Portals to Possibility

In a difficult moment, sometimes something opens unexpectedly.  What a blessing this can be.  Not that the difficult experience is necessarily a blessing.  It may or may not be.  However, the opening – the discovery of a portal to possibility – can be a blessing.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In hurt moments we often feel compressed.  Maybe we have hurt feelings or experience a disconnection in one way or another. Whatever the situation, we might feel sadness, fear, anger, shame, or some combination.   If we have an embodiment practice, we might notice stress arising somatically – a tightening somewhere such as the chest, belly, or back. Perhaps we become numb to our emotions or sensations.  We might notice stress in our thinking: either the pace of thinking might pick up, seem internally louder, or the content of our thoughts might feel distressing.  

A powerful contemplation to try on, is:  How do I treat myself when I feel stressed or hurt? 

These internal experiences are a part of the human experience.  Recognizing when we’re stressed is an important step towards discovering how to become responsive to our experience.  Being responsive to our stress does not imply figuring it out alone:  sometimes responsiveness means realizing we need support.   

It feels important to me to acknowledge that the situations I am writing about are within a context of privilege.  For those who are in dangerous situations right now, whether that’s interpersonal, systemically oppressive, in a collective situation like a war or other ongoing emergency, the space to reflect may be much more limited or not possible at all.  

This awareness of our state of stress itself can create an opening.  We often have habitual ways of coping with stress or feelings we find difficult.  These strategies may have been around a long time; perhaps since childhood, or they might even be ancestral patterns.  Stress responses tend to operate under our conscious awareness.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  Whatever our coping strategies are, they are part of how we made it to this moment.  And what worked for us in the past may not necessarily be how we’d like to consciously choose to respond to stress going forward.  

Pausing to consciously acknowledge our stressful state may help us shift gears and make more contact with our felt experience.  When we have the capacity to compassionately and curiously turn towards how we are in our bodies, breathing, and emotions, we deepen self-contact.  We can potentially learn something about how the sacred life force is moving / not moving through us in that moment.  Shifting our orientation towards our experience can create the possibility of discovery and inner restoration.   What was stuck can move.  What was hidden can come into the light of presence.  What was hurt can be tended to.  What was too much can gradually be included and integrated.  What we've held alone can begin to be shared.  When more of us is included in our wholeness, more becomes possible for us.  

Changing Perspective - A Story of an Ant & the Sky

When I was about 12, in the summertime I liked to bring my Barbie dolls into the large backyard where my family lived in Oklahoma, and play pretend.  One day, after some time, I got tired of the dolls and became fascinated with an ant crawling in the grass.  I put the dolls down and laid down on my belly to get a closer look at the ant.  The ant and the blade of grass the ant was crawling up and down looked very small.  But when I got closer, it was as if a whole other world opened up around me. 

What must the world look like from the ant's perspective, I wondered.

The very same small blade of grass and mound of dirt seemed much bigger.  I imagined what it might feel like to be an ant, to walk like an ant walks vertically up and down a blade of grass, among many other blades of grass, each many times bigger than I was. I could feel the cool blade of grass beneath my feet, and the warm sun on my back. The air around me moving gently.  It all seemed quite natural and secure to the ant, who continued to move steadily in the direction it was going.  The mound of ground which included all those blades of grass seemed huge.  The distance from where we were to the fenceline, to the house, seemed very far away.  If I were an ant, it would be a lot of work to travel that far.  And the sky...

I rolled over to look at the sky.  The sky, and the vista of space all around us -- me, and the ant, and the blade of grass -- seemed incredibly vast.  I lost track of time, and began to wonder what it would be like to be a cloud.  

What a blissful day it was.  What a feeling of belonging and connection in my environment.  

This experience I had imagining I was an ant opened something in me - a felt sense of interconnection with access to feel the ant and the blade of grass and the cloud and the sky as a part of me, and that I am also a part of.  That was a gift - that was grace.  

Opening our perspective to new vistas that we can experience in our bodies can feel that way - like opening to a whole new world.  

