go slowly.

you are the only one who can decide what is healing to you and what that actually means.

sometimes you can’t accept help.

sometimes help is the thing that turns you further and further away.

sometimes you know you’re spiting yourself. isolating yourself. hurting people you love. but there’s nothing you can do.

for me, i’m such a hyper-aware/obsessive/fixating person that my cognition is on overload- what is the reason? how are we processing this? what comes nextnextnext?

the greatest thing- the only thing- we can do.. is just show up. as yoga teaches us every time we arrive.

just be there, in some situation out of the ordinary. with no expectation, cognition, pressure, NOTHING.

applaud yourself for the days you move. smile. go outside to touch a tree. look at the stars.

don’t guilt yourself into or out of anything.

just show up at yoga. start making some crazy collage. make a therapy appointment. go for a walk. make yourself a meal. any small thing. and then just be there. be in it. receive it. because the healing just happens. i feel it right now, 3 days back into yoga.

you can read self-help and advice books until the end of time- and i love them too- but you have to just embody it. get there. be there. get out of bed. or go to sleep early. and show up.

sometimes teachings work backwards for me because i constantly beat myself up- i know this. i know better. you feel the pressure, the expectation, the guilt, shame, time slipping away.

so- i am just writing to you lovingly from a moment outside the darkness.

just show up.

because the possibility of transformation is so much more pure and REAL than any kind of cognition, reasoning, logic, grandiose or complicated process your mind wants to implement.

right now- that’s all i can ask of myself. showing up, everyday. some consistency that i have never had in this increasingly bewildering world.

our lives feel meaningless because we’re always waiting for the big bang, so overstimulated it’s only the big things that can touch us anymore. what about the sensations of being alive, the sights and sounds, awareness?

as my best friend said so perceptively.. we are pulled over on the side of the road fiddling with our GPS, google maps, and wifi signal. instead of remembering- WE. CAN. JUST. DRIVE.

here, my heart goes analog.

“go slowly, and you will find the way out.”

XO

a.