Do you ever feel like the prisoner to your own emotions, patterns, pain? Like it’s time to just be done already with sinking into the quicksand of the familiar helpless feeling of your vulnerabilities? Me? ☑️

Luckily I’ve become skilled at turning my boat around, and getting my sea legs under me when life is turbulent - like now when three massive life changes are brewing. The potential stress level? High. The demand on my body? Massive. The requirements of my mind? Extensive. Plus change means something old is ending, so there may be grief. Plus something new on the horizon could bring fear.

How am I now dealing with running towards cliffs at full speed? Well, I didn’t call my therapist in desperation, but I have. I didn’t call my spiritual teacher in desperation, but I have. I didn’t call a friend in desperation, but I have. I didn’t post about it, but I have. I didn’t watch certain movies to make me feel certain ways, but I have. I didn’t try to get together with a bunch of friends who I knew would cheer me up, but I have. I didn’t go online and find a yoga workshop to take, but I have. I didn’t call my shaman to find out when the next plant ceremony would be, but I have. I didn’t smoke any herb that would help me change my perspective, but I have. I didn’t ingest anything at all that would help me numb the discomfort of being myself, but I have. And maybe at times those things will still have a seat at my table.

So what have I been doing? Refining all my gathered self-caring into a distilled medicine.

The practices we learn, and develop, help us tap into our own inner cache of resources so we can pull ourselves out of the quicksand and get back on sturdy legs.

For me, I order everything on the ‘High Frequency Tara Menu’:

I move my body around a bit, I clean my sinuses with a Netti pot and then I oil them with good essential oil’s massaging my face lying over blankets in a backbend before practicing deep breathing techniques (slow exhalations!). I practice a few well chosen yoga poses, to enliven my energy and uplift my spirit by adjusting the mixer board of my endocrine system. I meditate on my mantra infused with the power of words used for centuries to “turn boats around.” I let the mantras stir me. I sit with myself and a singing bowl. I go out side and allow myself to be permeated by nature. Vigilantly.

I work with my emotional parts, techniques that I spent years in a therapist’s office being guided through (because what’s the point of paying thousands of dollars & investing scores of hours in therapy if we do not use the techniques off the couch?). I pray my good daily prayers (because I learned a while back to stop being apprehensive of praying- either way we’re all doing it with our thoughts and words, might as well do it on purpose). I give thanks for the mundane - essential and blessed.

So my entire frequency changes. And for the most part, all I need for any of those nutritious & delicious tactics was myself. Plus the willingness to tap into the decades of learning tools that I have learned; understanding my neurology and physiology as I have come to, and accessing with a willing heart. All of this is learnable, I do not own any of it. The only thing that I own on that menu is my will.

I have made a life of studying myself, and others, with voracious curiosity and a passionate drive to be empowered and empower others towards, at the very least, feeling better, and ideally knowing our true exaltedness as a daily state of being. I’ve learned to even respect the quicksand, honor the cliff.

Some suffering in life is inevitable, but we can make choices to suffer less, or better, more productively even. Our choices steer us away from the quicksand and provide the net for when we leap. Our choices can keep us illuminated, sure footed and able to soar. Our lights, like the sun, are always there. It’s merely temporary clouds that occlude our knowing. ☀️