Calm Heart, Clear Mind

This is the story of how, amid the world unraveling in catastrophe—uncertainty looming and megastorms colliding—one woman found her way to wholeness and back to functioning, determined to love come what may, and there lifted.

We live in a nation that is far removed from the wisdom that unfolded in the previous article “Fall of The Spiral Curtain,” and it is barren of the knowledge of emotion and energy hygiene, a necessary support in such a journey: to love come what may.

POSTCOVID: When Covid hit, I remember thinking our nation’s not ready for this kind of darkness: what seemed looming. Not because I had all the answers, at the time, but because I thought I did. We saw the rise of Karens and Trumps: the spiralling out of control of the human nervous system in our grocery stores, at the office, in our homes, and on the national stage. And I was not surprised! Six years later, it seems we’re constantly confronted with greater and greater strain on the well-being of our nervous systems. 

Few are equipped for this, not on the national stage and not in our homes, because we live in a land barren of emotional and energy hygiene. We feel drained, the need to distract to cope, to entertain, to not enflame, we curl up in a ball, or we unite with political parties that lack the power to revitalize, build unity, and collective well-being.

Pathologized in disconnection, this story unfolds a different view. Salutogenesis! The hope of enabling our children to preserve and enhance their health, beyond the norm! Reaching passed societal limitations and barriers, to harness what’s fragmented in our lore, in our traditions, our religions: healing in communion. 

“Rarely, if ever, are any of us healed in isolation. Healing is an act of communion.” Bell Hooks

As this story unfolds, consider the make up of our society, and its norms, what are we missing out on? What in tradition, lore, or religion, do you see fulfilled?

A SPARK OF CONNECTION: In compassion, I emerged from deep grief, sparked to life in creativity and healing, by a doctor clear across the world. She saw my poetry and art (at the time brushed to life by ai) on Facebook.

LIFE’S precious GIFT

Love For Family,
Love for all—
The Most BEAUTIFUL Garden—

Behind a BRIDGE 

A mirage—
No passage.
Love’s Heart—
Building, BUILDING
What’s in the way?
Didn’t know how to build it
And yet, in longing for—
FOUND IT!
Kneading, and needing
A beautiful day!

Seeing my FBacct created in advocacy for another (we never rise alone), she reached out, introducing herself, as an infectious disease doctor from Poland, asking,

“Do you have any health difficulties of your own?

It was 2023, and I was still disabled, so confused as to the why, and I was not alone in that thinking! (Jaw dropping, an infectious disease doctor!) I replied, 

“Yes! Four years ago, a twelve year battle with neurolyme ended in remission, but for some reason I’ve remained disabled, unable to reliably hold down a job or even support the needs of my teenage daughter, alone.”

To this, herself on a byway of life (due to a catastrophic near-death case of Covid) and debilitating longcovid, she replied,

“Would you like me to treat you? Not for profit, but to support the love in your art?”

EMOTIONAL & ENERGY HYGIENE: A big part of her protocol was dedicated, to what she calls emotional and energy hygiene: something only found here

In the United States
in fragmented pieces—
Behind paywalls, behind
the individualistic pursuits
of development of talent–
On plains of achievement-aspiring,
BEneath? The weight
of fast-paced living—
The sweat of the brow
Amber waves of grain,
Exchanged—
For exercise weights
and sweaty gyms—
Sculpted tennis shoes & computer
screens. Disconnected
From our earth—
and from each other, and
as it turns out, I learned
From our innate ability, within,
to heal and grow.

While what I’m about to share is groundbreaking, it’s important to note on the onset that the tools already exist. We just lost the wisdom, the knowhow, and the confidence to harness them.

PRONG ONE: Create artistically from feeling everyday. Especially, from the energy of love–something she sensed was a living spark of joy already within.

(AUTHOR NOTE: Societal Blockage #1. Creating in such a way was not something I felt I could do, before now, not a productive use of energy.)

