To be Okay
Overwhelm, making sense of nonsense, and learning to live in today's wild world
Hello my friend,
How’s the quality of your breath today?
Apologies for missing last week’s newsletter to you. Full transparency, I’m in the middle of a big transition and things have felt a bit wonky. I guess now is as good a time as ever to announce that I’m moving to Austin, Texas in 6 weeks! I had big plans to announce it with a beautifully written essay about transitions, honoring the in-between spaces, intentional goodbyes, and new beginnings. But honestly, for many different reasons, that’s not really what it’s felt like. At all. Maybe that will come out of me one day, but for now it’s been all about feeling all the emotions as they arise. These have included ugly cries, heart-pounding excitement, the most heart-resonating “yes” I’ve ever felt followed by the most crippling self-doubt; ego trying to pull me back into the shadows of comfort while my higher self is encouraging me to take the leap. Life as a human, am I right?
I promise I’ll share more as I continue to process and make sense of all this, but for now I want to answer a really important question that you might be wondering:
What does this mean for my current clients?
In short, absolutely nothing. I will continue to build my virtual private practice and see my Canadian clients as a licensed therapist as I’ve been doing. I’ll continue to operate as a therapeutic coach with my American clients (hopefully with an in-person space in Austin), and am looking into pursuing licensing in the States for the future. Cindy, The Blissful Intuitive, and I will continue to offer online monthly Energy Breathwork ceremonies (and in-person ones whenever I’m in Vancouver…which will be often! More on that later). All Parts will continue to be a space to explore the human experience together as well as monthly breathwork/movement recordings for paid subscribers (next one goes out next week). I’ll also be slowly building a couple other virtual offerings soon that I can’t wait to co-create with you. Yay to expansion!
Thanks for your patience over the next several weeks. Thanks for allowing me to show up as a messy human being. Thanks for being here and taking the time to read these words, always. Below is an imperfect exploration of something that I think about all the time. I hope it serves you in the way you need.
Xo,
The Part in Transition
There’s a scene from Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster, Oppenheimer, that I can’t stop replaying in my head. It’s a brief, forgettable moment where Oppenheimer in his first class with his first student in quantum mechanics at Berkeley poses a question to the student: how is *something* about stars and blackholes and light possible? (I actually don’t understand what he was asking, but you get the drift). In his excitement, Oppenheimer answers the question himself with an exclamation: “it’s not possible, and yet it is true! We must be able to hold two opposing truths at the same time!”
There is something about that statement that feels so fundamentally important for today’s world. Our world is becoming more and more complex with each minute that goes by; being able to hold two opposing truths at the same time has become imperative to our existence, and our happiness. And yet…what we’re seeing is more and more polarization, people moving into siloes that reaffirm their cognitive limitations and beliefs birthed from their life experiences (i.e. traumas). People are too overwhelmed by the rapid speed at which our world is evolving that it is safer for the mind to create certainties- no matter how dangerous or false they are- than try to live from a place of total embodiment and acceptance that two seemingly opposing truths can, and in fact do, exist at the same time.
Holly Whitaker, author of
, calls the current state we’re in “fractured,” where we, as a collective, are experiencing a sort of “psychotic split of the collective psyche.” It feels like there is immense growth with simultaneous setbacks and returns to archaic ways of thinking. The Barbie movie and ascendance of visibility for women and LGBTQIA rights, alongside the war on reproductive and trans rights in certain parts of the world. The split between the most body-positive we’ve ever been as a culture, and the new obsession with weight-loss “miracle” drugs like ozempic. With every bit of progress we see in today’s world, we are also seeing the pull in the opposite direction, asking us to hold both the light and the dark simultaneously, at all times.In Alexander Beiner’s book The Bigger Picture, he defines the current state of things as a “meta-crisis.” Not only is there polarization happening within specific issues, but there are also multiple issues happening at the same time. From climate, to politics, to women’s rights, to racism, to the mental health crisis. We’re having to hold multiple crises that all influence each other and affect each other in inconceivable, complex ways.
In short, it’s all utterly exhausting. And overwhelming. And we’re all over it.
So how can we make sense of this fractured world, and more importantly, how can we be okay with all of it, enough so that we can actually be the change we want and need to see?
First step? Stop trying to make sense of it, and get into the felt sense of it.
Beiner explains that the meta crisis by it’s very definition is impossible to just make sense of. In this way, understanding the meta criss “isn’t just conceptual, but also aesthetic. You have to feel it.” The default mode network (DMN) are the synapses in the brain that are active when we’re not focused on a task or the outside world. The DMN is related to thoughts about the self, “I” statements, core beliefs; it’s active during passive rest and mind wandering. It’s where our brain goes when it doesn’t have something to do. It’s where our brain goes when we’re not consciously in the present moment. It’s where our brain goes when we want (and often need) to shut out the outside world and numb out when it feels too overwhelming.
