Falling Gently Podcast

I’m very busy on a molecular level

Whether I’m tending to my chores

Or lying on the couch

And I’ve decided to prioritize

That natural, constant, underlying motion

Of the dozen or so systems of my body

Modeling harmony

Working together

With each other

And with the dynamic inputs of the world

To keep my heart beating

And keep this organism

In homeostasis

It’s no small task

But our bodies are exceptional at it

Yet when profound stressors come

Allostasis kicks in

Natural processes responding to intensity

Maintaining stability through change

And bridging back

To allow homeostasis again

More inherent wisdom

Taking active steps

To accommodate any number of possibilities

And most of the time

All of this is happening without our knowledge or consent

Or interferenceMy poor, misguided brain

And all those years thinking it was in charge

Trying to direct the boat instead of take the ride

I’ve been sad numerous times today

Thinking about the unnecessary pain i’ve put myself through

My agony about the world and angst to improve it

All those moments thinking to be OK I had to be ‘there’

I’ve got a lot of compassion

But I also sense a belligerence

So much underlying anger

And a frightened “BUT I’M SUPPOSED TO BE DOING IT RIGHT”

So many times when I sit and touch peace

These voices pipe up

About how much better it could be if I …

I know it’s an illusion

I know I live in a culture of performance optimizers

But I just want to cozy up with the invisible possibilities

To feel companionship with the unseen

Not trying to bend it to my will

But to listen for its music

And sway along

This period of overt destabilization has me tentative

Witnessing my situation more than directing it

(again the echoes inviting me to engage the power of my mind

And I have to take several breaths to remind myself

I’m choosing a different path)

And today I’ve been able to marvel at it

How well our furniture fits into this house

I feel like I’m being welcomed

And while I’ve got a whole lot to do

I’m feeling the resonance of the space itself

And tuning myself gently

Because I get to choose how I meet this moment

And it’s not going to be yelling at myself to do more

Because I’m sensitive to the delicate, invisible work

That underpins any other form of accomplishment

And the foundation developing now

Can see and appreciate and nurture

The harmony

And the way back to it

As intelligence itself

Choreographs our molecules

Even the stillness is alive

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I woke up this morning to rain that lasted for hours

In the middle of summer. In the desert.

I think life is inviting me to set aside

What I think I know

To simply be

And to witness its unfolding

As my own

Not based on my thoughts, or even my experience

But rooted in openness - receiving and relating

With ample space for surprise

Did you know trees have pulses?

We didn’t know it for the longest time

Because our human heartbeats are fast: 70-90 beats per minute

But the capillary action that pumps water from the roots to the crown of a tree

And pulls down the carbon for sequestration

Takes many hours for a single ‘beat’

But by no means does that reduce the value of its action

Indeed, it makes it more precise

Responding to how much water is in the soil

The temperature and requirements of the day

If I can slow myself down into ‘tree time’

How much more perceptive can I be?

How much more would I be willing to see?

When you’re operating so deliberately

Is there room for expectation?

When we’re busy letting our hearts blend heaven and earth

As we’re all naturally created to do

I want to sit in the possibility

That my inherent design is enough

I don’t need to plan my improvement

I think goal setting is a lot like candy

It’s designed to be colorful and tasty

A bit addictive, a whole lot of tummy aches

For me, at least at this moment, of dubious nutritional value

There’s real freedom in slowing down, accepting

An expansiveness that isn’t compelled to predict what’s next

A receptivity to the full host of possibilities

That’s where my juice is

I moved here thinking one thing

And life is already showing me otherwise

I’m especially lucky because I’m fresh out of ideas of what should be

So can be especially receptive to what comes as it comes

Because I’m really not interested in writing my own story

I’m interested in our story, life’s story, and the power of this moment, as it is

I want to be slow like the tree

So I can fully feel the relief

And take in the refreshment

Of the unexpected desert rain

Arriving right on (its own) time

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

My nervous system is changed

I’m more settled than I’ve been in some time

Even as I stare down 100 boxes

And seemingly endless odds and ends

It might be entering a totally new biome

It might be the intensity of practices these last months

It might be sheer exhaustion

Doesn’t really matter

I’m appreciating the spaciousness

Right here in the middle of my overwhelm

Suddenly, I’m somatically comfortable with the not knowing

I work on that quite a bit

Comfort with Discomfort

Curiosity over control

And my moment-to-moment experience varies

But this moment is calm

Perhaps some numbness

But I can feel a whole lot of my body

Given the lifting and cleaning

There’s a lovely resigned-ness

Not in a hurry to set up this new house

And run out and get a job

Even though both those things need to happen

And they will

But a silence

An acknowledgement that the last few months have been a lot

That shifting addresses is crossing a threshold

And there’s this liminal space I’m inhabiting

Where there’s an absence of pressure

Even in the internal dialogue

I am treasuring this moment

Even though I’m not out of the woods

Not by a longshot

But there’s space

And wonder

And that in itself is rest.

