Unavoidable Suffering

Burned out tree in the Bridger Mountains

Last Thursday while sitting in the car on the way to the airport I realized I had left my lunch in the fridge. A wave of disappointment washed over me. I felt my shoulders slump as I stared at the empty space on the counter where my lunch should have been. I had been so careful..."

The disappointment got bigger the more I realized the impact of my mistake. I’d be arriving at my destination in a new city having to find a allergy sensitive restaurant. My chest felt tighter, my breathing became more shallow. I asked my husband, 'Can you just wait a minute while I find some snacks in my suitcase?' He glanced at his watch. 'I need to get home and get ready for work,' he said, his voice flat. His words felt like a cold stone dropping into my stomach. Disappointment flared into an all-too-familiar anger.

But, my husband had other thoughts. “I need to get home and ready for work.” His announcement caused even more disappointment to rise up.

“Really?” I countered “I’ll be quick. I need you to wait.” I said. Now a familiar pattern of anger had emerged. 

When we stopped, I opened my suitcase to find what I was looking for. Then, I zipped the suitcase and pulled it from the car. As I walked away, I told my husband, “thank you”. But there was an edge to my voice.

I do not consciously seek out opportunities to struggle. Instead, the universe seems to know exactly where my learning edges are, offering opportunities to practice the very thing I need to learn. It’s usually never convenient and sometimes I’m less than thrilled. But, the next day when I considered this situation, I could see where my constriction led to an unfavorable outcome - or disconnection from my husband.

Looking back the next day, with a little more distance, I could see how my emotional constriction had led to the exact outcome I feared: a moment of disconnection from my husband.

The next day I was curious. I remembered how quickly my disappointment morphed into anger. Anger is a well worn emotional path for me, so I looked for evidence of what else might be underneath. Sure enough, there was a very small almost imperceptible belief, “My needs are too much”. I remember believing this often when I was younger. It makes sense that my body masks the vulnerability with something safer, like anger.

I began by bringing gentle awareness to the sadness I felt in my belly. Using self-contact, I placed my hand on my lower abdomen to create a sense of grounded safety. I then began to expand the felt sense of sadness by noticing how it spread into the tissue and muscles around that area, allowing the feeling to become a bit bigger and more tolerable in a contained way. 

What came to me after this exercise, is that of course I needed my husband. Complete self reliance like I experienced in early childhood, isn’t healthy. Everyone needs others to help, to love, and to support us. We especially need our closest connections to depend on, and be depended upon.

The resulting expansion changed both my cognition and is changing my behaviors with my partner for the better. The work of meeting my own needs and asking for help is a lifelong practice, but thanks to the wisdom of my body and the practices of SE and ISP, I'm finding my way with more compassion and grace than ever before. 

Let me know how I can be in support of emotional experiences that may feel like too much for your body to process. Together, we got this.

Walking Home

Several days ago, I made the seven-hour drive to spend the weekend with my parents, who are in the middle of a big transition. I wanted to support them as they consider selling their cabin, which has become a burden to maintain. But a bigger, more difficult challenge—one that affects the cabin decision—is their increasing age and declining health. It's a time of life filled with loss and grief, and for them, it's been overwhelming.

I arrived on Friday, ready to spend the weekend listening, offering support, breathing through the tough moments, and helping them sort, organize, and possibly pack.

Learning to surrender to big changes is hard for anyone. But it's far more difficult when you're facing so much loss and don't have a practice in place to help you navigate these feelings as they arise.

Being with them now, facing their own surrender to change has brought up memories of my own past struggles in their home. I've learned that for me, supporting others requires a deep foundation of self-support, especially in the very place where I once lost my footing.

Going home used to be a step back. I would regress to old behaviors, thoughts, and beliefs I had worked so hard to transform. I would be left with fear, self loathing, and an irrepressible impulse to scavenge for sweets to soothe my discomfort. This became my motivation for creating change.

Of course, changing course causes disruption and even destruction. I had to be willing to let go of what wasn’t working while learning tools to adapt to who I was becoming. At the advice of a wise friend, I paid attention when she invited me to go slowly.

Before I left, I really listened to what my body would need when I was there. I made a plan for sleep and food prep and boundaries. I imagined what some of our conversations would be and figured out what was most important to communicate. 

When I felt tightness or heaviness, I took a moment to step out of the room or outside. I went to bed early, ate only nutritious food even when I craved junk, and took walks or ran solo errands..

I got some things wrong too. For instance, when I visited their home, I took public transportation and called them from the bus stop only to wait for over 90 minutes for one of them to pick me up. Now I take an uber. I stop by the grocery store and cook for myself prioritizing my needs above saying yes to food that doesn’t nourish. 

Being in familiar places with familiar people is only as supportive as we can be connected to our most elemental needs. It took me years to develop my own comfort with asking for what I most want vs going along with what others want me to do. 

Now I can gently ask the people I am closest with to meet me where I am, and try to offer the same generous response when they have a similar request of me. 

There’s a song I sing weekly called "Walking Each Other Home," which repeats the line, "we are all, just walking each other home." For me, home is where my most authentic self lives. I can walk myself there, but the journey is so much richer when I do it alongside the people I love—even if, like me, they are a little broken in places and don't always know the way.

Presence Prevents Perfectionism

Five of us stood in a semicircle in a large lobby, watching as nursing staff gently settled residents into chairs and wheelchairs.

After introductions, I played the first three notes on my phone, cued the others, and in unison, our voices rose. We began to sing, "Come sing a song with me," and from the aviary behind us, finches and canaries joined in. Their exquisite, melodic trilling blended with our own, creating a beautiful harmony. I got goosebumps.