Research shows that people who are depressed, lonely, and/or suffer from trauma have overactive DMN’s. When we’re able to reduce activity in the DMN, we’re able to break old, outdated ways of thinking and being, which ultimately helps to build new synapses to create new ideas and heal trauma. Reducing activity in the DMN helps us to create new frameworks so that we can more readily live and embody the rapidly changing world we live in. Reducing DMN activity is a key component to healing and widening our capacities for holding the crises we find ourselves in.
Great! So how do we reduce DMN activity?
As I’m sure you’re aware, reducing activity in the DMN is hard to do. Not because we don’t want to change, but because our brains will choose certainty over the unfamiliar every single time if we do not intentionally train ourselves to find safety in the body in the present moment. According to the brain, certainty is safe because it’s predictable, even if that predictable outcome is objectively unsafe, or just plain wrong. For example, those who grew up in a chaotic environment might continue to seek situations and relationships that cause chaos and turmoil even when they know they “shouldn’t” because, put simply, it’s familiar; it reaffirms and solidifies the DMN. Trauma teaches us that it’s not safe to be fully present in the world, and so we allow the DMN to take over.
Fortunately for us, there are ways to reduce the DMN so that we can, as Alduous Huxley famously said, “open up a reducing valve that limits our perception…[and] also opens up the doors of perception.” Huxley was referring to psychedelics, and research is starting to show that psychedelics such as psilocybin have great promise in helping to reduce activity in the DMN. In this way, these medicines are a powerful way to support us in literally rewiring our brains (only when done with great care and intention, however). Other research has shown that meditation, breathwork, and somatic practices help to rewire the brain in similar ways that help us process and feel the complexities of today’s world, without needing to make sense of it.
This is what I aim to teach my 1:1 clients: that to be able to hold two opposing truths at the same time requires us to get out of our old patterns and ways of being, and to reconnect the body; to breathe into the spaces that might feel scary and dark, and to shed light on those places; to recognize when they’re operating from an old fear or attachment wound and to remind them that they’re not that little scared child anymore; to accept and love themselves in all their contradictions, complexities, and messiness.
But at the very core of reducing DMN activity, it’s about becoming aware of and getting out of our default ways of being and thinking, and reminding ourselves that we’re safe to cultivate a new way of being in the here and now. If you’re used to always being in your head, why not try to breathe and notice sensations in the body? If you’re used to trying to figure out problems on your own, why not text a friend for help? If you’re someone who always “goes with the flow,” why not try planning a night out with friends? If you’re someone who usually doesn’t speak up in a meeting, why not try to use that voice and take up space?
Sure, it’ll feel scary at first, but it will also remind you that you’re alive! That discomfort in your stomach when you step slightly out of your comfort zone, followed by the relief felt when you’re still alive to tell the tale, is an indication that you are not allowing the DMN to take over control of your life.
It’s when we can do this- when we can feel all of it all at once- that we can begin to bring this way of being into systems and ideas beyond our own mind, body, and soul. We “open the doors of perception” and allow ourselves to see each other. I mean really see each other, in all our humanness. The pain and suffering alongside the progression and joy. The rage and elation. We more readily are able to do the thing that our world is so desperately needing of us right now:
Get out of our black and white ways of thinking and practice feeling into the complexities and opposing truths of our ever evolving cultural landscape.
Things to Inspire and Questions to Ponder
As mentioned in the essay above, I’m really enjoying reading Alexander Beiner’s book The Bigger Picture: How Psychedelics can help us make sense of the world. If you’re curious about psychedelics, I recommend this as essential reading.
The Overstory by Richard Powers.
Jungian Psychologist Marion Goodman talked about globalization in her book first published in the 80’s, The Ravaged Bridegroom. She was aware, even back then, that the evolution of our cultural world is both invigorating and terrifying (i.e. two opposing truths at the same time!):
“No one who is conscious of the transformation of the planet Earth into a global village can doubt that, whether we like it or not, with or without our cooperation, we are caught up in a revolutionary movement that cannot be halted. Forces have been released which inspire in us a sense of helplessness and vulnerability even as they fill us with the exhilaration of a creative challenge.”
Where do you feel joy? What is the sensation of it in your body? How do you know when you’re calm? In contrast, how do you know when you’re scared or angry? What sensations are associated with these feelings in the body? The recognition of the felt sense helps us to feel into our ability to hold two contradicting emotions simultaneously. And that, my friend, is powerful.
Writing this in the safety of my home while people I know have had to evacuate their homes, not knowing if they’ll have a home to come back to when the fires burn out or move on. Half of Canada is on fire. If you have the resources and the capacity, please consider donating to the wildfire relief efforts; the Salvation Army is providing support to those in need.