Join Me Tomorrow
Or sign up for a private online session
Good morning.
Earlier today I wrote to a friend about how often holding space for others in their grieving and anxiety means that I run up against my own grievings and anxieties. My work, I said, is a mirror.
That was very true for me this weekend. We woke up Saturday morning to the news of two Minnesota politicians and their spouses gunned down in their homes. This took place roughly an hour from where my husband and I live. He, a musician, was supposed to play a gig Saturday night in one of the towns where this violence took place. We waited until 4:00 for that show to finally be cancelled.
I took my first deep breath of the day.
After writing to all of you on Friday about the violence that’s permeating so much of what we see, read, hear, encounter, it was stunning for it to be front and center yet again on Saturday morning. Unrelenting. “Be the soft space,” I kept repeating to myself.
Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale. Inhale and exhale.
How can I possibly hope to hold space for others as they navigate grief and fear when I can barely catch my breath? When the fear fizzes through my own body? When the grief seems so damn big and unwieldy?
Ah, yes, because I know what it’s like to wonder when the gasping for air will soften and the breaths will come evenly and deeply again. Because grief is big and unwieldy, and I know that sometimes we just let it be that way as we stare in awe and frustration and resignation at it. Because I hold space for myself, so I can hold space for others. That’s how.
There are layers to the grieving we are seeing and experiencing right now. Maybe yours is very personal: a loved one has died, a diagnosis has upended everything, a transition is looming around the corner. Maybe it’s much more general: the polarization we are experiencing as a nation (and world), the unavoidable effects of climate change that we’re seeing, the uncertainty of what comes next.
Whatever your reasons for experiencing grief and/or anxiety, know that you can bring them to the mat with me. Let’s acknowledge what has happened or is happening, where it’s sitting in our bodies, how it feels in our heart space, and find our breath together.
Join me tomorrow, 5:00–6:00, at the Oratory of the Episcopal House of Prayer.
If you can’t make it to this class, schedule an online session with me:
I look forward to practicing with you.
Peace,
Lauren
