The Path to a More Easeful Life

We all know what it’s like to get overwhelmed. We’re familiar with stress and anxiety. And, if we’re at all human, we’ve “lost it” at some point and either said (or screamed) something we wish we hadn’t. Many of us know what our own warning signs are, and might even have a sense of what we can do to reset or get grounded. And yet… it still happens.

We will all face situations that will knock us over and befuddle us from time to time. So what can we do to create inner stability and strength, to broaden our capacities, and to stay resilient in the face of challenges?

Well if you’re reading this, there’s a pretty good chance you’ve read (or at least seen) our Guide to Emotional Resilience. That little book is filled with practices to help raise our baseline, to help keep our nervous systems well prepared for the next debacle.

These are important and we will likely revisit some of them, but what we’re going to focus on here is, IN THE MOMENT regulation practices… What do you do when you didn’t get enough sleep, haven’t exercised in days, skipped lunch, have a deadline coming up, and a partner who is needing extra support?

These next few weeks will be exploring practices, postures, and paradigms that will help bring ease into those particularly tense moments. We’ll be talking neuroscience, Chinese medicine,  and a bit of common sense (that isn’t necessarily common practice). So let’s begin…

Surrender

Before we dive into understanding some of the mechanics of “losing it” which will help us connect to and understand the practices that will help us get in-the-moment relief, let’s drop into our hearts. Sometimes, the hardest thing about our experience isn’t the experience at all, it’s all the judgements we layer onto the experience and onto ourselves.

Any of these sound familiar? “I should be able to handle this” “I can’t believe I yelled like that” “How does ___ keep their cool?!” “I’m such a bad mom/dad/husband/wife”

We are all human. We’re all trying to navigate a strange modern world that our brains and bodies weren’t evolved for. We’ve inherited all sorts of mental shenanigans. We’re living in a world that is in many ways insane.

Before you try to calm down, before you try to reset, before you try to soothe yourself - see if you can let it be. Surrender to the anxiety, to the rage, the exhaustion, just for a moment. It’s okay. And it’s okay for it not feel okay.

Let’s start there. Simple, yet not necessarily easy. Self-forgiveness, Self-understanding, letting go of judgement and resistence.

Next week we’ll hop into neuroscience…

Until then, keep dancing.