Telling myself to be something other than what I am just creates more struggle, reinforces my belief/fear that something is wrong with me, I'm not good enough, I'm broken and will always be.

When my meditation teacher spoke these words, tears welled up in my eyes.

Because I've spent the last 10 years telling myself to relax, and I finally understand that's not the way to actually relax.

Because I still catch myself telling myself I should be/feel/do something else than what I am being/feeling/doing all the time. (Even writing these words. What will you all think of me? Who am I to doing healing work when I'm still healing? Who am I to teach when I'm still learning?)

Someone needs to say these words more often. We're all healing. We're all learning. And thank goodness, the world needs us to.*

Why does Relaxing feel so important?

For me: Because I've been operating in a hypervigilant, over-functioning, over-acheiving, people-pleasing, highly anxious and sensitive state for most of my life.

Because I've been living in pain, tension and anxiety for most of my life.

Because I can feel the disfunction and over-busyness of our modern culture, rooted in fear, rooted in scarcity, rooted in "not enough." It pulls me into false need. (What I really need is to step back and look around.)

Because I'm angry and I'm sad that I've been trying so hard to be something, someone, or some state of being that's just not me, and that I often don't even want.

True, I don't want to be angry and sad either. But those are emotions (energy-in-motion), not ways of being, not who I am. It's an important disctinction. We just often get stuck, because it can be uncomfortable, or unsafe, or we've never learned how to let emotions/energy move through us. But then we suffer. Then we feel/believe it is "how we are."

Relaxation IS who you are.
Tension is who you think you should be.

How do we realize the enoughness all around us? (When actually, there's often too much. Not enough/Too much: two sides of the same coin. How do we center ourselves in the midst of both?)

How do we embrace and embody all of who we are? (Because we only get one version of this.)

How do we take radical responsibility for our reality? (We're the only ones who can.)

I don't have simple answers. But I have been an explorer of these questions for most of my life. And I want to talk about it.

So what is "Healing"?

As best as I can tell, from my own journey:

Healing is embracing our wholeness, the fabric of our bodies, the history of our lives. So that we can know and love ourselves unconditionally and show up in celebration of who we are, and love even the parts we wish hadn't happened that way (and, maybe, someday, we can be fully in gratitude that they did happen that way... because it's what's made us who we are now and we love ourselves and wouldn't want to change a thing).

Healing is allowing and unkinking the hose of our emotions, our energy, our life force (call it what you will). So that we can let the winds and waves of life move through us without carrying us away or beating us down. So that we can stay present with ourselves and our lifes. So we can feel and integrate and return to a grounded state of love and peace.

Healing is integrating our human mind, animal body, physical nervous system and intangible spirit (our sense of something greater). So that we can sense what is happening on all levels of our highly evolved beings. So that we can partner and respond to what is arising in our life, inside ourselves, on our planet.

We are the universe trying to understand itself.

We are Awesome.

Are you In(spired)?

And what in the world does Craniosacral Therapy and bodywork have to do with all this? In my experience, it is one of the most direct ways we can get in touch with the physical and energetic/emotional aspects of what is happening for us. To allow what has been stuck to move. To unwind and unkink our garden hoses. To increase our capacity to feel and heal. It is an opportunity for embodied meditation, for giving ourselves radical self-care and love (slowing down is definitely radical right now).

Come on down, the table is warm.

*I write these words as a 36-year-old, white, housed, financially stable woman living in the United States. These words are for others in similar situations. I realize others in the world do not have many of the privilegdes I have. But if the only thing I do with priviledge is feel guilty about it, I'm not embracing my power either. If those of us with power and abundance don't claim our power and ability to response (response-ability), we aren't fully owning the reality of our lives.