What can I do?

"What can I do?"

It is the most common question right now.

It was the immediate reaction in my own body too. When I learned the news, my body went into a stress response that needed action, desperately wanting to do something: Tangible. Physical. An action that would fill the void.

I am acutely aware that somehow "doing" is supposed to soothe "feeling."

Without anything to do, I froze.

The frozen state is an attempt at protection. Protection from the emotions, the overwhelm, the anguish.  The universal feeling of loss, you can relate to it no matter how many ripples away you are from the rock that dropped into the dark, deep water.

What does your body know about anguish that has it locking down doors, stopping the communication between parts of you? Trying to keep you safe from an inevitable knowing that will be too much to bear.

I don't know what to do. There is nothing that can be done.

In that stillness, I could feel two voices.

One loud. Fearful. Risk averse. Wanting to stay the course, keep the status quo, keep following — regardless of the energy it sucks from you. Telling me not to waste time in the frozen place. Not to give it any credence. Not to feel all the stuff it would ask me to feel. Protecting me from the damn feeling.

And another voice. Quieter. Sitting back, ready to be in the conversation, but not willing to yell above the noise. Slipping me a sticky note that said: when you are ready, come find me.

I held that little sticky note. Felt the full-body pull to fall into the quiet place. And the loud voice kept telling me not to.

This friction is real.

It is not your fault

Those with any sensitivity, any intuition, are feeling this friction hard right now, the fearful mind drowning out the quiet whisper that tells us we are okay.

If you're feeling this: lean on your 10 Habit Ayurvedic Toolbox. But know, to your core, that this is not your fault. Do not judge yourself for "feeling" off. The world is off. That's why you're feeling it.

I keep going back to a quote from the Vedic teacher J. Krishnamurti:

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society."

As our bodies recoil from an increasingly sick society we are reacting. And we should be. It is not a fault in us. It is a fault in our world.

That reaction is nudging us to step away from the unnatural, unbalanced, unaware actions our world promotes and follow our own inner wisdom - innate in our cells, programmed into us. We've been trained not to listen to it, because it's the one thing that can topple the systems controlling our world: when we stop listening, and stop following.

Yang vs. Yin

Our Yang conditioning is fighting to keep control. Status quo. Certainty.

Meanwhile our Yin is rising, demanding our time and attention, yearning for us to be quiet, sit still, and just listen.

The ‘doing’ part of us is the part we know well. Well trained into us. The part that's helped us through every past issue. And that part is afraid. It is afraid to let go of control, afraid to let you drop into the part of you that will expose you to feeling.

Feeling is terrifying. Overwhelming. All-encompassing. Filled with the unfamiliar, the unknown.

This friction is horrible.

When we notice the friction - dont listen to the stories your mind tells you. Notice it, and (ironically) pick a grounding action to put you back in your body - walk, hug someone, hold warrior 2 for two minutes, lay on the grass, find water (drink, bath, swim, paddle).

But know this: you are feeling something universal. Something many people are feeling right now.

We can't "do" our way here

We can't effort, fight, or claw our way toward Yin.

Yin is a release. A letting go. A trusting.

And damn, that is harder than all the work.

To let ourselves feel the feelings, to transmute them. To honor the feelings in our bodies, to be present to the state we're in. Non-doing. Allowing and accepting. Acknowledging, without judgment, what's right in front of us, whether we want it to be there or not.

We are always looking for what we can do. What activity, what actionable step, will soothe our way through this world. And we do need to keep stepping. We need our feelings, all of the emotions of this human being experience, to guide those steps.

Not some external fix. Not a commercial solution. Not a bypass of the whole.

So we undo.

We are learning to be.

Doing = Yang. 

Being = Yin.

That sticky note is still there. When you are ready, come find me.

When you're ready to be. 

xox

Jill

And just in case you are new to Sister Science.... here are our 10 Anchor Ayurvedic Habits.