The couch is still there

How’s your spiritual weather lately?

If your answer is “intense,” you’re in good company. A lot of us are watching old stuff come back up. It’s stuff we thought we’d already looked at, and it keeps returning in waves. Chapters are closing. Some of them are big ones.

When a chapter ends, even a hard one, there’s a part of us that doesn’t want it to. We have ties to it. It could be a house or a person or even a situation that kept us small. There’s a quiet voice that asks, “If this leaves, what am I going to fill the gap with?”

Here’s what I want you to hear first. You’re being given more right now because you can handle more. If all of this had landed on you ten years ago, or even last year, you’d have met it from a very different place.

01Accelerations and Hard Stops

You might notice things speeding up so fast you can’t keep up, and then slowing down so much you wonder where everything went. Accelerations and hard stops. It feels like a reset every time.

I think part of what’s happening is our nervous systems are learning to be okay with less movement. We’re learning to be still without needing stimulation to steer us.

That’s harder than it sounds. Some of us have gotten a little addicted to chasing the fix for something that’s already healed. Once it’s healed and life gets quiet, we don’t know what to do with ourselves. So we go back to the old house and dig through the attic, looking for a treasure we didn’t even want ten years ago. Now suddenly it feels special.

Trust that what’s truly yours will never leave you. You can let the rest go.

02Sitting With the Quiet

When things slow down, boredom or loneliness might show up. Let them. Be with them for a minute, or a thousand.

If the stillness gets really lonely, invite your inner child into the space. Say hello. Invite your higher self too. Nobody has to solve anything or say a word. Let divinity sit with you in the loneliness without asking your nervous system for an ounce of relief.

You’ll feel a presence start to build. It’s you. This is a place to get to know who you are now, instead of figuring yourself out based on who you used to be.

Try asking, “If I didn’t know who I was, who would I be?” Then just stay with the question. You don’t need the answer yet.

03You’ve Run This Rodeo Before

When the same thing keeps coming up in a new costume, remember that you have experience with it. You’ve survived it. You came out the other side before, and something better probably showed up after. Maybe it was clarity, or relief, or a freedom you didn’t have while you were stuck in it.

So use that. You’re stronger now and wiser and more open-hearted. Instead of asking “when is this going to end,” try asking, “What is love trying to show me right now?”

I notice how quickly we reach for outside explanations. What’s the moon doing? The solar flares? That object everyone’s talking about? We end up like the doctors we complain about, treating the symptom and never the cause. Go straight to the source instead, and work backward from there.

04Receiving Without Knocking It Down

Here’s a small practice with big effects. When someone offers you love, a compliment, or an apology you waited years for, notice what happens in your body.

A lot of us receive it and knock it down in the same breath. We hedge. We explain. We put up a wall nobody asked for. We call it being direct or speaking our truth, when really we’re protecting ourselves.

Try this instead. Pause and say, “Thank you. That touched my heart.” That’s it. You can still be clear about where you stand. You just don’t have to shut yourself down to do it. Holding onto resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die.

The same practice works with the impatient person behind you in the grocery line. Somewhere in there is a light pointing its attention at you. Focus on that, and let the rest become Charlie Brown noise. You probably won’t become best friends. But you won’t get knocked off the cliff by someone else’s stuff either.

05The Couch Is Still There

Right now it can feel like we’re being asked to walk through a familiar room with the lights off. Here’s a fun fact to remind your inner child of. Turning off the living room light doesn’t make the couch disappear.

The couch is still there. You might stub your toe on it while you’re learning to navigate in the dark. That’s just you bumping into something that’s always been there to hold you.

You built that room. You picked the furniture and decorated the halls of your own castle. You can rearrange it whenever you want. But the support was never going anywhere.

06You Know How to Ride a Wave

When you’re a crappy surfer and someone throws you into big waves, it’s traumatic. You’re sure you’re going to drown.

Then you get stronger. A three-foot wave comes and you catch it. You see a six-footer coming and think, “Let’s see what I’ve got.” Keep going long enough and you start teaching other people how to surf. Eventually there’s an ecstasy in it. You’re riding the wave with divinity instead of fearing it’ll swallow you.

You’ve been riding waves for a while now. You know how to position yourself. You know how to hold your breath when you go under for a bit. And your board is tethered to you. The leash is on your ankle. Reach out and it’s right there.

07Bring All of You

Something came through on a recent live call in an almost biblical voice, which surprised me too. Relax your heart. All is well. The kingdom of heaven is upon you.

When you pray or meditate, don’t just bring your best self up to the threshold. Bring all of you. Bring the beggar and the thief and the manipulator. Bring the part of you that’s been exiled and judged. Bring the part that’s still afraid it’ll be abandoned, or that this is all a lie. Hold them while you pray. They belong in the kingdom too.

The life you’re hoping for in the future isn’t in the future. What keeps it there is our denial of the love that’s already available.

08Not Settling

I’ve been living this one. Not long ago I had to be out of my house by a set date and still hadn’t found a new place. A couple of options came through, and I said no to them. They just didn’t feel right.

My daughter told me beggars can’t be choosers. I said, “No, I can.” I’m not desperate.

And I’ll be honest, part of me wanted the comfort of just moving from one house straight into the next. But comfort can’t come at the cost of living somewhere that contracts me. So I’m practicing faith that the right alignment will show up. I’m also checking Craigslist every hour on the hour. Both things can be true.

Choose what aligns with your heart, and trust it’ll unfold in its own timing. If something feels out of reach, trust that it’s being refined so you can receive it.

09Look at the Miracle

You might not recognize yourself very soon. The world around you doesn’t have to change for that to be true.

We keep asking for miracles while forgetting we’re swimming in a field of them. The sunrise. The birds in the background. The person sitting right next to you. Sometimes we want a different miracle because the one we have doesn’t feel like enough anymore.

Pause and look that miracle in the eyes. Honor it for what it is.

We’re living through one of the most remarkable moments in human history. If beings from somewhere else could pick any time to drop in on this party, this is when they’d be walking through the door. It’s the countdown in Times Square. Every ancestor who suffered before us is part of why we get to wake up now, and their lives weren’t lived in vain.

So every once in a while, celebrate it. Receive it with gratitude and humility. And carry it forward with the authority you’ve been given.