I’ve just moved homes and with that, my office has moved too. It’s a new landscape, very different from what I’ve grown accustomed to in the Los Angeles area. I’m now living in a mountain town at 6,000 ft elevation. There’s a lot to get used to here. Something I’m noticing is a particular kind of spaciousness for contemplation. The quiet seems to encourage it. I’m moving through a lot emotionally, as we all are right now, and it’s heavy and tenderizing. I want to be tender. I want to be able to choose that in a time that encourages density and impenetrability. I want to be able to shift between a shield and a sword and a soft place to rest.

It’s a scary time in this country. It’s been a scary time in this country. This country was founded in a scary way. And so many of us are trying to figure out where we belong. Within the context of revolution and with the land/country/the Earth.

I’m learning about pacing. This is a lesson in slowness that I’ve been learning for the last few years and it’s deepening as I navigate mystery chronic illness (a big motivator for the move I just made). I’m negotiating the needs of my body with my need to act and my responsibility to share my knowledge. I don’t know how these all fit together yet. I believe many of us in helping/healing professions are feeling this kind of reconfiguration right now.

It’s challenging to know what to do in the face of so much.

I had a teacher when I was in my mid-twenties who asked me what I do in times of chaos. No one had ever asked me that before and I could tell this was going to be a teaching moment. But I wanted to impress her. I fumbled over my words and I said “I get sharp and quick and fast” thinking this was the “correct” response. She paused, narrowed her eyes and said, “I become still and slow and I watch” and paused again. I swear the air stood still around her and her tiny frame shape shifted into a taller, wider form.

It changed my life and I think of it often. I’ve shared this with many clients these last few weeks as we’re all figuring out what to do/where to go next.

Wild Rose that grows up here on the mountain.

I’m not interested in suggesting to you how to act politically in this moment. I have my own relationships, communities, and clients I’m having these discussions with. Net working. Working a net.

But the thing I feel interested in is exploring our collective relationship to action. What makes action effective? What happens before action?

As I’m sitting with these questions I’m reminded of the Cycle of Sensitivity, which is a therapeutic map we use in Hakomi (the methodology/technique I draw from most heavily in my somatic work with clients). This map illustrates the rhythm of our experiences and the overlap between different stages of experience.

(This map is similar to Gestalt theory for those of you who are familiar- where it differs in theory is that, through the Hakomi model, the idea is we get more sensitive to the subtle nuances of this cycle every time we go through it when we bring our awareness here. These therapeutic maps are often based on indigenous technologies and I want that to be named here. I’m uncertain about the specific foundation of this one but if any of you know I’d love to hear from you.)

When we begin to deepen our relationship to cycles, time and experiences becomes more spiralic; allowing us to deepen our relationship with ourselves through each revolution of the cycle. I believe this is generally true about noticing cycles.

Here’s how the Cycle of Sensitivity goes (ideally):

We start with clarity- the spark of insight as we understanding something needs to happen. Information and ideas about how are gathered.
Move into action- once we have a clear enough picture of what needs to happen, we can effectively respond to the call of action and complete the task at hand.
Satisfaction- receive nourishment from a job well done and give yourself a pat on the back!
Rest and decompress- the task is complete and nothing else needs to happen. From this place, insight can seed.

You could overlay this with the cycle of the moon, or a menstrual cycle, or the seasons. Story or ritual. Rites of Passage. Anything spiralic really. But when I ask myself these questions about when and how to act with this lens on, it becomes clear how out of balance things are collectively speaking.

Societally we live in a very action oriented, pitched forward way (if you’ve taken RETURN with me, you’ve heard me talk about this quite a bit). We rush in, wing it, fake it til you make it, cross your fingers, jump in with both feet- I mean I could go on but it’s making me tense. We get big and loud and we become guided by our sense of urgency that wants to grasp at absolutely anything it can in order to feel like we’re doing something. And we misstep. We make mistakes and don’t feel proud of what we’re doing. We wonder if we’ve done anything of value at all.

