Being In Care Of

I live in a mountain town, where white tailed deer are a common sight. While they don’t frequent our neighborhood much in summer months as food is plentiful for them in other less populated places, I did spot a mother and her 2 fawns a month ago when I was driving up the street approaching our driveway. 

I delight in seeing deer, especially a mother with young ones. Their presence calmed my mind and I immediately noticed the weight of my feet supported by the floor of the car. 

I slowed and turned off the lights so as not to scare them, but I was too late. They took off running across the street and down the sidewalk tails waving like flags in the air.

When I came into the kitchen, I turned off the lights and quietly slid open our glass door and saw them across the street, wary but calmer than just a moment before. I suspected if I left them alone they would eventually come back to our neighbors yard to resume eating crab apples.

In just a matter of seconds the deer expressed both the flight response and then subsequent rest and digest. It’s remarkable to me how quickly a body that was in flight can resume a calm state, whereas my own body seems to take longer.

My nervous system is not unusual. Stored energy that wasn’t released in previous threatening situations can cause a hiccup in the stress response cycle. Typically once the stressor is gone, the cycle in the body can complete and the body resumes calmness and ease again. But in certain bodies the stress response cycle doesn’t recover or doesn’t recover as quickly. 

For my body, nothing shows this hiccup more quickly than being in a situation with multiple eyes on me.

I’m not sure what previous events occurred (nor does it really matter when doing work in the body) to cause the interruption. But almost every time I can feel the flow of energy halted. Because I’m curious and committed to self inquiry, and because of the lack of resolution I keep leaning in.

I am in a choir that sings at bedside for people who are dying. We rehearse every week to practice original songs. Singing harmony a cappella is new for me and I still find it challenging. I’ve been there 2.5 years and the feeling in my body that I don’t belong is abating more and more.

But when I hit a sour note, the energetic charge of shame and tightness still rises. Hot tingly energy rushes to my face and tightness squeezes my throat and chest. Despite the discomfort, the alarm is lessening. My practice is to be in relationship with it, allow it to slow down, and then I experience more softness and ease.

At rehearsals, when I feel this energy rising, I find someone I trust to make eye contact with. Or I sit knee to knee or elbow to elbow. Then, I notice how the resulting softness in my chest becomes a resource. 

This is the work I do, I help myself and others find the way to calmness. People like me who have signs of disruption in their stress response cycles navigate through performance anxiety, imposter syndrome, difficulty setting boundaries and other seemingly impossible behavioral issues begin to find ease again in their bodies.

The process of being in care of is simple and involves listening with a different kind of awareness to what our bodies are telling us. It involves slowing down and getting curious about what else is here in addition to the constriction, and it requires courage to see how our bodies are in fact looking out for us even when we feel disconnected from them.

If you’re curious about practices that might help you on your journey, reach out. I work 1:1, in webinars in group workshops.