These days, one of the ways I work with people is helping them shift their consciousness.  While there can be complexity to creating conscious shifts mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and relationally, there can also be a kind of simplicity to it with attuned presence.  

I'm grateful for the privilege I had to be free from danger, safe, and with a yard just beyond my back door surrounded by a quiet neighborhood where I could imagine and wonder and just be.  I'm aware not everyone grows up with that kind of access.  

And wherever we are, whatever state of consciousness we currently inhabit, and whatever our background, shifts are possible.  Like the ant, we start where we are. 

What if

What if...

we were here to regulate our nervous systems and expand our nervous system capacity?
   self regulation
   relational regulation
   we-regulation

we were here to heal?
   self healing
   relational healing
   ancestral healing
   collective healing

we were here to restore wholeness and connection
with ourselves,
in our families and communities,
in the natural world with humans and non-humans alike?

what if...

we were allies in learning, relating, restoring and co-creating
   even with those of us who don't believe we are, and
   even with those who are actively promoting division?

what if...

we can breathe together,
be together in curiosity and compassion?

we can move together,
shake together,
cry together,
laugh together,
feel together,
take action together?

what if...

we knew the state of our nervous systems structure our experience and perspective from moment to moment?

we learned that we can take care of our own nervous systems?

we contribute to the well-being of others' nervous systems?

we actively built nervous system coherence in the groups we already are a part of?

I wonder how that would be, and what would become possible.

The Heart's Gift: A Never Alone Story Inspired by Ancient Wisdom

 

The Heart’s Gift

A Never Alone Story Inspired by Ancient Wisdom

Once upon a time in a mystical, magical place there was a lake.  It was a huge lake, still and beautiful and deep.  In it were many treasures and mysteries.  At first look, some seemed scary and mysterious and menacing.

Upon a closer look, it became apparent that there was a great root – a great stem – that emerged from the mud under the very center of that still, deep lake.  That great, long stem bloomed into the most beautiful lotus flower that anyone had ever seen.

When people saw that flower in a dream, or in their mind’s eye, or in their hearts, they began to sing or dance or hum or play.  Sometimes they would run to give someone a hug or begin to spontaneously tickle someone nearby or play hide and seek or laugh out loud.

The flower was so beautiful some people even cried when they saw it.

One day a swan heard about that beautiful lotus flower and appeared on the lake to take a look. The swan and the lotus flower were happy to see each other!  The swan’s eyes reflected the beautiful lotus flower, and the lotus flower began to smell more wonderful than it already did.  The swan wanted to share his* happiness with someone else. She looked into the lotus flower and out came another swan, serene and diving.  “I am here with you,” said the swan.  “I have always been here with you even when you couldn’t see me.”  The first swan was so happy and grateful, she cried tears of joy.  Each swan looked into the other swan’s eyes.  They were seeing through eyes of love.

They swam in the deep, still lake.  They drank nectar from the beautiful lotus flower.  And they looked at each other with eyes of love.

They were never apart again.  To this day, those two swans are in that lake together.

They enjoy the lovely treasures within the lake.  Together, the treasures aren’t scary or menacing at all.  Some things are still mysterious though. 

When you are really quiet and still and hear your heart beating and feel yourself breathing in, breathing out, you might discover the swans’ presence and love right here, in your very own heart. 

*Pronouns include masculine and feminine deliberately, to indicate inclusivity.

Story by Rhonda Mills, Inspired by the Saundaryalahari – Verse 38

(c) All rights reserved. 2010

Responding to Fear is Love & the Most Important Step

The most important step is the one beneath our feet. 

I love growth and evolutionary processes.  I named my business Transformation Playground because I like remembering that there are a multitude of ways to return home to ourselves, restore, discover, transform, create and connect.  I like remembering that transforming can be playful!

And, sometimes I get impatient and want to have a different experience, be further along in my journey, or for other people to be different.  In the moments I am not accepting and inhabiting where and how I am right here, right now, fear is present. 

Fear is a big deal, and must be met, felt, respected, and responded to.  Suppressed fear fragments perception and diminishes possibilities and presence.  Another way to say it is, suppressed fear creates absence, and when we are absent, we turn away from connecting to what is.  

