Getting Unstuck
Corona Cafe is just days away from its one-year anniversary. This is email number seventy-something. Sometimes, I worry that I’m just repeating myself. If I am, it’s not because of brain fog (though that is an ongoing issue). It’s just because I’m hopelessly human and need at least three more lifetimes to master the art of practicing what I preach.
So, I write about gratitude to open my own heart to joy. I write about presence to calm my chattering mind. I write about connecting with nature so that when I’m done typing, I’ll head outside and gaze up at the clouds rather than down at my iPhone. I write about noticing the stories we tell ourselves so that I don’t get stuck inside of mine. I write about the interplay between light and dark because both of those are ever-present realities in my life, and I don’t want to numb myself to either of them.
The point of writing this newsletter (or of reading it) isn’t to cognitively understand something new. It’s to live into something old. “The point is to live everything,” as Rilke put it.
We all have places of stuckness—places where our living hasn’t yet caught up to our knowing. Owning these sticky spots is the first and perhaps the hardest step in growing beyond them. I’ve learned that growing beyond my stuckness is not a smooth, linear process. There’s trial and error, getting up, falling down, and getting up again.
Have you ever tried to scrub sap from your hands, using just soap and water? It doesn’t work. If, on the other hand, you smear your sappy hands with peanut butter (yum!) and then add soap and water, the sap comes right off. I wonder how many different substances humans smeared on their hands before stumbling into that one. Grass, mud, jelly—it was all part of the learning, I suppose. Getting unstuck requires a willingness to make messes. It requires trying, failing, and trying again.
So, forgive my repetitions and ramblings. I’m still doing the messy work of trying to heal my body, while also accepting it exactly as it is. I’m still working on owning what’s mine, letting go of what’s not, and smoothing the sharp edges of that process with self-compassion (and the occasional spoonful of peanut butter). I’m still living into my knowing. Thank you for being with me on this topsy-turvy, inside-out journey!
What’s feeling sticky, messy, or difficult for you right now?
Gassho, has a completely different meaning that what it was first presented to me as, which was, my heart sees your heart. Your writing regularly reminds me of the concept though as you wholly open yourself to others. Regardless of the message every Friday I see love dripping from the page, certainly it is mixed with anger, fear, and a touch or two of brain fog, but in the giving of yourself, those ideas become transformed for others. And of course there will be repeated lessons, those are part of life. They help to remind us that healing isn't linear and that we need to be reminded of things.
A year gosh. I remember that first post and the yoga stretches you encouraged us to do. It was a lifesaver for me. I’m still striving to recover ( as are you). What will the next year bring. Life ( however it is) for the living. Thankyou.