I Gotta Lotta Nerve & You Can Too!
Intuition and Our Ability to Trust Ourselves
L’Shana Tova. Happy AntiZionist Jewish New Year. I could be taking stock, but I want to share something more vital than my year in stats. Where do we get our intuition, and how can we start to trust ourselves?
Where do I get my nerve? I’ve spent my life leaping without looking by trusting my intuition. It helped me get free from my toxic childhood home at 13. It got me to college at 16. I also leaped into pregnancy and marriage, two intensely grounding life-shifts that forced me to work hard to discover who I am authentically beneath all my masking.
The trauma of my emergency c-section disconnected me from my intuition just when I needed it most as a new mom. Within 2 years I was sick with Ulcerative Colitis - my gut was trying to tell me something, and I wasn’t able to listen.
Many of us can't rely on our intuition because we can't hear it. We might even think we don't have any. Probably we’ve lost access due to low vagal tone in our vagus nerve that carries signals up to our brain from our internal organs.
Were you an intuitive child? Were you judged, shamed or gaslit for trusting yourself? Are you afraid that'll happen again?
Whether we have cut off our intuition, or it was cut for us, we can turn it back on. Through simple exercises which I teach in my Brave Coaching Groups, and attitudes I teach in Brave Space, you can change your relationship with yourself by toning your vagus nerve.
Without access to our vagus nerve, we can get caught up in the terrifying news cycle. Our world tries to look more dangerous each day. But does it actually help me to think that I live in a dangerous world? Will that actually allow me to live my life from an authentic, and heart-felt, open place? You do you, but I am definitely not listening to the news. I try to live as if the sky is not falling. This has helped me stay whole and sane in these difficult times.
Yes, I stay informed on topics I care most about; everything else I ignore. If something else forces its way in, it must be big. Like I know to vote yes on Prop 1 and vote no on Props 2-6 this November. But I am not living in a state of concern, worry or fear. That's not healthy for a basic human nervous system, and last I checked I'm still a basic human.
Governments want their people anxious and overwhelmed. We can't think straight that way. Literally if we're in fight, flight or overwhelm, our brains have left the building. I work hard to stay present and maintain my state of calm. This became a priority for me when I got horribly sick 20 years ago.
For 10 years, post-caesarean, caught in a cycle of panic and overwhelm, I couldn't calm. My life was a roller coaster, and I was screaming round all the curves. Panic played havoc with my guts, created massive inflammation, scarred my intestines, and stuck me in the hospital for 3 weeks in 2014.
Coming out of the hospital, I realized I had to focus my energies on healing. And healing meant reconnecting to my intuition.
I didn’t want to turn on my vagus nerve. I didn’t want to be aware of my hurting body. But without toning my vagus nerve, I couldn’t heal. Being super-sick, I had no choice, so I started to yawn every day (yep, yawning helps). I started to do The Voo and massage my ears. There are lots of ways to increase your vagal tone to come back into a state of health and wholeness.
As I healed, it got harder to stick to my healing work. Being invisibly sick, people keep asking you to do stuff! It's much harder to slow down and say no when you’re not as sick as you used to be. I didn’t want to flare, so I had to be very disciplined in my approach to healing. For example, I have a strict diet that most people say they could never follow. But I don’t have a choice.
I’m helped along by my autistic black and white thinking. Food is either good for me or poison. There is no, I'll just have one bite. Sleep is not negotiable. Extending my outbreath creates a feeling of calm, so I do it. And vagus nerve exercises work, so I do them.
Changing a nervous system from anxious (a standard way of life for many) to calm is possible, but it takes some work. The greatest benefit (beyond the calm and healing) from toning up your vagus nerve is: you get your intuition back!
Leaping also got me to create a Substack which has been going strong for a whole year now - happy anniversary to this! Thank you for all of your support, your comments, questions, sharing and re-stacking! I appreciate all of you so much! Here's to another year of trusting ourselves and learning to connect with our intuition. Brave Space sessions are very helpful too! We can reach an abundance of wisdom when we listen to ourselves.
artwork by Scott Sherman at ScottShermanStudio on Instagram
Writing Prompt:
Building trust in ourselves as creatives can be as simple as doing a 5 minute warm-up each day. I set a timer. I pick a book of poetry (but any book or news story will do). I flip to a random page and go to the 6th or 12th or 18th word and use that word to start a free-write. Sometimes I look up the etymology of the word before I start the timer.
Anything that pops into my head is game for the exercise. I give myself permission to spill any feelings, any rage, any secrets, any reactions I’ve been hiding from myself, any stories I’ve pushed away, letting anything that rises come out onto the page.
No one ever has to see what it written here. If it’s hurtful to someone, they will never know it. But if I can’t be honest with myself about what’s inside me, then I have some work to do. Then I’m living with inner fear. I need my inside and outside to feel safe. So finding out what’s haunting me, what I’m afraid to let out, is important to me as a way to reset my nervous system.
