How do we navigate uncertain times?

We are in a place of polarity in society and some of these divisions stretch into our communities as well as within ourselves. It seems everywhere we see growing tension, fear, and disillusionment. Many of us are grasping for some sense of certainty, stability, comfort and hope. We are often looking for this sense of safety or stillness outside of ourselves.  And when we don’t find it there, we try to control anything (and everything) we feel like we can in our environments or we simply avoid doing anything at all.

In childhood we are taught to look to authority figures for safety and for children it is age appropriate to do so. They can seek comfort and guidance in caregivers and other trusted adults like teachers or coaches. But for many of us we struggled to find this sense of safety in the world as children.  Sometimes this was because of trauma and sometimes because of the circumstances of our young lives. As a result we continue to look predominately for safety outside of ourselves as adults; either in people or in structures.

The people we look towards are often our romantic partners, trusted friends, family members or authority figures such as bosses, funders, politicians or even religious figures.  The structures beyond relationships we look towards are whatever gives us a sense of stability. This can be anything from our job, owning a house, having adequate savings, maintaining routines, our beliefs and values or even a trust in the dependability of the government. It is important to depend on some things outside of ourselves, but what happens when the outside structures shake or are in a state of change? What do you use as an anchor then? 

This is our opportunity to build more of our own internal stability.  When these outside structures shake we have to create the sense of safety we need, at least in part, on our own. If we are successful then we can find more stillness inside of ourselves and are able to be curious about what actions actually need to be taken. Unfortunately, because we are taught more to depend on outside forces than we are to depend on a strength from within, we tend to get trapped in a victimhood mindset in response to what happens to us.

Whether viscerally or only mentally experienced, feeling like a victim creates helplessness and hopelessness that cause our brains to move into survival mode. Survival mode is contagious to the nervous systems and brains around us. However, when we create stillness inside of ourselves we create something that we can depend on that allows us to reclaim our personal authority and invites others to do the same. In claiming our authority, we develop agency. We can take action towards repair with ourselves, with others and even with the environment instead of reacting primarily from survival mode. 

We are taught throughout our lives to depend on others. We are not taught how to be interdependent. We have to intentionally choose to learn to care for ourselves while we simultaneously care for others. It’s vulnerable. We don’t have control over the results. We only have control over how we choose to participate with ourselves and others. If we abandon ourselves, we will be abandoned! If we abandon others, we are left to reconcile with ourselves. How do we bridge from the pains of abandonment to interdependence?

Repair starts with our relationship with ourselves, and continues in vulnerable acts with others. Building trust is in the little actions. It is in finding some stillness through a pause in survival mode, and moving from there in small steps. The real work of building trust is skipped over in grandiose actions or pledges that are too big for you to follow through on or that just keep you distracted with business. For example: maybe trusting yourself starts with a promise to return to yourself every time you abandon yourself in an emotional moment instead of declaring you’ll never abandon yourself ever again. We won’t be able to snap our fingers and stop abandoning ourselves, so demanding “no self-abandonment” will actually reinforce mistrust in ourselves because we will fail. In contrast, when we learn to commit to building trust with ourselves in committing to the repair when we do leave, we simultaneously create a pathway to build trust with others in similar little steps towards repair.

 Okay, let’s get tangible. We know the world around us is shaking. Systems and people we once thought we could depend on are not as dependable…so what do we do to anchor ourselves? 

Let’s start really small with little actions that anchor us back to ourselves. Pay attention to our bodies as guides for pace and what we need. Ground in the moment with focus on sensations. Use curiosity. Find the tool that is right for the moment. Keep it really simple.

Some ideas…

Habit stacking: stack a habit with something you already do. When you brush your teeth in the morning and the evening, do a body scan right after, notice where you are in your body and where you can be in your body a little more. 

Set alarms throughout the day or carry a rock in your pocket to remind you to pause and turn your attention towards yourself and ask your body and heart “how here am I?“

Get in your body through noticing your sensations versus thinking about your body. Stay out of story but inside sensations.

Schedule a time to intentionally repair with yourself or another person.

Maybe you have been building tools and know how to return to stillness inside yourself, then what? Share it. Our nervous systems respond to one another. Just as fear is contagious, so is your stillness and hope. 

