Granada beauty - textures & colors

Jun 12

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.

A new 3D experience

I love how these colors, shapes, and textures are the way the world invites me to come out beyond my edges. The queen of this 3D world is beauty. 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 this activating new neural pathways, sort of updating my brain and body to adapt to the present moment. I’ve learned over the past few years, 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.

Opening up the borders

Living with chronic illness (or any other limiting condition) very often has us closing our 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 protective mode, it can quickly become a self-perpetuating spiral of hyper-vigilance and over-reactive protective mechanisms.

After about 20 years in this “protective mode”, it took me about 3.5 years of daily practice for my nervous system to believe that I was truly out of danger. All those hours of 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 my courage to