Someone is coming to save you

Let's get our facts right

CARE check*: what does it mean to you to “be saved”?

What is your relationship with the savior archetype?

Do you know how to ask for help?

Do you know how to help others? (And I do mean HELP—not fix—of course)

This subject is so tender and yet so primordial...

I hope this week’s letter will remind you that having our own back does not mean we’re meant to struggle alone or walk this Earth without a hand or shoulder to count on.

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In case this letter gets cut in the email, you can click HERE to read the full post now :)

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Hi CARE friend,

How are you?

Do you need us to take a breath together, to pause, to remind each other first and foremost that we have each other’s back?

Even when it seems like the world is on fire. Even when so many seem to hate so many others. Even when we feel flooded by fear, outrage, disbelief and exhaustion. Yes, even when. Especially then.

I have received a lot of light this week, despite a rather stormy weather within and without. And that’s what prompted the title of today’s letter.

Not because I have met “my savior”, but because I do not agree with the so-called tough love narrative that we read in so many self-help books, stating that no one is coming to save us.

I wholeheartedly agree that we are no damsel (or person) in distress depending on a brave prince (or person) parading on a white horse at the feet of the tower we’re locked in.

I believe with every inch of my being that my life is my responsibility, and mine alone, and that I—and no one else—owe it to myself, AND TO THE WORLD, to serve my dream, honor my needs, and make sure that both are tended to and cared for.

As Liz Gilbert phrases it, I have the stewardship of leo, and I love this woman more and more deeply, fiercely, and tenderly, each day.

She means so well. She’s gone through so much more than she would ever admit to herself… She’s constantly reviewing the content of her mind to make sure it’s been love-proofed by her gut and heart. She yearns to share her voice with the entire world, even if parts of her are convinced that no one wants to hear or read what she has to say. She’s learning how to cuddle herself when she feels rejected, broken, disgusting or misunderstood. She still scans the world for evidence that she doesn’t belong (inherited habits die hard) but she’s also scanning her heart for a deeper truth that no mind can fully comprehend, but that bodies still know how to manifest.

It takes capacity to meet our desires.

Capacity as it relates to the nervous system…

This is a balance that we’ve been taught to despise and overrule, and look where it got us… Closer to worldwide destruction that we’ve ever been.

Because that’s the thing with Nature, She doesn’t really care if we agree or not that our needs matter. If we betray them, we suffer. And when we suffer, everybody else tends to pay the price—and I do mean every body, because ours pays the toll too.

There’s a reason why spiritual masters remind us that Love is in our own best interest—it serves us just as much as it heals the world.

It takes capacity to meet our desires and right now, I am at the bottom of a mountain that my nervous system will not let me climb yet.

Because I have tried everything by now, you see. I have tried everything in the books to heal without having to feel what is now literally making me sick—melanoma was not the most endearing plot twist, but it was an impactful push in the back, to throw me even deeper into the dark forest of my repressed wounds.

I owe it to myself, and to the world,

to serve my dream, honor my needs,

and make sure that both are tended to and cared for.

The truth I can’t outrun any longer is that there is an ocean of sorrow running between my veins and my bones, and it’s tired of staying frozen beneath my skin. It wants out.

It wants to turn back into water and cleanse my weary eyes, so that I can see even more clearly the awe-inspiring beauty of this world and the heartwarming grace of your smile.

It wants to turn into notes and songs and to travel the world through our hearts, ears and voices.

It wants to turn into air and dance all around the stars. It wants to swirl and turn and whisper messages of love that remind us that we’re never alone and that we’re always free.

It wants to merge with the fire of a volcano and show us that opposites are not a system error but a wonder of Nature, that allows All that is to live unleashed, while trusting that there is a container to bring them back into harmony when they go too far.

My grief will not be ignored anymore.

No, my grief will not be ignored anymore! And yet, I do not have the capacity to feel it now.

In parallel, I yearn to step on a stage and sing my heart into form. I yearn to share what I believe earnestly, in songs, in books, and to invite you fully into my inner world. I yearn to show you that wounds turn into love and that scars turn into magic. I yearn to become a Musical Theater songstress, and to melt into my characters… body and soul. I yearn to live as the artist I have always been: bold and soft, authentic and vulnerable, armorless and wild, strong and full of tenderness, fierce and kind, loving and devoted to Love. I yearn to own my swanhood and untame my inner lioness’s roar. I yearn to melt into joy and to dance my connection to enchantment. I yearn to fall into God’s arms and to let Her nurture and enliven me, while confirming that we can both have roots and fly free.

I yearn… and I fear.

My nervous system reminds me that this is not the reality I was modeled, and my nightmares try to remind me what happens when you try to live your Life on your heart's terms.