If you want support with more tools or to expand on how to use these or other ideas in new ways…reach out! Sometimes it’s just about finding the right tool for the moment. I would love to help!

Sometimes We Need to Choose the Path of Most Resistance

When can the path of most resistance create the most sustainable change in our lives?

Our brains evolved for self-preservation - to survive. For our oldest ancestors, survival meant avoiding physical danger and death. In current times, the complexity of fears and threats in our environments, attachments to others and generational histories influence our brains perception of threats, its responses and its development.  We build neural pathways from childhood - patterns of how we respond in stressful and threatening situations. And, we have to get curious about what these patterns are, why they served us then, how we benefited from them and what fears they softened. Then, we get even more curious about how we have reinforced and safeguard these patterns into adulthood.

As adults, there comes a time where our childhood strategies and patterns begin to threaten or sabotage the adult life we want to live. We want something different. Willpower alone cannot overpower these pathways. We need NOVELTY to disrupt the established habits, patterns and beliefs that stem from these once successful survival strategies.

The first catch to changing our brain or creating new pathways is that our brain is extremely RESISTANT to a new way of doing something. It favors the familiar, established paths, no matter how harmful or inefficient they may be - especially if it’s been done a particular way since childhood. So we actually have to choose to DISRUPT the old familiar patterns to help our brain grow. At first this can even be fun, maybe feel a little naughty, but when the old ingrained pathways are consistently threatened your mind rebels in resistance and your nervous system activates. Your safety alarm bells go off. Your brain perceives threat to this pattern, habit, or belief - as threat to your survival.

The second catch is your brain is using past fear, stress and threat to make something in the present moment dangerous that may NOT actually be dangerous. Your brain wants to protect its strong neural pathway carved from childhood more than recognize the nuance of what you may need most as an adult in the present moment.  

How do we recognize if resistance is a real warning or your brain is favoring an outdated pattern? Ask yourself some questions…

• Are you out of harms way physically and emotionally in this moment?

• Is there an action you need to take or can take right now to address the urgency your mind is creating?

• Is the way you feel right now familiar in some way? Does it resemble a response you had in your childhood? 

• Are you finding yourself saying tells like “I can’t” or “I’ve always…” or “I never…” or “it’s too much/too hard”?

If you are safe, there are no immediate actions to be taken and this feels somehow familiar - this is where RESISTANCE TRAINING comes in. Similar to teaching your joints to become more mobile or your muscles to get stronger, you get the best results if you are disciplined and you stretch the edge of their capacity bit by bit. If you go too far, you will injure yourself or skip the area that actually needs attention for more mobility or flexibility. For our brains, to build a new neural pathway, you need to stretch your brain out of its comfort zone, intentionally activating and then soothing your nervous system with new habits and beliefs.

For example, maybe you learned to hide, smother your voice, get small or please adults as a child to feel safe, loved, supported or maybe even get your basic needs met. This becomes essential for survival to your brain. Disruptions to these survival strategies could look like…becoming a disrupter by using your voice and speaking out. Naming the elephant in the room or having the 10 minute hard, sweaty conversation instead of avoiding conflict. Trying out being “naughty” as opposed to the “good” kid. Including your needs instead of only meeting the needs of others. Learning and sharing your needs, wants and desires. Feeling your feelings instead of adapting to the feelings or needs of others. Receiving as much as you give. Reparenting your younger self by becoming the supportive adult you needed as a child. Challenging old ways of being can be scary to our system…so we can expect resistance. If your nervous system leaps into fight, flight or freeze response, regulate the flooding first and then return to resistance training. 

Repetition is key. Once you have disrupted an old pattern you have to keep disrupting it. This is where discipline comes in. Your brain is going to come up with every reason and emotional response to return to the old, familiar, childhood pathway. It’s the equivalent of a paved highway in your brain. Where as the new pathway is like a dirt path in the woods that you have to keep walking over and over again for it to truly establish itself. When you are doing something new the resistance or discomfort is actually telling you that your pathway is becoming more defined. But, this is when we often give up. Things feel too hard. Or we don’t even recognize we are being lulled back onto the paved highway.

Resistance is actually the sign you are successfully creating a more established new pathway, a new possibility. Keep choosing the path of most resistance, until it becomes another way!