Even when I’m surprised by whatever ugliness I might be holding, I can remind myself it isn’t “me.” It might be a Part of me that holds this belief as a burden. I know I can heal my Parts. I don’t judge myself by it. I am not acting on it. I am rooting out the beliefs or burdens (not the Parts). I’m examining it, wondering where it might have come from, and using it as a way to learn and to grow.
Through this exercise I have learned that I exist in a violent world, that I have learned violence and pain from the world around me, and more important, that I can choose what I am. I can release burdens. I can transform pain, and I can change.
I’m not afraid of what arises. I have trust in myself to discern what is real for me. As a regular practice, this has improved my ability to write, but more than that, it has changed my life.
Amazing People Doing Amazing Things:
I highly recommend Julia Barclay-Morton’s new Online Writing Workshop An Invitation to Intuitive Processing, starting 10/22 Thursdays, 7pm - 9pm ET. More Info Here
An article “Experimental Music and Playwriting” by Sheila Duane was recently published in Waxing and Waning.
A poem of mine, “Barbie Reports from the DreamHouse” (content warning) was recently published in tinderbox poetry.
Urban Stages presents People of the Book by Yussef El-Guindi 10/4 (I’ll be there) - 11/3.
Donna Minkowitz will read from her new book, DONNAVILLE, at the Bureau of General Studies – Queer Division on Thursday, 10/17 at 7 PM! 208 W. 13th St. NYC.
Beth Lincks’s play Blood of the Lamb runs at 59E59 thru - 10/20, NYC.
Voices from the Holy Land offers films and conversations to inform people about what’s actually happening in the Occupied Lands of Palestine. Their Online Film Salon happens on October 20th 3pm ET.
Cristina Rose Ashby conceived of and directs Poe's Children with original music by Thomas Burns Scully, a devised exploration of grief and poetry. 10/22, 23 & 27 NYC
Deadlines:
BAPF will accept 600 applications (they are over 250 right now) so submit!
Due by October 7th, New Harmony applications for Playwriting Residencies are due!
Due by October 8th Playwrights Horizons “unplugged” is seeking submissions at this link!
Due by October 15th, Great Plains Theatre Commons has a fabulous festival every year that I highly recommend! Send them a play!
Due by October 15th, The Arctic Circle For International Artists of all Disciplines collectively explore the high-Arctic Svalbard Archipelago and Arctic Ocean aboard a specially outfitted expedition vessel. The Arctic Circle program supports the creation and exhibition of new and pioneering work, and aims to empower the creative individual while fostering the collaborative.
Due by October 7th Artistic Fellows at NYTW to support generative artists who author or direct work.
Jenna Lourenco is looking for Autistic Theatre People for a study Examining Environmental & Cultural Challenges to Autistic Accessibility in Theatre Workspaces" through the end of October 2024 at this link!
Due by October 31st Edward F. Albee Foundation Residency 2025 now completely ADA accessible is open to all creative people (writers and visual artists of all media) at this link!
Due by November 1st, Premiere Stages at Kean Festival send them your work!
The Playwrights Center in Minneapolis offers the following programs to apply to:
-Core Writer Program - open to any committed professional playwright, deadline in January 2025
-Jerome Fellowship - for any early career playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in November 2024
-Many Voices Fellowship - for any early career BIPOC playwright interested in spending two years in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight National Residency and Commission - open to established playwrights outside of Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-McKnight Fellowship in Playwriting - open to mid-career Minnesota-based playwrights, deadline in January 2025
-Many Voices Mentorship - open to beginning BIPOC playwrights based in Minnesota, deadline in December 2024
-Core Apprentice - open to playwrights in or recently graduated from undergrad and graduate programs, deadline in February 2025.
Brave Space Schedule:
10/7 Monday 12pm Day of Mourning for Palestine
With Prompts & Sharing
10/8 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching 5/6
10/9 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/10 Thursday 11am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
10/11 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/13 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space with Sharing Salon at 730pm ET
10/14 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/15 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
Tuesday 7pm ET Brave Group Coaching 6/6
10/16 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/17 Thursday 11am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
10/18 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/20 - 10/25 I will be out of town for a coaching training with IACT at AANE.org
10/28 Monday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/29 Tuesday 12pm ET Brave Space w/wkshp
10/30 Wednesday 12pm ET Brave Space
10/31 Thursday 11am ET Advanced Brave Group Coaching
11/01 Friday 12pm ET Brave Space
Friday 3pm ET Brave Sharing Salon
11/03 Sunday 6pm ET All Human Brave Space
Each week Tuesdays includes fast feedback for up to 1 page (@250 words) of writing.
Each month there are 2 Sharing Salons: Second Sundays (730pm ET) and Final Fridays (3pm ET) for sharing up to 10 minutes of work (less than 1500 words).
Oh that poem! Barbie reports from the Dreamhouse
So painful
The structure with separation of the columns
The hand on the nightstand
The glasses off and on again
So disembodied
And so not