For much of the last several weeks

I employed a 45 minutes of work

15 minutes of rest rhythm

Which I’ve found to be remarkably productive

And steeped in self-care

Saturday and Sunday, of course, blew that pattern

And I thought I’d be wrecked today

But I’m not

I’m resting a lot

And moving from inspired action

And when that action dissolves

I’m resting again

I got more done today than I intended

Either thanks to the restful approach of the day

Or the foundation of the patterning of these weeks

Not sure

Don’t need to know

Just appreciating the pause

Between the ending

And the beginning

The in-between

Today’s home

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

Thank you for going on the Ganesha journey with me

As I said, I’ve waited a long time to share it

And transcribing it, and imbedding the reflections on it into my days

These very specific and challenging days

Has been simultaneously grounding and lightening

We are moving today and tomorrow

To Indio, near Palm Desert

About 2 hours away

That serves many of our purposes

And all of the ones focused on our pup’s ease

The financial crunch is prominent

But because this is so much more affordable

We’ll be able to take a breath

As we chart a new course

Having these principles this week

Really set the tenor

Within which to meet the many unexpected challenges

Making the bumps along the way

Not impediments

But just what’s requiring our attention

And because Patience Demonstrates Faith As Knowledge

I can know that everything is becoming

And what’s before me right now can receive my attention

Less steeped in resistance or frustration

But welcomed into trustTrust that doesn’t absolve me of the work

But gives the work purpose

Devotion to welcoming the present moment

It’s made all the difference

And i couldn’t have, wouldn’t have, done it without you.

Thank you for being with me

I feel and appreciate your support❤️

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

It had been a pretty exciting week

I knew I was in the middle of something I’d remember forever

But I also had busy days with little kids

And the days all kindof blended together

And I hadn’t quite counted if it had been a full week

So, the night after the equality lesson

I tried to sit to meditate numerous times

But my one year old had a fever

And was up quite a bit

By the time he settled

I was too exhausted to meditate

And just went to bed

Chiding myself for blowing my final date with the divine

So the next evening, I went into meditation

Dripping with apology and self recrimination

But, finally, sitting

And as my chime rung out

And I hunched my shoulders

In it came,

A final lesson, this time more of an impression:

Check your math. You did the week. So, here’s your final message:

Quit beating yourself up for what you think you did wrong.

Often, that assessment is inaccurate.I went and checked my math

I had done the 7 nights

All that energy I’d spent being angry at myself

Didn’t need to have happened

How often I do that

How often am I wrong?

What a waste of energy!

How might I better use that energy?

I could think of a lot of ways

But, boy I had bad habits

I turn against myself in little bits

All the time

I’d like not to do that anymore

But I do

And little by little, I continue to grow more conscious of it

See the grand ones and also the sneaky bits

How to reprogram myself?

All the other lessons

Each of them invite softening

Accepting

With room for inspired action

As well as release

I’d received a bespoke guidebook

Delivered directly into my heart

With a slow yet consistent unfolding

That continues to invite me

To deeper levels of attunement

To currents that have existed eternally

And weave the fabric of life

And every bit of alignment to them

Softens and strengthens my heart

To live where there is love

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

I went into meditation on the seventh night

Full of frustrations about a variety of people and events

And like the previous nights

Whether deep meditation, or surface sitting

After my chime rang

I received a message, clear as a bell:

We are all equal. All of us. Seriously.

You can see my resistance to it was built into its structure.

It’s so hard to hold this thought

When you’re certain many people are behaving very poorly.

But it doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

There’s a line in A Course In Miracles

Where Jesus says

And I paraphrase, but I’m close:

I have nothing you don’t have. God gives to All Equally.

The difference between us Now, is that I have Nothing Else.