Using Climbing to Support Nervous System Agility

When I started climbing over 20 years ago, I was more afraid than courageous. I had more fear than everyone I climbed with. Fear of heights. Fear of falling. Fear of something not working right or someone messing up. Fear of everything. 

When friends comment on my climbing now, they often say “I could never do that I am scared of…(fill in the blank).” I quietly think to myself, “I am scared too.” Being scared isn’t what changed…

I never stopped being afraid, instead I used climbing to teach myself how to be afraid and still do it. I learned how to get scared with more grace, by tracking my nervous system, by studying the physical and emotional signs, by testing my limits to know my true limits.  

I have had a very activated nervous system for as long as I can remember. It was a long journey, but I was determined to learn how to tend to my nervous system - allowing me to play, live, work and connect with those around me differently. I still work on it every day.

Climbing was one way I taught myself to dance with fear; to discern what actually needed my attention and what my brain was making up. I learned how to take little risks and then big risks…without being controlled by fear. I learned to trust others, myself and something bigger. I learned when to stop. I learned when to push my edges to reach new heights.

Climbing let me face real fear - fear of injury or death. It allowed me to get curious about my responses and learn to change how I responded. This didn’t make me less fearful, instead it made me more discerning. With new awareness and discipline, I had new ways to respond that consistently disrupted outdated habits, patterns and belief systems. I transformed how I navigated fear in all parts of my life with more nervous system agility. 

Imagine… 

I am 30 feet off the ground. I am exhausted. My elbows and knees are already raw from squeezing inside sandstone cracks. There is a twinge of pain starting to scream at me from between my shoulder blades…the result of dragging 20lbs of gear, while it hangs across my shoulder on a sling that is digging into my neck. I reach the first moment when a tiny rest becomes a possibility, a rock feature where I can curl the curves of my body inside just enough to unweight most of my body..ending up  in a fetal position. I look up from the small bit of safety I have established, and all I can see is the bulge of the cliff sticking out above me. My heart starts to race. My thoughts start to tell me I can’t do this. But I’ve been here before and I know what to do.

I take a breath…

I slide my right arm into the crack past my elbow, and “chicken wing” myself up. I jam my legs deep inside and twist both my feet in opposite directions, pressing my toes and heels on opposite sides of the inside of the crack. I am holding myself up with counter tension. This gives me the ability to move up an inch at a time. I slide my hand to where the roof of the crack wall starts to curve up, quickly matching it with the arm that was chicken winged, to form a butterfly where my hands stacked on top of one another. The gear pulls heavy on my shoulder threatening to pull me off as I lean against the wall. I gently shuffle my feet up just a little more. With one shoulder on one side of the crack and my hand counter balancing on the other, I reach out to place a piece of gear, so I can place it in the wall to give me some protection from a fall. But my gear is wedged behind my hip on the wall, and I just can’t manage to reach it. I grab behind, desperately trying not to disturb the perfect weight balance I have established. I slip. I almost fall. I catch myself. I finally wiggle a piece of gear from between my hip and the wall into my hand. I go to place it in the crack. It doesn’t fit. I am slipping again. I slide another sling quickly over my neck, to catch myself with both hands. I barely catch myself from falling and press my back against the wall. As I move up into a squeeze, I quickly get in another piece of protection, but I am slipping again down an inch for every two I move up. I move above my piece of protection. I sink my shoulder deeper into the crack. 

My mind hyper focuses with each move…

Clink. The two slings crossing opposite sides of my neck, lock together. A carabiner has somehow locked itself. I move up to try and wiggle free and the slings cinch down on my neck…I can’t breathe. I shuffle up to try and release what is caught. But now the gear is caught in the crack too. If I move up it cinches tighter, and I realize if my feet slip and I fall, I risk hanging from my neck.

I freeze. I hold my breath.

My climbing partner yells up. “Whip, you okay?” Only small gasps of air come out in response - I can’t tell him what’s going on. Another friend, squeals “let her down”. My Climbing partner tries to quiet my friend, though I can still hear them. He whispers “if she is caught by her neck and I give her too much slack I could kill her.” 

Silence. Everything pauses. Everyone holds their breath.

