Emergency break

creating a safe space for ourselves and together

Hi friend, This is a real time letter. Zero editing. I am intentionally reaching out to my Substack family who seems to get me more than almost anyone else. Not that I don’t have my direct people. I do. I am loved. I am blessed. But people are busy, entangled, distracted. And there is something special about this connection that we have. Maybe it is because we are writers. We analyze emotions and write about our feelings. We are soul seekers, we have done the work. We keep doing what needs to be done to go deeper, grow attention.

When you sit alone, you are intentionally stripping away the social noise that usually dulls or dilutes our reactions. In that silence, your internal radar sharpens. - Aditi Jha

As writers, maybe we are more present with the material inside of us, the thing that intensifies empathy and sees emotions with x-ray vision. We may call it a keen sense of interoception. Maybe our somatic awareness makes us more in tune with our own emotions which makes us better prepared to hold each other’s emotions. Maybe we care about connection more because we are often alone, pouring it all out on our screens, and so we need to remind ourselves that there are others - different in many ways, but also just like us. I don't know why, but I think you will get this too.

open ( to thank 🔥Sage Justice🔥 Kaila Krayewski and Corie Feiner for craddling me with love and attention yesterday when I was in the heat of the emotional wave. It felt amazing to immediately know who would respond right away. And they did. So beautiful.

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There is nothing truer than the fact that everyone has their stuff. Except maybe that stuff or no stuff, life is a beautiful, blessed, gorgeous, glorious miracle. It is. It is. It is. This is not a convincing. It is a reminder.

So yesterday, after a period of stuff (all family things) and there was a moment of settling, more stuff arrived. I won’t go into details, but it has to do with my mom who is alone and lives across the ocean from me.

(Initial thought: rude how it always arrives without any warning.)

I return to one of my all time favorite quotes by Krishnamurti, I don’t mind what happens, translated into regular human words - I can be okay with the stuff that comes. I can remain chill and be okay with my less than chill emotions about the stuff. I will be okay.

And I am. Okay. Not fine. Fine is beige. My okay is more like I am Really here. I am super aware of everything that I am feeling. I can stay with this. I will remember to breathe whenever necessary and as often as I need to.

Being okay is not feeling the need to run away. In every life, there are going to be things - situations - that touch our most sensitive spots and weaknesses (they will often come unannounced), that are going to challenge us. We don’t run away from the experience. We can be with intense emotions, our intense stuff. We can be with it all with all of our self, all of our energy. Not shying away, but looking it with a fierce tenderness directly in the face kind of attitude. All we have to do is remain in the moment. This is the safest place you can ever be. This is the space you create where you become your own safe, sacred spot.

“The thing you must do with all of the feelings you dislike is to experience them as deeply as possible.” - Alan Watts

a real time meditative moment (press play)

Me, yesterday, sitting in the shade for my emergency break.

After I recorded this, I did return to my husband. I told him that I love him. He said that he loves me so much. It puts him into tilt when a challenge hits me, when he thinks I could suffer. (for example, he is truly horrible when I am feeling sick or crying.).

He wants me to protect me.

I love him for this even though it often causes added tension. Our greatest job is to just sit with. This creates trust and safety. But, I know that it isn’t always easy to just sit and listen and observe when we love someone. We often feel their difficulty and suffering as if it were our own. Especially for a man. From boys, they are taught that their main job is to provide and protect all the time. Often women have high expectations too - if you love me, you will protect me from all potential harm forever.

The reminder - nobody can protect us from everything. As Joan Didion wrote, “Life changes fast. Life changes in the instant. The ordinary instant. You sit down to dinner and life as you know it changes.”

And at the same time, we are responsible for our kingdom, or garden if you prefer.

We can only feel truly safe with others and in life when we take the time to find an elevated level of inner security. Without it there is no faith in our instinct, no trust in the happening of things. Nobody can give this type of security to us. We need to figure out a way to ‘land’ safe and sound.

Inner security often starts with you creating a bubble for yourself. Pulling the break and claiming what you need for yourself, finding what brings you home - 3 deep breaths, a powerful mantra, the magic pause.

What brings you back to yourself wonderful friend? Please share if it feels right.

You don’t have to wait for external ease to feel easy or something joyful to happen to feel joy. You don’t have to wait for the noise and movement to go away - for the chaos to go away - to feel the bliss of inner silence and stillness. You don’t have to have complete safety to feel completely safe.

When you feel like you are under attack or not capable of dealing with a situation or feeling, the next right step (infinite thank you to another friend here - Erin Miller ¹- for this ‘emergency break’ mantra) may be pulling the break, slowing down, and returning to ease, joy, silence, stillness, and safety from the inside out.

Hope you shared a bit of returning home with me today. Because as a new friend, Charity Whan told me, The only way out is together.

Charity, I prefer this way too. This feels like a really safe place to land.

we are here. we are safe. we are loved. my heart reaching out towards yours, xo Danni

ps if you need a friend, I am here.

If you haven’t seen it yet, do not miss this month’s DOUBLE AMAZING Bare HEARTS conversation with Megan Youngmee

ed #13: Living Life Like A Really Good Story

Megan Youngmee, The Healer (ed #13, part two):

want another meditative moment with me?

today we stay

1. Read Erin Miller's Bare HEARTS conversation here.