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Wow. Wow. Wow. Wow. I’m excited about this one. But, first, some backstory. My recovery from the brain injuries has been, among other things, a journey of restoring a healthy relationship with my nervous system which for many years was highly dysregulated and on constant alert for danger. The healing process for the brain injuries had much in common and took place, at times, alongside the remnants of PTSD recovery. Just a few years ago, just about everything in this world felt pretty dangerous outside of my slowly expanding bubble of security. I constantly pushed the boundaries of that bubble, but all it would take was a trigger of some kind to ping my nervous system and my body would be in full-fledged panic mode. As if a hurricane was making landfall and all hell was breaking loose. It’s a tough way to live. And I’m so fortunate and blessed to have had so many incredible guides, teachers, friends, and family members to teach me techniques and strategies, to embrace me physically and wholeheartedly, and to carry me in their hearts. Today, I have very few triggers left — at least, ones that can really take me offline and into the reptile brain where there are few options and they all seem like life or death. Tonight, as we were planning a family summer trip to DC and NY, I found a couple of the triggers that I haven’t had to face for awhile. I’m using airline award points from my pre-TBI traveling days i to fly us to DC and then NY and back for free. I used to fly a lot and tonight it was strangely emotional to think about the hundreds of hours and hundreds of thousands of miles that those airline points represented. We haven’t been back to DC or NY since the injuries. These were places I used to know quite well. We lived right in the heart of DC for several years and the headquarters of the company I worked with for over a decade were right next to the Lincoln Center in Manhattan. A lot of memories and associated emotions began to wash over me as I searched for flights, looked at housing options, zoomed in on maps, and sort of lost track of where I even was as I sat on our sofa. In addition, there are still times where interacting with a computer screen in certain ways can also set off reactions in the nervous system and it was beginning to feel pretty unsafe and dangerous in my body. A feeling I haven’t felt that strongly for perhaps a year. I began to panic and wonder if I could keep it together enough when I got to DC, and especially NY. Would I remember this? That? What if…? What if…? A jumble of scenarios rushed at me in which I wouldn’t be prepared and would then panic and not have a safe place to go to and retreat to. The hurricane was making landfall. My whole body began to get really uncomfortable and irritable and I just wanted to get away from it all, cancel the trip, and live a very simple life here in our little bubble where things are predictable and where I have enough resources to feel okay. As I sat staring at the computer screen and feeling the body really firing up as though I were under a clear and present danger, I heard a mantra that I have often used: “I don’t need my body involved here.” In years past, I would say this very, very slowly and enunciate different parts of the mantra, saying it over and over again. Tonight, even more than hearing it, I just noticed the essence and cadence and pace of the words. I felt my body become very still. I felt my breath really come in smoothly and deeply, sort of grounding me right into the sofa. And then I felt my chest and abdomen relax as the breath released. My eyes grew soft in their gaze, my typing slowed, I let my attention feel the whole body as a wave of sensation, I released an audible and gentle sigh, I took in my surroundings, I touched my lips softly, I took a very slow sip of water, and I just stuck with the whole scene, watching it, welcoming it, accepting it, and releasing any thoughts and sensations and beliefs and feelings that I didn’t need at the time. I don’t need my body involved here. There is no clear and present danger. My body can relax. My mind can relax. Observe the emotion, the feeling, or the belief. Feel the emotion, the feeling, or the belief. Acknowledge the emotion, the feeling, or the belief as it is. Accept the emotion, the feeling, or the belief as it is. I don’t need my body involved here. And, as I have noticed in my experiments with feelings, once I gave it my attention (an attention that is always rooted in the present), the intensity of the feeling passed within 30 seconds or so. And I was back to figuring out flight times, connections, transfers, etc. in a very peaceful and open and responsive way. Once we found just the right itinerary, I finished up all of the data entry and pushed “Submit.” Ahhhh…satisfaction! But satisfaction only for about 15 seconds until I realized that I had somehow chosen the wrong DC airport for our arrival. So, that’s why I didn’t see that option before! Instead of even feeling the panic, my body was at relative ease and Emily and I worked together to figure out how to do the cancellation and resume the booking. It is hard to describe how different I feel in this body today than I did even a year and a half ago. It is nigh unto a miracle. And it has also been a hell of a lot of work. A miraculous work. A working miracle. A miraculous working. I do hope that this journey can give hope to others who feel as if their body is not a safe place to reside. It may not feel that way now, but it can be safer. And some day, it can be safe. I am safe with myself. For many years, I said these words and held onto the assurance that they were somehow true even when I didn’t feel it. But today, I not only know that I am safe with myself, I feel it. More and more and more. I’ll let Mary Oliver’s words brings some sense of closure here: “Hurricane” It didn’t behave like anything you had ever imagined. The wind tore at the trees, the rain fell for days slant and hard. The back of the hand to everything. I watched the trees bow and their leaves fall and crawl back into the earth. As though, that was that. This was one hurricane I lived through, the other one was of a different sort, and lasted longer. Then I felt my own leaves giving up and falling. The back of the hand to everything. But listen now to what happened to the actual trees; toward the end of that summer they pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs. It was the wrong season, yes, but they couldn’t stop. They looked like telephone poles and didn’t care. And after the leaves came blossoms. For some things there are no wrong seasons. Which is what I dream of for me. Peace