Rest the Nervous System - Matt Licata

 We've been through so much over the last year [or more]...
not only personally, but culturally and collectively as well...

It's been a slow continuous drip of cortisol/adrenaline into
the collective, a deep unsettling restlessness, on the one
hand, and on the other a collapse; an alternation between
hyper-vigilance and shutting down.

Many of us are experiencing a [deep] tiredness, not only
physically, but a soul-level sort of exhaustion, where what
we thought we knew about ourselves, who we are and what
 matters most to us, what we're doing here, and where we're
 headed...  so much of this has really been called into
question, been dismantled, and in may ways fallen apart...

There is a deep longing to rest and to feel safe again in
our bodies...

It is important to slow down - to mourn not only the losses
of health and life, but also the dream of the way we thought
it was all going to turn out.

The rebirth part of the death-rebirth cycle is embodied
through our willingness and capacity to grieve.  The
portal to new life opens through conscious, embodied
lamentation, as we gather the shards of the heart and
collect them in a holy vase...  as we prepare for what
will emerge out of the ashes of dissolution...

Matt Licata

From: An Invitation to Rest Your Nervous System

Resting Your Nervous System Webinar info

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Photo from the Internet digitally altered

For One Who Is Exhausted - John O'Donohue

Photo by Martin Stranka

When the rhythm of the heart becomes hectic,
Time takes on the strain until it breaks;
The all the unattended stress falls in
On the mind like an endless, increasing weight.

The light in the mind becomes dim.
Things you could take in your stride before

Now become laborsome events of will.

Weariness invades your spirit.
Gravity begins falling inside you,
Dragging down every bone.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken in the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles your rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gently with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed of spirit.

Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for the heart
And joy that dwells far within slow time.

John O'Donohue

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Photo - via No Mind's Land