stay

This is Zoe. Her human mom is a friend of mine, and Alice and I communicate often on the app Marco Polo. A few weeks ago, Alice was showing me Zoe’s new abilities.

“Zoe, sit. Stay. Stay. Stay."

That phrase has been running through my head for several days. When I experience something uncomfortable that is threatening to hook me, I have found myself saying, "Laura, sit. Stay. Stay. Stay."

This is work for me, as my default is toward emotional reactivity, or numbing, or escaping. Learning to become aware of the trigger, to locate it in my body, and to not hook it into some other past story... to stay, stay, stay with it until it passes...this is good, good work.

Zoe and I are both practicing some cool new things in life.

"Staying means not rushing past discomfort. Feeling means allowing sensation without immediately turning it into a story. Listening means letting the body speak in its own language. These are small actions, but they require honesty. Each one brings you back into relationship with yourself." -J. Mike Fields

"Somatic work invites us to drop beneath the story, into the pulse and breath of what's real. There, the frozen moments thaw, and the past stops running the show. Integration in motion." -J. Mike Fields