Credit Todd Trapani
Episode Summary
With so many things happening at once, it's easy for the nervous system to become overwhelmed. When this happens, it's hard to think, it's hard to function. We have the power to gain a bit of distance from what is coming at us by doing a simple ceremony to release overwhelm.
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Shame Piñata is hosted by Ritual Artist Colleen Thomas, a Certified Meditation and Mindfulness teacher who helps people make sense of life through ceremony. Music by Terry Hughes.
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Full Transcript
Thomas: Maybe never returning to school... people dying which is going to happen... not being able to save people from dying...
This is me typing out a list of my overwhelm. In the closet at 11pm at night.
Thomas: Just feeling so small in all of it... my chest hurts...
There are so many things happening at once. So many things we cannot control. So many fears and concerns.
Thomas: Him losing his job...
How do we make sense of the chaos and honor the deep emotions coming from our bodies while simultaneously holding it all together for the people around us?
Powerful, strong emotions can flow through our bodies during times of transition as stress hormones are released and our nervous system goes haywire. This is kind of day to day life right now during COVID-19. But we don't have to keep swimming in overwhelm. We can take time to get a bit of distance from it. Join me for a simple ceremony you can do to release today's overwhelm. This is Shame Piñata. I’m Colleen Thomas.
Welcome to Shame Piñata, where we talk about creating rites of passage for real-life transitions. As the world continues to deal with the challenges brought by the coronavirus COVID-19, we are here to remind you (as we are wont to do) that ceremony and ritual can play a key role in helping us deal with change.
Think back on your daily life in early February of 2020. Now imagine listing all of the changes, both large and small, that have happened since then. Not enough paper, right? In fact, why even bother? There are more important things to be doing right now. Filing for unemployment, checking on friends and family, sourcing food, keeping a roof over our heads.
Many of us have moved into a new reality that is all about flow and adjustment as the situation rapidly changes around us. Heartbreak and grief mingle with practical decisions and best guesses as we put one foot in front of the other and just keep going.
And, when there is time, when there is a moment of quiet that permits reflection, we might notice that we're kinda just holding too much. We've all been through an insane amount of change recently and we may not be feeling as grounded and calm as we want to be.
A few weeks ago I shared a simple ritual to shake off fear and center in our strength. Today we will build a simple ceremony to release some of the overwhelm.
There are certain core components that I feel are important to include in all ceremonies right now. They include honoring our body wisdom, deeply leaning into the breath, creating connection across the Zoomspace, and using trauma-sensitive language.
I will pause here to invite you to remember what breathing feels like. If it feels good to you, take a deep breath in... and out. And another all the way in and out, totally emptying. And a third deep breath in... and out. The invitation is to keep breathing throughout the rest of this episode, mainly just to remember how to do it, how to breathe very deeply, in a way that lets your body know you are here and that you are paying attention.
So, trauma-sensitive. Why do we want to make ceremony trauma-sensitive right now? Well, because everything thing should be trauma-sensitive right now! Awareness and development of new tools to help mitigate the effects of trauma have been pioneered by experts like Dr. Bessel van der Kolk. The goal of using trauma-sensitive practices are to help us regain comfort in our bodies, keep us out of our heads, and improve our nervous system's ability to self-regulate. So, what does that look like within the context of ceremony?
The ways I have included trauma-sensitive language into my ceremonies are three-fold. First, all instructions are offered as invitations, meaning all participants are welcome to completely ignore the instructions. Trauma can make us feel frozen and limited and we need to practice taking our freedom so we create a welcoming space for that.
Secondly, participants can leave the Zoom meeting at any time. They can come and go as they please. The one caveat here is that I will check in with them later if they leave and don't come back, just to be sure they’re okay.
Lastly, the I try to use invitation language, for example, "Consider closing your eyes, if that is comfortable for you” or "If you want, take a deep breath and extend your spine tall". Again, we are so very trained to follow directions. This language helps us to remember that we have a choice, to see how our nervous system reacts to having a choice, and to practice making a choice.
So now that we've discussed the core components, let's move on to the content. We've gathered everyone together, reviewed the idea of deepening into the breath during our time together, and gone over a few group norms.
