Falling Up in Free Fall
It’s not just each of us in the blur of free fall, it’s all of us. We are in a collective trapeze act as we swoop through the daily uncertainties. Perhaps we can establish some active stillness in the blur, an “instrument of self” safety net of sorts.
A suggested beginning is a generous tenderness toward ourselves that may require reducing news intake. If I can’t allow my limbs to undo out of my back, and my thoughts to easily rise and see the world while taking in news, then it is time to turn news off, leave it unread, switch to music or welcome silence. I want to know enough to be safe and effective for my community, but more than that may be too much just now. If the stimulus of news is beyond my constructive response, then reducing news is a conscious and necessary choice. This is not a report card on my fortitude, but a gentle welcoming of the tender time in which we all find ourselves.
I’d prefer to remain elastic. Less news gives me a chance. I can adjust as needed if I allow a dynamic pause.
In that dynamic pause (not a freeze, or a stop), I can recall that I fall up from the ground, wherever the ground meets me. The less I compress, collapse, tighten, stabilize myself, the more breath supports and expands me, in a rhythm that responds to all of me, everything that I see, hear, think, feel. We are integrated systems of inseparable signal flows, our own trapeze acts of complexity and purpose.
Even pausing for a moment to request “on the ground springing up” as an overall condition can shift our brain state. Gravity is everywhere, ready to support stillness, movement, and breath.
