What's in your toolkit?
When the excrement hits the air conditioner (Kurt Vonnegut, Hocus Pocus)
Frog in a pond at Fraga Farmstead Creamery, September 2024
It has been a week filled with feelings. I’ve been moving slowly the past few days, with a sense of heaviness. I know that I’m not alone in this. I’ve been thinking about the election that just passed. In a recent dharma talk of Jack Kornfield’s that I listened to he likened politics to a type of ritualized warfare. This week, I’ve been thinking about something that I discussed with counselors often in the darkest times of my mental health journey, my “toolkit”. As one of my yoga teachers often says, we practice regularly to be able to meet the most difficult times with these tools already sharpened. Sometimes, the tool that you use doesn’t work. It’s so normal, and yet can feel baffling. How DO I find peace, then? As we grow, new tools become available to us. Old tools may no longer serve us.
Lion overlap, block print and photoshop, 2010ish
Monday, I went to an online yoga class. My partner was out of town so I was puppy mama all day. When Opie, our ten year old pug awoke that morning, he was anxious right out of the gate. When I practiced yoga with him, he finally napped. My teacher that day talked about being in Vata season. There are three ayurvedic doshas, and Vata is from late autumn through early winter. It is marked by “wind”, change, and frenetic, unpredictable energy. That afternoon, Opie and I dropped off our ballots to vote. That evening, I made a root vegetable curry. Grounding. Warming. Tuesday’s energies were definitely frenetic. Tuesday evening, I helped to check in and attended a full yoga class (Portland full, not New York full).
Solstice mandala built with my YTT cohort, Summer Solstice 2024
I came home and had dinner with my partner. In our nightly cribbage game, my attention was scattered and frenetic. I had started checking the presidential results as they came in. All of a sudden, there I was - going into rejection fantasies about anything and everything. Anxiety. I had to start a to-do list. Finally, I let myself feel the ACTUAL FEELING of what was going on. I told my partner that I was scared, that the person that I didn’t vote for in the election had and would work to pass destructive and harmful policies that would affect many groups of people and places that I loved. That night, before bed, I asked my partner to lightly rub my back to help me move the emotions through my body. This practice is something that we discovered this winter during extreme grief, and it feels like a miracle to have this tool in our toolbox. Before bed, I made sure to schedule a yoga class for the next morning. Regardless of the results, I wanted to practice in the studio in community.
Strength painting, gouache on canvas, 2021
The next morning the results of the Presidential Election were available, and I witnessed the shock and grief at the results. I moved slowly that morning. I walked over to my yoga class. I took extra care in the class, I used extra props. I came home and worked on some backend stuff for a class that I’m teaching in the New Year. I went up to my studio and cleaned up a bit, and spent some time printing napkins for upcoming holiday sales. Some times I felt inspired and excited and I was able to feel hope, and joy. Other times I found myself pouring that discomfort into external situations, building anger in stories to externalize my inner suffering. I got to bedtime again, and I looked in the mirror before brushing my teeth, and I got stuck. I was stuck in my favorite rejection fantasies. I found myself before bringing myself to tears, and realized the same thing as the night before, I was scared. I made my way to bed in a very confused and scared state. I cried a little. For the first time in a long time, I woke at 4am with an aching heart. I had a full flashback of a trauma that happened in 2021. After half an hour passed, I listened to one of my PTSD meditations to bring my body down a bit. I eventually fell back asleep and had some PTSD nightmares.
Tiger and Panda waterfront, 2020
I woke this morning and held my family close. I took the time to journal both my nightmares and my rejection fantasies out, re-writing both with happy endings. I burned sage and read my tarot. I signed up for a yoga class this evening. I am grateful to have a scheduled weekend off from teaching this weekend. I am grateful to my past self for signing up for a chakra training with one of my yoga teachers that lives in Seattle. I will be immersed in my yoga community, surrounded by many folks from my yoga teacher training cohort, the yoga classes I attend regularly, and new people I haven’t met yet. I hope that in your life you are finding tools that are useful to you. Take good care and move as slowly as you need to. Namaste.