Navigating the Storm
How to Stay Grounded in an Emotional Tornado, Through Shadow Work, Energy and Bodywork Practices
I am often asked when I do a Healing or a Space to Feel session, if I feel exhausted after. I would say that 99% of the time I don’t, because I get as much out of the session as my client. Sometimes it’s just about holding space for them as they journey, but most often there is a lesson underneath it all that is meant for me - when I allow myself time to process it.
I was working with a client the other day whose whole life seemed to be turned upside down. They were very well attuned with inner work and can usually bring themself back into a state of stability. But this time, they were lost in a torrent of events that snowballed off each other, leaving them ungrounded. A phrase used was “the rug had been pulled out from underneath me”.
As we worked together, I kept seeing an image of a tornado passing through the land ripping everything untethered up into this swirling mess of dust and debris. The image got larger into a hurricane, but as the first part of the squall passed, there was a calmness in the eye of the storm, before the second wave hits.
Image: Greg Johnson on Unsplash
In the Andean tradition, there is a wind that is called the Ñausa Wayra - the blind wind. It comes from the Kaypacha, manufactured by us through our hoocha - fear, anger, greed, lies - harm that we do to ourselves, others and our planet. We call it every time we vibrate with it. When we’re emotionally unstable, we’re saying “here’s a home”, we’re inviting it in. It’s like our own personal tornado, or what I like to call a hoocha storm. In terms of Andean energy work, when we do a Saminchakuy, we are consciously creating a downdraft by asking for samiy from the universe to funnel through ourselves sending the hoocha to Pachamama to be dispensed and recycled in nature, which gives the blind wind a location to be discharged.
In essence, the tornado (or a blind wind), is like an unstable mind on overdrive - current issues trigger memories of the past, accumulating in a thick fog of turmoil. Heavy emotions caused by not having needs met in childhood, fuel core beliefs (“nobody understands me, I’m don’t matter, I’m worthless”), in the present, and so the momentum of the storm increases. Looking for a solution in a billowing, hurtling tumultuous mass of chaos, only creates more confusion, instability and fear.
In the natural world, ‘A tornado loses power when its vital air supply is cut off, which happens when the storm's downdraft wraps around the vortex and chokes off the warm, moist inflow. Other factors that can cause a tornado to weaken include moving over cooler ground, encountering different terrain like mountains, or losing the atmospheric instability it needs to be sustained.’
How did we stop a tornado?
We don’t. We look for shelter - a safe space until the storm is over.
Space to Feel
When that tornado is going on in our personal lives, we need to create a place of safety by turning within. This journey inwards may be something that you have done before, maybe you know how to meditate or to do inner work. But in the height of the storm when you’re feeling ungrounded, sitting still can seem near enough impossible. Having someone bear witness helps it land, so to speak. It is the “cool air” or the “new terrain” - that pause in time for the swirling to stop and all the broken pieces to fall.
In Katonah Yoga, I was taught that the clockwise rotation is “the way of the world”, going out into the world, signing the cheque making the deal. Whereas the anticlockwise rotation is the world within, the implicit, the journey with Self, intuition. Often in a class we will revolve in each direction to allow for symmetry in the body.
But what I learnt about this practice with my client, was that I was also caught up in a tornado with my own stories that were taking place at that time. I wasn’t allowing space for myself to sit still, breathe, feel into my body. When I reminded myself to find this safe place, as I closed my eyes and journeyed down, the spiral went anticlockwise down and inward. I could see the disengagement of the clockwise ungrounded tornado above, which dissolved into the ethers. Then the spiralling stopped all together, the stillness that i’d longed for but resisted so much came, and there I was - home - safe and grounded.
It seems so simple, but why do we resist doing the work on ourselves so much? Why does time feel so sped up lately? Why is there so much aggressive, violent behaviours being shown throughout the world?
The image of the hurricane comes to mind. Maybe globally, we are contributing to the natural disasters with our thoughts and unprocessed shadow. We can all too easily be swept off our feet and get caught up in the movements, following the herds. Although our intentions may be good, if we are not allowing ourselves this “slow down”, are we unconsciously creating more divisiveness?
It’s when I allow myself space to feel, from that rooted, self regulated, safe place, then I can see the way through. Through discernment, following the love, finding what feels true to me, looking for ways to help in my community, is how I truly hope I am contributing to humanity.
