Holding it All

​First of all, yay.  Election's over.  Let's all go take a nap and chill for a second.

One thing I know for sure is that we are solidly in a period of WTF is even happening on a daily basis.  Ultimately, I believe it's for our highest good, and wonder if we really were THAT asleep to have to be rocked so hard MULTIPLES TIMES in order to awaken from our slumber.

It looks like the answer to that is, yes, most likely.

I can honestly say that 2020 has been one of my hardest years, but also one of my best.  Can anyone else relate? 

I faced personal devastation amidst collective chaos when I my mom died on the same day George Floyd was killed while we were two months into the pandemic that turned the world on its head.

I couldn't take the time and space that I needed to grieve because I was helping support my son through understanding the riots while simultaneously showing up to the community of South Central Los Angeles as a psychologist holding space for all of the activated trauma there - oh, and of course trying to deal with finding toilet paper and prepping for the apocalypse.

The person I was in May 2020 had ALREADY been through many things that made me a strong woman.  But with all of that happening, I was a minute away from calling 911 on myself.

I've been asked daily by the Universe, "How much can you hold?"

There have been days where I've cried, wanted to tear my hair out and give up, and fell into deep victim mode.  That's all good, and understandable as a human.

However, one of my core beliefs is that through struggle comes growth.  Immense opportunity.  And what I've discovered (now that I'm through it, of course) is that I can hold A LOT. 

I'm the strongest and most resilient I've ever been in my life, and I'm tending to myself.  I know who I am like never before.  I also know how to be impeccable with self care, setting boundaries, and saying NO to what I can't or don't want to handle.

I also know that I need to get better about asking for help and admitting that I can't do it all alone.  And that I have a lot more work to do around softening, surrendering, and allowing myself to be held (the next level of the feminine I'm being asked to master.)

I laugh when I remember that I called this all in.  In January 2020, I set intentions for the next decade.  Here was intention #1:

I want to master feeling the ecstasy of life, fully opening to the pleasure of the human experience, within myself and everyone, riding the waves of chaos and seeing the beauty in it all, the dark and the light, the beauty in tears and anger, the majesty of our spectrum of emotions, transmuting every moment into the pleasure of being alive in this exact moment - and hoping to inspire others to do the same.

Be careful what you wish for, right?

Seriously, though, I stand by this.  I KNOW that we are all being asked to increase our ability to hold intensity.  We are. I believe it's actually part of a collective upgrade to our nervous systems (and especially to those of us who are 'empaths' or 'highly sensitive people.')

In this time of great transition, you're either going to rise to the occasion or fall really f-cking hard.

And for those of us who are helpers/healers, we need to develop the capacity to hold space for others at a level deeper than we ever imagined.

Part of this opening to intensity and holding it all is an art form.  It's not always feasible to say, BRING IT ALL ON NOW!  There are some days we will be strong enough to face it, and some days we won't.

The Universe is serving up buckets of intensity at warp speed, and we have to choose and prioritize how we respond, and how we CAN respond in each moment.

One simple (yet crucial) question that we all need to ask ourselves is, "Is my battery full or low?"

Part of ensuring that we all have enough juice to be able to get through these days is being honest with what we can and can't handle.  And being deeply mindful of this dance we need to do between deep self care and work in the world.  Many activists need to take a day off, get themselves into the tub, and soak for a bit. 

I am optimistic, though, that we are finally learning that we cannot help anyone if we are not helping ourselves.

The biggest lesson that I'm learning relates strongly to developing collective resilience: 

There is a reframing happening in my mind around what is and is not acceptable.  A welcoming of ALL THAT IS with open arms and seeing everything as SO F-CKING BEAUTIFUL.  A welcoming of the chaos, of the messiness, of death, of the hard stuff, of courageous conversations, of being stretched in ways WAY outside of my comfort zone.  A deep internalization of the life/death/life cycle that is intimately tied to sacred evolution.

It goes back to this idea of being able to hold it all.  I really don't believe that we can feel the depths of ecstasy without also being able to hold the depths of sorrow.  Can I dance along this spectrum of life, feeling it all, honoring it all?

I'd like to see...