Resilience And The Inward Journey

Thank you for reading and also sharing your thoughts, your ideas, what does or doesn’t make sense to you, what does or does it work for you? Whatever it is that you want to add to the collective as we’re coming together. That not only allows us to experience you but also allows us to bear witness to wisdom that you might have to share that the way you share it in a certain way taps somebody that wouldn’t have been tapped had they not heard your voice or the words that you use. For me, the purpose of this show is to introduce concepts and ideas that might spark a passion. It might spark a curiosity where you explore further, where you go, “I want to learn more about that. That’s strange. This is what I believe, this feels better to me.” It’s about helping and assisting you in the process of greater self-awareness as you explore who you are. 

This idea of this inwardness of you where we talk about that inward voice, that inward guidance we’ve often hear heard in still small voice. In sharing your journey, your story, you allow us to gain a greater perspective of the awesomeness of what it is to be part of creation, how each of us brings something magnificent to the picture, to make it that more lush, colorful and distinctive. I want to talk about this idea of resilience and the inward journey. We’re in this time of change. Resilience is essential. The ability to bend, sway, move, accommodate what is happening. 

Rather than being broken by it or rolled over, having it roll over on us, we go with that flow. We tend to become a part of it. Learn and discover more about ourselves during this time of change. Change can be frightening. When we are fearful, it’s easy to shut down. It’s also easy to get very stiff. If you’ve ever watched somebody in fear, surprised and that freeze or inferior, they get angry and mad because it’s like, “I want to push against the thing that’s coming at me that I don’t like.” There’s a stiffness that arises and that stiffness creates stress. It creates a level of unyieldingness and that comes because we’re afraid. 

Rather than being broken by the challenges, learn how to bend and go with the flow. Click To Tweet

How do we learn to be resilient in these times where we’re not quite sure where we’re going with it? We know that things aren’t going to return to what they were. I know in my personal life, I will never be five again. I have that five-year-old within me and she’s a hoot, but I’ll never be that again. I’ll never be a teenager again, although I can appreciate the aspects of my teenage years. I’ll never be a young mother again with infants. That’s done, but I have wonderful connections with my sons now. 

How is it in this time of change that we give ourselves permission to evolve in flow with the changes? Part of that is when we do the activities, when we practice connecting with that inwardness of our own being. When things start to arise that would cause us to freak out because we don’t know where it’s going. We don’t know where it’s leading and our minds can take us in a variety of different directions, each one scarier than the next. When we pause and we turn within, we get to let all that go and get quiet and open to the possibility of other ideas of other ways of seeing things.

When I see and think about resilience, I see trees. Trees to me are like one of the strongest examples of resiliency. We have trees all over our yard. My husband and I love trees. We have planted trees in our yard, all different kinds of trees, and they’re fun to experience and watch. They’re beautiful and they’re intricate. When they’re there, they’re out in all kinds of weather. They experience all kinds of dramatic shifts and changes, from extremely hot, dry drought conditions to very wet and lush conditions to freezing cold, sub-zero weather and dark and gloomy days. 

 

They move through rather drastic changes. What’s interesting is that when they’re in a process where winds are blowing, what I observe is that rather than stay straight as a rod, they begin to move. You see them bend. As I watched them bend, I realized that they’re not only bending, but all the different parts of the same tree are bending in different ways based upon the width of the branches, the length and how the wind is moving through them. It‘s fascinating to watch this. It’s that movement, that ability to bend, that ability to give way to the forces that appear to be pressing upon them and that are pressing upon them. They give way to that, they’re giving way to the pressure. 

I think about my instapot which is like a pressure cooker. When the tree bends to the winds, it reminds me of cooking with my Insta Pot. It’s a pressure cooker. I put things in the pressure cooker and goes to the allotted time. If I kept it going, it could damage the pressure cooker. When there’s this little knob on the top, that when I move one direction, all of a sudden, all the steam, the pressure and the steam, all of a sudden start out. You hear this at first, this ferocious, loud, steaming sound. 

