The mind was never meant to control us,
Until trauma set in and convinced us
We couldn’t trust ourselves.

That pain and pleasure
Was an equation we had
To calculate now,
To keep ourselves safe.

But, the calculation always
Ended up on the wrong
Side of pain,
Punishment,
Judgment,
Criticism of the self.

Withholding pleasure,
Dangling it in front like bait
To be caught on a line,
Always swimming toward it,
But never fast enough to
Actually catch it.

We learn patterns
Of safety,
And unsafety,
Attachment,
And detachment,
But mostly deep patterns of
Dismembering ourselves
Off from present sensation.

We all have patterns,
How we respond,
How we shrink and shrivel up,
How we expand and
How we contract.

There is medicine there,
There is evolution there,
And there is also unlearning there too.

As children, we learned from
Our parents what the world was.

Who was safe,
What was safe,
What window of tolerance
To pain and pleasure we
Were allowed.

What rules to love must
Be followed.
Mostly a whole lot of rules,
That weren’t bent on us,
Listening within,
Trusting within.

But, more on constant
Self betrayal in the name
Of order.

Undermining all the chaos
Of our nervous system,
To swoop in and rescue us.

It was a temporary bandage,
This fight, flee, freeze or fawn
Response,
But the underlying wound remains.

Oozing some days,
Bleeding others,
So scabbed over with
Deadened skin,
Or perhaps this scar
That remains as the reminder.

The mind was never meant
To control the body,
But to be the loving, attentive, and present parent
We never had in our imperfect parents.

We are all broken,
And mending, at the same time.

The body becomes the
Unchartered landscape to map out,
To curiously approach,
Not with goals or agendas,
But slow, slow willingness
To keep asking,
Keep allowing for sensations,
And information to come,
And when it doesn’t,
To be okay there too.

All in due timeless motion,
The body will reveal
The next layer to heal
If we keep intending to listen,
And tending to it,
Not needing to do it perfectly,
But a willingness to try.

To try to heal the patterns
We brush up against,
By finding no one at fault,
But the deeper understanding
Of how we got here,
No mistakes.