The frenzy of new life (aka spring) and the massive subtle and outward activity that comes with it is experienced in a multitude of different ways. Especially for empaths, this stimulus easily becomes overwhelm.
One way for you to ease the overwhelm is to double down or at least show up to your Practice. When I arrive sitting, standing, and/or moving into my practice and I find myself filled with not only my news, my to do’s, my insights but also everyone elses, the internal chatter can be so loud that practicing can feel like a useless endeavor. It’s not. I want to share with you an oldie but goodie exercise to clear the clutter: The BRAIN DUMP. If you know the exercise then note I am recommending now is a good time to use it, and if you don’t, check out this short video which explains how to use this simple and powerful tool that allows for space inside the noise.
STEP 1: BRAIN DUMP
STEP 2: PRACTICE
The card for today is Practice. I want to share it with you today because there are many kinds of “PRACTICE.
So often we think practice applies to whatever we’ve heard someone else use it for: “Yoga Practice,” “Meditation Practice,” “Reiki Practice,” etc. These are practices, but so is anything else you do with the intention or focus on connecting to yourself, greater mystery, and/or restorative space. This includes anything that brings into you that sense of “I feel like myself” or “I feel like I have come home.” Sometimes, especially in the new life of spring, the feeling of “like myself” or “like home” can feel simultaneously be foreign and familiar. When you have the feeling you are literally meeting the newest version of yourself or body or life for the first time, congrats, you’re not crazy, you’re healing. And that’s real.
My practices are done alone or with others and include but are not limited to: sitting in silence, yoga, chanting, singing or mantra, Reiki, praying aloud, writing, making art, getting healing sessions, walking and dancing.
Someone told me about the brain’s ability to get into that special place most frequently known as “the zone.” Researchers found that the brain activity of meditators and spiritual practitioners in “the zone” looked the same as it did when artists and athletes were in “the zone.”
My dad (a psychologist) shared with me after he read Why God Won’t Go Away, looking through a FMRI at a monk in deep meditation the part of interest was not as much the activity as the inactivity. The part of the brain responsible for sensing boundaries and differentiating between body and not body goes quiet. They are so much inside the experience that they lack the awareness of that experience until after. (podcast coming soon with my dad about all this. more on this later.) One could postulate that being in “the zone” of practice means into an experience of oneness, interconnected, interrelatedness. As far as the science goes, I don’t know, but my experience agrees with this notion. When channeling poetry, in a healing session, or dance movements, there is a melting of separation. *Note, I don’t always get into the sweet spot of “the zone” when I practice. Practice is always helpful, though, and the more you, eh hem, practice, the sweeter it all gets.
One of my practices is walking, often with the dog, through the sage brush of the Sangre de Christo mountains in NM. During the walk I talk and pray to the mountains, the earth, my heart, and to the Great Mystery. Most of the time this talking becomes singing as I confess my fears, give thanks for my blessings, welcome guidance, and listen. Below is a little recording (two versions) of a medicine song that came to me after a half hour of song/talk/rant trying to sort my rising anxiety and self-hate last Friday morning. In the end of the practice the message was GIVE, and do to do so from a place that remembers We Are In This Together.
We are in this together (Verses)
We are in this together
With all my love, I wish you an enjoyable, insightful, and excellent rise in life force. May you surrender your old life to be fully resurrected into your new one.
Sophia
PS- The “Practice” card referenced above is one of 66 in the Healing Wisdom Deck. Bringing the deck to the public, making healing concepts available in an easily digestible, “choose a card” form, is a dream of mine currently manifesting as a kickstarter project. Consider supporting the project and you’ll have the option to get one of the first decks printed as a reward! Only 3 days left, so if you’re interested, take a look now!