As the pressure from the steam begins to become less and less, the sound it makes becomes weaker and softer until it is not there because there’s no need. It’s made it through the part where the pressure of the steam has been released. It’s where like I’m watching trees as they move. They’re bending. Sometimes they’re bending a lot more than others. As with that steam pot, if it goes beyond what the nature of the tree can handle, then that tree can be snapped in half, a branch torn off. 

If it’s been in wet water conditions, the tree is huge and the roots are not as big, so the moisture in the soil does not allow for a good grip and they topple over. Even then, it makes it hard for them to bend. I’m picturing these trees because we’ve had conditions where the water has been so constant within the soil, that when a stiff wind came, these beautiful trees could not withstand it. Somebody could pick them up again and replant them in the earth, they would be fine because they were not damaged within themselves except for the root system as it was pulled. Still, they could have been picked up, replanted and probably have sustained life. 

When I look at these trees and I watch how they bend, they give me a picture of what it is that I can do. At times when the winds are blowing and they feel overwhelming, what can I do to go with the flow, to bend, to allow myself to move so that I can handle and respond to the pressure and realize that my need to do that, my need to move, my need to respond, my need to create that outlet is a valuable element in my way of responding to life. It’s the same as that valve because things do arise. They’re arising now in humanity. 

It doesn’t matter where we are in the world. It is a rising all over. We’re all being called to create something new because what has been is not working anymore. As if there’s something inside of us that is saying there is a way that we can live, wherein all people are honored. All people are respected. People have food. They have lodging. They have clothing. They have what they not only need but what is available in ways that are honoring to the planet, honoring of the earth and honoring to the people. 

What’s hard is letting go of that old idea that says what currently is, is the only thing that can be, because we’re familiar with it. When in truth, there’s a whole lot of ways that we could be, that we have yet to discover how to do it. It depends upon our willingness, and resilience is that quality that enables us to move through the times where we feel the challenge and the pressure of the wind or the steam that is building and building. What do we do with it? For some of us, I don’t know about you, but I know for myself, food at times has been a comforting thing. 

Letting go and embracing the quiet opens up possibilities of seeing things in a new light. Click To Tweet

As if somehow, by eating whatever I’m eating is going to help me feel better. That’s okay. It does. The problem is on the other end, when I’m looking at the fact that I’ve gained twenty pounds and it’s like, “This is what I intended when I was eating whatever it was.” It’s like, “What are the ways can I engage that will allow me to bend and flow so that when I do these activities, they are nurturing and honoring of me?” One of the ways that I do that is to turn within. I get quiet. If I’m feeling anxious, it’s hard for me to turn within and get quiet. If something has come up, like for example, within the US, there was a lot of angst around the election and a lot of angst around what happened at the Capitol and listening to different news sources. It doesn’t matter what news source you’ve listened to. 

There’s such strong cultivation of fear that it’s like, “If I’m not careful, I can get caught up in that.” It’s like, “This is not what I want for myself.” When I’m in fear, I cannot create. I usually try to adjust to deal with what exists. When it’s apparent that what is existing is not addressing the situation. To try to continue to use that more and more isn’t going to bring about change. It isn’t going to bring about better conditions. I know I have to pull away from that, but if I am in fear, the first thing that often happens when I am in fear is, first of all, I make sure I’m safe. Second of all, I come out with duke’s flying. I get stiff. I get unyielding like watching a tree being coming unyielding. 

I know that if I maintain that, at some point, I will break because it’s not my style. It’s not how I want to live. It’s not how I want to engage. Somehow, someway I will take actions that aren’t really in service to what I want, they might address the fear or the angst or the anger as a result of the change, but they’re not helping me to move through the change. I pause and when I recognize that the dukes are coming up, I can tell because my language changes, I’m talking to the husband and all of a sudden, it’s not to him, but it’s about whatever I am listening to. 

It’s like, “My way’s the highway. I’m right.” It’s like, “No, your way, isn’t the highway. You’re not always right.” There’s a whole lot of other opinions and thoughts out there. When that happens, it’s hard to go into a quiet space for me because my body’s involved. There’s energy in my body and I need to do something with it. I will do any number of things from I will close the door, go up my room and have a conversation with my inwardness. 

