05 Jan Everything Changed In A Moment….
This week, I have heard this phrase a number of times, “Everything changed in a moment….”
One person was talking about how a moment in the past violently shattered her understanding of the world. Another person was talking about this present moment, this past week, these past couple days when life changed in a flash.
I’m sitting with the experience of what that’s like to have life shift so radically. How stunned we are when that happens. How everything shifts in accordance.
Dealing with the two realities is different.
When we’re working internally with parts of us that are stuck in the past we need to bring compassion and kindness to the fore. We need to learn to suffuse ourselves with loving kindness, to listen deeply to the emerging stories held deeply in the past.
We need to be able to witness with utter kindness the sequestered pain, gently allowing it to be freed up.
Then there are the other times, when we need to be able to be with ourselves in a different way.
When the “s*storm” happens in the here and now, our world is upended. We scramble to deal with life using the same strategies we’ve used in the past. Problem is, with this rupture in our patterns those old strategies don’t work in the same way.
Today I worked with someone whose life altered yesterday in a huge way. This person (I’ll call Marietta) has a big heart, a genuine kindness she bestows on others.
Thing is, though, with this new cataclysmic event, she needs to find her power. Her old patterns, as authentic and powerful as they are, aren’t working in the middle of this kind of chaos.
Instead of opening her heart, finding compassion, I had her stand up, face me, and push me across the room. I watched her struggle, her body caving in the face of that kind of personal power.
I pushed her to look at me instead of looking down. “Feel the energy in your belly, your spine. Stay here!” I keep focusing her to be here, be here in her power, not to collapse.
A few minutes of that, struggling as she was, had her emerge more grounded, more solid in her eyes.
Sometimes we absolutely need to have that kind of strength that doesn’t let us get pushed around. Sometimes we need the power of love, of kindness.
When we have the capacity to choose how to be in the world is when we have some freedom.
May we all be free from the patterns that bind us.
May our hearts find rest even in the midst of utter chaos.