Bending, So We Don't Break

During these challenging times, we can take a lesson from the wisdom of bamboo, which is known for its ability to bend without breaking. This is a beautiful metaphor for resilience that is so easy to forget, especially in the midst of crisis.

This is why it is so important to strengthen on our spiritual and emotional muscles before a crisis strikes so that the inner fortitude we’ve cultivated can hold us steady during the volatile winds of intense change.

My morning routine with its spiritual practices, plus, utilizing some pretty potent tools such as guided hypnosis, meditation and tapping (Emotional Freedom Technique) have helped me to put some substantial roots in the ground. This feeling of being tethered helps me to let go and trust what’s unfolding. I’ve also learned that when things get tough, to pare down and simplify my focus on doing the next right thing, rather than allowing myself to get overwhelmed with too many details and worry.

Sometimes, even with the best of intentions and the most wonderful tools, we may still break. Great loss will do this as will outer imposed, sudden change. Mostly, it is our hearts that break with the shock of having our lives shattered even if only temporarily. Fortunately, the human heart has the opportunity to turn a heartbreak into a heart opening. This takes lots of courage and even more trust than we may feel capable of. But it’s possible, and more than likely, it will shore us up with even greater resilience moving forward.

Change can feel like a curse or a blessing. When something awful happens, time passing can help us heal. When something good happens, we want to hold onto it forever. One of the toughest (and also one of the most exciting) aspects of being human is always having to adjust to a kaleidoscope of change in our lives.

Bending looks like non-resistance. It looks like allowing and accepting. Not always the easy choice, but definitely the choice with less fall-out. So much better to be open and flexible, than closed and rigid. It feels vulnerable to be open, and therefore, scary, but to me, it is better than being in a state of inner lockdown.

We often equate feeling safe with comfort. We’re fine with the highs but want to avoid the lows. Most of us do whatever we can to keep pain away. The problem with this is that this leads to disengagement from life as a way of controlling it. Since life doesn’t want to be controlled, it will find another way in.

We didn’t come here to skim the surface of life. We came here to have a human experience. Not part of it. All of it. So it makes no sense to withdraw and hide from what scares us. This isn’t living. It’s denial of one’s true purpose in being here.

Better to turn and face what is happening right now in this moment and find a way to embrace it, allow it and flow with it.

To bend with it.

The less we resist, the faster certain experiences move through. When we tighter up, it actually causes the experience to slow down and linger.

No grasping. No clinging. No chasing. No convincing. No converting.

Just being where we are right now without resistance.

What I’ve noticed is that our openness becomes a magnet for miracles. The cracks of light that shine through us allow these precious moments of grace to sneak in unannounced because we’ve ceased trying to change, fix or control anything. This state of surrender lifts us up to the place that is beyond the wind, a place where we can finally be the recipient of Divine Intervention, a place where there is no more pain or suffering, only love.