What would you change if you were in charge of the world?

I would give everyone safe housing, food, and a well-regulated nervous system so we wouldn’t be ruled by our primitive brain and fight/ flight/ freeze survival strategies

Systemic oppression would disappear along with greed, objectification and exploitation

It is safe to get to know yourself and welcome your whole being into awareness. Hmm. Is this true in your experience? It can be!

We learn about trauma and what gets in the way of being on our own side. We explore gently caring for and nurturing ourselves. We’re healing the disconnection that comes from past hurt, and we’re discovering that in fact we can inquire into and welcome all of the sensations and energy in our body.

Our rights to freedom in our bodies are under attack. What do we do with our anger and outrage at continued injustice?

First we look at what all of these have in common: Roe v Wade, racism, gender pay inequality, the patriarchal rape culture, colonialism and Indigenous rights, environment crisis, and the unprecedented attacks on the rights and freedom of trans people.

“When a structure is broken, we are fools if we simply ignore the defect in favor of pretending that our democracy isn’t cracking at the seams. Our obligation is to understand where the problem is, find a solution, and make the broken whole again.”

Stacey Abrams, Our Time Is Now: Power, Purpose, and the Fight for a Fair America

Everyone these days knows about “the gays”. When I was a kid growing up in a small prairie town in western Canada, I had no idea. I didn’t know that a male friend who curled his hair and wore makeup was gay. I didn’t know what to make of the interest I had in kissing a girlfriend. Although there are limits to labels and real damage done by contempt and shaming, visibility at least lets us know about possibilities.

Something interesting happens when we work with arrested self protection. It doesn’t happen with everyone, but it can with those of us who felt unable to speak out and protect ourselves. We make excuses like “other kids had it worse”, “my parents couldn’t help it”, or we fall into core deficiency beliefs of feeling that it happened because we were bad. Children rely on their parents for protection and connection and for whatever reason, it didn’t happen. We work with arrested self protection from this starting place.

When our experiences with anger have never allowed us to feel and express it safely, we suppress it. Children can’t afford to turn against their parents so we turn against ourselves.

Feeling our emotions is different from expressing them. Expressing them to ourselves is different from expressing them to the person we are angry with.

Can you afford to get mad about being hurt? Intimidated? Gaslit? Shamed? Ignored or abandoned? We might not have a felt sense that the answer to that question is different now than when we were a child.

“The death of having a positive relationship with yourself is one of the worst losses.” Pete Walker

What would your life have been like if you had been lucky enough to have been raised in a family of good enough parents? Would you be in the same career or followed your passion into something else? What would your relationships be like? Your health? Friendships?

“Maintain your awareness in the heart center in a soft and nurturing way. Remain aware of the external environment but without reaction to it or thought about it.” Swami Veda

Our unconscious patterns of protection disconnect us from this warm, loving energy and from kindness and compassion that we might show other people but not ourselves. Healing happens over time as we bring kindness back into our heart.

“The death of having a positive relationship with yourself is one of the worst losses.” Pete Walker

What would your life have been like if you had been lucky enough to have been raised in a family of good enough parents? Would you be in the same career or followed your passion into something else? What would your relationships be like? Your health? Friendships?

Perfectionism is a trauma response that can arise as an attempt to gain approval from critical or neglectful parents. In fact, you do not have to be perfect to be safe or loved. You have a right to make mistakes, and mistakes do not make you a mistake. Instead of berating yourself, use your mistakes as an opportunity to practice loving yourself.

You wake up feeling anxious and mentally review your day. There is nothing in particular to be anxious about.

You hear a loud voice a few aisles over at the store and you flinch then hold your breath. You look over and it’s clear there is no danger to you, yet your heart is beating faster than usual and it takes several minutes to calm yourself.

You see a look of disgust on someone’s face and you immediately flush with shame.

I arrived in Nova Scotia to begin life as a single person. I was happy to be moving forward with healing after leaving my 30 year unhappy relationship. I was grateful to be moving into closer connection with my son and family and I became an integral part of life with them instead of an occasional visitor. For the first several years I lived here I walked on the beach at least once a week and for the last three, I live where I can see the ocean every time I look out my window.

“Ending the gender binary is a world without gender policing, where people are able to look like they want and love like they want, because it’s their life and their body. We have to look at how we’ve outsourced that ownership to other people, to culture, and to identity.” Alok Vaid-Menon

We are all conditioned by our culture to believe certain ideas about ourselves, each other, and how the world “should be”. We know from our experience that we are included when we “fit” or fall into line, and excluded and shamed when we don’t. To add to the difficulty, we compare ourselves to a fantasy, a Disney Channel idea of life, where it all works out and we die at peace in our sleep at eighty surrounded by loving family and friends.

“This is an event in the past. I am grounded in this moment and witnessing how it is coming through in the present.”

Trauma is stored in our body as sensation or energy along with associated memories. We stored it in our body because we were overwhelmed at the time. When people have support to process and release the effects of a traumatic event when it happens, it moves through and leaves less of an imprint.

Accepting people as they are is complex and nuanced. They did the best they could from the level of consciousness they were at then. It’s easy to say statements like these and like all cliche’s, they hold some truth.

“When we know better, we do better.” Maya Angelou

We enjoy being with people who are calm and relaxed, interested in engaging with us, and are fun to be around. When we’re in fight/ flight/ freeze, we just aren’t that much fun to be with. We long for connection but when we don’t feel safe enough to relax, that doesn’t happen. When we disconnect from ourselves, we also lose connection with others.

Can I trust you with my body? Will you hurt me? Will I be safe?

Can I trust you with my heart? Are you mean at times, or are you reliably kind?

Can I trust you to not betray my confidences? To not gossip about me?

“I doThe Work that Reconnects so that when things fall apart, we won’t turn on each other. ” Joanna Macy

“The central question is not how we avoid uncertainty and fear but how we relate to discomfort. Every day we could ask ourselves: Am I going to add to the aggression in the world? Am I going to practice peace or am I going to war?” Pema Chodron

When people around you are in an uproar, there has been a flood or school shooting and you are feeling heartsick with grief, when people close to you are anxious, try to not add to the chaos. Steady yourself. Come back into your body, breathe, and let yourself become still.