My trauma brain takes over, and sensations leave my body as numbness claims me once again. My inner body shrinks in a desperate attempt to hide me from the world. My throat tightens and my jaw locks, attempting to keep me silent. My chest hardens and my breath becomes shallow; my digestion stops. And while I feel my light’s song turn into scream, I let the shadow take over and I suddenly forget that there is nothing to fear in the shadow, if I remember to bring Love in. So I cast Love away and cut myself from receiving what I need the most.

That’s how a trauma response works.

It severs us from our own inner savior and there’s a good reason for that: that’s because it’s the most precious part of us.

And our nervous system, once upon a time (and then a million times over, including a hundred times today), took over to help us survive what we didn’t know yet how to live through. This is why most of our trauma responses are rooted within what we experienced as a child. At that time, our system had no choice but to cut us from our essence because that was the only way to protect it.

But that’s not true anymore for us adults!

And so this essence is what we get to reclaim, little by little, to build capacity.

We get to connect with that sacred energy that never left our hearts and could never EVER be taken away from us, spent out, or perverted. No matter what we did to others. No matter what was done to us.

When we reconnect with this essence, we heal.

But it has to be slowly! And it has to be done safely…

Safely as it relates to the nervous system’s perception here again—indeed, the mind’s opinion is rarely indispensable, but it has absolutely no room in this story of reclaiming.

Please imagine a little treasure box, hidden in the innermost chamber of our hearts.

Each time we open it, a ray of magnificent energy comes out, re-enlovening our weary inner land. But remember: this box is heavily guarded and we must show those guardians that we will not only honor but cherish and surrender to this light.

We must show them that we’re now ready to use it for good, for love, for joy and for awe. We must show our nervous system that we will not put ourselves in danger unconsciously again, because we’ve got our back. We are asked to be patient, reverent, humble and devoted. And more than anything else, we must be EMBODIED.

The body will not trust that we’re committed to rekindling our relationship if we’re not intentionally moving back in.

Someone is coming to save us. That “someone” is our shared humanity. That someone is not really a person… That someone is who we all are within.

And the trick is that if we’re not rooted in our own humanity, we cannot truly receive the humanity that defines everybody else.

THAT’S why it starts within us. That’s why we cannot be saved when we’re not willing to save ourselves! But that doesn’t mean that others cannot save us too.

In the same way that you can drown the person who jumped in the waters to save you if you’re not willing to surrender to your limits and own your strengths, no one will come to save you if you refuse to acknowledge your needs, dethrone your dream as the rightful ruler of your life, and repress your shadow while disparaging your light.

THAT is very true. I’ve tried it all and not only did the savior not come, it attracted those willing to hurt me and made those who wanted to love me pause before entering my world.

BUT the more I have been willing to engolden my shadow, and the more I have been dedicated to freeing my light, the more co-saviors have joined my path of liberation.

“Someone” has come to save me many times over.

True, most of the time that person was me! But I have also been saved also by many fellow Earthians.

I have been saved by my voice teachers, who showed me how to reconnect with my heart song.

I have been saved by the coaches who mirrored back to me my blind spots while handing me the tools I needed to carve my way out of the stone I was imprisoned in.

I have been saved by the friends who NEVER agreed to stop believing in me, no matter how many convincing arguments I made to urge them to quit.

I have been saved by the smile of strangers on days I thought the entire world had forgotten about me.

I have been saved by writers who didn’t know that their words would be the steps I would use to crawl out of hell.

I have been saved by singers who put grace, hope and love in the only way I could receive it for decades: on a music sheet and then into songs.

I have been saved by many MANY people.

And I have been saved by my own heart, daily, since the first second I entered this world.

Someone IS coming to save us.… That someone is who we all are within.

And that is why I will never agree that no one is coming to save you.

Because within me, there is you and within you, there is me.

Because when I heal me, I heal you in miraculous ways that I cannot understand—and because when you heal, it heals me too.

I am coming to save you, even when “saving you” looks like me crying on a pillow, meditating, embodying joy, journaling, or walking enthralled, humbled and grateful in Nature.

YOU are coming to save me, even when it seems like you’re focusing all your time and energy on your dream, on resting, on finding any sense of peace or relief you can hold on to and a reason to believe.

We are coming to save each other at all time, whether we’re aware of it or not.

Someone is coming to save you, whether that someone is in your body, mine… or anyone else’s.

Depending on another as an adult is disempowering, but needing each other is one of the most gorgeous parts of the human experience.

So let’s make sure that the stories we tell ourselves do not serve the misguided narratives of our wounds and enable instead our heart’s magic and wisdom to prevail.

Let’s make sure that it leads us back—only and always—into Love.

With kindness, love and light—knowing that all three are born in the sacred darkness that we do not need to fear anymore.

leo