Befriending Ourselves, and the World
Recently, I had reason to recall the Barbie movie from this past summer 2023 and to wonder over how it might connect to the theme of wholeness and deep love. I was one of over a billion people to see this movie—and not once, but three times. Why, you might wonder, would anyone see Barbie this many times? What could possibly make this oversold and possibly predictable movie worth it?
I saw many lovely themes layered into The Barbie movie: loss of innocence, discovering the brokenness of an imperfect world, loss of identity and the feeling of being ever insufficient, even the humorous portrayal of a belief that we can somehow achieve perfection. But the part that gets me every single time, overcomes my stubborn resolve to not cry, is the ending. It’s the final risk Barbie takes to let go of every false persona and enter a real relationship with a real and imperfect.
In this near to last scene of the movie, something has changed for Barbie—she doesn’t feel like Barbie anymore and doesn’t quite know what it means to not be Barbie either. She’s faced with what it means to choose to be embodied as a Fully Human Being.
In this scene, Barbie’s creator Ruth Handler turns to her and says, “Being a human can be pretty uncomfortable. Humans make things up like patriarchy and Barbie just to deal with how uncomfortable it is.”
But Barbie looks at her, and knowing she’ll be uncomfortable in this imperfect world, that she’ll have the same ending as every other human and will someday die--chooses it all anyway. She chooses because she has felt something greater than perfection: she has experienced love.
Not that she’s fallen in love with a person—a kind of love we might call “eros.” Or even a love for her kin, that love that’s defined as “filial.” No, the kind of love that can see the truth of life’s brokenness and choose to love it anyway is a bigger love. This is the love that’s called agape.
So it was, that I asked the group of youth at my church to join me in an act of holy imagination, where we might imagine a world that could have us needing to understand agape love. Can you imagine, I asked, a world and church turbulent with the divided hearts and minds of a whole host of human differences and disagreements? A world full of people all claiming in their different ways and disparate voices to be the authority on, well, everything? With divisions that seem to be pushing people further away from one another and further toward ever more separate factions. A world where “same teams” and “enemies” appears to be clear.
I certainly understand is division. So how could we possibly choose a kind of love, this agape love that goes big, reminds us just how much more we’re capable of than our small, fearful, uncomfortable selves?
How could it ever be possible to choose this kind of love, especially in a community, or even in a youth group, where people can really rub us the wrong way? How might we choose this kind of love in a place and with people who hurt us, and can make us feel grouchy and insensitive and downright snippy? How could it be possible when we find ourselves wanting to check-out, wishing we could look at our phones rather than think about agape love of all things? How is it possible when we get hungry and anxious and sometimes think about how uncomfortable it is to live in the bodies we’re walking around in and with so many maddening thoughts that perpetually come?
I almost never have certain answers—for myself or for them, but I do believe that the answer to how any of this is possible is because, like it or not, love keeps choosing us. Age has given me the awareness that somehow I am always living within this kind of great love.
Yet this awareness comes and goes. It seems to not arrive quickly enough or remain long enough. And it requires that I am not stuck in the place of chronic stress that seems to have flooded the world’s nervous system, but that I can move through these stressors, back to the state of Vagus Nerve connection to wholeness and safety within my own body.
Our nervous system is designed to be flexible, yet if we’re not practicing a recognition of our body’s states, and offering ourselves the nourishment necessary to befriend our nervous system, we will struggle to move into the connected place of wholeness that the Vagus Nerve is made to initiate. It’s the safe place of “home sweet home” within us—a place we find ourselves disconnected from when chronic stress continues to overwhelm. This is important to understand for our own well-being—this disconnection and chronic state of stress serves to create all sorts of ailments, from digestive disorders and chronic disease to states of heightened aggression and dissociation from other humans and the natural world. It makes us extra prickly and extra sensitive to finding ourselves in the camp of “same teams” and “enemies.” And, so, while having a flexible nervous system is important for our own well-being, it’s essential, too, for the good of the world we live in. This is how we find our way toward an agape love for something so worth being connected to—our fellow humans and this beautiful world we live in.