That blew my mind.

Instead of reaching to develop our divine nature

Excavating the layers on top of our inherent divinity

I liked that reorientation very much

And i felt it explained all of the discomfort i felt

About philosophy’s “problem of evil”

It’s the mud atop the golden buddha

Taken as a whole, this week of messages

Clearly invited a softer way of living

Setting down my pictures of what success looks like

Being open to learning more

To trust myself, and not criticize others

To be flexible

To be patient

And to get off the ladder of judgment and comparison

The constant measurement of who’s right

And where we stand

We stand together

Even if we’re falling apart

Because the truth is, we’re moving in rhythms

Just like the elements all around us

Combining successfully and catastrophically

And moving on to the next iteration

Creation itself is creating through us

And through everything else, simultaneously.

We all have had the experience of something we thought wrong

Ending up being right

We can offer that grace preemptively to everything

When we recognize the Divine in All

This 7th message

Primed me for the work of Paul Selig

Whose Guides are very adamant

About the holiness of everything

And that what keeps us from it is simply

Denial of the Divine

To deny the divine in another is to deny it in yourself

We don’t have to approve of someone

To recognize they’re part of the same mystery we are

And that goes for situations, actions and events

The edict is everywhere

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you

The Tao nurtures all things equally

All humans are considered equal in the eyes of Allah

The fastest way to recognize your own divine nature, is to recognize everyone else’s

Because we are all equal

And we all have our role to play

And none of us is in charge

None of us

And when I remember that

I can look at the craziness in the world

Or in my life

And remember the elements

Swirling, combining

Forming and unforming life

The sun shines on all of us

Equally

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

We’ve arrived at my favorite

I mean, the first night was my favorite, too

But of the body of work

This one sang to me and still does

I was not a patient person

I sortof prided myself on my impatience

I called it hutzpah

Efficiency

Care

Motivation

Activism

Change needed to happen

And ‘now’ was actually a little too late

Whether it was social justice

Or making dinner

Chop, chop

No time to waste

Patience was nothing I even aspired to

It felt lazy

Complacent

I was looking through a lens

Where we had to prove our worthiness

We were solely responsible for our evolution

And we could definitely do it wrong

In fact we were doing it wrong

And to earn our redemption we had to clean that s**t up

Night six spun my top

It invited relationship to and trust in the divine

Over performance for the divine

Patience took me out of the role of conductor

And made me a tender witness

Taking so much pressure off

That desperate effort towards right action

And it let curiosity back in

Thankfully, this beautiful, powerful, short sentence

Anchored itself in my psyche

Because a couple of years later

As my body broke down

Patience became functionally essential

But now, it was linked to faith

And with faith, an openness became available

Receptivity that my plans perhaps aren’t what needs to happen here

Knowing my intentions are in the mix

And my capacity right now is what I’ve got to work with right now

And there’s far more at play than me

Prior to receiving this magnificent invitation

My husband and I had taken our kids to Disney World

It was an iconic trip, I have all the pictures with the princesses

But in them, you can see the strain in my face

I was trying to do all the things

I was at my snippiest

And it was more stressful than fun

After this magnificent invitation

We went to Disney again

And this time, I was in a wheelchair

I had so much fun!

I completely left the driver’s seat

And just opened myself up to the day

And wherever I was being pushed

It was a revelation

I realized I had been the problem

Not the enormity of the park or the items on the itinerary

My drive, my impatience, my trying to actualize my picture of a successful trip

Dampened the magic

But this time, it didn’t have to be anything specific, we were just happy to be there

That’s a huge upgrade

My physical incapacity revealed a lot

It required me to get off my personal hamster wheel

And showed me the rich life slowing down offered

My concepts

Gave way to experience

And being in that experience

Demonstrated that it was all happening in and through a deeper intelligence

Which i couldn’t control

But in which I could trust

Patience lets me live that trust, to be it, not just think it

It demonstrates my surrender to life

And the relinquishment of my machinations trying to move things along

Every time I think these 5 words together, my whole nervous system relaxes

Knowing Life knows my place in Itself

Maybe even better than I do

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

Night Five’s message was straightforward:

“The best plans, by their nature, can always get better”

Isn’t that novel?

