“Keep Still” I tell my soul. “Stay here on the mat, with the sound of the ocean, and the sand at your feet. Isn’t it beautiful?”
I drift.
“Not beautiful down the street where hundreds of homes are ruined, people are now homeless, and lives devastated. But you go on with your warrior pose”.
I flow in-between peace and heartache.
Driving to beach yoga this morning was nothing short of life altering. A road I have traveled dozens of times that always brought joy – I now held my breath while holding my heart.
The truth is I wasn’t going to evacuate.
The day before the storm I was prepping and preparing to become a “real Floridian”. I woke up to different news I went to sleep with – the national news was now calling my town by name saying it could be a direct hit. They reported a 90% chance it would hit Englewood, FL (which happens to be where I was beach yoga-ing) and a 70% chance of winds in a category 4 storm. This was not what I was expecting. My phone was blowing up with text messages of people worried asking if I was evacuating. My first answer was “no”. Then an old friend from my hometown in Rhode Island messaged me, a vet from the coastguard and a long time resident of down south. She sweetly said “I don’t want to insult your intelligence but this storm is nothing like anything you ever encountered in New England.” She then went on to tell me to make sure I put food upstairs and an axe incase I needed to get on my second story roof with my family in the middle of a horrific storm. Then I packed my bags.
We loaded the car up with kids and dogs, and said goodbye to our locked up house.
Off we went to higher grounds.
Right before we arrived I broke. I wailed cried – because I suddenly realized in a moments notice I packed a bag of a few outfits each and brought nothing else. There was a chance I would return to nothing. I started to list all the things in my head I left that I loved behind that could not be replaced. I started to think about the fact that if we stayed our entire family and our home might not have survived. And I cried.
Even though I felt solace when the storm had passed that my home had minimal damage and all of my people were safe, my community was incredibly devastated.The weird thing is they didn’t know it.They had no electricity to see the news – I did.
I thought watching the news on tv had prepared me for the days ahead when I would witness it live.
It did not.
Especially as an Empath.
I had high hopes of riding in on my crisis high horse and be able to save the day.I could not. I arrived hitting a brick wall of grief and trauma.
All of my crisis training and being in a million crisis teams went out the window- I could not be the vessel of taking on others pain – because I was the person feeling pain.
Suddenly being a social worker was useless.Suddenly being a healer wasn’t in the cards.They only thing that stood as tall as the mountains through the storm was my faith.
I sang worship music.
I prayed.
I thanked God over and over.
I layed on the mat thanking Him for the beauty of this beach, the seagulls chirping, the light breeze, the sand in-between my toes, and the ability to do yoga amongst two of my friends, while also honoring the heaviness of catastrophe.
And still I rise … in knowing God has a plan. I don’t need to know or have control because He does. I just need to …. Be Still.
seekingup
Seeking Up 
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