Navigating Storms
A Cheat Sheet
Barn’s burnt down.
Now I can see the moon.
MIZUTA MASAHIDE
If the previous chapter was a lot to swallow, here are some bite-sized nuggets to remind you how far you have come and to help you go even further.
What Kills You Makes You Stronger Down, death, dark, descent; they are your friends, even if at first it seems they will kill you. They will, in fact, kill a part of you. Whatever part you no longer need, let it burn away. Don’t stop at the surface. Go deep. Plant your seeds in the most fertile soil, so that a new — and stronger — part can be born.
What Goes Down, Must Come Up Your ups and downs are not curses. Your cycles, calling to you from the province of nature, connect you to your natural wisdom. Like the moon and the stars, yours is a heavenly body. As any heroine can see, you may not need to be medicated; you might just need to align yourself with your cycles.
Don’t Bypass Anything; Just Put One Foot in Front of the Other When you are through your dark time, you will look back and be able to see it for the lesson, the growth, the great story, the silver lining, and even the blessing that it is. While you are in it, you will not.
For now, just swim one more stroke, just hoe one more row, just take one more breath. Feel it, all of it. Keep it moving. Let the river of your feelings rage over your internal sandbags or dams. Or trickle, or evaporate like fog on a hot day. However it moves, let it. Let it have you.
It has to go somewhere. When you stop its flood, it burrows deep in your mind, in your heart, in your tissues, bones, and blood. And it rots. That kind of decay can make you unwell. Don’t let it fester. Compost that shit and let it flow.
Tend to Your Girl Child Every emotional storm you experience wallops both a past version of you along with a present-day version of you. The current storm reminds you of a past storm. Or, the current storm invokes the beliefs you made in a past storm, or the current storm makes you feel as small and vulnerable as you did when you really were small and vulnerable — and probably couldn’t even wipe your own butt yet.
So, imagine a freaked-out younger version of you that is also having this stormy experience with you. Scoop her into your arms, like I did with my son on the playroom floor.
Tell this little, frightened part of you, “I’ve got you. You’re okay.” Feel what it feels like to hold your girl-child self in your arms and in your lap. Feel the little one’s storm begin to downshift.
Then, imagine you are the little one. Feel what it is like to be held by strong arms and to be in a safe lap. Imagine yourself reclining into a body that is strong and loving. If that’s a bit of a somatic tongue twister, it is meant to be. Don’t worry, you’ve got this. You can be both adult woman and girl child at once.
Take Your Breaks When you catch a break, or when you need to create one so you can pull yourself together just to take out the trash, go grocery shopping, care for your kids, or work on your novel, I suggest this: bracket it. Bracketing is a term that comes from psychology that means to put your emotional storm inside brackets [like these].
With bracketing, you don’t bury your emotions, you don’t pretend they are not there, you don’t ignore or wish them away. Instead you put them on a shelf for later. You promise them (and yourself) that you will be back with your full attention, but for now, you need to focus on something else. And then later, make good on that promise, and un-bracket your dark.
If You Can, Enlist Help Ask a friend, or even pay someone if that is available to you, to feed you, remind you to shower, make a list of the supplements you need to take and when, come with you to doctors’ appointments, water the plants, take the kids to the park, hold your hand, help you make sense of it all, or see past your shame to your beauty.
It is hard to be the only one tracking your well-being when you are in the dark, because being in the dark tends to spiral you further into the dark. But you have to reach out. Ask. It is a sign of strength, not of weakness. Your friends and family will respect and trust you more for asking, not less. Regardless of what they have on their plates, your request will require them to tap into a resourceful, sturdy, and compassionate place within them — a place that they might not be able to access except through your asking.
Reach out and ask. But give them guidelines such as, “Don’t ask how I am; just silence.” “Let’s watch a movie.” “No advice, please; just listen.” “Bring take-out Thai food.” “Massage my feet.” “Don’t say, ‘Let me know what I can do.’ I don’t know what I need, so ask me questions and we’ll find it together.” “Hug me and let me be the one to pull away first.” “Remind me it is going to be okay.”
Treating each other with dignity while we navigate the dark, and even treating dark times as a healthy part of being alive, is a rare and nascent skill set for most humans. Most people want to help, but don’t know how. Throw them whatever bone you can.
String Your Pearls As you complete your alchemical journey through the underworld, you will have composted crap into gold. You will have learned the art of bearing the Queen of the Dark’s pressure, and you will have a diamond heart to show for it. Pearls, gold, diamonds; these gems are yours. You unearthed them, you polished them, you hand-cut every facet. Decorate your crown and string yourself a beautiful strand.
As you surf that edge between feeling it all fully and wallowing, between deciding you have had enough and numbing, the question arises, What pain must be borne in order to learn from it and what pain can simply be avoided? Your restrictive beliefs bring pain with them, so as you remake yourself, one belief at a time, you also stop attracting extra pain. Suffering and complaining are the norm in our world, so as you train yourself to cultivate the light and to nurture more happiness, you also resist sinking into collective suffering.
And yet, no matter how great your life gets — and please, get ready for it to get really, really great — there is a certain amount of death that will always be there to silhouette your bright life.
Get Ready for the Light As you come out of the underworld, before you can leave the dark for the dawn, before you learn the things and practice the practices that leave you feeling golden, there is a stop you need to make at the very center of your body. Before you can get to where you are going, you will need to commune with your inner knowing — your truth, your compass, your intuitive voice.
Your inner knowing carries messages from the other world, through you, into this world. It lives in the in-between. Your inner knowing can’t wait to hear from you and get all parts of you back together again so you can remember who you truly are. So you can embody your genius.
I’ve always liked the time before dawn because there’s no one around to remind me who I am supposed to be so it’s easier to remember who I am.
BRIAN ANDREAS