Now we want to check in. Everyone gets a short amount of time to say what's going on for them in the moment. How are they doing? What has their day been like so far? This basic check-in does several things. It allows everyone to get their voice into the circle, gives everyone a feel of the room, and allows folks to share the things that are on the very top of their mind, which in turn allows them to release these things and be ready to absorb new information. Check-ins are an important part of allowing everyone to arrive in the space. We often use a timer for check-ins, especially with large groups. 3 minutes per person is a good length, with another minute available upon request.
Next it can be helpful to lead some sort of centering activity, such as a meditation or visualization. This quiets the mind and allows everyone to find a moment of peace. It’s practice in letting go for just a few minutes - and that is such important practice right now.
Then we are ready to move onto the meat of the ritual, or the tofu of the ritual as some people call it. Everyone is invited to grab some paper or a journal and write down anything and everything they’re holding onto that just feels like it's too much right now. You heard some of my list at the top of the show. The idea is just to make a list of everything that's hard, or worrisome, or uncomfortable, or scary or even worse. It can take a while to get it all out.
After a period of writing, the group comes back together and everyone is invited to share a few things from their list if they’d like to. This is an opportunity to have the hard things witnessed, to allow others help us shoulder some of the burdens and hear that we're not crazy for worrying about something, even something really small. It's a chance to be vulnerable and real, and an opportunity we don't necessarily get in day to day life because everyone is doing their best to hold it together and no one wants to be the person who loses it.
Once these items have been witnessed, it's time to release them. Since we're not all sitting around a bonfire we can handily toss our papers into, we have another short meditation in which we light a candle in our minds for every item on our list, a candle for every item we heard shared, and a few more candles for the things that were left unsaid or those that are not yet speech-ripe. We light the candles to honor each of these things, each is important, each is real. And the we let them go.
Now that we have released these worries and concerns, we need to fill in the empty spaces with ourselves and the things we love. Because if we don't do that, something else will fill that space, and it might just be more fear and worry!
To fill back up, we use a tool called a Gold Sun. Lewis Bostwick developed this tool at the Berkeley Psychic Institute in then 1970's. You can do a Gold Sun right now. If you’d like, take a breath and get centered. Consider rubbing your hands together and then shaking them off, like you are shaking water off of them. Then if it feels good, rub them together again to wake up your palms and bring your hands above your head as if you are holding a giant beach ball. This is your gold sun. Consider closing your eyes and filling it with everything you most love about yourself, all of the ways you are special, all of the love your favorite relative has for you, or the way your dog looks at you. Just fill it till it's completely full, then slowly lower your hands and bring the ball of energy down into your body. Let it filter into all of the crevices. Let it fill all of you.
If you have trouble connecting to the things you love about yourself, you can focus on the things you most love in life: chocolate, coffee, naps in the sun, the most beautiful place you've ever visited. Your Gold Sun is always above your head waiting for you to bring it in consciously.
After everyone is filled back up, we take some time to share insights and close the circle. Another short meditation can be helpful here to help everyone center again and really scoop up and digest the changes the ritual has brought. Everyone is reminded to take some time afterward to rest and do something simple and relaxing, if possible.
Folks can release the physical papers they wrote on in whatever way feels good to them. Burn them, tear them up into little pieces, anything that bring a sense of final release. It's important to note here that physical items used in sacred space absorb the intention placed on them. In a sense they become sacred or magical and as such, some people feel it is important to treat them with a certain level of respect. You can certainly just recycle the papers you wrote on, but you might also feel into what that feels like. Does that feel like the right release? It might and it might not. Trust you gut.
Thank you so much for joining me for this second COVID-19 ritual discussion. I've been doing this ritual for two weeks now and it's become a basic component of my self-care. There is simply SO MUCH that we can work with right now using the tool of ritual or ceremony. I encourage you to develop your own rituals to honor what is heavy on your heart, to release what is weighing you down, to celebrate what you hold dear.
If you’d like to join us for a ceremony, visit shamepinata.com to sign up and learn more. Our music is by Terry Hughes. If you like our show, please take a minute to review it on Apple Podcasts or share it with a friend. I’m Colleen Thomas. Thanks for listening.