It invites a certain flexibility

Openness

Structure with fluidity

I liked this one

It was one of those things

Once you heard it

It’s impossible to unhear

You can’t defend an old plan from a new idea that makes sense

Just for the sake of ‘but it’s the plan!’

Don’t they say

“Man makes plans, God laughs”?Of course, planning is important in this life

We have responsibilities and goals

There are a lot of moving parts

We need structure to actualize our intent

Dwight Eisenhauer said,

“Plans are useless, but planning is indispensable”

Our plans help us make sense of our life

But we chart a course,

We don’t cast it in stone

We use the north star to navigate

Not to arrive at the north star

Openness makes a plan a living organism

Responsive to what is happening

I think of octopuses

Always being innovative in their problem solving

Sure they apply former knowledge

To expedite the process

But they stay nimble and responsive to the moment

Generating new knowledge through curiosity and playfulness

Keeping life dynamic

Instead of mechanical

We’re finding with this move

The necessity of planning

And its futility

Staying fluid between the poles

Because the details like the air conditioner breaking

And the car needing to be in the shop

Keep shaking up the dynamics

And rearranging the parts

If we were trying to stick to a plan

We’d really be frustrated

And we don’t need any more of that

Static plans aren’t alive

“This is how we’ve always done it”

Feels like a cop out to everyone

It can be a helpful baseline

But can’t it evolve with the times?

Isn’t that one of the great expressions of our humanity

To learn and grow

Be focused and adaptive

Iterate

Become

All of life is becoming

Our plans included

And this gift from many years ago

Was a blessing to help me remember to be fluid, open

So my intention can meet life’s aliveness

And we can become together

A ballet of direction and grace

And when the music changes,

A tango

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

I don’t think the average bear would’ve sensed this about me

But second-guessing myself and how I was received

Was one of the few sports I played

And I played without rules,

With a moving target,

And rotating partners juggling multiple other games

There were areas and people with whom I was more developed

But my concern about being received negatively was deep

I’d been the recipient of devastating good intentions

And I’ve doled them out ‘unintentionally’

And I want to be careful not to do it again

And a great compass to guide my modulation

Care without caretaking

Came after my meditation on night four.

“That which is done authentically, and with positive intent, is beyond judgment, yours or others’”

At first, I bristled

And the aphorism seemed too easy

Not taking into account enough factors

Blanket permission ignoring potential consequences

I could feel a softness was possible,

Maybe acknowledging those circumstances I want to judge helped me grow

But it wasn’t available to me immediately

It was probably a few weeks later

That I could begin to apply it intimately to my own life and behavior

The sense of relief was palpable

If my actions arose from my caring heart aimed toward harmony

Maybe I didn’t have to fret so much about how it was received

Or who misunderstood it, or how I could correct that misunderstanding

Maybe I didn’t have to fret at allMaybe I could walk through life trusting what i’ve got & how i’m doing it is good enough

So I can focus on being in the moment, exactly as I am

And allowing others to be themselves

Trusting our interaction to be part of something larger than ourselves

Being authentic

Isn’t the same as being perfect, right or above reproach

It sits closer to the ground

When we mistake our strongly held beliefs

(Which sit higher in the body)

For our authenticity

We miss inner signals of the moment

As part of our allegiance to our past

Navigating authentically without being a bull in a china shop or tiptoeing on eggshells

Is an ongoing lesson for me

I’ve made a lot of progress

But I have plenty more opportunity

I got a great lesson from ChatGPT recently

I’d asked it to evaluate a letter for healthy communication vs. trauma response

It came back 75% healthy

“What would it take to be 80% healthy,” I queried

“At 80% healthy, you wouldn’t be asking me.

You’d write your letter, then go make a sandwich”

Night Four gave me permission to rest

And stop strategizing and second guessing myself

And judging others as if their action should’ve been something else

We’re all part of a mystery, here

On the whole, mostly doing our best

Trusting that when I’m in that place in me

And you’re in that place in you

How we dance

Is truly beyond judgment

It’s life.

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com

This is my prayer to thee, my lord —

Strike, strike at the root of penury in my heart.

Give me the strength lightly to bear my joys and sorrows.

Give me the strength to make my love fruitful in service.

Give me the strength never to disown the poor or bend my knees before insolent might.

Give me the strength to raise my mind high above daily trifles.

And give me the strength to surrender my strength to thy will with love.

~Rabindranath Tagore

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fallingtenderly.substack.com