It’s true. Our breath is always waiting to bring us to the next place. Our nature when in fear or flight is to hold our breath. Holding it in. Holding it together. Holding back the tears, the trauma, even the triumphs.

In this moment I am preparing for knee surgery tomorrow. In the background though a snowstorm is looming, and war in a foreign land rages with images my heart cannot erase. It’s not just their war it’s ours. We are all one. I can feel the energy. I share what I am feeling through a text with a friend, and she replies, “I just keep reminding myself to trust the process of humanity’s evolution. It’s our divine journey, and those of us here at this time in our evolution chose to be here for it. Something good will come out of it. Maybe not this one event but out of the separated reality we’re living. The heart of humanity beats as one.”

Everything else can seem so frivolous in times like these. Another friend texts me, “Suggestions: Don’t think about Ukraine right now. Think of keeping all your positivity for you and your quick recovery. Send love to your body…abundant love and healing energy. Give yourself a gorgeous night tonight? Fun movie, lots of water? Early to bed? Healthy dinner?”

I straddle between both texts. I know for sure I can do the water and by game time I will be ready. I love Jon Kabat-Zinn’s book, “Wherever You Go There You Are”.

Recently it resurfaced for me again. I use books to prop up my laptop when I’m on a Zoom call. His book was there and I opened it to a random page and it said, “To allow ourselves to be truly in touch with where we already are, no matter where that is, we have got to pause in our experience long enough to let the present moment sink in; long enough to actually feel the present moment to see it in its fullness, to hold it in awareness and thereby come to know and understand it better. Only then can we accept the truth of the moment of our life, learn from it, and move on. Instead, it often seems as if we are preoccupied with the past, with what has already happened, or with the future that hasn’t arrived yet. We look for someplace else to stand, where we hope things will be better, happier, more the way we want them to be, or the way they used to be…. Like it or not this moment is all we have to work with.”

Here I am in this moment, all my old patterns to deny, escape, suppress my feelings no longer serve me. Deep conditioning to figure it out and do something fall away to stillness and being with an open heart. The sadness of one text, the giggles of another with a continuous joke about bacon and another from my landlord to move my car because of the snow. Feel it all. Heal it all, one moment at a time.

Everything will self-organize simply one breath at a time, one step at a time and soon I’ll be running with a full stride. Picking up my pen to write gives me peace and I exhale into what is possible.

Instead of just my journal tonight I feel compelled to share with you. One breath, inhale, exhale wherever this leads us we will begin again in the present moment again and again…

Together we journey.

Love,

Louisa

P .S. I love to connect, feel free to comment.