What I'm learning from Niña

What I’m learning from Niña

The other night I set Niña up in the open air dance studio for the night

The night before I had put her in the room downstairs, but that room feels stuffy and I wasn’t sure if she was okay in there

She seems really happy and comfortable in the open air space

And I told myself I would move her inside if it started raining

But then I went upstairs to get ready for bed
And I found myself panicking
What if an animal gets to her?
What if I don’t hear the rain and she is scared?
What if she’s not okay?
What if she won’t sleep unless I’m there with her?

Oof
I feel so much emotion writing that

And so I sat with it

Is it that she really needs me to do something else to make her safe?
Or am I projecting my fears onto her?

I burst into tears

I felt the intensity of my NEED to control her environment in order to appease my anxiety.

Let’s read that again though
It wasn’t to make her safe (although yes that’s what I was telling myself)
It’s that I couldn’t handle my own fear.

And the truer thing is that
If something were to happen to her
I would have felt like I did something wrong
And THAT is actually what I’m afraid of
Doing something wrong

It’s wild because that story around anything being “wrong” ever
Is totally leaving my system

Being here in this little town has shown me over and over that wrong is not a thing

And yet
It’s talons are still hooked in me
Occasionally finding something to grab

And on this night
It hit me
It’s not that I’m worried about her
That’s just the convenient lie I tell myself

It’s that I’m worried about me.

Im worried that her getting more hurt will mean I fail
And that fear is too much to bear
So much so
That I’m willing to make her less comfortable
To appease my worry.
(And I tell myself it’s for her safety)

Woof.

Yes.

We do that, don’t we?
Tell someone they need to do something different and call it a boundary?
Try to change something about someone and call it love?

Yes
We get so caught up in the creation of “safety”
That we take away truth
We take away the expansiveness that is love

For control.

It’s CONTROL.
And we call it
Safety.

Don’t we…

That night as I sobbed and wrote
I felt the gentle remembering
That safety is not control
In fact it is the illusion of control that makes us feel unsafe

Anytime anyone in this town has seen me get worried about something they say
“No pasa nada”
Nothing’s gonna happen

And the truth is
They are right

Not because nothing bad ever happens here
But because it is actually deeply okay when it does
It’s part of what living is actually like
Letting life happen, and responding to it

Rather than controlling all variables and then continually perfecting until life no longer affects us
.

Do I want to plan?
Or do I want to live?

This is what brave little Niña is teaching me
Brave Niña who got worked by life
But is still here

Brave Niña who needs so much love and safety
But not control
Not restriction
Not force

She needs my trust
My prayer
My opening to the miracle of her aliveness
Her intelligence
Her resilience

My anxiety is mine
It’s mine to hold myself through
As I trust her and trust her and trust her

So I checked on her,
Sleeping beautifully
One more time before I went to bed
And before I slept I asked the plants that surround the house to watch over her
And to tell me if she needed me
And I fell asleep
Only to be awakened an hour later by the rain
I got up and saw that she was afraid
And I moved her inside

See
It wasn’t about where she should be
It was about the listening

Sweet girl
Teaching me so beautifully
How to care for life
Through her