“Paw tap” is a term I first heard from my friend, Corbie Mitleid, meaning to do a quick reach out to someone to make sure they are still there and that they are ok. It also tells the other person, “Hey, I see you and I am still there.” My daughter and I use this term quite a bit to identify communication of exactly that type. “I don’t need anything. This is just a paw tap.”
Eric and I recently connected with some people in our community to catch up and we were all surprised to find out the unusually stressful things people have dealt with lately. One friend’s husband had just totaled her car. Another friend’s husband had just been in the Emergency Room and then the Operating Room for gallstones.
Another friend was almost healed from a debilitating pelvic fracture when she gashed open her leg on a car door. Another friend had a beloved pet die and as she was burying the dog, she saw that her chicken had died and that was on top of losing several cats in a month’s time. Another friend just took a wonderful job in the Bay Area that involves hours of commuting each day. My daughter got an unexpected tire blow out on her lunch break. My son got hit with an unexpected tax bill. My husband popped off one of his tooth fillings. Lots of people have had this weird congestion sickness that has been going around. And on and on.
There is an old Celtic curse that goes, “May you live in interesting times,” and looking around, one has to wonder how many old Celts might have cursed us. Did you notice that during the pandemic, it seemed like we had lots of being dying and sick from NON-Covid related illnesses? It is as though Covid brought the idea of Death front and center and the emphasis permeated all sorts of dormant maladies and woke them up.
Now, we certainly live in “interesting” political times, but even aside from the rampant concerns people having about our changing times, stuff seems to be happening that is separate and apart from those things, much like the increase in non-Covid deaths during the pandemic.
Most of my client work lately involve readings and cleansings. People feel overwhelmed. They want guidance and they want to remove any extraneous energy from themselves. When many things suddenly go wrong at once, it’s normal for energetically sensitive people to wonder if they picked up toxic energies from somewhere.
When I do the cleansings, I don’t see nearly as much psychic attack as I used to, but I see significantly more trauma bubbles than I did before. These represent past traumas that are currently available for the client to heal if they choose to do so.
Based on the evidence, we are all the Walking Wounded and circumstances are pushing us to heal our old trauma damage and triggers so we can live in the world with greater joy and freedom.
Our old traumas belong to us exclusively and even people who went through the same traumas at the same time will perceive those experiences very differently from one another. My husband and I both got Covid in October 2022 and I was in the bed for two weeks and my lungs never completely healed. He was on top of the house cleaning the gutters on day #3 of his positive test and a good bit of his hair fell out. There is no doubt we had the same strain of the virus, but it activated differently in our bodies.
Your siblings may have suffered abuse from a parent along with you, but the trauma may not manifest in the same way for any of you. It is nearly impossible to reach a mature age without going through some kind of formative trauma that changes who you are.
Toxic positivity folks will tell you that everything happens for a reason and our ability to process the “lesson” that comes from the trauma depends on our individual perspective and how we engage the trauma. That’s true to an extent, but man, life is hard and stuff happens. Everything might happen for a reason, but I’m just not convinced that all of those reasons are especially interesting or significant.
This mindset presumes that everything that happens to us is about us and although there are some excellent spiritual explorations that promote the idea that our experience is all there is and all roads lead to us, it doesn’t sit well with me. As isolative as some of us are (voluntarily and otherwise), we do not function well as islands. We need validation and connection and support from others. If our spirituality and energetic construct follows this idea, then it stands to reason that some of the things that happen in our lives are not solely about us. We might be there to participate in someone else’s experience and fulfill some role in a life lesson for them.
That being the case, we can pick apart a challenging experience until our brains won’t function anymore and never find the “lesson” the fancy folks insist is in there. Sometimes, it isn’t about us even if it affects us.
We are humans… being. Life happens and sometimes, it’s really hard but other times, it’s amazing. Part of “being” is having good experiences and part of it is having challenging experiences, but ALL of it is about learning how to respond to what happens to us.
Flourishing in troubled times
Even amazing, wonderful experiences can be exhausting and the challenging ones are especially depleting. Like Rita Rudner said about childbirth, “I don’t even want to do something that feels good for thirty-six hours.” Emotions are heavy, even the good ones, so rest is paramount. Eat those gummies. Take that melatonin. Sleep in when you can without apology. Open the window or run the fan or put on the dark sleep mask. Do whatever it takes to get good, restorative rest.
Nourish your body and your spirit. Eat foods you love, but eat foods, not chemicals. Do your best to choose foods that are as close to how the Earth offered it to us initially. Raw fruits and vegetables and meats that are not heavily processed still carry in them a strong life energy that disappears with excessive cooking and chemicalizing. Eat mindfully, fully experiencing the taste and the textures of the food. Be present for it.
Get fresh air. Open your window for a few minutes at night and breathe in the moon air, even if it is chilly out. Feel the breeze and the sun on your face when you can. Experience the elements fully to connect with your body and get grounded.
Wash your hands. When you feel overwhelmed or need to divest yourself of some situation, wash your hands and let it flow away down the drain, whatever it is.
Say “no.” Give yourself permission not to do things other people believe you should do. Even if you do not give it voice, “Because I don’t want to” is a perfectly valid reason for declining someone’s suggestion or invitation for what you should do. You do not have to say those words aloud and risk the pearl-clutching, “Well, I never!” response. “I’m not positioned to do that right now” is the more socially acceptable way of pushing off implied obligations.
If you can’t give yourself permission to say no, I will. Do not feel required to provide an explanation everyone else will accept. Maybe you want to sleep. Maybe you want to sit on the couch in your pajamas and binge watch TV shows. You do not owe anyone your time. “I can’t, I’m sorry,” is OK, but keep in mind that most of the time when someone says, “I can’t.” what they are most often saying is, “I won’t.” And that’s OK too.
That doesn’t give you license to be unkind or have little compassion. It only means that you should prioritize your needs as much as you do others.
If you need the medication, take the medication. We live in a time of educated and nearly miraculous pharmacological means. The DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) catalogs more mental health conditions than we could ever have imagined existed. Cancer is no longer necessarily a death sentence. We have medications to reduce the chance of strokes and heart attacks.
If you need medication to be healthy and comfortable in the world, take it. Do not try to white-knuckle your way through life. If you can alleviate your suffering, do so.
Find a hobby. No matter how busy you are, find something you genuinely love to do, preferably something that serves no earthly purpose than to make you happy. Take vocal lessons. Paint. Work crossword puzzles or jigsaw puzzles. Hike. Read. Swim. Garden. Find The Thing and do The Thing. Prioritize doing The Thing. For me, it is diamond art and it took me forever to land on that.
Own your shit. It is so tiring to constantly defend your position and your behavior to try and stay on everyone’s good side. Sometimes, we all will say or so something that offends or upsets someone we care about, whether it’s incidental or on purpose. Be accountable for what you say and do and if the outcome is not what you expected, step up and honestly accept the consequences. Apologize if you feel sorry for what happened. Ask what you can do to make things right. If the offended person makes choices you don’t like as a result, you have to let them do it. The relationship may change and that is because relationships are a dynamic process. Stand in your own truth and allow yourself to see the genuine outcome of your choices, even if it is uncomfortable.
When the world is struggling as it appears to be doing, the more we can be a force of kindness and integrity in the world, the more truly authentic we can live, the more centered we will feel and the more available we will be to be truly present for and connected to others. You owe no one that. You owe yourself the best life you can experience from birth to the grave.
May your cleansing egg have no trauma bubbles, curses, or crossings.
<3 As always, such good advice. Thank you--again. xoxo