Strength can come from facing the storms of life,
from knowing loss,
feeling sadness and heartache,
from falling into the depths of grief.
You must stand up in the storm.
You must face the wind and the cold and the darkness.
When the storm blows hard, you must stand firm,
for it is not trying to knock you down,
it is really trying to teach you to be strong.
— Joseph M. Marshall III
Yesterday, the waves battered the Santa Cruz jetty and Walton lighthouse. Half of the beach vanished at high tide. The weather service warned people away from the coast and cliffs, reminding us never to turn our backs on the turbulent ocean.
The stormy sea in the final days of December hearkens back to the past year's natural and human-made unrelenting difficulties, disasters, and defeats, both close at hand and around the world.
I’m most grateful for my Feldenkrais practice. Rain or shine, I continue the daily discipline of doing Awareness Through Movement. I can count on it to shift my neurophysiological and adjust my attitude, tapping my innate potential to change, reawakening my sense of agency, and rekindling my resilience.
I don’t think what you practice matters so much. However, I think it’s essential to have a somatic approach you can rely on, one that you refine when things are good, turn to regularly, and draw on during these trying times.
If you don’t have a practice, I encourage you to investigate, explore, and find one that fits and works for you. If you do have one, I encourage you to keep on keeping on, and find ways to deepen it. It’s also great to have a community with whom you can share it.
The challenges we face are not going to be solved in an instant or by any one person. We are going to need to rise to the occasion. We need each other, which means we both need to take care of each other and need each other to take care of ourselves.
Whatever the coming year brings, I look forward to facing it together.
I took the photo above at Seabright Beach yesterday morning.
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