Opening to Beauty
Wandering Granada reminded me how good it feels to let beauty pull me beyond my edges and teach my nervous system that the world is safe again.
What a treat. A whole afternoon and evening with nothing to do except wander around and revel in the sights and sounds of a rich city. Nothing to think about or analyze, just taking in the colors, shapes, sounds, scents, and textures. It’s like learning by osmosis about the the soul of a place, the rhythms and experience of the people who live here.
Wonder and awe- my natural state
The queen of this 3D world is beauty. She is powerful and inspirational. Her colors, shapes, and textures invite me to come out beyond my edges into a realm of aliveness and connection. She inspires me to soften, open and experience wonder and awe (my natural state).
Also, much more simply: it feels good to hear, smell, and see new and different things. I can feel my sensory explorations activating new neural pathways, updating my brain and body to adapt to the present moment. I’ve learned over the past few years of nervous system rehabilitation that this is really good for me. It keeps me from getting stuck in comfortable patterns, and reminds my body and brain that it’s safe for me to be out in the world.
Speaking of comfort, this trip has brought plenty of discomfort, especially those little whispers of fear, of not knowing what’s coming:
Not knowing if I’ll be able to find my airbnb or how long it will take me.
Not being familiar with the train or car system.
Not understanding what someone says to me.
Not knowing how to say clearly what I want to say.
All of this brings little or big moments of discomfort, of vulnerability. And each of those moments gives my system (heart, body, mind) a chance to explore its edges, where it thought it needed to stay closed or controlled, and where it’s safe and good for me to expand.
Switching off the protective mode of chronic illness
Living with chronic illness (or any other limiting condition) usually has us closing our sensory borders. The nervous system, in order to protect us, starts to interpret more and more stimuli as dangerous, and sends strong signals through inflammation, pain, and mental stress, that we are not safe. In this way, we start pulling our edges in, closer and closer, and our world becomes more and more narrow.
This is a totally natural and brilliant function of the central nervous system and actually can keep us safe when we are truly in danger. But when the system gets stuck in what I call “protective mode”, it can quickly become a self-perpetuating spiral of hyper-vigilance and intense reactions.
Enjoying my new state of being: trusting, confident, and open to life
After about 20 years in this chronic protective mode, it took me about 3.5 years of daily practice for my nervous system to trust that I was truly out of danger. All those hours of neurological and physical rewiring have absolutely been worth it. My nervous system has a new default setting, which is more trusting of the world, more open to beauty and new experiences, more confident that I can handle the discomforts and challenges that life inevitably brings.
So I’m celebrating the years of self-devotion and dragging myself one day at a time toward a life of vibrant health.
I’m also celebrating my courage to:
keep coming back out into the world
open myself up to unknowns and discomforts
take in all this beauty and quirkiness of the world around me
Wander around Granda with me!
Below are some photos from an evening out wandering in Granada, Spain: near the Realejo district, up into the Albaicín, and then to Alhambra for a special nighttime viewing. While everybody else entering the Alhambra stopped at the first fountain to take tons of pics, I zoomed past them and literally had the whole palace to myself for 20 minutes! It was magical.
