Are you distressed today? Learn from my deepest regret….

Dear one,
If you’re distressed today, that makes perfect sense.

The world is on fire: climate catastrophe, a resulting refugee migration in search of food and safety, and the rise of governmental and individual far-right violence attempting to control the resulting chaos and suppress the revolutionary change our planet needs.

And if you’ve experienced developmental-level childhood trauma and the world is on fire, it can feel like you’re on a bridge that’s burning from both sides.

In the face of these dangers, do you find yourself revolving among dysregulated fight, flight, and freeze? Do you find yourself lashing out, running away, or collapsing in frozen terror?

What would happen if you paused right now, put your hand on your heart, and took a breath? And another breath. And another.

It may seem like an impossible or ludicrous invitation, to pause when the world is on fire—when you’re standing on a bridge that’s burning from both ends. But when we act from a dysregulated place, more often than not, we escalate the violence around us and the distress within us, rather than put out the flames.

I lived this misguided attempt to contribute earlier this year—working so relentlessly for deescalation of the world’s violence that it was putting me into frequent fight/flight/freeze. I didn’t pause in my distress, though, because I care so much about the suffering in our world. How could I rest, when the world is on fire?

But by failing to pause, by pushing myself harder than my nervous system could regulate, even with support, I was becoming increasingly distressed. In my relentless effort to expose the world’s violence, I contributed to the rupture of my most cherished and sacred personal relationship.

I learned in the most painful way that living nonviolence must begin with how we care for ourselves, and by extension, how we show up for the people we love. Even when the world is on fire. Because if we’re harming ourselves and those close to us in our efforts to stay informed and save this world, we’re contributing to the collective trauma that led us to this global crisis in the first place.

Now, I’m dedicated to slowing down, caring for myself and my loved ones as my first priority, and working my way out to the world from that place of profound and grounded love.

What does that look like, exactly? I’m pausing more. I’ve recommitted to my long-standing but recently forgotten commitment to never dominate myself into doing more than my body enjoys and can process while continuing to breathe. I’ve resumed daily practices of walking in nature (the picture above is from my walk this morning), and praying and meditating under the stars—and during both, I remember the most vulnerable in our world, and connect my heart to theirs, to fuel all action I do take.

I have relinquished my insistence on outcome. I cannot put out these global fires—or even my personal relational fires—alone. But I can continue to show up with my full heart. And then pause with my full heart. And then show up again.

No matter what comes today, or tomorrow, I invite you to remember your own precious heart. Eat a nourishing meal. Tend to your sacred body and soul. Be with your distress. Reach for your beloveds. And then, from a place of inner resource, bring that love and resource into the world in the way that only you can, in the way you were born to do.

I love you, keep going,
Angela

P.S. Needing more support? I currently have one weekly session time available. READ MORE here, about what it’s like to work with me.

By the time we’re four months old, our interactions with our primary caregiver reveal whether or not we’ll have a secure or insecure attachment—our foundation for all our love relationships.

We learn early and unconsciously which emotions our primary caregiver can welcome in themselves and in us. If they get angry or overwhelmed when we’re scared, for instance, we’ll show less fear, to try to keep their nervous systems regulated so they won’t leave us or hurt us. Similarly, if they can’t rejoice in our joy, we’ll minimize our joy.

Our parent’s window of welcome preexists us, largely established by their own parent’s window for them and any traumatic experiences that are still unheld and unaccompanied. This is one manifestation of intergenerational trauma—generation after generation unconsciously (and sometimes consciously) hands down a “no” to the next generation’s emotional experience and expression, and doesn’t catch our earliest cries for secure resonant connection.

This “no” is, at root, a bid for survival—theirs and ours. And yet hemming in our authentic feelings and needs shaves off essential parts of ourselves. We get smaller and smaller, in order to survive, leaving us with whole swaths of our aliveness unavailable to us.

These unconscious nervous system contracts to be smaller—sacred vows, as author Sarah Peyton refers to them—are like fierce invisible bands straining to hold back our powerful life energy. Without understanding the constricting presence of these unconscious vows, we think we’re simply failing to act, rather than being held back from acting.