Fear is an emotion which provides an important developmental, evolutionary function -- protection and connection.  In early life, when we've crawled or walked as far from our caregivers as we're ready to, fear calls us to reconnect and return to the lap of our caregiver.

As adults, when we're not aware that we're afraid, we can't respond appropriately as it's hard to respond to something we're not directly aware of.  Also, when we're not aware that we are afraid, our capacity for discernment about what's happening in and around us is reduced -- increasing our vulnerability to manipulation or danger. Depending on how our nervous systems cope with fear, we may shut down, avoid what we need to face, or become reactive and more prone to fighting and violence. 

It's important to acknowledge that fear-related trauma responses such as numbing, avoiding, freezing, and shutting down part of our nervous system are intelligent functions to put aside what we are unable to deal with in the moment.  Our nervous systems have evolved to allow us the capacity to hold unprocessed fear until we have the space and support to allow it to move through.  This is amazing!  Seen through this context, the trauma response is not a problem, it's a gift.  (I want to make clear that I'm not saying that whatever caused the trauma was a gift.  Violence, war, racism, neglect, absence, environmental abuse, genocides, abuses of power, etc. are manifestations of separation which must be attended to and restored individually, collectively and globally.)

Seen in this context, fear is not the opposite of love.  Fear is an emotion which is an expression of love:  an emotion of connection and returning home to ourselves.  

Life Dances Through Us - How can we participate with that movement?

Life is a dance.

It might be more accurate to say life dances.  Dance isn't something we do.  Dance is something we are.

When we dance, we connect with a field of movement.  We don't just move, we can connect with the fundamental way life moves, births, blooms, changes, dies, transforms, pauses, pulses, creates, discovers, and blooms again.

We aren't the first to dance, and we won't be the last.  Even if humanity extinguishes itself, life will still be dancing on this planet.

A favorite contemplative wondering is:  How can I join the dance of my own body, my own heart, my own calling, my own life?

When we align with life in that way, we can co-create tectonic shifts in our lives and world.

The Body and Consciousness

As you may have noticed, the human mind tends to get in ruts, and to repeat itself. We can see this in the way that our patterns (some of them not so pleasant) tend to repeat in our lives. Many people utilize affirmations as a way to change, or attempt to change, these patterns that are not helpful.

In my experience, affirmations can be helpful. However, for me, affirmations have not been the most helpful way to create deep and lasting change. That is because, according to yoga, the spoken word affects only the conscious mind, and not the subconscious and unconscious, which is where these deep patterns (known as samskaras in sanskrit) actually reside.

When we want to make changes at this deeper level, there are several ways we may go about that. Some ways are yoga nidra, a very deep form of relaxation, which is what yogis practice, and which is why some yoga masters actually need very little sleep. Other more modern ways to access this deeper mind include 'morning pages' or stream of consciousness writing, which I learned about in the book The Artist's Way. There are very effective manifestation practices which exist in Tantric Yoga, some of which I have learned from my teacher Yogarupa Rod Stryker, which can be learned from someone initiated in this lineage. There is also the practice of writing your affirmation, followed by writing what thoughts immediately come to mind following that (which is your unconscious mind's way of telling you what you really currently believe), and which can start to dissolve, simply by your witnessing it. There are also practices involving art, and writing with your non-dominant hand. NVC, one of my passions, also includes processes to shift these deep patterns, or core beliefs.

My favorite, fun, quick and profound way to experience, feel, and shift deep patterns, is through movement. Gay & Kathlyn Hendricks have developed some ways to use natural body language and body gestures to help us uncover unconscious messages which surface, moment to moment. With this awareness, there are several oh-so-simple techniques, involving the body and breath, to shift to an experience of Essence (or is-ness, freedom from ego). They are so simple that I have shared them with my children, as play. Today, using these simple shifts, I played with my ex-husband, whom - if you know me well - you may know I have not played with in a very long time. I celebrate using this play to shift some patterns that I have been stuck in for over twenty years! I'd love to share it with you -- to learn more about what I'm doing with this work, contact me.