The power of Incubation, the delight of Heart-pulls
Increasing Your Wherewithal
Each person is born with an unencumbered spot, free of expectation and regret, free of ambition and embarrassment, free of fear and worry; an umbilical spot of grace where we were each first touched by God.
—Mark Nepo
This is a weekly publication for heart-centered warriors, swimming through this thing called life. Keeping hearts open and voices intact.
Dear Embodied Hearts and Dancing Souls,
Things have likely always been falling apart like hell in a handbasket but what is your inner GPS guidance system showing you? (Dance Chapel is ON tonight).
Snow Blankets and Babies. The snow fell all day. Tiny but steady flakes from the moment I opened my eyes to when I closed them again at night. And this morning…well, there is a Stillness in snow that I will never tire of.Â
What blankets the earth feels like it blankets me also. But what is it blanketing? I tune into the question and get my answer – the human part of my experience. For the past 4 days that includes more than 30 hours of work, unexpected home improvement, and….a new baby in the family.Â
A beautiful baby boy was born this weekend. With just one little emergence of his little head, he has elevated the status of every one in his extended family. My parents are now great-grandparents, my older sister is a grandparent. In addition to the GRrreat aunt I have always been (haha), I have become a Great-aunt.Â
The snow softens all of it. With each crystalline fall, its more OK for me to have the experience I am having. The snow incubates me. In the softening, something lovely emerges. I connect with an inner flame. My own personal source of warmth…and power.Â
The baby too is in incubation (at the hospital). I love that the snow and baby have brought me here. To this place of listening under the blankets. Its our heartbeat that remains steady underneath it all. And I can imagine the collective heartbeats the snowfall covers: foxes, turtles, humans, and more.Â
That’s how it is sometimes in our experience. We use our time to simply get close to our true power center.This IS our wherewithal. And it strikes me this is the true purpose of all incubation, to develop and strengthen us ….safely into our next emergence.
I sit here now breathing in and out from my power center. All is well.
Heart-Pulls. I received an unexpected package in my mail slot the other day. I wondered what it could be and was surprised to discover this beautiful heart. But its more than a heart. It has this little attachment on it and, since I had just gotten ready to head out the door, I snapped it onto my zipper in an instant and it became a Heart-pull!Â
I delight in this little twist of phrase, Heart-pull. It makes me wonder about the people, places and activities that pull at our hearts. Ripping it open, snuggling it up.Â
Its meant to be a key chain but I am going to leave it on my jacket zipper for now.
A Question to help our Wherewithal. Everywhere I turn these days, I am reminded how little awareness there has been around emotional parenting in prior generations. It is the source of endless comedy, dark and light. Under the comedy is pain. We all know it.Â
By the time I went to college, and well through my 30s, I felt quite orphaned. With no home center where I felt welcome or valued, I experienced life with many moments of intense emotional pain. The kind you don’t know that you’re going to live through. I remember the feeling of acute aloneness and not knowing where to turn.
Yet, I also remember, at my most bereft, another part of me kicked in. A wiser part, more intent on self-preservation. It raised a question on the periphery of my distraught mind, quietly. It asked, What can I do to help myself? It sounds annoying when I write it here. But it saved me, over and over. It was in these moments that I picked myself up, not knowing anything. I went on a walk, or went to a bookstore. My eyes and fingers would invariably discover the exact source of nourishment and understanding I needed. Sometimes, magically the phone would ring from a friend helping me to feel wanted in the world. Overtime, there are more people to reach out to now and support.
I share this because it serves to remind: embedded within resides an invisible resource. Â
I share this so in those moments of emotionally splitting pain you know that as long as you are breathing, you have the wherewithal to lean into this quiet question from your own Center.Â
As a young woman coming of age, I used to think that having to answer my own emotional needs made me pitiful and unwanted. But it is far from that. It is the wisdom of your own Being letting us know you are infinitely cared for and that the resources you need are within your grasp. Just as much as you may experience something that sucks, you also have the capacity to get the help you need. And as we grow our inner capacity, so are we more able to help others.
With so much Love for you, your journey and your unfolding.
Stay #heartwoke.
Monisha
NOTES:
Dance Chapel is ON tonight, 1/16/2024
So comforting and tender and strong-all of it. I love the invitation of a Heart-Pull! Thank you, Monisha!