Of course, sometimes we manage to break our vows—our fear bubbles over and spills out, for instance—but then we generally try to rein ourselves back in with a shame-filled cycle of self-recrimination, self-judgment, and self-blame. Our shame tries to keep us safely within others’ windows of welcome, using our parent’s narrowest window as an outdated template for all other relationships.

When we’re little, we must fit inside our parent’s and our culture’s windows to survive. But when we’re older, we can gather the external support and cultivate the internal resonance we need for self-love and real welcome for all of our life energy.

Some of us are lucky enough to receive a full warm welcome in the first two years of our lives, but thankfully if we don’t our brains are still neuroplastic and it’s never too late to create that necessary foundation of welcome and secure attachment.

To feel and express our empowering anger cleanly and healthily, we need our anger welcomed and resonated with by a loving figure. Same with our precious fear, our life-serving grief, our life-fueling hope. We can only feel as much joy as we can be met in and still be loved.

Through my deep spiritual counseling, you are fully loved, fully welcomed, fully resonated with, especially in your prickly places. We support you in healing to live—noticing together each place you get held back from moving toward your dreams and gently exploring and releasing related vows, rescuing past selves frozen in painful moments, and acknowledging and healing intergenerational traumas.

For the first time in two years, I have one weekly session time currently available, as well as one biweekly session. I generally work with clients seeking long-term relational healing support, who want to explore and nurture their rich inner lives to expand their outer lives, all in the context of nonviolence and social justice.

Message me today to schedule your initial session—in person in my Oakland office, or over phone or Skype—and we’ll get started on warmly welcoming you into your wholeness.

Much love and empathy,
Angela

www.RestorativeEmpathy.com

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

This is the advice our culture offers us about fortitude amidst adversity: If you’re tough, you’ll do something. If you’re not tough, well, toughen up. If that doesn’t work, there’s something wrong with you. Try harder. Rely on willpower. Buck up. Didn’t work? Buckle down. Try harder.

If trying our hardest doesn’t work—or if we can’t even manage the incredible vulnerability of trying—we collapse in shame, blame ourselves and others, numb or distract ourselves, conclude that we’re just not good enough.

We tell ourselves it’s futile to dream impossible dreams, sometimes convincing ourselves we never really wanted that dream in the first place. We give up on ourselves and each other, and our lives get smaller and smaller.

And as this happens with each one of us, collectively we get easier and easier to dominate and control.

This is not the time to give up, my friends—on your own dreams or your dedication to bringing your full heart to this ailing world.

 

So What’s the Secret to Not Giving Up?

When the going gets tough, we need encouraging support and warm companionship, we need resonant shared holding of our dreams and visions. We need to acknowledge our most vulnerable longings and embrace the vulnerability of our inextricable interdependence. We need each other.

 

If It’s That Simple, Why Is It So Hard?

In the first four months of our lives, we learn which of our emotions will be welcomed and responded to, and which will get us less connection or more danger. If our primary care giver can’t pretty consistently welcome our fear, anger, sadness, overwhelm, or even joy with warm responsiveness, we learn to shut down those feelings or hide them as much as we can.

We learn on a cellular, neurobiological, unconscious level not to reach out when our feelings are too much for us to hold on our own and our caregiver can’t hold them with us. We learn to give up.

 Luckily, our brains our neuroplastic. That means that if we didn’t get the warm responsiveness we needed as infants and children and young adults, we can get that resonance now, and with repetition, our brains will slowly form new neural pathways that expect welcome of our full aliveness, that trust that our intense emotions will be warmly accompanied, that allow us to reach out for help when we need it—so that we never have to give up on ourselves or each other or the world.

 

When Do You Give Up?

Which of your own emotions overwhelm you, collapse you, freeze you? Fear? Anger? Sadness? Helplessness? Shame? Panic?

You can tell you’re overwhelmed by your emotions or the emotions of others the second your judgments, assessments, blame, labels, and conclusions start flowing. This is your logical left brain’s way of trying to calm down your emotional right brain, if your left brain wasn’t taught that your right brain can be way better soothed with empathy and resonance.

When you notice the judgmental conclusions start to flow, when you feel like giving up, this is an emergency signal that it’s time to reach out for warmth, for empathy, for resonance.

 

Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way—And That Way Is Together

What matters most to you, in your life and in the world? Do you want a life filled with authentic intimacy, supportive community, meaning and purpose, and emotional and physical wellness for all beings? Do you want to fulfill your life’s unique purpose by contributing what only you can offer the world?

