Photo taken at the Cascade Pro Rodeo, Cascade, Montana (2017). Copyright SJPhotography.“Steady The Buffs!” Finding Calm in Uncertain Times
What a wonderful expression.
“Steady the buffs!” is a British military phrase that “advises and warns that calmness and good order should be maintained.”
_Urban Dictionary
It is apropos, and a great phrase to summarize this week’s edition of HeartBalm Healing on calming and simplifying the chaos, complexity, and overwhelm of life. This phrase came through as I was writing, and is not a phrase I use but I am always amused and grateful at the gems of wisdom, and understanding that arrive to eloquently bring sense, order, and a broader understanding to an idea or to my thoughts.
Typically, each HeartBalm Healing podcast comes through with intentionality, and understanding offered to me in a way that meets me and asks me to come closer or find out more. As I expand into the subject a download of information will wind through my heart, and meander through my mind for a conference of different voices, filters, and thoughts before continuing the journey out through my fingers. Sometimes it can be jumbled with conflicts between heart and mind, filters arising to voice sentiments for or against a word or idea but if the black lines of letters and words come out on the page then it has a chance to become and expand further.
There is a beautiful-ugly symmetry and an intuitive, poetic birthing process that comes from writing. There are times when the weight and chaos of the world and how tangled up in it I find myself - skews the writing process from beautiful to ugly and back again. When I find myself in these places I know I must ease into my heart again and open up the drawn curtains that obscure the light of truth, and place filters on the language of my heart. I must surrender and become vulnerable – the thing I least want to do. I must open fully – my hands, my heart, my mind, and my trust in the process of life.
The following quote by Anais Nin, the great French author is apropos in these times:
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
There is so much contrast in the process of unwinding myself from a space of overwhelm, a dissociative or intense emotional situation, or finding myself drawn deeply into a conflict or world events. We all find ourselves deeply immersed in life at times and when we look up it can become apparent at how far away we are from the stillness and peace of our hearts. The tender, soft, warm, and compassionate place of feeling connected to our heart and being is lost to the cold, harsh, and survivalist space of living from the neck up. It is not surprising when we are faced with so much to contend with in our everyday lives, family obligations, and all that comes with it. The overwhelm we face today, still reeling from a global pandemic, war abroad with threats for more, rampant political greed and extremism, unchecked mass shootings, and world economies shifting and adjusting to such times. How do we cope? How do we continue? How do we find time to heal our hearts and steady the buffs? When overwhelm and confusion come where do we find shelter from the unrelenting thoughts and emotions that seem to flood through our minds and bodies, and hold us hostage? Does the complexity of life mean that we cannot simplify our own way of being and meeting life as we know it?
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