Healing Our Nervous Systems
Medicine Circle's Meditation Community
Softness is overrated in an urgency culture that has constructed and upholds the idea that personal value and self worth are determined by material possessions, titles and production. Softness is tenderness, and tenderness is the alignment that comes when we are present to life’s moments with compassionate curiosity, an open mind and a willingness to take personal accountability.
I recently wrote an article about how our nervous systems are fried and the five wisdoms I remembered being off grid to support ourselves in an increasingly fast-paced and hyper-technical world that rewards immediacy, urgency and materials. The five wisdoms I share are not new or even profound, though the practice of them have wholehearted effects on our lives.
A little heads up, the article is longer than most. I suggest downloading the free Substack app so that you may listen to the audio if your eyes need a break from your devices.
Healing our nervous system is a practice of understanding and relearning ourselves, and mostly on how to trust ourselves, our inner voice of wisdom to bring it forth into our daily lives. The body offers beacons of information all the time. Our inner senses are messengers asking us to align ourselves with the information the body sends. We actually have within us many resources and tools to support this process. Yet, the influence of the world today can easily create more clutter in our minds, and thus interferences in our bodies and spirit. Moreover, unresolved trauma and environmental disruptors add their own flare of disconnect and disharmony.
Learning how to discern and reconnect to our inner clarity is a powerful strength. It asks us to remain resilient to the over-culture’s constant noise, remaining curious and integrated with our inner tenderness. This is not fragility or weakness. There is a force we tap into when we learn how to integrate the deep well of courage it takes to embrace the gentleness of our heart’s song, of fierce compassion, and to lovingly hold, move to understand and navigate conflict — ours and the environment around us.
From his book, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are, Daniel J. Siegel says,
“Each of us needs periods in which our minds can focus inwardly. Solitude is an essential experience for the mind to organize its own processes and create an internal state of resonance. In such a state, the self is able to alter its constraints by directly reducing the input from interactions with others.”
Meditation is a resource that offers us an experience of inward focus which can create an internal state of resonance. Meditation helps us to distinguish and gather into connection with our own wisdom. A consistent and grounded meditation practice invites us to widen our understanding of the nooks and crannies of ourselves so that we may find, not only mental but also, emotional, physical and spiritual clarity.
Breath focus is a meditative tool that anchors us into the present moment, helping to clear the debris of the mind that grips the stories of attachment, aversion and misconception. Breath awareness is a practice known as Pranayama that is ancient, steeped in Vedic, Buddhist and now modern day techniques. Breathing practices support our well being on each level — mentally for clarity and focus, physically for our nervous system and strengthening the diaphragm, emotionally to center and connect to our breath body, and spiritually aligning us to the life force of our divine energy.
Meditation and breath focusing techniques support healing our nervous system as they are methods to aid in the building of a relationship with our nervous system, meaning our body, our mind and our spirit.
As a counseling practitioner I know many clients who struggle with stillness, who find connecting to the body to be scary and unsafe, for indeed at one time it probably was very scary and unsafe. I also know clients who use the body to escape the reality around them, hiding. Much of our healing comes when we begin to touch and know safety again, or for many, begin to learn safety for the first time. I have also witnessed how sneaky the mind can be to keep us in a false sense of “safety”, which actually causes us more disconnection to ourselves.
Understanding our own unique relationship to ourselves is a sacred one that only we can do, but that doesn’t mean we have to do it alone. You can learn how to titrate little by little into a place of your own wise and guided inner stillness. Working with a skilled practitioner supports this journey, along with finding conscious communities that are in alignment to the practices.
I think it relevant to acknowledge the over-saturation of “conscious communities” here. Many are causing more harm than good, and discernment has a crucial position as we enter and continue to traverse the path of remembering and regaining our inner wisdom and truth, healing.
With the on-going research on the impacts of community promoting and supporting our well being, along with my own personal and professional experience in the practices of meditation, breath-work, hypnosis, somatic therapy and trauma healing, I know the great importance of healing in community, even when community may be online. Conscious community can be a safe harbor to arrive as we are and practice together with a common aim for inner and outer connection.
Community care is a medicinal antidote to urgency culture and the chaos of the world. Gathering and practicing meditation and breath technique together supports the renewal of our tenderness, providing mental clarity and bringing us back into connection with our own innate guidance. Conscious communities practicing right relationship and personal accountability are a reservoir we create together and return too again and again, to sip and receive the elixir of our shared humanity.
Stephen Jenkinson says,
“Self-sufficient subverts village mindedness. Even if you can do it yourself, you shouldn’t.”
While I don’t like to “should” on myself or anyone else, I appreciate Jenkinson’s point. A necessary ingredient for the continued growth of urgency culture is hyper-independence, a byproduct of the “American Dream” which has stolen the deeper roots of our inherent traditions and need for villages, and spiritual and Earth connections. Every time we return to ourselves, we reclaim our own life force, and the interconnection to one another and the Earth medicine within and all around. Meditation fosters this goodness. It is an ancient practice, scientifically proven, to enhance our overall well being, increase our tenacity for the adversities of life, and raise our self compassion, and thus gratitude.
It is my great honor to bring forth sacred containers for individuals to harness within themselves their own safe space for self discovery, tenderness and rejuvenation of the Soul both individually and collectively. I work 1:1, in dyads and small group, as well as provide Sacred Journey, a seasonal online program held four times a year to usher in this imperative work into a ramping disconnected and dissociating culture. In addition, I share a live gathering online inside Medicine Circle, a paid subscription of Medicine for the Soul. It is only $8 a month to join and you may cancel anytime. Though I hope you will stay around to share your uniqueness with our growing community.
You are warmly invited to Medicine Circle’s Meditation Community this week! There will be a guided meditation with breathwork and reflection exercises to support our nervous systems, and some time for sharing to nurture one another.
When: Wednesday, 21st August, 4:45-5:30p PT
Where: Live via Zoom (link available in the paid Medicine Circle Subscriber thread)
When you join Medicine Circle, you get more too.
You may also enjoy:
Notes, insightful reflections and prompts
Weekly conscious publications & access to all articles and archives
Join in the comments, and engage with all posts and special events
Unique conversations and content in the chat
Guided meditations, special practices & prompts
Medicine Circle’s Meditation Community, LIVE
Most importantly, your support maintains the growth of this community and allows for me to engage with my path of service as a writer and spiritual activist in a larger capacity.
I look forward to growing in community with you!
The power of rekindling ourselves is a revolution of the Soul in our human form.
You deserve this, loves. We all do.
See you Wednesday!
As always, thanks for being here.
Take care of you.
Take care of one another.
Much Love,
Kristina Renée
➡️ If you found this article valuable, don't keep it to yourself - spread the word! You may click the 🤍 button on this post so more people can discover it on Substack and, also share it with your friends, family, and colleagues.
Let's inspire more people to embrace whole hearted living, learning and loving in action. Thank you.
Join the Medicine Circle
Become a paying subscriber of the Medicine Circle with Kristina Renée to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content.