Acknowledge your dreams, dearests. And then reach out for resonant companionship in holding your dreams, in stepping toward your dreams, in not giving up on your dreams.

Living our dreams make this life worth living, and make this chaotic world worth loving and worth nurturing. You don’t have to give up. You don’t have to go it alone.

 

I love you, keep going,

Angela

 

P.S. If this message was supportive for you and you’d enjoy hearing from me more regularly, please reply/comment and let me know (it’s most inspiring to hear something specific that was meaningful for you). xoxo

WHAT WOULD YOU DO WITH YOUR LIFE IF YOU HAD RESILIENT SELF-COMPASSION?

Are you hard on yourself, using harshness, self-criticism, self-doubt, guilt, and shame as “self-motivation”?

Do you find yourself stuck in particular painful emotions–anger/irritation, depression/despair, anxiety/panic, exhaustion/overwhelm, etc.? Do you long to genuinely shift into energized peace and internal ease?

Are you having a deep inner conflict about love/relationship, work/purpose, place/home?

Would you love to be a powerful source of compassion, peace, and justice, in your relationships, community, and world?

SELF-COMPASSION IS REVOLUTIONARY
All the research shows that the more self-compassion we have, the more physically and emotionally resilient we are.

Self-compassion makes us infinitely stronger, yet most cultural messages tell us it’s weak, or self-indulgent, or pathetic to be gentle, loving, and caring with ourselves.

We’re trained to ignore the emotions and physical signals our bodies are sending us, or medicate them away. We see the signals to our most authentic needs as problems to get rid of, instead of signals to come toward and respond to.

OUR SELF-COMPASSION IS ESSENTIAL FOR OUR KIDS
We’re encouraged to prioritize the needs of others and ignore some of our essential needs, without knowing that when our children see us do that, it teaches them to ignore their own needs. Babies and young children only develop the neural pathways of self-compassion and secure attachment when their primary care givers are resonant and attuned to the child *and* themselves.

We are much easier to control if we’re busy believing we’re wrong or bad or failing or flawed, holding ourselves back and apologizing for our feelings and refraining from pursuing our life’s true purpose.

WHAT WE’LL PRACTICE TOGETHER
In this class, I teach you how to warmly and affectionately respond to your feelings and needs, listen to your body’s messages, genuinely wish yourself well, and translate your self-judgments (and judgments of others) into life-serving messages–freeing you to move toward deeper intimacy, truer harmony, and aligned meaning, purpose, and contribution to the world.

These practices are nothing short of life-changing. Here’s a quote from one woman who took this training last fall: “Angela’s group brought me more insight and results than I have achieved from ten years of individual talk therapy. I am more excited and hopeful for this world than I have been for many years.” ~ Mary

JOIN US FOR THIS ONE-TIME-ONLY EVENT
Angela Watrous lives in Oakland, California, where she offers private counseling sessions to her clients in person and worldwide over Skype. She’s bringing her Creating Resilient Self-Compassion workshop to Paris this May. Join her for this special one-time-only offering! You’ll leave with awareness and skills you’ll have with you for the rest of your life.

REGISTER TODAY!!!!
PayPal payment to angela@restorativeempathy.com
Register before May 1: 40-70€ (sliding scale)
Register between May 2-May 14: 50-80€ (sliding scale)

(Sliding scale invites you to into generosity practice, while also attempting to make the workshop accessible to as many people as possible. Please consider giving the highest amount you can offer, with trust that any amount you offer in that range will be joyfully received. If even the lowest end of the scale would prevent you from being able to attend, please email me and we can find a mutually beneficial alternative arrangement.)

Within 24 hours of registering, you’ll receive a personalized confirmation email with the address of the beautiful Montmartre apartment where we’ll be gathering for this event, near Metro Abbesses (line 12 ) or Metro Blanche (line 2), and Bus #30, 54, 67, 74, 80, 95.

Please invite your friends and loved ones! Together, we can bring compassion and peace to the world, one person at a time.

You’re welcome to email me with any questions. The fastest, most reliable way to reach me is at aw@angelawatrous.com.

 

Have you ever felt that you’re carrying pain that’s not your own?

