Healing

Good morning. Wishing you all a lovely Friday! I haven’t posted in a while on here. I have been focusing my energy on several different projects, a few of them within the writing realm. I also have been very consumed by my job as a mental health therapist. It’s probably not a a shock but demand for mental health services are at an all time high. In the fifteen years or so that I’ve been in the field, I have never seen such a demand for services. That demand, the times we are living in, and other things have really forced me to develop a self-care routine, in a way that was never quite ‘demanded’ as before. It has become a necessity. The demand has been higher to provide services in practice, so I’m seeing a lot more people and many of the individuals are ‘more in need,’ or ‘presenting as more chronic/acute than before.’ Writing has always been an integral part of my self-care routine. I’ve written about that before. I’ll be honest, I had to pull back for a bit too. I have been fairly honest about writing about things I struggle with and one of those things is ‘perfectionism,’ in terms of needing to ‘doing and producing.’ When I was going to school for writing, my professor asked one day in writing workshop, “Where do you plug yourself in?” because I always had a ‘new piece” I was working on. I was able to do that then. Especially over the last year or two, as work has become more intense, I’ve had to find time to actually cultivate a practice of meditation, grounding, etc., so I can take care of myself. I am still writing, but I also needed to step back and be ok with allowing myself to ‘not produce anything.’ I found myself in this space of feeling like I always needed to be ‘giving,’ ‘producing,’ ‘moving,’ etc. It was not healthy. It also started to take joy out of things I’ve always loved. When I sit down to write now, it’s because I need to or because I want to. I’ve sort of allowed the muses to guide me. They have always been persistent at times, and I love that. They always will be. I am learning that when they come, if I’m not able to be there, I capture the essence of what wants to be said and go back to it. It works most of the time. There are times things slip away, and I’ve had to become ok with that. There are still moments when they press, and when they are insistent, I find time to give space because typically it’s something very important that I need to work with or get out. That aside, these are challenging times. The energy is shifting. People are unsettled in many ways. It’s more important than ever to stay grounded, believe in our innate kindness, take care of one another, and practice self-compassion. This is a challenging period. We need to have compassion for ourselves and for each other. This morning I was exhausted and it took so much discipline to get up and do my meditation practice at four in the morning, yet something inside me acknowledged I was tired and said, ‘and you’ll be thankful later today you did.’ My practice in the morning, I believe, allows me a time to to inward, to be still, and that then reverberates throughout the day. If I start my day with self-compassion and thoughts of love and healing toward myself and others, that changes the way I interact with the world throughout the day. We are all connected. When we show greater self-compassion, we are able to give more compassion to others. Hopefully, they are then able to give more compassion and the energy begins to move. I got out of bed. I did my meditation. Throughout it today, I kept being directed back to this poem I wrote. I don’t know why. It was just very clear to me that I should take the time this morning and post this poem. The poem is called “Healing.” I had no intent to put it on here today, but something just continued to ‘tell me to do this.” I felt it so strongly that I was not going to argue. I guess take it as you will.. I’m not sure why today, but the energy was strong. It was strong enough to make me remember this poem. I had to go look for it, so I’m putting it out there to share today with hope whether you like the poem or not that you practice some self-compassion today. These are hard times. We need to continue to be kind to ourselves and others. Sending you lots of light and love today!

Healing

Make yourself vulnerable to joy.
It’s a quick emotion, the sun falling
& warming a cheek, a passionate yessss.
Eating citrus on a warm river rock. Allow inclinations
of hope to blow through the window screams of soul.
Send out smiles, hugs, music back through
that open window for the whole world to enjoy.
Don’t forget.. in times of despair pines still sing,
children still grab grass blades with squeamish delight. We
rest our heads on pillows fluffed by our journeys &
reminisce about panoramic silences, those
twang of gut reactions that make you brave,
the cloud shapes shifted to perplex. Don’t forget
the lights upon a distant river flickering the muscles
Of all the disjointed hero’s in its flexing.
When touched, most things sing in some way. We must
remain eyebright and not become reticent when a flashlight is shone
into the pupils of time. We must resist the submissive factory feeling
and sew our hearts on our sleeves. Remember,
cities do not melt if compassion is there to provide a breeze
when hearts are a blaze with firehoses of hopefulness
& festivals of kindness. All around us is magic,
we could say, “I dreamt this up.’ Still, even the things
Impossible to be dreamt would insist the world
will always find a way to prove how alive we are. We must
continue to make ourselves vulnerable to joy. Infect it.
It’s a quick spark to our vast emotional fields.
Remember though, a spark is fire,
even by the teaspoon. The more we add,
the more we spread. That pinch of joy
has the power to change landscapes, ecosystems,
planets. Ignite that spark of joy, of hope;
we never know who’s world needs some change.