After a beautiful work week in Berlin, I flew home accompanied by an almost full Moon.

I focused on sensations of fullness as much as on the inner spaciousness and calmness that came with choosing to miss out on more meetings, more therapy sessions, more coffee chats, more yoga, more books scrolled through she said bookshop, more assignments, and practices shared with a group I facilitated…

Hara Hachi Bu is a Japanese rule of healthy eating— eat till you are 80% percent full. It could be applied to all areas of life that need digesting– work, conversations, human interactions, learning…

A real shift happens when the desired state becomes our natural way of being, but it takes time and conscious choice to go through pain, fear, and discomfort to end up there.

Life shaped me towards giving more than I had, planning 10 hours of activities for a two-hour workshop, packing more presents and clothes that could fit in a big suitcase while traveling with a piece of hand luggage that had to fit under the seat in front of me… I developed some pretty awesome coping skills that allowed for covering the constant state of overload (and never getting a cheap airline fine for too much luggage).

With time I realized that by aiming at superior performance, which, by the way, felt like the only valuable mode of being, I contributed to the culture of exploitation, never-enoughness, and abandonment of true human and non-human nature. It felt especially painful and confusing as I was investing my energy in the so-called “helping profession”. Yet, it became clear: supporting others through self-sacrifice, and acting in a high-speed mode of urgency were trauma responses to the traumatic world.

The myth about trauma responses is that they must feel uncomfortable. When survival and constant adaptation to a chaotic environment were our childhood normality, urgency, and directing attention towards other people’s needs will likely feel home, while short, shallow breath will feel safer than a deep, calm restful state. “When I am resting or playing, the world is collapsing”– says a parentified inner child. Trauma activation may also feel pleasurable through external validation and praise that comes with hyper-achievements, especially in the helping and humanitarian sectors.

High-intensity activation supports survival and protects the system’s status quo from collapsing, but it can not be a basis for a deep transformation that needs the embodiment of true safety, trust, and acceptance.

Nature is wisely and unapologetically limited by its capacity to process, integrate and restore. As that, the answer to what is possible shall radically include time and space for rest, digestion, and restoration. Everything else is contributing to the cycle of trauma embedded in our cultures of never enoughness, urgency, fear, and mistrust of others’ capacity for self-care without our umbrella protection. I formulated questions to guide me onto a new path.

• How much can I do and how much can I experience to be able to go through the faces of preparation and integration, not only through the face of doing?
• How much is possible when my body’s and mind’s needs are taken seriously?
• How would  I plan my time if saving lives included my own?
• How would  I plan my time if saving lives included spiritual, relational, and emotional life as well?
• What would be my choices if I truly trusted in human resourcefulness and creativity, so that when I rest, others can thrive and nurture?
• What do I want to achieve when the measurement is about depth, quality of presence, and authenticity, not about the amount and speed of progress or amount of external validation?

Slowly answering these questions, I started putting into my agenda time for reflection, breathing, feeling, and journaling, the same way I put work meetings or dentist appointments.  I introduced WSA Fridays (Whatever Spontaneously Arises) and Intimacy Saturdays to plan this day with my romantic partnership at heart. Have I turned into a couch potato? No surprises here: innate human nature when given respect and freedom spontaneously turns towards nurture, creativity,  presence, gratitude, acceptance, calm, and boundaries. I knew it through my rational mind, I had to experience it to trust it.

With time, I got to know who I truly was.

But did I like it?

At first, it felt deeply scary to learn how slow and silent I often was in my inner truth.

How much of my habitual extroversion was about taking care of others’ emotional discomfort. How much rest and nothingness I needed, how gentle was my natural body pace.

In the beginning, I felt I was actually losing the only stability I had built-  control over my achievements, energy, time, and external professional appearance.

It caused enormous guilt and anxiety to say no to interesting projects, opportunities, and people, especially those in pain and especially those who claimed I was the only one in the world able to help. Obviously, the latest proved untrue and I had to grieve my superwoman suit.

It caused fear and, again, guilt to know that I was causing disappointment and that I may lose people who knew only the busy, outside-oriented, and active part of me.

The inner critic was calling me selfish and useless, and when words didn’t subordinate me, she brought stomach pain and skin rash.

With time that felt like an eternity, the embodied authenticity started feeling so sweet and true, that I would not exchange it for even the best job, the best deal, or a golden monument on Alexanderplatz.

Today it feels clearer than ever, that the culture of exploitation and climate change starts in my body, and it is the first place to learn and experience boundaries, enoughness, consent, calmness, and peace. And to share these states with the world I need to become them first. There is no way to bypass this stage of inner integration if the change I aim at is to happen at the roots and soil and not to be about compulsively sticking green leaves to the naked branches of a malnourished tree. Call it co-regulation, coherence,  unconscious influence or call it magic, most important: it works. It works for me and in my life 80% of the time. And that’s more than enough.

Thank you almost full moon for guiding me back home.