences and conditioning received by the inner child. We often hold on to these experiences and scripts because we didn’t have what we needed to be able to digest those moments in that time. As we learn to observe our defensive and protective egos, while turning towards what encourages the opening and movement into the deepest layers of our heart and surrender, we open ourselves new possibility and may come into contact what previously felt just out of reach.
As I guide myself in and through the re-processing of these past moments, I come into profound gratitude for the wisdom and incredible strength of how my inner child and body shifted and shaped to hold those moments. Over the years of taking these journeys, I have come to see suffering endured as opportunity from which I can emerge with greater kindness, tenderness, and receptivity. I have come to see them as moments of diving for light. I understand that without my inner child and body holding onto those past moments, there would have been no material to dive into. As present-time me has more orientation to healed aspects of self and an expanded container to hold and digest those past moments I become more of the me that is alive as my inner child and was only temporarily covered or shadowed by the hurt of the past. This enables to me more confidently know and become the essence of my soul. With each process, as the layers of ignorance are washed away, I am more of my true nature: fierce, wise, soft, generous, patient, joyful, and peaceful.
Through these processes I become more authentic and refined. I more fully trust in myself and life as a co-conspirators to support my expansion, which brings me into contact with more of my soul. Many times, those dives have required swimming through some of the treacherous and dark waters of our shared collective trauma and legacies in order to find, remember, and reorganize around the light that always existed within. As I live more soulfully, I get to experience the wonder and beauty of receiving more of what life has to offer and extend that back out to the world around me.
This metamorphosis comes with deeper self knowledge, intertwined connection to our human collective, and heartfelt attunement to the pain and suffering that are an integral part of our reflective and intelligent universe.
“Both shadow and light are the dance of love.” - Rumi
I am taking every opportunity to lean deeper into the inner work and understand myself and the world in completely new and different ways. While the journey is different every time, one thing that continues to remain the same is: I don’t know what will happen, but I do know that as I continue to follow the subtle call of my soul from the warmth, softness, and slowness of my heart, I continue to move towards more freedom, truer clarity about the past, and the purest of peace.
One of the rewards for me of this work is that as I continue to grow and expand to hold more life: shadow and light, I have abundantly more space to hold with people and the material of their inner worlds. As you feel yourself ready to embrace change and move towards the scary, unknown, and painful parts of you, know that I cheer you on and would be honored to offer guidance and support so that you, too, can experience the freedom that is birthed from grieving while being held in deeply compassionate space.
I look forward to hearing from you and staying in touch!
A few ways to keep in touch:
Embodied: A Yoga and Sound Journey Experience
This group will be co-led by myself and Paula Scatoloni. Class is virtual and will start in August! Follow the link for more information: Embodied: Step into Your Self Event
Embodied: Step into You
A podcast where co-host Paula Scatoloni and I highlight key concepts from psychology, somatics, neuroscience, sound, movement, spirituality, and portals towards healing through grounded and relatable personal stories. Launching late July.
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