Hey Reader,
​

I hope you have had a good week?
In the time it has taken me to write this email to you, we have had sunshine, torrential rain, and a hailstorm - pretty dramatic for the beginning of May! Anyhow, I am hoping for an end to what has felt like the wettest Winter and early Spring in a looooong time, and whilst I don't want the heat to be too hot, I still boldly cry
​"Bring on the Summer!"

Growing - without getting the bends.

When you are deep-diving into something new, especially something that has the capacity to blow your mind, it can be exhilarating to have a whole load of new ideas, new perspective and vision, and be itching to change EVERYTHING.

Yet I think it can be very easy to forget that when we go deep, we need to allow ourselves to come up slowly.

Scuba divers have to rise to the surface of the water slowly after a dive, because if they don't they could get the bends - also known as decompression sickness (DCS) or Caisson disease.

This happens when rapid changes in water pressure, cause dissolved gases (mainly nitrogen) to come out of solution in the bloodstream, and form gas bubbles in the circulation. It can affect almost any area of the body or any organ, including the heart, lungs, brain, joints, and skin, causing possible joint pain, fatigue, lower back pain, paralysis or numbness of the legs, and weakness or numbness in the arms, and can also leave the diver with dizziness, confusion, ringing in the ears, vomiting, head/neck pain or loss of consciousness. Definitely not a pleasant experience, and one you would wish to avoid!

Treatment involves recompression in a hyperbaric chamber, along with high-flow oxygen and IV fluids, and the time in the chamber can be up to 12 hours or even longer for recovery, depending on how the diver's body responds.

I think this provides a useful picture to consider for us, when we are in a process of exploration. Because whether we're investigating our own story and processing trauma and pain, or we are simply going down a research or connection rabbit-hole which has drawn us to look more deeply, we need to take our time and allow our hearts and bodies to acclimatise slowly. We especially need to be gentle with ourselves as we start to re-emerge, not expecting to bounce back at speed to where we were before.

Quite apart from the fact that we cannot return to where we came from as we were before, we risk putting too much pressure on ourselves to move on. Where we have deep dived, a process that can often be intense, the time it takes to absorb it all could last a lot longer than we expect.

Each new idea needs time to take root, and we need to become grounded, before we can rush to implement what we have discovered, with any success. Just as it can be so hard to accurately and clearly do justice to an inspiring talk we just heard, trying to share it and the profound way it has moved us to a friend with any eloquence, moments after we heard it - we are rarely in a position to teach something we are trying to remember.
​We have to really know it.

I can be so impatient to apply my discoveries to my life, without having allowed that recovery time for it to settle first. And until I am sufficiently rested, and that deep insight the opportunity to really bed in, I will more likely burn out before I can truly make progress.

Because meaningful growth takes time.

If you are exploring new territory in your personal or creative life, and are excited and raring to go, I fully understand.

You have made connections and progress, and want to be able to move forward - which is good. I just encourage you to be patient and attentive to how you feel, and what your body is saying to you as you resurface - because I am convinced that when we try to rush the process, we are just as susceptible to experience something like the bends in our bodies and hearts, and that is something worth avoiding if we possibly can.

Growth and healing are worth pursuing, and therefore, you are worth taking care of in the process.

Quote - Unquote

Connecting The Dots

055 Softening Isn't Stupidity
​- live Wednesday 3/5/23 from 7am UK time

Have you ever been told that in order to survive and get on in this world, you need to develop a thick skin?
Maybe you've been led to believe that softness is weakness (and not in a good way), and that to be soft is to be less-than.
​Well I don't think so!

What if, in order to grow into our creativity and our relationships with more freedom, softness was the way forward?

Blessing

May you allow yourself the time you need to process what you have been going through,
May you extend yourself grace and patience, kindness and love as you allow yourself to truly feel where you are, and respond accordingly.

May you know that whatever creative ideas you have bubbling away in your heart, you are free to take your time, there is no rush, and aside from notes and reminders to self, you do not have to rush to accomplish everything.

You are worth taking the time to get to know,
and you are worth the time it takes to grow.

Have a wonderful week,
God bless,
Cassie x

Other places I hang out besides your inbox