The Resilience of Receiving

Let's start with the important naming of this community process.

As these times put a halt to our carefully constructed patterns of caregiving and connecting, many of us have been left adrift. The external constructs have exploded, leaving us present to ourselves in a profound and unfamiliar way.

Think about it. As caregivers, we reach out to help others, and affirm their relief as they settle in to a softer, smoother place. But this all occurs behind a subtle, defensive wall that divides us internally. Yes, I can use my license and position to reach out to others. Yes, I can acknowledge their relief and the “Ok I’ve done my job” from that externalized, dissociated place of self. We are encouraging our patients to receive our help in a way that we have not experienced receiving ourselves.

And this is where the huge energy of this global trauma and disruption glimmers with opportunity. Yes. For the past several years, it’s become more and more obvious that therapists attending classes are there for their own relief, never mind the hands-on bingo. The signs of caregivers being desperate for their own care have been growing, and now here we are: less able to put “hands-on” but able to meet “beyond the table” to feel for the presence and connections that are the true drivers of healing.

And what is healing but SELF-empowerment? And self-empowerment comes from being held and heard and valued. There is the most sacred dance in that agreement, between self- witnessing and being supported and witnessed. We do this so naturally, and powerfully, for others. What if we had the permission to do this for ourself? How can we receive ourselves as we are held and received? Far beyond our old social and survival defenses?

I believe it starts so simply, with the exhale of permission into the Pause. Permission to be present to our own breath, to what rumbles within. Permission to pause and breathe through the rumble, and land in that softer, deeper place. You know, that quiet, desperate pulse of vulnerability that simply cannot continue alone. When we can hold this sacred place within, and simply be there, we can find the reliability of our enduring Truth. And then we can organize to our Truth, rather than to the chaos surrounding us. As we receive ourselves within, and experience the profound, reliable presence of Truth within, an important shift happens. We receive our self-caring. We care, and are cared for, in our inviolable container of Self. By ourselves, for ourselves. And from this place of Source and Self, we can connect in service.

This is where we meet and what we reclaim, in the Path and Process Community.