Letting your soul catch up in the fast paced challenging world of today.
Stop the Train, I want to get off!
Anyone else been feeling like this of late, or any time over the last year really?
I’ve had this feeling a number of times Usually a final small thing, the proverbial straw that broke the camels back comes along and breaks me. It seems there is just too much change, too fast and each time I think things are calming down something else happens.
This year has been tough on so many and perhaps all of us in one way or another. For some it is complete overwhelm, home schooling children whilst working from home and perhaps with a precarious or reduced family income, whilst recovering from Covid, for others it is total isolation and removal of all their usual support system. For many of us it has been both simultaneously.
Alongside coping with our various personal situations we are all feeling the collective grief, fear and emotional states. There is so much grief over the loss of all we thought certain and steady, grief for lost loved ones and lost loved activities, fear of death and illness and of more changes and an uncertain future. There are concerns over moves to a more authoritarian state, polarised opinions and emotions running high. The planet is noisy and everything is shifting fast.
It is no wonder we sometimes wish we could just get the train to stop, just for a little while, a little relief.
Last week I found myself at breaking point again, nothing different really, perhaps a child saying no he sees no reason to tie his laces or come for dinner. Something small. But I found myself yelling internally STOP, enough. I felt overwhelmed with too many changes too fast, too much information to process and too many things to do. You may well recognise the scene or something similar, where three children simultaneously yelling for different reasons and yanking at your clothes whilst the door bell rings and the phone also rings and you know there is something else you need to do before a certain time and you can’t hear yourself think and dinner is burning too.
So if you recognise something of your own situation in this description please read on.
First, I’d like to tell you a story I heard years ago and have always remembered (no idea who to attribute the story to if you know do drop me a line)
The basic gist I remember goes like this:
A group of intrepid mountaineers have planned a trip. They are in the Himalayas and have hired a team of Sherpas to carry their equipment. They have a schedule. They are happy they are making good progress against their timetable. They are making such good time they find themselves two days ahead of schedule and are celebrating the extra time they have. They are looking forwards to their main climb which is still some days away across country. The sun is shining, they are tired but energised and in good spirits.
Then the next morning their Sherpas sit down and refuse to move. Until now they have cheerfully followed the mountaineers schedule. But now nothing can persuade them to move another step. Their reason: They have walked too far, too fast. Now their souls need to catch up. They will wait in this spot until they feel their soul has caught up.
I can picture the surprise and consternation of the Western mountaineers faced with a different mentality and beliefs to their own and I can also feel the truth in what the Sherpas told them.
And here is how that showed up for me, and what this has to do with our current situation and healing birth trauma.
When the overwhelm descended last week I booked a session with a colleague. I opened into the energy of wanting the train to stop so I could get off back and back to its origin. This was not the first time I had felt like this and the original pain was only being triggered by similarities in our current situation to the original situation. I found myself back as a new born baby. A sensitive empathetic baby who was overwhelmed with the noise and everyday activity of this new world she was born into. The birth had been a big experience for her. The first big transition of her life, where everything was changing and she had no control over her environment and no idea what was going to happen next. Bright lights, talking- no longer muffled- from many different, unfamiliar voices, no rhythmic pulsing of her mother’s heart, no comforting feel of the umbilical cord and placenta which is all she had known. The strange sensation of the space around her. It was all just too much at once. Even one of those things would have been a major experience to process.
I went back just a little to when I was half in and half out of my mother. To the first moment when I kind of knew what was about to happen and I was screaming for more time. It was happening too fast and was too much to cope with. I wasn’t ready, I needed time. Time for my soul to catch up.
In this healing process I was able to ask for this. It was the most curious feeling. Time literally stopped. As if I had taken a photograph of the moment and then entered and become the photograph. Yet I was alive and experiencing myself not in this world in a space of stillness and silence. The pause that I had needed. I stayed there and let myself feel supported by the spirit world as my soul caught up and poured itself into my body. I felt my body and soul gradually relax. Time out from the fast and furious pace I had been experiencing in the powerful energy that is birth.
After a few timeless minutes, and if you have given birth and experienced the way time can go all kooky then you know what that feels like, I was then ready. The image shifted and the baby me was born, this time she was able to cope with the noise and bright lights. She had the resilience and presence she needed. She had something I cannot put into words. A sense of peace and rightness with where she was and what was happening no matter how challenging. The knowledge that she would get through this and it would be ok even if she couldn’t see how or know what would happen. I trusted this feeling and this knowledge.
This was integrated all the way up to the present day where I am still working my way through life with Covid restrictions, my business, my family, my dreams, and all of life ahead but once more with peace in my heart, a greater sense of trust in life that everything is working out well, and feeling supported in that. It makes all the difference especially in these challenging times.
If this story speaks to you, I suggest first asking your body and your soul if they need time out and time to catch up and if yes plan it into your schedule. Plan some time to do nothing very much, listen to the birds, rest in nature or in your bath tub.
If you would like to go deeper and explore how your birth experience is impacting on your present day life then please message me to see how I might support you. I offer 121 healing and support via zoom.