A smile spread across my face as I listened to the lyrical tone of our voices with the birds' song. I felt my thighs and calves rooted and strong, my heart open, my face and throat relaxed. In that moment, I knew: I am here. And I am glad to be so.

Our singing is rich not just because of the music, but because of the intention we bring to it. This intention is rooted in the connection we share with ourselves, each other, and the residents. While our weekly rehearsals focus on harmony, pitch, and lyrics, our true work is the shared exercise of being deeply present with one another. It's this being in the moment that creates true resonance.

For generations, my family has chased perfection, so it's not surprising that presence—with all its messy, unpredictable beauty—isn't my first instinct. 

However, decades of stage fright and performance anxiety have also taught me that perfectionism doesn’t actually get me love and security I long for. As a public speaker, presenter, workshop leader, musician I’ve had to find a new way forward.

As a Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, I've learned that presence is the nervous system's native language. It's the state where we can truly rest, where our digestion works properly, and where our bodies can reset after a stressor. 

My professional work is about helping people with nervous systems stuck on high alert. Our modern lives—demanding jobs, relentless expectations, and inherited family histories—often keep us locked in these adrenalized states. It takes time and, as my singing group has shown me, a deep commitment to develop practices that help us unstick ourselves from this constant activation.

I’m learning what presence feels like.

Prior to being on stage, presence is taking in my surroundings. I notice the room I’m in, the temperature, smells, colors, and the people around me. It’s taking a drink of water and noticing the way it tastes and how it makes me feel. It’s feeling my feet being supported by the floor. It’s noticing my heart rate, and how shallow or deep my breath is. It’s making eye contact and a smile with friends and strangers. 

Most importantly, if mistakes occur regardless of pitch, lyrics, or awkward stumbles, presence is noticing what else is also here in the form of felt support and learning to notice the details of that support. It’s deciding to cast a playful smile. It’s noticing how constriction might be present in my chest, and that I can also draw my attention to wiggling my toes. 

It's a beautiful irony: the more I release my grip on perfection, the more my true self—and my performance—can shine

Our Miraculous Bodies

A few months ago, my husband and I were driving to a city several hours west of us. We rounded a corner, and my eye caught sight of a young buck standing by the shoulder of the highway. I remember thinking, “Oh no.” A cacophony of sound, sight, and smells flooded my senses.

We couldn’t see through the smoke and broken glass, but somehow instinct took over and my husband steered the car to the shoulder.

We rolled the windows down, took in some fresh air, and looked at each other incredulously, understanding we were very very lucky, even though we weren’t sure how much yet. Shakily, we climbed out of the drivers side of the car.

When a real or perceived threat is detected the body immediately and autonomously coordinates energy with the help of the hormone adrenaline. This organization collaborates in getting the thing away from the body; fight, or getting the body away from the thing; flight. 

However, in the case of something inescapable like a car accident, when neither fight nor flight can succeed, the body collapses into freeze. All three responses can reduce suffering, pain, and are as brilliant as they are merciful. 

Freeze as a concept is as complex as it is also a little confusing. The body can appear calm and steady on the outside. But inside, there’s a mess or mass (or both) of unresolved energy swirling around with nowhere to go. 

That energy was swirling around in my body. I could feel it in the inability to fully exhale, in my attempts to talk without a wobble in my voice, and my shaky hands and legs. 

Because my training taught me to expect this energy, there were parts that could gently pay attention. My awareness went to those parts of my body that felt tight and shaky. I’m certain I had a thought along the lines of “it’s ok now, you just survived what could have been a fatal accident and you’re in one piece! It’s safe to let some of that energy go.”

Serendipitously, my husband was right there and I leaned into him for a hug. My body started shaking rather uncontrollably and crying. His did a little of that too. A few minutes later I felt a little calmer, and little more steady. I suspected there was more energy to resolve, but it was a good start.

Navigating a car accident—or any event the body deems stressful—is tricky business. To be clear, when this energy stays stuck, it causes trauma. Trauma is simply dressed up energy with nowhere to go. My body will process the stress response differently than yours, and what causes stress in my body may not cause stress in yours at all. Though I don’t know anyone who experiences a car accident that doesn’t also navigate the freeze response at some point.

Our bodies are designed to scan for threats, get the threat away, and then move back to a state of rest and digest. But our learned behaviors don’t culture don’t always support our nervous systems getting what they need. For instance, we might believe we’re ok to navigate the experience alone, without support. But loving support from other people can be highly regulating and healing. 

Or we might believe that shaking after an overwhelming event is silly and that keeps the body in a state of shock even when the mind can’t register the deeper truth of the need for release.

The work of somatic experiencing is in part to notice where the stuck energy is and help the person attached to it allow repair to occur. Some people I’ve worked with say things like “I want this out of me,” but it’s not about getting rid of something. It's about helping the body integrate and release the energy, so it no longer holds you captive. 

I will probably work with energy resolution in my body my entire life with more and more nuance. I can’t know where the stuck energy is until a disruptive pattern emerges like sleep or digestive difficulties, or stuck beliefs like “I’m not good enough, or I don’t belong”. There are hundreds if not thousands of behaviors that could indicate stuck energy.

Looking for indications or messages from the body and following them towards the energy that needs to resolve is the work we do together.

No one can know where or when stuck energy will emerge, but I do know that day on the highway, my body told me exactly what it needed. It was an incredible reminder of how my body, and all our bodies, are designed for repair.