This is how we connect to the transcendent experiences that can draw us into greater connection. Often this time of year, when I walk through my town with dazzling spring gardens, I think of Alice Walker’s words in The Color Purple: “I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.” Yet, how can we notice if we’re stuck so far in our head, in our own storyboard of stressors and fears and anxieties, that our nervous system can only tell us a story of being on high alert, ready to fight or flee from the world, or in total overwhelm needing to disconnect and hide away?
Instead, we might receive a story of awe—I could tell you about a group of teenagers who don’t all love to hike but love to be together, walking through the woods to discover that hidden there is a gushing waterfall, a preserved field of Virginia Bluebells and Trillium flowers, a house that was brought from China piece by piece so a faraway culture could be preserved through its walls. A story of how we don’t necessarily have to reconcile the gorgeous and the tragic parts of life, or the flash of a moment perfection of a field of Virginia bluebells with the perpetually imperfect notion of human connection. These opposites don’t cancel each other out.
Life is beautiful, and life is hard. And yet there are ways that we can bolster ourselves and in doing so have a nervous system that provides a kind of connected experience for others as well as ourselves. This is how we can continue to understand the kind of deep love that allows us to see that color purple blazing in the field, a love that won’t let us look away from each other, won’t let us turn our backs, but keeps us deciding to be part of one another—no matter how risky it is.
And that’s what I see in that final scene of Barbie. Imagine it—Ruth reaches out her hands, tells Barbie to hold them, to close her eyes, and then to feel. Then, with a gentle exhale Barbie sees what it means to choose to enter this world, with all its flaws and brokenness, into the community of other humans. She sees sunlight through the tree; a baby held within a family of adults, children being spun by adult arms, someone jumping into a pool of fellow swimmers, a group of friends celebrating a moment bowling, people dancing, two sets of aged hands clasped together. She witnessed patriarchy and hurting hearts and now she is witnessing the way that being human includes deep, abiding love that keeps choosing to show up within us. So it is, with a final and wholehearted “yes” Barbie enters the complexity of it all.
How might we bolster ourselves for a befriended state of living? Here are 10 very easy things I can do to return to my body, out of the swirl of thoughts creating all sorts of stories in my brain, and take care of my nervous system daily. I know 10 can seem like a big number, but they’re all pretty fast and accessible. And knowing that I can learn how to sense what is happening with my nervous system, sense when I’m out of tune with the Vagus Nerve and tempted to fight the world around me, fawn over it to control it, or to disconnect from it entirely, I can also tune into simple practices that help me to create a flexible nervous system environment, an environment we’re made to have, and to return to that “home sweet home” feeling within.
Breathe. Breathe well and on purpose. At least once a day. I have a reminder alarm that goes off every day at 12:10 PM. This is the bell that tolls for me to check in on myself and how I’m doing, and then to take a full minute (5 deep breaths approximately) to breathe well and on purpose. Often I try to extend my exhalation and sometimes I add in a breath prayer.
Massage the back of your neck. I keep some warming balm in my car for this because I’ve noticed when I’m driving myself and others around, busy with the day’s demands, my neck builds up a lot of tension. An exercise ball can do the trick for this as well.
Find some sunshine. If I can sit somewhere for 10 minutes, inside by a window or outside if the weather and time permits, close my eyes, and let the sun bathe my face and eyelids, I find myself instantly nourished. When we take in sunlight through closed eyelids, it turns on the serotonin production in the brain, essential for coming into a state of ease and self-transcendence. This is an especially good way to move through the disconnected, dorsal part of the nervous system.
Add gentle vibration to your neck and face. The vagus nerve runs through the neck so gentle vibration gives it a nudge to work for us as it’s meant to. This might be my beloved bee breath (the Brahmari breath I’ve offered through video before), humming or singing a song, or taking long audible sighs.
Pull on your earlobes. This is another way to stimulate the Vagus. Hold your earlobes and gently pull down or place your index fingers inside your ears and gently pull down. This is something I find myself doing throughout the day when I notice my nervous system has revved up.
