Eclipse Season: How To Trust + Hold Life More Lightly

photo by the incredible farrah skeiky.

I’m holding things more lightly.

It’s by necessity it seems. I have to grip less if I’m to move about the world with integrity, confidence, stability.

It’s strange because it feels ungrounded. I’m so used to white knuckling and feeling everything so deeply, that it almost feels like I’m a bit above my body.

I think that I’ve practiced holding tightly for so long, that to practice the polar opposite has been a totally freaky lesson in surrender. Can you relate?

I often feel overwhelmed at the state of our world. I think many of us live with a deep sadness + knowing: our world is severely off-balance. Existential dread can be passed off as a generational symptom, but I believe it’s a healthy response to an unhealthy culture.

What can I actually do that’s of service?

Does what I do, say, believe, embody even matter?

In the ethical practices of yoga (yamas/niyamas), the fifth yama is aparigraha. Aparigraha is the practice of non-attachment. My teacher also explains it as “not taking more than is freely offered”. In order to truly practice non-attachment, we’re invited to become present with what is, so that we can learn to trust our own inner knowing.

When my nervous system has been so primed for so long to expect the worst, to prepare and armor up, and to scan every situation for potential threats, it is straight up scary to trust. And it’s not a “one and done” process, nor one that I recommend lightly. Trust is difficult. Messages all around us - from our culture, family, education, peers, and social media are all pretty much screaming at us that we can’t trust ourselves!

In the practice of yoga, the ability to sit with discomfort through patience + curiosity is most effective when we build it slowly. (NOTE: discomfort is different from pain or strain or suffering.)

It’s like training in a vocational field, or learning a life skill, a language, or breathwork. It will consistently evolve, surprise us, + ask more of us over time; but never more than we can handle.

I suppose amidst a swirly, churning eclipse season energy, my main musing is this:

The small, daily choice to believe in the highest possible outcome even when the odds are stacked against me has been the cornerstone of shifting my depression/anxiety loop.

Full disclosure, I also have bolsters in my practice. In the last year, I’ve discovered that CBD is super healing + helpful for my nervous system. It’s aided in this lighter feeling. It’s build space between stimulus + response. It’s helped me excavate the curiosity within me.

Here’s the thing: many of us don’t intend to grasp to traumatic experiences, but we’ve been taught to assume we either deserve pain or we brought it on ourselves, which then automatically attaches us to the suffering. In fact, it’s often the holding tightly of old stories, experiences, and traumas which have kept me in a state of fight/flight, and ultimately, suffering.

That said, I’ve been practicing being present with my discomfort for a bit now. I can now say with confidence that I don’t think I am supposed to “just get over it”, or assume “other people have it way worse”, or cling to the narrative that I “should just be grateful”.

Pardon my French, but: f**k comparative suffering.

These gaslight-y sentiments have only delayed my healing + kept me caught believing my liberation from suffering lies in some one else’s forgiveness, apology, or reckoning. It’s such a tiring way to live. And most of us do it every single day.

I’ve clung to all of those stories so tightly for so long that they feel like part of me. The very act of rejecting these notions causes my nervous system to escalate. And why wouldn’t it? Believing these thoughts has actually kept me safe for 30+ years, right?

Since we now know that our nervous systems don’t know the difference between a sabertooth tiger attacking us from a shitty email from our boss, perhaps we can start to build incremental practices to attach less.

Hold more lightly.

Trust deeper.

If we’re truly in threat, what if we begin to believe that, not only will we know it’s real danger, but also we won’t have to think about a solution or way out? What if we can trust that our autonomic response will take over? That the wisest parts of us are revealed amidst the most trying circumstances? What if we can trust the solutions that live within us when we’re totally present? What if we also honored + acknowledged that these types of scenarios are often un-preventable and not our fault?

When we can hold the love steadily + the fear lightly, perhaps we can continue to shift our consciousness.

Rally around one another.

Write new stories.

Build strong foundations of trust.

Humbly, I think it’s a radical act of reclamation to celebrate joy + love even amidst the chaos, uncertainty, + fear. Eclipse season is not here to trigger you with what a potential calamity that could happen; it’s here to show you what’s already done and ready to be buried. It simply asks us to float or ride the wave or stay in the center of the change so that we can self-tend and see clearly our next step as it unfolds in front of us.

If you’re reading this, know that I’m sending you so much love. 🤍