I’d say, “This sucks. I don’t understand it.” I need to get it out with the intention that I don’t want to continue fostering it, building it. With the intention that like this little valve on the steam, I am relieving the initial pressure that I’m feeling enough so I can begin to calm down. There are times that maybe that doesn’t work or I’ll call a friend and I’ll say, “I need some help.” They will give me airtime to let me process it, or I will go out and I will go for a walk. I will go somewhere that when I go there, it’s like, I’m expending energy. 

There are different things that I do that when I’m feeling most unyielding, my body gets involved and it’s the hardest to get into that quiet space. That quiet space within me is where I want to go because my experience has been when I go there, I get quieter. I feel better. I may not necessarily have an answer, but I’m not in the fear. I’m not the resistance. Instead, I’m in more of a pliable, open space, knowing that there is something more for me that if I’m willing to open to it, I will get that information. 

 

All of a sudden, I’ll go and I’ll find myself wanting to listen to a podcast that has inspired me in the past. I’m looking forward to be inspired and all of a sudden, that’s pretty cool. It begins to allow me step-by-step to shift from the resistance and the fear of the change to greater pliability, greater flexibility so that I can bend like the tree bends. What’s fascinating is that it’s the bending of the trees when winds come that helped to strengthen them. In this bending, and in this change, there are ways that I am becoming stronger. There are ways that in that strength, I’ve got more information now that helps me to make certain decisions that might be tough, or that helps me to walk away, give myself space instead of turning around and going at it. That’s not what I want to do. That doesn’t serve me, but it does serve me to be kind to myself, create the space I need to help me understand so that I can embrace the changes that are happening. Embracing those changes by tapping into my inwardness, that quiet space within me, I opened myself up to ideas. 

As I’ve said before, in that tight fearful space, I cannot see because in that tight, fearful space, I know emotionally what’s happening, but my mind is in the control room. My mind only has the capacity to work with what it knows. If the solution to what I’m seeking is outside of what the mind knows that no matter how many times I spin my brain around and trying to figure something out, it’s not happening. I have to let go and release the control then my intellect will have, and say, “I need to go to the heart. I need go to my intuition. I need to open up not to discount the intellect because all these components are valuable. In the process of my living, understand how to use these in the highest service to who I am in the life that I’m creating.” 

When we’re looking at our lives and we’re moving through this time of change, which can be very frightening and feel very isolated and alone, it doesn’t mean that we have to sit in that. What it means is there are opportunities for each one of us to find those ways that are most supportive. If it means, as I said, going out and taking a walk, and then all of a sudden, it’s like me when I’m walking, if I’m stressed and struggling, and I’m moving through something as a result of this change, fears come up, I’ll get walk in the woods. 

I may walk for the first 45 minutes with my head to the trail, not even conscious of the trees around me and what’s happening because there is much angst too that I focused on. Then as I’ve walked, all of a sudden, I find my eyesight raising and I find myself becoming aware as if there’s been an opening within me, by simply creating the space to let go of the angst of the initial, “How do I handle this? What’s going to happen, the initial fear?” 

 

When we turn within, what it helps us to do is to let go of the judgment around the fact that of what’s happening or the judgment on how we’ve handled it. We can give our space ourselves space to grow and learn like we would any child or any individual. We look at a child who’s crawling, wanting to learn to walk. They have to learn how to use their body in a new way. It doesn’t come after one try. That’s us, as we’re learning to cultivate this inward journey to help us learn to balance our mind, our heart and our intuition to be in highest service to us, especially during this time of tremendous change. 

If you have any thoughts as you read this or any thoughts that you’ve ruminated on before, and you’re like, “This is tapping in. I want to share it,” please do. I would love to read your comments. I want to let you know that you have a voice that someone else may value in hearing. One of the things, even if my show touches one heart helps one heart go and learn to trust their inner process, their inner journeying, then it has served what I have created it for. May be that your voice, your thought, the way you’ve written, some might be the exact thing that someone else wants to hear. Feel free to share. Thank you for being a part of this show. Have a wonderful day and remember how wonderful you are and what a difference your life makes in the world.