be all the way here for this.

Coming into daily presence with a little help from my friend.

I leave my body all the time.

In one minute I’m living my best life, comfortably housed in a cut-up teeshirt, slathering myself in lotion and humming a song, and then—

Real threats and perceived threats and old threats and future threats all lunge for my throat at once and the drumbeat of my heart pounds out a sudden path to rescue and: I’m gone. An evaporation more than a retreat.

I’ve shared heart-to-hearts with a number of you about this, we brave and tender survivors…and yeah I do read all the books and yeah I do the therapy for which I’m grateful (and yeah I used to keep up with the Trauma Informed Influencers on social media, too 🫠) — enough to know that a lot of us aren’t here when we’re here.

I’m grateful to my nervous system for toiling overtime under shit conditions to keep me safe all these years… but there’s a lot I miss because of it. So, my nervous system and I have some “areas of opportunity” in this department. The department of staying right here.

When we talk about creativity, we talk about “practice”. When we talk about meditation, we talk about “practice”. When I talk about staying right here, I’m definitely talking about “practice”. And for me, creative practice is the primary meditation that helps keep me in the room.

My morning commitment to myself is this: Once I’ve swaddled myself in my big fuzzy robe and set the electric kettle to boil, I will grab my notebook, I will put it in my lap, I will open it, and I will hold the pen over the page— waiting. For a word or a line. A dream or an image. A poem if one is available to me.

Knowing this, you may be surprised to learn that I’ve failed out of Morning Pages more times than I can count. 3 stream-of-consciousness pages each morning sounds cool in theory, but I honestly find it really daunting! However, by committing to just opening my book, this daily practice brings me into presence and saves me from disembodied oblivion. I think:

Here I am. Holding my commitment to myself in my hands. My inner world and outer worlds are connected. I have continuity. I commit to my voice, my heart, and my story with this pen poised and ready…

That is, until the cat flings himself at full-speed across my lap with much guttural warbling, flipping ass-over-end to attack the notebook, knocking coffee from my mug onto the blank page where he wriggles and chews the uncapped pen from my hand.

This is his daily practice.

Truthfully, I’ve spent more than one morning in tears because of this guy. It’s my sacred time to connect with myself and he can be…a lot. 24 hours a day. I’ve secretly feared throughout this year of kittenhood (in a loft with no interior doors) that he will drive me all the way fucking crazy for lack of sleep and utterly shattered concentration.

But the other day, while he gleefully gnawed a hole into the business end of my fudenosuke, I stopped and thought, “Y’know, Lisette— Just be all the way here for this.”

So, I scooted his little butt over and wrote it on the page…then the rest spilled out:

be all the way here for this
sweet little cat who thinks
you're the best place
in the whole world.

this sweet little cat who thinks
all the sticks and pens
in the whole world
taste sweeter with your hand on his belly.

of all the sticks and pens,
whatever you're holding 
tastes sweeter with your hand on his belly-
right in the center.

whatever you're holding,
you're the best place.
right in the center.
be all the way here for this.

So my offering to you this week - for you to digest however you’d like - is the same prayer I’m offering up to myself: whatever you’re holding….whatever you’re holding… you are the best place. right in the center.

be all the way here for this.

xoxox,

take good care of your hearts this week my friends ❤️

PS-

Lisa Burda

wrote a lovely post this week including a link to “The Mental Health Benefits of Creating Art” — thought you might dig hearing these other artists share their thoughts, too. xo