Now I’m speaking pretty generally (and using “we” language which I know bugs ppl but I’ve thought about it and I’m keeping it) and this might not apply to you directly, but I know you know what I’m talking about. I also want to name I’m speaking as someone who has absolutely operated this way and still has a pull towards immediate reaction I have to contend with. So no shade is what I’m saying.

When we take a step back, zoom out a little bit, move into our backbody rather than living right at the front of our bodies, reactive to every piece of stimuli, we have an opportunity to notice how fast we’re going. How we’re practically falling over ourselves. And then there’s an invitation to slow down and reset.

Looking at the cycle of sensitivity model, we see that before action comes clarity. This is when insight arrives. We notice something needs to be started. Then before acting, prep happens. Figuring out the best course of action and gathering more information if needed. This is crucial. If this step is skipped, so often we don’t know what to do so we try to do everything at once or we listen to the loudest voice in the room. Making the action ineffective and unsatisfying.

If our actions are ineffective, we don’t get to soak in the satisfaction of a job well done and we’re left ruminating, “I should’ve have done THIS instead” “If only THIS had happened before I said something” “Ugh i didn’t know that part”. We don’t get to receive the nourishment that comes from satisfaction and successful completion or celebrate what we’ve done. Which impedes our ability to rest.

Rest becomes fitful when we’re left in rumination or a sense of incompletion. Something feels open ended and tugs on us. And regeneration, imagination, and space for dreaming becomes tense, brittle, or too quiet to sense. This then, impedes our ability to soak in information and gather clarity and the cycle continues in this thin, dry and unsatisfying way.

So where’s the reset? Individually speaking I think it’s unique- it’s gonna look different for everyone. You could notice where you have a block or barrier. Maybe you have a block around satisfaction (“eh it was no big deal”) or rest (“okay well that’s done now this other new thing has to happen immediately”). OR you might have a barrier to clarity or action (“I don’t know what to do or how to do it so I’m not going to do anything at all”) . You can get curious here about where your blocks and barriers might be. Nothing else has to happen yet- simply becoming curious and noticing does a lot for us. The reset likely lives in the step before the step you struggle with.

But collectively, finding those moments of stillness to let clarity come is the piece of this I’m interested in. Slowing down. Ritual. Sitting in it. So hard to do! I’m not gonna pretend like it’s beautiful and luxurious bc it’s not at first. It’s frustrating and scary and it feels like you’re gonna get swallowed up (at least this is how I feel sometimes) and also like no one holds the key to how. And I don’t know how that’s supposed to happen? Or when? It feels daunting? It’s a big question, a big inquiry. But it feels important to share in this collective visioning even if it’s unpolished.

At the core, we’re talking about our survival. So do what you need to to survive -absolutely- and maybe there are ways to collectively slow down and be kind to each other.

I have been in a cycle of learning about my own barriers to nourishment and rest for the last maybe 4 years. Slowing down and noticing my impulses and patterns and trying to rework them. It’s annoying. It’s frustrating. I’ve been impatient and pouty about it. It’s hard work. Simultaneously subtle and deep.

Moving to this mountain is absolutely part of this- working with my rest and satisfaction barriers. Noticing what parts of me don’t believe I deserve to/am allowed to live in a beautiful place on a mountain top and still be effective in my work in this world. And the part of me that so desires to belong to something bigger than myself and trust that I can rely on that.

As I’m here settling in, getting to know the flora and fauna that is largely unfamiliar to me (after having left land I was so embedded in and so connected to) I’m finding a sense of belonging in cycles as a whole. Being a cyclical being. Spiralic time. I can belong to these embodied ways of being and knowing. You can too!

I trust in time I will feel a sense of belonging to this land once we get to know each other. And in the meantime, I’ll be sitting in inquiry around cycles and practicing allowing rest and satisfaction. For myself and, hopefully, for something bigger than myself that will outlive me.

Cycle of Sensitivity and Reconfiguration

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