Two parts of me began to talk in fractions of seconds. “Just go up, push through. You will be fine.” And then another side says, “back down, at least you will have the bit of safety to rest in. You don’t know what lies up ahead.” I suck in as much air as I can against the restriction. I slide my body down. The slings cinch tighter. I begin to feel light headed. I quickly wiggle my legs, so they kick me out horizontal and I am doing some weird kind of pike, still with no oxygen.  I wiggle my body again to lower into a bit of safety. I slip, but am able to use it to wedge myself back into the fetal position and at last the sling releases.

I finally get a breath. Inhale, exhale. 

I have given myself a bit of safety, and I began to panic. I take another breath and focus, getting really logical and using my hypervigilence to my advantage. I determine I cannot climb down. It is safer to keep climbing to the top and establish anchors. I stare at the crack above me…acknowledging that I just barely escaped from it with my life. I study it. How can it be done? I reset my fear and focused it on what I needed to do. 

With steady breath…

I climbed out of my little nook of safety, through the roof and methodically move, inch by inch, to the end of the climb. With care, I pulled up the drill from my partner on the ground and proceed to hand drill the anchors. I set up the ropes so I can descend and then I lower to the ground.

I hold my breath. 

When my feet hit the ground and I am safe, the hypervigilence and management skills to get through the danger dissolved instantly. My nervous system sky rockets, I can feel my skin start to crawl. The pressure from my clothes suffocates me and I I pull off what I can, moving like a wild animal. I can’t let anyone touch me. I curl up on a rock, start to cry and fall asleep for an hour. When I wake up, I am back to normal, but tender. And, luckily with friends who can hold me.

I took a deep breath. 

(Link to New Climbing Website)

Moving Beyond Survival with Nervous System Agility

To move beyond survival we have to build new pathways - by responding to fear in new ways to create new habits and belief systems. First we need the tools to calm our nervous system by landing in the moment and becoming embodied and then we need the tools that support our nervous system for new possibilities. 

• BE CURIOUS AND STUDY YOURSELF 

  1. Learn your physiological tells for an active nervous system. What happens when you start flooding? (Examples:  heart racing, shortness of breath, itchy skin) 

  2. Learn your emotional tells for an active nervous system. What happens when you start flooding? (Examples: irritable, defensive, critical, withdrawn, disconnected)

  3. Learn your thoughts pattern tells for an active nervous system. What happens when you are flooding? (Examples: self-defeating: saying I can’t or don’t know how or overly self-boosting: acting like you know or can do anything, when you don’t yet have the capacity) 

• FIND CALM - GET EMBODIED

  1. Get into your body and the moment. Use breath. Physical Activity. Nature. Connect with a trusted loved one. Feel your feelings. Use visualization or meditation.

• MOVE BEYOND SURVIVAL, move beyond the cycle of calm and activation. (This initially, requires support to see your blindspots.)

  1. Get support to find a new perspective and widen the the tunnel vision to move past autopilot. Get support to create more options or possibilities so you can step outside familiar cycles. 

  2. Develop new strategies to stretch outside your comfort zone, learning to move through your fears or habits consciously. Get support to expose the blindspots that keep you in familiar cycles, so you have the opportunity to change the ways you adapted to things as a child when they no longer serve you as an adult.

  3. Receive. Celebrate each inch you achieve. Surround yourself with a community of support.

• CHANGE YOUR BASELINE

  1. Disrupt your established habits and patterns consistently to create new pathways and adapt old belief systems, so you can respond in NEW ways. And, live in NEW ways with nervous system agility.

Facing Fear on a Bridge

One of my dearest friends who lives in San Francisco is scared of driving over bridges. For one main reason, she got stuck on a bridge in rush hour traffic. She was terrified. She could not open her doors because of the cars zooming by her. She recalled that her husband at the time refused to come get her, likely not fully understanding the gravity of the situation. She was trapped for 45 minutes with just the zooming sound of cars, activating her nervous system over and over and over again. 

Just after her 69th birthday, she asked me to be a support passenger to drive over bridges. I said “yes”, enthusiastically and took my job very seriously. I made an itinerary. I would pick her up at 7:45 am to avoid traffic; we would drive over three bridges total and jump in the ocean as a reward to calm our nervous systems and clear all the residual fear. 

When I arrived to pick her up, she was cleaning her car - an effective way to settle her nerves. Hesitation loomed as we got settled in our seats. She placed a picture of a brave, inspiring friend on her dashboard, explaining she had passed away. Her friend would look after us. We were ready.

