safe and comfortable

I'm taking an extra class this semester, called The Power of Nursing. Break out the woo-meter, right? I signed up for it because I could already feel myself shutting off, becoming jaded with my patients even in the first semester, and I wanted to do what I could to avoid that. Each bi-monthly class has a different theme, with time for personal reflection and then discussion in a smaller break-out group of 5 students and a facilitator who also participates in the activities herself (we're all cis-females here in this particular group).

This week we talked about healing, and personal qualities that we bring to that process. We were asked to close our eyes and picture ourselves in someplace safe and comfortable. I cast around in my mind. My home? Childhood home? Vacation spot? I thought about my house in Kossuka, Burkina Faso. Why do my years in the Peace Corps feel so close to the surface in this class?

I thought about doing yoga on my cement patio, balanced on one leg in tree position while staring over my courtyard wall at a tall and swaying tree out on the horizon. Lying down in savasana and staring up at the clear blue sky, watching buzzards lazily riding updrafts across my line of sight. I thought about my persistent little moringa tree, that came back from being a goat-eaten stick and grew into a beautiful healthy 7 foot tall tree in a year. How I buried some of my father's ashes under that tree before I left my village for the last time, thanking that home for having been a place of healing for me.

I really fought against my courtyard as my safe and comfortable place. I was physically safe but didn't always feel it - civil unrest, people peaking over my courtyard wall, obnoxious flirtatious old men with leering stares, scorpions lurking in the dark, giant terrifying spiders that seemed immune to harm, being closeted in a homophobic country. I certainly wasn't often comfortable - sweating, freezing, dusty, itching, unable to fully communicate, trying to navigate a wildly different set of cultural customs and expectations, and infected with a host of diarrhea-producing microbes. And yet, here I was - this was the place my mind was stuck.

The self-reflection was really valuable. I have a lot of qualities that I believe can be healing, and can help me to be the kind of provider I want to be. I think I'm gaining a realistic view of how to try and hold on to those even in the face of other forces that make me want to take a different path. I'm confident in my ability to adapt and learn, and to gain personal satisfaction from connecting to and helping my patients; balanced with a realistic understanding of my own limitations and need to stay somewhat distant in order to preserve my own mental health. I fear being too detached and not caring enough. I fear being too open and losing myself in my worry for their health and safety and well being. I think this is a good balance to have, even if it's stressful.

I realized that something I'm really needing right now is a safe connection. Have you ever had a hug where you really let yourself fall into it? Where you both pressed into each other, heart to heart, and held on with conviction? Where you relaxed into each others curves and angles, could feel your breathing start to move together? Where you didn't need words, you just felt the two of you together there with each other?

The last time I can really remember that strongly is at the Body Electric, over a year ago, with Dragon. We were doing a breathing exercise, I don't even remember if we were touching? Energetically it felt like we were. It surprised me, making that kind of a connection with a man - it felt vaguely erotic, but I think that's because it felt so unexpectedly emotionally open in a way that we usually only allow ourselves in romantic/sexual relationships. What if we could have those kinds of emotionally open/intimate moments and connections with more people? Would we be the biggest, most unwieldy polycule in the world? Or would we just be happier, more fulfilled, surrounded by friends and acquaintances who we felt truly, in some small way, for some small moment, loving and loved by?