Tonight this Robot shouts “Wake”, not ‘Awake’, simply ‘Wake’.

I remember times I’ve boarded boats and set sail on rolling oceans and a vessel larger than the one I travel passes near. My boat is rocked by incoming waves. The captain’s skill will gage how the wake’s impact is received.

Seated I allow the waves oscillation to wash through and gently rock me to and fro.  However, when unsuspected wakes arrive, I may be rattled and find myself flattened on the deck, feet akimbo with hands flailing in the air.  It happens.  How will the residue of the experience be held?  Will bruises from my fall mark my skin? Will I shake the shock from my bones like a Gazelle after a shocked freeze?

Wakes, residues of painful past experiences, can be carried in our bodies. How do these regurgitated ‘ghosts’ color our lives?  In yoga teachings these hurtful memories are called samaras. Do the residues allow us to be present so we may wake?  Or are we clouded by the past and relive scarring and hurt over and over? Can we use these memories as information?  How long will we be rocked and rolled off center before we simply sit down and allow the past to wash over us?   We can change the story… after all the passed ‘long agos’  are simply phantom wakes, samaras of once upon time events.

Samaras that have grown into trauma are not always easy to detach from.  Meditation is a tool.  Good talk therapy, somatic practices, a conscious Yoga practice, or dear loving friends who can hold the grief, sadness, and hurt of an old story long enough and lovingly hold our hand, walking us forward toward a new tale, are all good strategies.

Its lovely when new wakes rise unattached from passed hurts. When awareness of old triggers becomes conscious we are no longer so reactive. We can develop new skills. Widening our center, containing the hurt, watching it dissipate, and disappear is one technique. Here we honor the old as part of ourselves, and not the definitive lens.  Here, within awareness, we accept, re-pattern and unbind. Our spontaneous intuitive nature comes back on line. We regain freedom of choice.  We wake!

This Robot comes to hold your hand through the rocky times and portends successful navigation.