As we approached the first bridge to Oakland, she talked me through her nervous delight, expressing gratitude on the fact there was no traffic and a lane was closed, where she knew she could pull off, if necessary. After determining her escape routes, she leaned into the inescapable fear and off we went. She shrieked like a child. She teared up. We growled; her nervous system borrowing my courage. She retold me her story of why she was scared of being trapped on the bridge. I went on the roller coaster ride with her. My nervous system meeting hers, as if dancing to the same intense song, heading towards a crescendo. I squealed with her in celebration as we arrived at the other side. Then we were quiet for a moment, our systems settling, digesting, before discussing the next bridge. 

The next bridge was the same rides of emotions but a bit less potent, as if the potency of fear was draining out of our nervous systems with each bridge behind us. We continued on, reaching a tunnel to get to the beach, and it was like going through the birth canal, everything changing on the other side. 

The waves were huge and crashing against the sand. We got knee deep into the water before the current begin taunting my friend, threatening to knock her over. She persisted. I watched her courage with complete awe. I dunked in. When I popped my head up, she stood strong, smiling and in clarity to chose not to go in any further, trusting herself and her fear to keep her safe in this moment.  

When we drove over the final bridge to get home, the Golden Gate bridge, we didn’t hit a crescendo. She shared memories of raising her daughter and growing her business in San Francisco. My nervous system met hers and there was a peacefulness resting right next to and around the fear. The fear of driving over bridges…disrupted. Her nervous system changing, adapting in how it responds to fear, as it digested the new experiences we had together over the bridges.

What do you do with Anger?

Generally, we are taught as a culture to calm or suppress our anger. And, there is definitely a time and place for this that is really important, especially if someone’s anger is risking the emotional or physical safety of a child, a partner, a friend, a lover or a stranger. But if we add complexity, when would another response to anger be more useful?

I have had a number of people brag to me about not ever getting angry. What if the real accomplishment is feeling anger through your body? We all get angry, but most of us haven’t learned how to really feel it. And, if we aren’t feeling it, we are missing out on a really valuable part of ourselves, our boundaries and our emotional range.

Anger is a really powerful force. Like bubbles in a bottle after it's been shaken, we need to learn how to harness the release of it. If we open the cap too quickly, there is an explosion. If we keep gathering bubbles or force, it will burst out of the container one way or another at ourselves, or others. But, if we allow it to open a bit again and again, it releases. It moves through us. It mobilizes us to take the action needed. Our actions can be fueled with possibility and creativity, instead of destruction.

What does it mean to stretch your tolerance for anger, beyond calming it? 

How does anger squeeze out of you unexpectedly?

How do we learn how to get angry, to feel anger? 

How do we use anger as fuel for possibility and creativity?

To feel anger, it requires a reverberation, a visceral response. This is why little kids bite, throw and hit things when they are angry. Hitting something, for example, helps move the emotion through. Yes hitting can be unsafe, and I am not advocating for people to harm one another but, I do want you to think about what kinesthetic tools can move anger? 

We all need more ways and more practice to turn towards and feel our anger. How do you feel your anger viscerally? What do you use, that has reverberation?

One of the ways I feel my anger is through boxing. I intentionally use it to let anger reverberate through me. I also scream in the car, letting my vocal cords shake. Punch pillows. And, stomp around like a wrestler, growling. 

Anger needs an edge, something to push up against to release. It needs resistance. It beckons for it. What will you give it? How will you practice anger? 

Change is the one thing that we can depend on.

Change is the one thing that we can depend on. It is always happening whether we choose it or not. But, how do we create change where we want it? And, how do we adapt to the change that is out of our control? 

By the end of January, many of us lose steam in creating the change we committed to wanting at the start of the year. But, we can start or restart at any point. There are ways to structure intentional change. We often hear that we are a sum of our habits. Thinking about our habits can help us make change more bite-sized and integrate it into our lives for a more long term, sustainable shift. 

Think about the change you want. What habit shift could bring you closer to this change? There might be more than one habit, but choose one habit to shift. Then, examine the habit. One of the best ways to shift a habit is to break it down. Make sure to think about how this habit serves you, and what is the reward you get for this habit (even if you think of it as a bad or naughty habit)? Next, interfere or disrupt the habit by trying something new or responding in a novel way. Then, think about what you could replace this habit with for a similar or equal reward. Now, make the new way a new habit by repeating it. This way it becomes a new neuro-pathway in your brain, or habitual, by repeating the disruption and the new habit as often or even more often than the old habit. Maintain this new habit for 21 days and you have changed your brain, by offering it a new way or pathway. 

