These are strange times. Not everyone is responding the same way to them. Some of my clients are in turmoil, feeling the changes in visceral ways. Others are feeling more resourced, able to stay on an even keel for the most part.

Many are doubting if how they are feeling is “right”, somehow. Folks that are buffeted by lots of emotions are feeling compounding layers of judgment about how intensely they’re feeling everything. Others that are feeling more “okay” find themselves wondering if they’re somehow in denial.

I’m going to keep this brief. I want you to know that whatever you’re feeling is exactly right for you. You are where you are in your journey on this earth at this time. No one has experienced this particular confluence of events in our lifetime. There’s no “right way” to do this.
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Summertime. There’s a quickening as the sun comes out more consistently. Even in times such as these, as the world grapples with how best to respond to the pandemic, how best to respond to government over-reach or under-reach.

Whether you’re in an area that is opening up COVID-19 restrictions quickly or cautiously, there’s probably a bit more options for activity — socializing outside, folks figuring out how to work safely, whether with masks or in the open air (I now have an outside office on my side porch with plenty of airflow and distance), perhaps some travel to see family or camp.

I have numerous clients coming in with reports of general over stimulation, and self judgment about it. “I shouldn’t be feeling like this! I used to do three times what I’m doing now with no problem at all!”

You may know that I have been on many meditation retreats. I lived part time in a meditation center for 10 years in my 30s. There were long retreats that I participated in. I continued to go to week long retreats after I became a mom and the family could manage with me being gone.

Re-entering daily life after a long period of relative silence takes care. We are sensitive beings with nervous systems that need care. Especially if we have significant wounding or trauma from childhood or our lineages!
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A client who’s been working with me for over a year has recently been able to more fully access a core piece of suffering. We’ve both known it was there, but it took time to establish enough safety for it to come clearly into awareness.

The doorway in was to look at the way her Inner Critic was attacking her. (I’ve written more about the Inner Critic here and here.)

“She has bad genes”, was one of the things her Critic said. Bad genes.

My client’s mother is a first generation immigrant, and comes from a people whose women are often beautifully dark eyed, dark haired, and voluptuous.

In order to be “good enough” to truly belong here in the US, my client learned to measure herself to a standard of “Whiteness”. Her mother’s people don’t look like Brittney Spears, one of the images she learned to emulate growing up.

These are the waters we swim in. It goes unquestioned, until the suffering in it becomes impossible to ignore. And, some of those standards play out in the larger context as violence — the threat of violence against, or the fear of violence from anyone who doesn’t conform to these images of what we have learned to view as “normal” — whether that be Whiteness, financial security, health, body shape and size, images of femininity or masculinity, etc.
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I’ve been dizzy. Feeling weird in my head, like my brain is a bit dislocated. Having a hard time connecting with my quarantine pod, my husband and two nearly adult kiddos. Tired. But, I can’t necessarily sleep, just feel tired. COVID-19 has changed our lives, and not much feels familiar.

I’ve been studying the Polyvagal Theory, research mainly associated with Stephen Porges, in my training with the META Institute. If you’ve studied the Polyvagal Theory, you can probably skim through the next 4 or 5 paragraphs, they’re a pretty basic explanation of that.

The Ventral portion of the Vagal nervous system is mainly located in the face, throat and neck. We are at ease when we’re in Ventral Vagal response, when we’re connected with people we feel safe with, when we can co-regulate our nervous systems together and find a feeling of security. This is the most complex part of our nervous system, the most recent to develop in evolution. It’s what gets activated, I’m convinced, when we’re at temple or church or on retreat with our spiritual communities. Our nervous systems need community to function properly, to be “happy”.

Many of us are used to hearing about fight, flight, and freeze as part of the Sympathetic nervous system response when we feel threatened, but in actuality how that works is a little more complicated.
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Welcome to the realities of COVID-19.

Living in times of crisis can cause a variety of reactions. What are you noticing?

If you’re in quarantine or sheltering-in-place with access to the news, anxiety is likely no stranger to you. You may be on the front lines in health care or other essential service. You may be one of the many who have suddenly lost your livelihood. We are powerless over these events that are affecting the whole world.

I was just texting with my brother — “This seems to have really cured me of any daddy complex I might have had that someone in charge would save me if ‘things got bad’.”

If you’ve read anything I’ve put out over the years, you know spirituality is my jam. What I mean by spirituality is pretty broad. My main interest is in what works for YOU. What is your edge that needs leaning into? Spiritual practices needs to be attuned to your personality.

Spirituality may sound like some lofty term that refers to something outside our everyday life. Maybe not particularly useful or accessible when there’s a damn pandemic going on! This is real life!

Can we redefine the term, please? Maybe call it “Embodied Spirituality”? “Human Spirituality”?

A life of Spirit that honors our Humanness so completely that there’s no separation between the two.

One of our tasks now, in order to remain as calm as possible and carry on, is nervous system regulation. That means calming down when we’re scared or angry. Waking up if we feel frozen or confused. Connecting if we feel lonely and sad.
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I have a few clients that are struggling with needing particular kinds of support in the world. Needing social or disability services that are not easy to get.

Many people have heard me say that the nuclear family is a failed experiment. This normalized expectation for us all to be “independent” is warping our humanity. I view the process folks have to go through to receive services as part and parcel of that. Folks have to “prove” that they’re incapacitated in quite dehumanizing ways to receive basic support. And, usually they have to prove it over and over again.

Given that many folks needing assistance are also living with a history of trauma that may actually be causing the need for assistance, we really have a system that is severely off the mark. A system that compounds the injury it professes to try to salve.

A couple of examples – if someone is suffering from TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury), making them responsible for filling out complicated forms to receive assistance is cruel. To offer them assistance filling those forms out with a worker who is not trained to understand the needs of someone who is not neuro-typical, who is impatient or shaming, compounds the cruelty.

I have a memory, early on in my Lyme diagnosis and treatment, of a certain receptionist in my doctor’s practice. I had some fairly significant neurological symptoms — short term memory loss, brain fog, slowed down thinking processes. This person was sharp toned, impatient when I had a hard time remembering the names of supplements I needed to order, or putting together disparate pieces of information about my treatment plan. I remember feeling ashamed, and nervous about having to talk with them.
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