Releasing the Pressure

It feels like we are living in a pressure cooker of sorts, right now.

You can feel it the moment you pull onto the road: the tension thick between cars, in the horn that comes a half-second too fast, in the faces of people who are fed up, angry, at their wits’ end, and underneath it all, feeling powerless. There is so little humanity left in these small exchanges. So little connection. So little care.

It cannot go on like this.

And yet…here we are.

It is easy to keep our eyes fixed on the chaos far away: the noise, the distraction, the endless list of what is going wrong out there. But what about in here?

And by *in here*, I mean in you. In me. In the way we meet a stranger in a checkout line, a voice on the other end of the phone, or the driver who cuts us off on a grey afternoon.

So much that is not good is happening, everywhere.

And it hurts.

It is during these times that I feel especially grateful for the medicine work I’ve been learning and practising with Pete Bernard of The 8th Fire these past eleven years. Without those teachings and tools - without the healing they have asked of me - I would be swept up in the despair of it all, too.

This is not to say I don’t fight. Standing up against what is wrong is not the problem. The problem is letting it take root and live inside you long after the moment has passed.

Energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed.

The question is: what are we changing it into?

For years now, collectively, our emotional energy has been building. We have been handed turning point after turning point - opportunities to respond differently, to heal, to grow, to come back to ourselves - and yet much of that energy remains trapped in cycles of fear, anger, division, and blame. So it keeps gathering. Building. Pressing harder against the lid.

But here is what we can do:

In the quietness and sacredness of your own life, you can release the pressure. You can find your way back to your centre. You can refuse to let the heavy, angry, hateful energy of these days take up residence within you.

You do this in small ways.

By taking a slow breath when you want to shout.

By choosing grace when someone cuts you off in traffic.

By taking a walk beneath the night sky instead of consuming another hour of news.

By writing your feelings down without judgment in a private journal, or speaking them aloud in a voice recording meant for no one but yourself.

By downloading a meditation app and practising stillness - even if it is only for one minute a day to begin.

Small acts. Small choices. Small moments of returning to yourself.

That is where the shift begins.

Not out there…But in here.

Not by turning our anger on others.

Not by playing the victim in this continuously unfolding story….But by stepping out of those pages entirely - and writing a different ending for ourselves.

And remembering that we are, indeed, blessed.

I know how esoteric that can sound - how futile, even, on the hardest of days. It is difficult to remember, and harder still to feel blessed when we feel like we are constantly swimming upstream.

But that is the practice. That is the work.

To let that truth resonate louder than all the noise trying to drown it out.

To begin changing that energy in your own life so that it flows in a different direction. So that it begins to show up as compassion instead of judgment. Understanding instead of blame. Presence instead of reaction. That is within your power. That is within your control.

It takes effort, and it takes practice….

But think of the alternatives.

The world needs you to do the work.

In your own life. In own self.

So that, slowly, person by person, together, we can begin to release some of those compounding pressures.

Blessings to you as you move through these days.

May you find the medicine within yourself to become the calm within the storm.

The hero within the journey.

The healer through the pain.

You can do this.

I believe in you.

We are all blessed.