As I type this, I just removed a social media post that I originally thought was casual but really offended some people, which was not my intention and I found to be stressful. I was sorry that I’d caused others stress. I have a to-do list that I’d hoped to get through today but won’t. I’m tired and have a few hours of meetings left today.
So instead of cramming all that out, before the next meeting, I brought my laptop to bed with some quiet music playing in the background, which pleases my nervous system very much, and decided to write on this topic that continues to arise for me lately, like a little whisper that comes into my ear at moments when I feel things spinning just slightly out of equilibrium.
“Stabilize.”
Stabilize the breath. Stabilize the moment.
I’ve honestly been expanding quite a bit lately. I realize looking back that 2021 was a year where I chose more quiet, more family, fewer big choices. I had focus words during last year that included “resourced” and “sustainable,” because I’d really been looking so very closely at this thing of the depletion of feminine energy in my life that continued to sneak up on me just when I thought I’d figured it out.
And as I said in a client call this morning, while talking about these anchoring words that hold our intentions for how we want to feel, what we intend to create, I feel I did experience “resourced” and “sustainable” energy last year in a beautiful way. And then, at the very end of the year, a friend gently called me out and told me it was time to expand.
I had been worried about being out of integrity, charging too much for a program offering, trying to figure out how to offer lower pricing and still get paid what I needed to get paid, and he told me that I was playing small and afraid to charge what the offering was actually worth. I respect his reflection, and so I looked at it and began to listen to the audiobook suggestions he gave me, and long analysis short – he was right. I had become “resourced” and “sustained” but I now needed to expand, and expand what I am wiling to receive. (Read – the *goodness* I am willing to receive!)
I like my family. I like my little life of structure & flow in daily entrepreneurship, I like my clients very much, I like walking my puppy and being a mother to my son. I like it. And 2021 was about recalibration. But now it is time to expand, and I’m ready. Expand the things I am willing to say (even if not everyone gets it or I do challenge some opinions), the number of people I reach, the impact I can have with my time on the planet. It’s time to expand what ceilings I assumed are over my head, expand my monthly minimum of what I’m willing to accept in my income (I learned this from the audiobook – it’s called an “energetic minimum” and this concept is awesome for me at this time), and expand my capacity to love more and more deeply.
And it’s time for me to receive more, as a result of the expansion.
This is inevitable, IF, and only if, I also “stabilize.”
Many times, when coaching a client, I’ve talked about this rubber band effect in personal growth. We’re growing, and that’s like stretching a rubber band, but if you don’t stabilize, that rubber band will snap back into place.
If we want a new normal, a new normal that is a growth edge for us, we have to stabilize when we stretch.
Many times, I’ve gone after growth, but it wasn’t regulated into my nervous system by the time I quickly did the next thing, or got the next negative reaction, or experienced failure, and then *snap* – back to the start.
The expansion can only actually happen if stabilized, and stabilized into the nervous system as well. To take more action on top of anxiousness or worry is absolutely destabilizing. We are working against ourselves in this sense.
So, in this moment, I am stabilizing instead of thinking I just need to zoom to the next thing on the list. I’m writing, something that is to me like creating art, and I’m doing that to stabilize the moment. I’m not completely inactive, and sometimes I might just actually meditate or take a nap. What stabilizes us will not always be the same, from moment to moment or person to person.
I regularly do an exercise called “The Class,” and in it you move your body quickly, activating a cardio response. And then, at the end of the song and the movement, they say “Hand on body, hand on chest,” and say to breathe and notice. This is stabilization in action.
That is exactly one energetic example of what I’ve been working with regarding expansion – actually moving my body in a way that I break an energetic norm and cross a threshold into the new. Maybe I lift more weight for longer than I did the day before, or hold the breath in kundalini yoga for longer, or jump harder while doing The Class. And then I witness – “Ah, I can expand, and then I can stabilize.”
When I’m working and creating, and I have bigger goals (which I do), I don’t get them done in anxiousness. I get them done in stability.
When I’m parenting or training a puppy, I don’t get it done by being quick, short, or demanding. I do it by stabilizing the energy in our surroundings.
When I’m working with clients, I’m stabilizing the space. That’s my job.
Before, when I was writing, it was like they were all flying around at once and it was hard to see one piece of writing through. I now organize my ideas by first purposefully stabilizing.
Stabilize the moving parts. Stabilize the breath and the nervous system. This is how you increase your capacity – not by rushing, forcing, or multitasking.
Energetically, we can become used to a certain capacity, like I did in 2021. Like we all do. And that capacity might even be working okay for us. But it might also be an excuse not to grow, and not to receive more of what we actually really want.
I’m ready to expand. I’m ready to receive more, and in a way that the stretch doesn’t have to snap back.
Are you?
If you’d like to “Breathe to Receive” with me, that is the name of my next offering, coming mid January. In every way, we will stabilize through the breath to increase your capacity to receive. Ensure that you are on my mailing list at SarahPoet . com and check your emails for sign up information.
Here’s to an expansive, and stable, 2022.
