Protection & Connection

​By Pamela Mueggenberg LIMHP

“Absorb what is useful, discard what is useless and add what is specifically your own.” 
― Bruce Lee

As I write this, I am peering across a chasm of government transition. For me, right now, it is January 5th. I am writing this to you with bread baking in the oven, the weather is bitingly cold, and Biden is still president. For you, right now, things are different.

Regardless of your political affiliation, for you these few weeks have been (if reality remains consistent) a lot. When forces outside of our control whirl around us, kicking up pain and fear and anger, it can serve us well to think about safety. What can we do to facilitate our own safety, the safety of those we care about, the safety of our community?

First things first. How do we experience safety? Is it keeping things the same? Despite our super-powered monkey brains hating change, we can admit that maintaining the status quo is not safety. Is it keeping threats away? Counter-intuitively, not really. Once we begin identifying what could hurt us, we realize everything could hurt us eventually, and that doesn’t end well.

I believe that safety is not the absence of threat, but rather the presence of connection. We cannot through force of will pause the rhythm of the universe, but we can dance with it. But what does that look like? I have a list.
 

1. Love. Love is a practice, a thousand illuminated threads that bind us together. Love is city trash cans full of other people’s coffee cups. Love is birds fluffing up into warm spheres during cold snaps. Love is four way stops, each car taking their turn. Love is always here.
2. Awareness of the world around you can take many forms. Are you connecting with your neighbors, your work, your family, your town, organizations or people who share your passions? You do not have to read the national news every day to be a contributing member of society! Consuming news in a purposeful and specific way can make you a much more effective citizen.
3. In Mindful Self-Compassion, one of the first lessons you learn is that your heart doesn’t need to be open or closed like a bank vault - its more like a sliding door. You can modulate your openness to experience. Be aware how the world around you is affecting your heart and adjust how open you would like to be. I can pay exquisite attention to the world around me, and respond with grief, or joy, or curiosity. This is my right. I can also choose to turn inward, leaving a space open to experience the world on my terms. That is also my right. I get to choose how open I will be.

Gather your loved ones close, your own heart closer, and know: we are all connected. We can take care of each other. Love is always here.