We can do something similar when it is change outside of our control. When something happens to us, we adapt to it. And, we often adapt in the ways our youngest self learned to adapt to change. We can feel powerless or scared of the uncertainty ahead. How we adapt to circumstances that happen to us can be essential and therefore helpful for a short period of time. The challenge is that sometimes the way we adapt can also become unhelpful, especially in the long term. This is when we need to get curious. How did you cope with the change and what habits formed? Were they familiar habits or new habits? Then, we can make a choice.

Think about what caused you to adapt, consciously or not, in the way you did. Maybe it was to regain control or give you a sense of safety. Then, think about if this habit is still supporting you or if it is how you want to keep living. Make a choice to keep the habit or not. Lastly, create a new intention from how you want to move forward. How do you want to feel or be? Maybe, you want to honor yourself or others more, or surrender earlier to change, versus fighting it.

Intentions can serve as a filter for how to dance with change in the future. They give you a way to determine which habits needs updating or where a new choice needs to be made, based on what feels in integrity to you and your community.

What do you want to change, or how will you dance with what is changing you? What community do you have to support the change you want to create?

Learning to listen with every part of me to every part of you...

Do you know that you died on my birthday in 2017? Do you know the impact you had on my life? Do you hear me when I still talk to you?

I wish I could go to your house and get the hugs you gave, where your chin would dig so hard into my chest that I wanted to pull back just a little… but I never did, because they were so full of love. And then, after a minute, you would pull away just a little and say, “Dirgy, busy day? good day?” Do you remember you used to call me Dirgy, because that is how you said my name? I remember every time you asked me that question over and over again. Sometimes it was to ask me about my day, and other times it felt like you were asking my heart how it was today and reminding it over and over that it was okay - even on the really heartbreaking days. Then you would say, “I love you too, Dirgy,” and I would respond, “I love you too, Elise.”

If I was with you today, I would pick up two cups of chocolate “ice com” and sit in the sun to eat it in the park with you. And I would ask, how do I cope with all that is breaking my heart, how do I love better, like you do and how do I…we, teach the world what you taught me about holding love? How do we heal collectively and personally?

I have been watching movies about kids with developmental disabilities lately to feel close to you and find hope in the world. One was about a little boy who loved every part of people, especially the parts they didn’t want anyone to see. Another was about a group of unapologetic teenagers with various types of disabilities unashamedly following their pleasures and holding those without disabilities ruthlessly accountable to their hearts.

I was hired to care for you for 10 years, but I am not sure I ever cared for you as much as you cared for me. You were only 15 years older than me and yet 100s of years wiser than anyone I have ever met. You raised me in some ways because I was only 18 when we met.

You taught me how to be present when all I had ever learned was to disassociate and scatter as survival skills. I remember taking a breath before walking into your house each day. Grounding myself…choosing to be fully present for you and, for the first time, learning how to for myself as well.

You taught me how to be in my body when I had learned to hover outside it. Somehow in the tightest of your squeeze, where I could barely take a full breath, I learned how to be more in “me.” Your hugs changed me.

You taught me how to truly love a stranger. You would tell the cashier at a grocery store who was clearly having a bad day, “I love you too,” and then you would hug them. I melted each time.

You taught me how to play, and that curiosity is the most valuable way to connect. You would wrestle me and pin me, and we would laugh and laugh and laugh.

You taught me how to care for me and to care for you by anchoring inside me, returning to my body, loving deeply and living in play and curiosity.

You taught me how to hold another, by holding you. You couldn’t tell me what was wrong if you were sick or your heart hurt, and so I had to pay attention. I had to learn you… learn when something changed, what patterns you had and when they shifted. I had to learn to listen with every part of me to every part of you.

In our friendship in the years before you died, after I had stopped being your caregiver, your hug returned me to me and made me want to love everyone and everything more. And you would say “I love you too, Dirgy” over and over, before I could say a word.

I miss you.

And, you are still here every moment. Thank you for helping me remember. Always.