One of the most moving and powerful moments of the movie Moana (if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you do) is when she finally makes it across the ocean with Maui to restore the heart of Te Fiti.

They arrive to where Te Fiti is raging and swirling and threatening. It doesn’t look survivable to get to her.

In this moment, Moana turns inward. She centers, then holds the stone (representing Te Fiti's heart) up high, a lighthouse of sorts that beams and gets Te Fiti's attention.

Moana begins to walk across the ocean, which parts for her to walk on solid land.

She sings to Te Fiti as she walks, unflinching, steady on her feet and in her gaze.

She is tending to Te Fiti's heart, offering her love and deepest seeing of who she is underneath all of the pain being expressed.

Te Fiti moves toward Moana, a raging mass of volcanic material.

Moana is unwavering, unafraid, physically tiny but with enormous capacity to hold and witness all of it.

As they meet in the center of the ocean, Moana puts her head and hand to the heart of Te Fiti and sings to her (beautiful Lin Manuel song, y’all know I love him) and she holds steady – offering her love and seeing.

She is, in nervous system terms, co-regulating.

And the miraculous happens. Te Fiti feels heard and held - by a powerful girl who sees - and then restores - her heart.

And then everything shifts. Te Fiti is transformed and remembers.

Co-regulation and its impact

When we have that capacity onboard, within us, to center in our hearts, to remember who we are, to be present with (and not override) the pain and dysregulation of the world around us, we can co-regulate.

And those around us can find co-regulation with us.

Horror and terror have a ripple effect.

They awaken the trauma and epigenetic programming held in the bodies, hearts, and minds of those witnessing.

Regulation also has a ripple effect.

If you’re feeling stirred up by all that’s happening in the world right now, and your empathy or epigenetics are speaking to you – and there is so much to be stirred up about and to speak about – you are most definitely not alone.

Photo credit: @eyeforebony of unsplash.com

(Commercial break to nerd out for a moment - co-regulation creates an environment of safety. Within the social engagement part of our nervous system, co-regulation plays an essential role in fostering positive social interactions and promoting a sense of trust, safety, and emotional resilience.

This literally changes the physiological states of those co-regulating, including heart rate, respiration, and emotional arousal, and can help reduce stress and anxiety.)

A moment to pause - what do you need?

I invite you to pause and tune in – what is it you need right now?

Who is someone safe with whom you can co-regulate?

What support can you ask for?

What kind of physical movement can you do to help move survival stress through?

What can you STOP doing that is agitating your nervous system and keeping you from feeling steady (perhaps too much media exposure…or staying on the computer late at night...)?

What can you shift in your environment that helps you feel calmer and more connected?

Where can you lean into stable and predictable? (see gift below)

I want to give you permission to take care of YOU.

This is the work of changemaking

This IS our work in the world - the work of changemaking, of parenting, of serving, of visioning a better way - in troubled times.

The more we can attune to our nervous systems, and create safety within our own bodies, minds, hearts, and environments, the more capacity we have to create change from a place of steadiness, centeredness and co-regulation.

My Gift to You

In case you missed it last newsletter, HERE's my gift for you – a guided practice (10 min audio) to help you co-regulate with that which is stable and predictable around you.

It may be helpful for your own centering, your own healing, reducing anxiety, and remembering who you are, amidst all that is up in your world, and in the outer world.

YOUR GIFT OF STABLE AND PREDICTABLE

Please hear this call...

The world needs you well.

The more you tend to your nervous system, your felt experience, your own healing, the unwinding of trauma and frozen survival stress within you, the more you can show up for those around you – friends, family, colleagues, patients, clients, students, those you serve, and the world.

They need you well.

Seeing you.

And reaching across the ethers to touch your heart.

(Feel that ripple effect).

Go take care of you, please.

With so much love and many blessings,

Kelly

P.S. When things are feeling unbearably hard, or even just a bit unsettled, we can "borrow" regulation from outside of us to help find that within us. Other humans, the mountains, the sunrise and sunset, the path you walk every day.

Here's the audio recording again – a gift for you – if you’d like to be guided in doing this. It takes less than 10 minutes.

CLICK HERE FOR YOUR GIFT

If you’d rather just read a simpler version of this practice, here you go…

(sharing this again, as I heard from a couple of you that it was helpful to have it written)

Take a moment and feel what’s underneath you – the seat, or bed, or floor, that’s holding you up.

Then bring your awareness to what’s underneath that – the floor or the foundation of the building.

And then underneath that – the earth, the rock, the topsoil.

Perhaps look around you – at the solid and heavy furniture in your space.

Or the mountain outside your window. Or the giant tree that sun that rises toward the sun but has its roots deeply reaching into the earth.

Or the predictable sunrise and sunset each day.

Now tap into the stability and predictability of that thing – natural or fabricated – that reminds you of stability and predictability.

Notice that stability or predictability. Bring your attention to it.

Now bring it into your body, however feels right to you.

Do this a little bit, every day, and watch what happens in relationship to your capacity for change, engaging, and changemaking.

Kelly Lubeck, MPH, RYT