Hugs, too…
Dear Friends,
COURAGE comes in all forms and I have been diving deeply into what that means as a healing artist in these change-filled times. Healers are not separate from our local context everybody’s “local” will not be the same.
It’s important for us all to take that in—to surround grief that arises with love and to protect our joy with wisdom.
Empathy, activism, service, and creativity are all expressions of care and we must make an effort to balance giving and receiving so that we can continue to work. Communities in distress may need us to maintain the continuity of love, humor and possibility with extra compassion.
If we do not have the resources to meet someone where they are, we can take a breather. We can use our tools to restore ourselves without imposing our desire for peace on a distraught person. If distress is igniting the need to assert a point of view, we are likely also struggling and need to attend to ourselves.
If we cannot hold our joy respectfully in the presence of another’s sorrow, we can work on this!
RESPECT is in the ability to honor our needs and the needs of another equally. We can’t always comfort another and we can’t always be comforted by another. What we can do is recognize our own needs and attend to them without imposition. We can remove ourselves when we are overwhelmed. We can establish trust with the folks who love us. We can routinize the practices we need to maintain our inner resources. And we can seek out bodywork and therapy when we need professional support.
This is high level mind training.
I want to be the person who can sit between grief and joy at the table of humanity and not shy away. I want to be the person who can be up on the happenings of the world without dissolving into fear and chaos. I want to pursue health and wholeness without denying that I will not always have those things. I want to be a beacon and also accept that I need hugs, too.
We are celebrating and mourning and showing up all day, every day.
With folded palms,