The burgeoning field of epigenetics reveals: “Traumatic experiences in our past, or in our recent ancestors’ past, leave molecular scars adhering to our DNA….The genome has long been known as the blueprint of life, but the epigenome is life’s Etch A Sketch: Shake it hard enough, and you can wipe clean the family curse.”

Unhealed familial and social violence lives inside our bodies, handed down generation to generation, until acknowledgement and forgiveness wipes us clean.

We can heal these traumas for ourselves, our ancestors, our descendants, our world.

Carrying these burdens in our genetic structure can feel like walking through water, being held back by thick, invisible obstacles.

One day, in the 1930s, my great-grandfather came out of his bedroom and asked his son to give him some money. My great-uncle, a young man I imagine was just starting to speak up about his family’s pain, said, “No, I won’t give you money. You’ll just spend it on alcohol.”

My great-grandfather—in a rush of rage and shame—went into his bedroom, grabbed his shotgun, returned to the living room, and shot and killed his son.

This happened long before I was born, even before my dad was born, and yet we both epigenetically carried this horrific violence­. Members of every subsequent generation in my family have struggled with intertwined poverty and addiction—a knot that simultaneously held us together and tore us apart.

It wasn’t until I began participating in constellations that I even realized these long-past events were impacting me.

Each time I served as a constellation representative—as a stern (traumatized) father, a grandmother separated from her daughter during the Holocaust, the Japanese maternal lineage, someone’s forsaken self, the essence of understanding, even racism—I learned something radical and essential about those qualities or human experiences, and my capacity for compassion expanded.

Last September, I was the seeker in a constellation for my family around that act of violence in the 1930s. It was powerful—for all my family, past, present, and future—to have this tragic violent event witnessed with compassionate eyes and forgiving hearts. At the end, the representatives of my family members began to migrate behind me, to literally “have my back.”

The young woman representing my great-grandfather—so vilified during his life for his tragic act of violence—did not move, but said, “I want to stand behind you, too, but I don’t know if you want me there, and I don’t want to be disrespectful.”

“I want you behind me,” I told him, “Please, support me.”

And so the constellation concluded with my entire paternal family, three generations back, standing behind me. I felt so strong and supported, particularly in my life path of living and teaching nonviolence. I felt their relief at finally being welcomed to support me as their way to contribute to that path.

And that feeling I’d had all my life of walking through water evaporated. Finally, with this systemic family trauma acknowledged and forgiven, I walked easily through air.

With this work, we can heal direct and indirect traumas, handed to us by earlier generations of our family, our tribe, our nation, our motherlands.

We can shift live conflicts with family, friends, colleagues, community members—living or deceased, whether or not they participate.

We can bring recognition and relief to entrenched social patterns of violence and oppression, as a way to move toward equality and justice.

I feel called to bring this work to groups and to individuals in private sessions.

I have a unique opportunity to spend the next year doing intensive training to become a constellation facilitator.

And in order to access this training, I need the support of my extended community.

If you’re interested in experiencing this work, gifting a session to someone you love, or simply supporting me in bringing this work to the world, visit my crowdfunding page today.

With love and empathy,

Angela

P.S. Why ask for your advance support, instead of saving the money myself and doing the trainings next year? Because some of these trainings will not be available the following year, and others may not fit into my life path again for some time.

When I look through my mind’s eye and feel into my body’s intuition, I sense that I can either do these trainings this year, with your advance support, or wait 5-10 years for my next window of opportunity. So with that gut instinct, I’m vulnerably asking you to invest in me now, so I can even better support you and our fellow humans over the next 6-12 months.

Support me today, so I can support you tomorrow!

 

P.P.S. What Are Family/Systems Constellations? From my mentor and colleague, Sarah Peyton, who combines constellations, empathy, and Interpersonal Neurobiology: “Constellations give us a way to harvest the body’s wisdom. Through constellation work we can unwind and unravel the frozen strands of trauma from our essential beings, so that we can flourish, live, and contribute our gifts with ease….The seeker brings a question or something that they would love to experience differently in their life. The seeker chooses people from the circle to represent different parts of their family or their life. These people speak about their physical experience of standing or moving in this constellation. Sometimes healing sentences of acknowledgment are spoken….We have the opportunity to recognize and resolve pain that has resulted from trauma at the individual, family and social levels.”