lingering where you are
A case for soft bodies and trust in life’s unfolding
The summer nights have been cool and damp—languid days of heat giving way to rolling clouds. I managed to pull off a bind in evolved crescent lunge—a new strength for me in yoga—as thunderheads bloomed with rain outside. In this leaning pose, I remembered how often it’s here, on this mat, that I finally return to the present. I let go of the need to try harder. I let the soft animal of my body release the balancing act in palm tree; I dropped my heels after three seconds and even took child’s pose. I let myself be held, instead of forcing myself into position.
Lately, I’ve been mulling over the rewrites of healing, asking myself: How does one share their evolution?
Much of my writing lately explores how I’m learning to embrace the in‑between—how I’m challenging myself to trust deeply in my own timing. No one knows how to navigate my path better than I do. With the exception of a few gentle friendships that nourish and hold me—a space I once resisted—most of this work has been an intimate, solitary journey. And yet, when you’re met with the tender responses of regulated bodies to your fear, your plight, your tears, something in you softens and says, I am home—even here.
It’s in these micro‑moments of connection that I move closer to becoming the person I’ve always known myself to be.
David Whyte writes, a favourite poem of mine, about this tension between solitude and support. I highly recommend hopping over to this post to listen to his audio version.
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice. You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the
conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
When I’m in a season of waiting, several deep Achilles‑heel beliefs surface:
Have I done enough to get the thing I want? If I had, it would be here.
If I’m not the one holding it all together, it will fall apart.
I am alone. And if I receive what I really want, it will leave me.
Reframing these didn’t arrive overnight. They’ve been the slow work of months—sometimes years—of untangling old survival patterns. I’ve written about them before in bits and pieces, but lately they’ve begun to crystallize into something solid. They are the shifts that come from living the questions, from trusting the pauses, from learning—over and over—that waiting can be fertile, that I don’t have to hold everything alone, and that what’s meant for me doesn’t slip away.
These are deeply rooted narratives that feel safe, yet kept me from truly living. We can loop on them forever, or we can change them. That is one of the gifts of adulthood: we have choices. We have so much more power. And we can become deeply self‑aware of how our inner child still longs to be seen and validated.
Therapeutic tools, relationships grounded in mutual inner re‑parenting, and my spiritual practices have all helped me navigate this terrifying, beautiful inner landscape. And because of this deep commitment, my life—my capacity for my dream life, my capacity to love and be loved—has widened.
In this in‑between phase, I’ve been given the time and space to truly address these questions. Over and over, I’ve re‑worked them. And even when I thought the wave would never come again—the tide of all I long for—I finally reached a sweet, rested place. No more clinging. No more chasing. Just trust.
I thought I’d be ready months ago. But like Divine timing often does, life sailed me into another storm—another bind in crescent lunge—when I was wishing for savasana (corpse pose) or the thing that would finally arrive and validate my hard work. Instead, softness and surrender.
The beliefs have flipped:
Have I done enough to get the thing I want? If I had, it would be here → Waiting isn’t punishment; I have the abundance of time to integrate and create a strong foundation to hold what is coming.
If I’m not the one holding it all together, it will fall apart → I am safe to receive; I get to choose who I trust now. I deserved to be provided for then, and I deserve it now.
I am alone. And if I receive what I really want, it will leave me → I am safe to receive and keep what is aligned.
Maybe you share some of these beliefs. Maybe you have your own, and wonder what it would look like to shift them. Maybe you’re coasting on a summer high. However you arrive at this moment, we are all faced with the same quiet task: to revisit how our beliefs shape our current reality.
It’s powerful work. For me, cultivating this foundation has brought me more than what I was waiting for. It has given me a greater sense of self‑validation and self‑trust than anything external ever could—and that, I think, is stronger than receiving the thing itself. 🧡