I want to work together with my nervous system, my heart and my body, not against them. I want to let them guide me to what needs to decay and to how we can grow from the enrichment and space the decay and compost will create. I do not want to work out ways in which to shut down the voice of my animal body so I can carry on living in ways that do not serve my integrity.
As many of you know, I’m experiencing some health issues that are calling for a change in some of the ways I live.
I’m looking at what creates stress, how I’m living that may be out of integrity and what I can explore that can help my body to soften and ease, as well as how I can reach even further inside me and gently hold those old old wounds, that with growth and age, I now see from another perspective which invites anew kind of journey.
I sometimes forget, that just as I need to generally maintain a diet that is healthy and nourishing, so too do I need to maintain practises and ways of living that also nourish me, rather than one off jobs.
Looking back, I have realised that my body has always been a real talker, letting me know in sensations and pain, as well as in feelings and pictures; how the world around is affecting me.
I wasn’t taught to listen as a child, being taught instead that stress had nothing to do with the physical body and that the body didn’t reveal anything to us about our stress and environment.
Any emotion or feeling that was other than fine, was to be squashed.
And now I’m listening with great intent, for me this is a radical change from thinking that listening to my body and admitting any weakness would put me in danger.
Im not saying all my recent health issues are purely stress, but I can see how they have been triggered by it, and how aspects of my body have grown to respond strongly to living outside of my integrity.
And so along with other things, I’m assessing my life, looking at my nervous system, looking at what is triggering old wounds and where I need to plant some medicine seeds deep into the fabric of me.
I have come to realise that I cannot approach what is happening with the mindset of fixing me or of patching over things so I can carry on in the same way.
Nor do I want to use something like mindfulness or some other technique to try to still the voice that is trying to show me that something is wrong or show me where I need to change, compost and alchemise.
Im not saying that mindfulness is bad, but like all things, there are some good mindfulness and as far as I can see, some bad, there is a lot of mindfulness out there, that has an air of spiritual bypassing, that is seen or used as a pill to help people carry on in a life that isn’t working. And, there is a lot of amazing mindfulness out there and some of my dearest friends and colleagues are amazing mindfulness teachers that bring you a sense of care and kindness to our bodies and our experiences.
Like all things, we have to be careful how we use it.
Spring will come with its long light and lessons, of how we need some seasons of darkness in order to bloom. It will arrive one morning and drench everything anew. - Emory Hall
I want to be guided my what’s happening, I want to work with my nervous system, my heart and my body, so together, we move into a life that helps us to thrive rather than work out how to shut myself up so I can carry on living in ways that don’t serve me.
In the crumpled and sore ways in which I feel lately, Im aware even more how the earth supports each step I take, and the beauty of my more than human kin.
Knowing everything is alive and full of wild soul makes me smile. I always enjoy and love everything I see in the natural world, and now, its even more colourful and bright; the blue tits, robins and wood pigeons nesting in my garden, the bees beginning to drowsily buzz through, the awakening of hedgehogs and the unfurling of green medicine, the tangle of silver webs, the dawn chorus and the ravens goodnight chatter feeds my life force and softens me in ways that make me smile.
Reminding me of what I wish to move even more towards.
Sending you much warmth and wild beauty and health
Brigit x
SEEDS AND SPORES Relating to the above, are below……
The journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice –
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
“Mend my life!”
each voice cried.
But you didn’t stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do –
determined to save
the only life you could save.- Mary Oliver
Wishing you healing, Anna. I have just come through my own small ordeal, I will wait for the three month follow up before I look into things more deeply. Now I just need to rest, and be. Your words and thoughts are lovely, and comforting. I particularly liked the Mary Oliver poem. 💕
Hi Brigit, thankyou so much for sharing this today. As always, I feel like you speak my mind and heart - and the body I also need to listen to. I am currently trying to manage another episode of what I’ve come to call depression over the last 40+ years and wondering if there is another way of understanding it. I love what you’ve said about letting go of strategies which only served to shut up the messages we needed to hear but ignored, in favour of living a life which wasn’t true to us. That really resonates with me. I’m off into the hills to let it percolate.
Thankyou and I wish you well with whatever it is you’re dealing with ❤️