Dear soul,
The world can be an overwhelming place when your heart is both the sail and the hole in your boat.
But luckily,
You do not need to live in the world,
Because it lives in you.
And when you feel like there is too much being asked of you,
You can see it as a sign that you are asking too much of yourself.
And take a moment to come back to the autonomy you have over your body in any environment.
Most overwhelm stems from a place of deep self-distrust,
A disbelief in your capabilities to move through discomfort,
To make the right decisions,
To choose the wiser path.
Learning to believe and trust in yourself begins by meeting with the black bear within,
The war-weary bearer of your fears,
Your stories,
And validations that support your belief in brokenness.
Let us go on a journey now and create a safe space to discover what lies in the heart of all your fears.
Close your eyes now and take a deep breath.
Come home to the body,
The only place where time exists,
The container that allows spirit to experience life through.
Connect to the breath,
The first and last act of life.
Settle down,
Settle in.
Let the sediments of your day fall to the ground now so you can see what is left,
What is pure and unconditional.
I'd like you to imagine that you are sitting on the floor in a quiet room.
There are no other rooms in this house,
Just this open,
Light,
And welcoming space with one wooden door and lots of big windows.
You feel warm,
Safe,
Comfortable.
Through the window you can see a beautiful,
Thick pine forest,
And you can hear the gentle lapping of waves somewhere close by.
Streams of light fall across the floorboards as you watch the specks of dust dance between the light and shadow.
The smell of juniper and warm pine needles fill your lungs,
And the log fire offers a peaceful and nourishing sound behind you.
This is a safe place,
A place to call home,
A place where you feel like you belong and are welcomed.
Nothing can enter this space without your permission.
Struggles,
Questions,
Sadness,
Uncertainties,
And longings cannot enter here without your permission.
This is a place of attentive restoration.
Take a deep breath.
Create a little more space in your body,
A little more autonomy over this room.
Your breath reinforces the walls,
The door,
The floorboards,
The windows.
It is through this breath that you are protected and safe.
Feel the power of this breath strengthening your safe place.
Nothing comes in,
No energy is expended outward.
All is allowed to be in impartial stillness.
I'd like you to choose something difficult that you are going through right now,
Something that is making you doubt in your ability to move through it in the best possible way.
In the heart of this struggle lies a deep-seated belief that you are incapable of solving it,
Of healing it,
Of learning from it,
And from moving onwards.
You can find this deep-seated belief by completing the following sentence.
I will never because I am not.
I will never because I am not.
I'd like you to invite this limiting belief into your safe space now.
Open the door opening into your room,
Leaves rushing in as your belief comes through the door.
Your belief,
This story you have created about yourself,
Has manifested into a great black bear.
It carries the battle scars of your past and a life spent in fear,
Doubt,
And self-distrust.
Its fur is matted and unkempt.
It limps slowly towards you.
One arm tucked against its chest,
And it seats itself heavily in front of you.
This black bear carries all of your emotional triggers,
Your validations,
Your fears within each fiber of its hair.
It is the bearer of your ache.
Take just a few seconds to really feel how destructive this black bear has been on your life.
It feels unmovable,
Volatile,
And hungry.
Now that your guest is sitting in front of you,
I'd like you to remember that this bear is not a part of you,
But has been invited into your space for a few moments.
You still exist,
Without the story.
Place a hand upon your heart and offer your recognition of its presence here.
You may bow your head a little and follow these words.
I see you.
I feel you.
Thank you for being here.
I'm not here to fix you.
I'm here to hold space for you,
To offer my presence.
It's okay,
You are safe here.
Now take a deep breath,
Release your hand from your heart,
And allow this bear to simply be in your presence,
Without identifying with it,
Without trying to control or change it in any way.
The bear sits,
Its arm cradling something against its chest.
You can't quite see it because it's hunched over.
You ask it to show you,
Because it feels safe here with you,
It begins to slowly unfurl a shape from within its pore.
It's a sleeping child.
It's you,
As you were,
When you were your most innocent,
Most vulnerable,
Most alive.
Your child self slowly opens its eyes and finds a place to sit in front of you,
And the bear leaves the room slowly through the front door again.
Look closely at your younger self now,
The fine skin around your ears,
The light as it weaves through the soft eyelashes on your face.
Look at the texture of your hair,
Smile on the corner of your lips.
Look at who you were.
It's okay,
They are safe now.
You found a way to protect her all those years ago,
In the shape of a bear whose bones could carry the weight of all your sadness.
You created something so mighty that enabled you to survive.
Every moment there was hurt,
Your bear grew in strength.
Every time you were reminded of your ache,
Its soft fur was there to comfort you.
For better,
For worse,
Its protector has walked beside you your whole life,
Guarding the origin of your hurt.
May have been destructive,
But it was innocent.
Can't forgive it now,
You can't forgive yourself.
You can tell your young and vulnerable self they do not need the bear now,
That you will care for her and slowly teach her how to trust herself again.
Without the weapons,
I have one question for you to ask your younger self,
And I'd like you to spend a few moments just listening to their response.
You might be met with just a word or two,
And it's okay if they don't reply.
Ask them this question.
What can I offer you right now?
Your younger self requires very little from you,
But what they do need is the most important thing you can offer all of yourself right now.
Promise them to give them what they need in any way you can,
And allow them to leave this room free to be themselves,
To be whole and loved.
Watch them stand up and walk toward the open door.
Smiling as they turn to run and play in the deep forest.
Take a breath,
And really settle into this space again.
Power of this safe space is always here for you,
Always welcoming that which is most hard to face,
But that requires so little of you in return.
Place the word you received from your younger self now into your heart,
And allow this experience to store itself as wisdom to be used again in the future when the protective bear comes to visit again.
Honor your practice today by bringing your palms together,
Bowing to receive these palms upon your forehead.
May the wisdom of your heart become the seeing of your mind.
When you're ready,
You can open your eyes.
All your limiting beliefs protect the vulnerable pieces of you that have been hurt in the past.
Healing trauma and the stories we create to protect ourselves is about feeling safe enough so we can be present with the wound.
Presence unfurls the child,
The truth,
And the origin of all protective beliefs.
Disarming each tender ache begins by creating a safe space within you where you can see who are the guests of this body and who is left when all of them have gone.
You are ultimately beyond your story,
Beyond your fears,
And are capable of using the wisdom of your wounds to set you free.
You don't need to live in perpetual protection,
Gathering more experiences,
More stories to strengthen the validation you have against your wholeness,
Because you were never broken to begin with.
You were just vulnerable.
And that vulnerability needs to be embodied again to fully dismantle the density of what protects you.
It is a hero's journey to free yourself,
To restore your pain and return home again to your body,
Wiser for the journey.
But we are all here together.
We are all learning to walk this path without the overbearing bodyguards that are our black bears.
Thank you for being here with me.
Your time is so valuable,
So thank you for spending some of it in this space today.
