Welcoming all the parts of ourselves home

Some days I wake up and I feel an inconsolable anxiety that
keeps me from feeling my legs, or it shows up as a clenching pit in my stomach
it pulls on all of my organs.
These moments used to be marked with 

 “Oh, Shit! What’s wrong with me?
What did I do wrong, or not do enough of?
Quick, make it go away!”

 With guidance, support, and the patient teacher of earth time,
now when unexplainable tension arrives I’ve learned to say
“Hello ancestor. It’s been a while.”
Just as I would for my Biji during my yearly visits with her.
I open the door to my heart, make up a pot of chai,
and settle in for a timeless catch-up. The kind where you
are listening with all of your cells, the world
outside melting away.

 Deadlines, meetings, ambition, my need to make an impact
don’t get it.
“Just take care of it, do your ‘self-care’ to fix it.
Why is that happening again? Set your boundary.”

 “I am,” I say. “But not to make anything go away.”

Life is no longer divided into moments that are good and productive and moments that get in the way. I can now feel life’s many threads linking with one another, one moment shaping the next shaped by the moment before it, all weaving together into a quilt I can nestle and wrap myself in. A blanket of comfort so I may find connection, intimacy and always feel my heart inside of whatever moment life offers me.

 I’m realizing when I close the door and hide away the tea, in moments when my body calls for my attention, I’m closing the door to myself along with the stories of my ancestors that were left untended and unseen. I create a tear in my quilt that keeps it from offering the sanctuary I need to feel at home inside my body.
In service to what? False gods of productivity, ambition?
From where I stand in my life now, I can’t imagine a greater betrayal, yet I hold the moments where I didn’t know any better with tender love and care.

 With time, I’m realizing just how big my family is,
to always keep a door open for unexpected long lost visitors.  

May I have the strength and fortitude to continue to welcome all my relations in.
May that strengthen and teach my heart and body how to follow suit with all that we cast away in our world.