PRONG TWO: Sing everyday. I’m still figuring out the singing thing. It’s coming along. Recently, I started enjoying it. Never, did I imagine what would unfold a few months later!

(AUTHOR NOTE: Societal Blockage #2 I wasn’t a good singer. Embarrassing)

PRONG THREE: Meditate daily, even if only for ten minutes. 😳

(AUTHOR NOTE: Societal Blockage #3 I can’t concentrate to meditate and my body couldn’t physically do yoga.)

PRONG FOUR: Allow my body to move intuitively to music that felt stimulating to to my soul everyday. I didn’t have a collection. She offered a collection of classical instrumentals and voice. I could feel the motion of universal love vibrating within my chest, in many of them.

(AUTHOR NOTE: Societal Blockage #3 Dance? I had two left feet! “Don’t worry,” the doctor encouraged, “just let your body move however it feels, however it can.”)

THE BREAKTHROUGH:

One day, while following this protocol, moving my body to classical music and vocals–a song birthed from within me. As shocking that it happened at all, was that it sounded indigenous. I pushed record, and it became my daily mantra. 

January 2024. In short time, my body began moving, intuitively, to this new song everyday: a natural transition. A few months later, I began to heal from CPTSD! And a knee injury that had bothered me for years, healed.

Not Rose Colored Glasses: Every prong is daily hygeine. Emotional and energy hygeine. It taps us into the inner healing mechanism of our bodies. Into the salutogenesis in the silence of our soul. 

Ancient medicine. As it turns out, the song that birthed, for my own well-being and healing, sounded indigenous! I gravitated to circles where Native Americans and indigenous people reach out to share the wisdom passed down to them through generations. And get this! I learned from Robin Youngblood, a Native American Grandmother of the Seven Generations World Wisdom Council, they are guided to pray for a power song to heal their own inner nervous system. It’s even said, that the earth is sick because we, humans, have stopped singing our songs and dancing on the earth!

Integrating: One day in visiting with the doctor, I was distressed with the emotional landscape in my home. Recall the poem from the first article?

“If she didn’t spiral, I never would!”

She replied, “You are the spiral.”

She knew my heart, “You want to love? Let your thoughts pass through, your emotions too, what rises in the silence? 

I was thankful to have so many tools, and the strength and resilience built upon daily emotional and energy hygiene!

PRONG FIVE: The final prong of her protocol–called me out into nature, where I continued to find healing. 

She instructed me to walk barefoot on the earth, to go for daily walks, lean against a tree (asking permission) even hugging a tree! I know…beyond the norm, right? But how far back are you thinking, in the history of humanity? I had a profound experience, leaning against a tree, my chest felt like it was being breathed with the energy of love: followed by intuition, rising. Help, in time of need. Building confidence, time and time again, my nervous system began to heal. (Thankfully in the safe company of another, also confusingly blindsided by a broken nervous system, trying to heal.)

     SONG OF REMEMBRANCE

One day….last fall, I rose from the tatters of mine, in radical healing, celebratory in the energy-of-joyful-song!

     MY GIFT IS MY SONG 

Regulated and regulating: calm heart, clear mind, liberated and free from the paralysis of CPTSD. Grief shedding in its wake, free TO BE me, equipped in emotional and energy hygiene.

In sharing my joy and gratitude with the doctor, she replied, “now go light up the shadows with your song.” I hurt family because I was afraid of engaging through a disregulated & broken nervous system, afraid I couldn’t be me, that we would all cascade: afraid I couldn’t keep my humanity intact, afraid of causing unintended harm. I turtled hard: Battening down the hatches. They felt abandoned. 

     DEEP -HEARTED LOVING 

In this latter part of this journey in the art of the heart, I became the blind that could see: a path emerging that increased my capacity to love, come what may. Unfolding in this story, wise ones will recognize fragments in lore, ways societies do not support, and truths passed down by tradition, religion, fulfilled. Do you recognize them? Harnessing the gift of emotional and energy hygiene—we could fuel a Renaissance!

CLICK for Part 1