Breathe in a special scent. I have a few essential oils that I keep in a variety of places—my car, at my desk, in my purse—so that I can rub some on my hands or wrists or spray a bit into the air when I’m feeling overwhelmed. Scent is a particularly soothing sensory experience for the nervous system and it ensures that we do #1 again and breathe.
Massage your hands. Again, I keep some lotion in a variety of places so if I need to soothe myself, I can take a moment to apply some deep pressured massage to the palms of my hands, stimulating the nervous system response of ease that accompanies this.
Connect with a friend. When I find myself in a place of experiencing the hard, sometimes my first reaction is to turn away from people and the world and to move toward dorsal shutdown disconnect. If I pay attention and notice this, connecting with a friend via a phone call or a voice text gives me the opportunity to express the hard and to then move through this part of my nervous system. Voicing the hard allows us to hear it, and for our nervous system to then start to process it, a sort of shaking off of the hard, so that we can potentially restory the situation. Again, not that expressing is necessarily cancels it out, but that it allows the nervous system space by reminding our brain that we’re not alone in it and someone else is holding the story with us.
Body posture. Can you believe that sometimes all it takes for our nervous system to start to recalibrate to “home” is making the effort to sit or stand without slumping?
Finally, this time of year is a great one to get outside and touch the soil of the earth. Did you know that the wet soil of the drenched garden and its smell of rich life from earthworms can flood you with a feeling of well-being? The microbes in freshly turned soil stimulate again that serotonin production, working on the human brain the same way antidepressants do. Sort of like springtime magic for the nervous system.
These relatively simple practices are ways that I can befriend my body and nurture my nervous system. And, while it makes an enormous impact for me, it’s also the way that I’m made more open to connection, peace, ease, a bigger love for the people and earth around me, that makes these practices essential.
Then, I find, that experiencing awe, wonder, compassion, and the practice of self-transcendence for next week—gratitude—becomes possible.
Would you like to experience a whole week of balancing your nervous system, receiving nourishment for your whole body, mind, and spirit? I have discovered the art of this sort of care is the essence of the international retreats I’ve been offering since 2019. In these beautiful locations, we get to experience the kind of nervous system befriending without the distractions of life’s daily chronic stressors, so that we ramp up the Vagus healing and connection. This creates healing for the nervous system, of course, but also for the digestive and circulatory systems, respiratory, and for the well being of our mind and spirit such that we discover our capacity for more creativity and joy. We practice tuning into this befriending work over a series of days, so that we can rewire old patterns and learn how to bring the habits of care into our daily life.
The next retreat that’s open to join is coming up this October in Chacala, Mexico in a gorgeous waterfront resort near this quaint historic fishing town. What would a day of retreat look like here? You’d be greeted by the sun rising over the jungle mountain on the east side of the retreat center and have the opportunity to join me for a morning yoga practice, or take a walk on the lush garden paths, or maybe just sleep in allowing the peace of an unscheduled morning to soothe you. You’d then be offered a breakfast of local fruits, handmade breads, eggs from the local chickens. After this, you might soak in one of the salt-water pools or walk the Sea of Jade on the west side of the resort. You might stroll into the sweet fishing town of Chacala for some shopping or to sit at a cafe there. Perhaps you join your new retreat friends for conversation and a margarita at one of the tiki bars or head off for an excursion to a Mayan temple or for a massage. All this possibility before (or after) you receive your prepared lunch of more organic fruits, locally grown vegetables, and maybe some seafood. In the evening, you might find yourself in the later day yoga class I offer or reading a book, connecting with friends, watching the sunset over the beach, dining again on a beautifully prepared meal, or curling up to relax in a hammock or your seaside bedroom as the sound of waves and a sea breeze bathes you.
There is so much beauty to experience on these retreat adventures. Reach out to me with a message if I can tell you more. Or use this link to see more pictures and consider registering: Yoga, Sea, and Sun with Christa Mastrangelo Joyce
Lovely!
One of my favorite sayings, it’s even on my website, at the end of my recorded meditations is “May you come home to yourself.” Thank you for affirming the reminder for my own practice this week.