You know those times when things suddenly seem to explode into uncontrollable crazyness?
Wouldn’t you like to be able to take it all in your stride, no matter how insane the goings on? Is that even possible?
Well, I’ve just had a chance to give it a try, after weathering my own sh*t storm and I’m relieved to have emerged with only a few emotional bruises and maybe a little bit of hurt pride.
What’s the story?
Those of you who follow me online may know that I recently took on a rescue cat, Caspian. He settled in really well at first and I smugly prided myself that all the energy work and tuning in that I did had really paid off, as it was a model introduction at first. Well, maybe pride does come before a fall …. and there was a fall.
Last week Caspian started to chase and attack my youngest cat, Baby. As I do energy work with animals I was confident I could deal with it. Yet, it escalated, even to the point where they had to be separated despite all my tools, all the cat psychology tricks and my attempts to stay calm and present rather than react (I’ll speak more about that next week in my pet blog over at www.ferrisjay.com). Long story short, it got to me. Violence really triggers me and my pets are my family, I just couldn’t handle the disharmony.
So, why am I telling you all this? We all go to pieces at times, but there are ways to snap out of the crazyness. Here are my top tips from what helped me weather the storm.
Tips for weathering the storm
1. Can you stay present?
I have to admit that I went into overwhelm when things started to really unravel between Baby and Caspian. A deluge of confusion, fear, upset, anger, self judgement and blame rendered me kinda brain fried for a little while. Even with some ‘first aid’ tapping I wasn’t really present and that meant it was harder to access my knowing or remember to use the tools and techniques that help me the most. I needed a bit of extra help to remember ‘myself’. That’s step 2.
2. Get help
Talk to a trustworthy friend or a professional when things are feeling beyond your control. Even with the best tools we can spin round and round in our own crazy headspace, especially when we’re really triggered by something.
I reached out to two different people, professionally, to help me find clarity, gain a new perspective and find a way forwards.
The first person reminded me about being present. He meant it in terms of being with the animals (not being in a space of judgement, projection or conclusion) and it did help me tune in better to them. Beyond that, it helped me to tune back into being ‘me’ (see step 3).
3: An exercise in being present.
Try this for yourself if you feel you’ve ‘lost it’, aren’t able to think straight or are energetically not present in your body.
Remember the times that you feel most ‘yourself’ i.e. most grounded, balannced, happy, at ease and ‘present’.
For me, that’s when I’m doing EFT sessions with my clients. I just show up with no expectation or demands and follow the energy of the session. I always trust it will go how it needs to, I always trust the energy and I love the adventure of that.
By rememering how that felt, it was quite easy to tune into that space and feel my way back to being present again.
Step 4: Trusting your feelings
At one point, when I was considering trying to re-introduce the two cats, I kept getting nervous. I wasn’t sure if the nervousness was mine or Baby’s, if it was a reaction or a knowing. Even with using my tools, it took talking with a second person to help me get really clear and to trust myself.
Sometimes, we need that external connection (and to say things out loud) to recognise our feelings and gain clarity. She tuned into my animals and hearing their perspectives helped me to understand my reactions better. I saw how that nervousness was a knowing, not an irrational fear. It was my knowing that Caspian was set in his ways and would not tolerate Baby and would continue to attack her.
It took taking the issue outside myself to get that awareness.
What does it take for you to trust your feelings?
Step 5: Ask questions
During this storm I kep asking questions to help me move forward.
I kept asking ‘What else is possible here?’
I also asked what felt light or heavy to me, when I was considering what choices to make.
As I mentioned here in an ealier blog, what is true for you feels light and what isn’t true for you feels heavy. So, when it came time to consider whether Caspian was to remain with us or not, I used that tool combined with another tool where you make a choice for 10 seconds and then see how it feels.
Step 6: Stay out of judgement and conclusion
We’re all prone to making judgements. It would have been very easy for me to judge that I had a duty of care to Caspian that I should try harder to honor. Where it not that my Baby cat was in actual physical danger, I may have soldiered on and ignored the fact that it felt lighter to let Caspian find a new home.
I could have judged myself as a ‘failure’ for not ‘sorting it out’. Self judgement has been quite an issue for me in the past, (see my last post for more about that) and I could have used the fact that I work with animals to justify how I should have been able to resolve the situation (don’t we make crazy justifications to ourselves sometimes?).
By staying in the question (e.g. what feels lighter and what else is possible) I stayed out of self judgement and came ‘home’ to myself and saw that I was doing what I felt best for all the cats and me by letting him go … and boy did that feel lighter!
So, Caspian will be finding a new home very soon and I will keep asking what the gift in this situation was. I already see how it got me to dig deep to stay present, to trust in my own inner knowing, to let go gracefully and without self judgement. That’s a pretty good start.
Video
Here’s this week’s video sharing the presencing exercise.
Whatever sh*t storm you are going through, I hope these tips help you to weather it with greater ease.
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