Take A Step

I’m seeing a new healer and he’s spoken to me about being more embodied. I thought of myself as pretty in my body, however the more we talked about it and dove deeper into it; the more I realized he was right. I am in my body, but I’m not all the way in.

There are multiple reasons we leave our body; wholly, partially, for a short time, for a long time. Here are two of the reasons I left mine and maybe you can relate. I have experienced trauma and therefore decided somewhere in my subconscious that it’s not safe to be in my body. There is chronic pain and whelm there as a result. And while I drop in and out to try to process and move through; full time occupation feels like too much. The other reason is why I created the workshop Tools For Being Human: Empath Ed. It’s an interesting time we live in.

In a lot of ways we need people to be more empathic. To recognize that we’re all one. To stop polarizing and isolating; judging and blaming the other side. We need people to expand the love they have; to recognize that put in the same circumstances with the same tools at their disposal that they too might make the same decisions. To realize that every time we point our finger out we’re recognizing our own shadows. To have compassion, to build bridges. To start conversations and allow for people to learn and grow rather than just call each other out and divide ourselves further. To soften rather than simply sitting all too comfortably in their rage.

And also for those of us who are empathic and sensitive by nature; it is a tough time to have so much awareness.

I don’t watch the news for the most part because I can get so overwhelmed with sadness and anger. I feel helpless to create change and fearful of where the world is heading. I want to bury myself in a pile of duvets and never get out of bed. I can lose sight of the small part I play in the world; in healing myself so that she can be healed, in helping to guide others to find their own healing. Even though I believe in what I do deeply when I look at what we’re doing to each other, what we’re doing to Mother Earth I can easily get lost at sea.

The other night my partner and I were driving home and he stopped mid sentence at the look on my face. He asked me what was wrong and I nearly started crying pointing out all the trash on the sidewalk someone had just dumped. He pulled the car over and we got out and picked it all up. It felt so good to DO something. It made my feelings more manageable and I felt useful in a different kind of way. I decided I wanted to do that more often and I have supplies in the back of my car now to do so.

All we can do is take steps. Actionable steps to help ourselves, others and the planet. Those steps are powerful. They build on each other. Steps back into our bodies, building safety. Steps toward looking at the things we want to turn away from. Peeling back layers of conditioning so we can step toward our more authentic whole self. Steps toward our dreams even when they feel far away. Steps toward choosing love over being right. A small act of kindness. A shift in perspective. A gentle opening rather than contracting.

On days when it feels like too much don’t look at the long game; just take a step. An actual doing that moves you toward the life you want to create, the person you want to be. Something for the world you want to leave behind. Courage is having fear and doing it anyway. And that somehow feels resonate here. We all have the ability to choose. To do. And you never know when your small doing is enough to move the needle.

The Weight Of a Snowflake

By Joseph Jaworski

“Tell me the weight of a snowflake", said the robin to the dove. 

“Why, it weighs nothing at all,” replied the dove. 

“In that case,” the robin went on, “I must tell you a marvelous story. I was sitting on a branch of a fir tree, close to its trunk,” the robin began, “when snow began to fall...not heavily, not in a raging blizzard, no just like a dream without any violence. Since I did not have anything better to do, I counted the snowflakes settling on the needles and twigs of my branch. I reached the number 3,741,952. Then when the 3,741,953 snowflake dropped onto the branch weighing nothing as you say, the branch suddenly broke off.”

With that the robin flew away. 

The dove thought about the story and said to herself, “I sometimes think that all my efforts and the little I can do make no difference. We might think they are nothing at all, but if we put all our efforts together, great things are possible.”

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