“The heart that breaks open can contain the whole universe.”
—Joanna Macy
When the heart is breaking for someone else, the brain warns, “Don’t go too far or there will be nothing left.”
Our bodies are well designed to protect us from external threats, emotional and physical. Experiences of trauma and stress can trigger our brain’s ingrained survival mechanism, dissociation.
Dissociation can be helpful because it dulls our memory, emotions, and sense of self just long enough to act and survive an imminent danger or threat. While it could prove effective in emergencies, habitual dissociation is problematic and prevents us from experiencing the full expression of our gifts and potential. It makes it impossible to connect to others or feel their pain. If you or someone you know is experiencing severe and/or frequent dissociation, it’s important to reach out for help.
Meditation, prayer, counseling and/or therapy all can help us learn to notice when we are shutting down and provide a safe place to practice non-avoidance. This is where we begin to build resilience and courage to return to the immediate senses and present moment over and over again.
If I try to pick up a bucket of water and it’s too heavy, I can immediately set it down so I won’t hurt myself. It’s not a bad idea, actually. But if I return to pick up the bucket again and again, little by little, the strain eventually builds muscle. In time, it’s not heavy at all. Now, I am able to walk a little further and carry more and more. When I see someone who is dying of thirst, now I have a way to help.
In addition to meditation and mindfulness, one practice that we might try is to invoke the mantra: “My heart is big enough to hold this. It is my divine purpose to rise to this moment.”
There will be tears. We trust them, should they appear for a couple seconds, minutes, hours or days. This is a sacred process through which we are not to be ashamed. At a macro or microcosmic level, everything is breaking and regenerating, condensing or expanding. This is the sacred cycle of creation to which we belong.
Not all at once, but through the cycle we begin to notice our capacity to stay present has grown. We carry not just ourselves, but we raise up everyone around us.
We realize we can carry so much more than we ever dreamed. It’s like looking through a telescope and seeing for the first time… stars… planets…galaxies…an ever-expanding universe.
Here is where we begin to uncover our unlimited capacity for love, compassion and peacemaking.
—Jessica Lien, Prairiewoods development coordinator