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Energetic Boundaries
I honestly didn’t even know there was such a thing as energetic boundaries until I recognized the need for them in my body. This training program in which I’m currently enrolled is pushing me in ways I’ve never been pushed before, or I’m a lot more in tune and have the ability to notice more easily. Essentially the feeling is that of all (or most) of my energy leaving me and entering into the other, typically during conversation. As the other person speaks, I’m drawn into their words, feelings and situation. Sometimes it causes me angst; other times higher emotions, but always I am IN the experience — no separation between them and me. I’m in the process of catching and working with it in the moment, a task that has been difficult in the past. In fact, there are lots of parts of…
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Overcoming Accidie
Last week, I wrote about accidie. Today I’d like to offer a few resources I found for overcoming working through it. We can’t let boredom and frustration separate us from what must be done. Our task is to be faithful to the demands of daily life with an honest, open heart. (1) “Being faithful in our regular times of prayer, study, office tasks, cleaning the house, changing diapers, and other works that we may be called to do each day can seem dry and discouraging. Yet it is precisely in these quotidian tasks of life that a remedy for acedia is found. The discipline of reforming our outer activity can be a means, with God’s grace, to inner transformation.” (2) To me, this sounds a lot like a call to be in the present moment, with fervor, grace and humility. And it’s not easy in our…
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What It Feels Like
Today I thought I’d try to put words to what a dis-regulated nervous system feels like — or perhaps what it feels like to discover and regulate it. I didn’t know I had a dis-regulated nervous system until a few years ago. And I only began to understand it in the context of holistic health. I had inklings prior to this time, but didn’t have a way to access the deeper parts of myself that were keeping it stuck. Last year, I met with someone who would become a new friend, Tonya, a Vital Herbalist. She did an Astrological Ayurvedic Reading to help me uncover the root of my high blood pressure. Prior to our meeting, I suspicioned that anxiety was/is the cause of my hypertension and I was right; I just didn’t understand the full extent of it at the time. Tonya prepared…
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Accidie
I first encountered the word acedia (accidie in English) a few years ago. The definition: spiritual sloth, apathy, indifference. It gave me pause. I recognized it in myself. To me, it’s a feeling of ‘not quite right.’ Yet nothing is actually wrong either; no major catastrophe, no problem to solve, no daily issue. Just not quite right. I find the feeling a bit suffocating. And yet I know that by pushing it away, it will likely stay longer. ‘What we resist, persists,’ ya know? Here’s a little story from Richard Rohr, the Center for Action and Contemplation’s Daily Meditations: The wisdom of the desert tempers our instinct to avoid boredom and discomfort: Amma Syncletica’s (one of the desert mothers) bird metaphor speaks directly to one of the dilemmas of the spiritual life—that of coming to terms with the plain old ordinariness of spiritual practice…
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It All Has Meaning, But It Doesn’t Have to be Hard
This came to me as a mantra the other day in my discernment process. Anxiety, angst, ‘shoulding myself to death’ and frustration are clues on the spiritual journey, information to assess. And mostly it’s showing me what isn’t helpful instead of what is. While I’ve practiced embodiment for several years now, deeper layers continue to reveal themselves. Practices are how we live into who and how we want to be in the world. And what I see now is that there are many forces that wish to keep us stuck, forces that want us to be ill, disconnected … from each other, ourselves and the natural world. Healing, for me, begins with embodiment, nature, and dismantling the thought patterns that brought me here in the first place. And this paragraph from my training has been echoing in my head for the last few weeks:…
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Just Keep Swimming
Lately I’ve been thinking about all of the pivots I’ve made in my life, and the ways society (capitalism, the patriarchy) doesn’t like that. Society prefers the status quo, coloring in the lines, doing what we’ve always done. Society wants to keep us stuck. And perhaps that’s the reason for all of the pivots. I’ve seen through the lies of it for a very long time. But here’s the thing about going against the grain: it’s not easy. A lot of people won’t understand. And it can bring up a lot of fear, mental madness, questions … Am I weird? Am I alone? Am I the only one who sees the BS happening here? Contemplative practice calls us deeper into ourselves, and ultimately deeper into God. While not everything has meaning, it is our job to pay attention, and to keep going to that…
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Too Much
What is too much and how can we tell that it is too much? Society pushes a ‘no pain, no gain’ mentality onto us; ‘face the fear and go for it.’ But what if we reject this mentality? What if we reject this narrative and choose our own path? What if we listen to our bodies and the still small voice inside of us? And how, exactly, do we do this? Lots of layers are currently being shed. I’m recognizing a guilt that’s been driving me but hasn’t been serving. Why does it take so long to figure things out and when will I stop making mistakes in order to learn the lessons I need to learn? Or perhaps, I need not call them mistakes, but test runs with the Divine? Not many things in life are truly mistakes if you believe everything is…
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Harnessing Anxiety for the Good
Yesterday I had a peer group call with six others in and/or facilitating my Master’s Program. Because the program doubles as certification in Spiritual Direction (SD) and a Master’s in Pastoral Counseling (MPC), it very much asks us to get in deep contact with ourselves. I feel that I do that on the regular because of how I’m built, but I’m also seeing that I simply don’t have access to all parts of me. This isn’t new news but it continues to be graced with greater nuance. After all of the work I did last year to regulate my nervous system, I was surprised when my bodymind exhibited so much pushback at the retreat last November. I felt prepared to go. I was prepared. But after only a few days with my cohort, anxiety began to settle in. My throat chakra closed and I…
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How Human of Me
I was texting with two of my besties this morning, sharing about my angst yesterday, the sadness I was feeling. I shared because I knew they would understand, empathize without feeling sorry. See me. Hear me. Feel my story. They both did. And we talked about a few other things … These human lives of ours are so big and monumental, while also dull and inconsequential, full of every emotion possible. At times I wonder how I endure it. Other times I recognize that enduring it isn’t the point. Enduring something is not fully living it. And living is what we’re called to do. My contemplative practice has taught me so much. Nothing is good or bad. Life isn’t black and white. It just is. And in my estimation, my job is to feel it all, and to learn to live into it all…
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Relax … Trust Your Life
Documenting the journey. This is my Reflective Expression for Module Four of my Spiritual Direction Certification/Master’s of Pastoral Counseling Program … As I sit here reflecting on Module Four, tears stream down my face. So much is moving in me that is hard to articulate. The Divine has always been present in my life, more present than my own breath and the blood coursing through my veins, but for much of my life I never saw it that way. While I’ve always been spiritually inclined and attuned, at the same time something has often made me feel alone and at war with the world … ego? Throughout life, I’ve been driven to excel and I’ve often felt like it was up to me (and only me) to get where I wanted to go. I see now that God has always been directing my actions,…
