The First Step is Compassion

www.catherinecarrigan.com

As you consider how to pick yourself up and move forward after the last year we have all just survived — after the losses, after the grief, after the chaos — the first step is compassion.

Whenever we face life threatening challenges such as:

• Loss of health
• Loss of income
• Loss of financial stability
• Loss of loved ones
• Loss of our habitual ways of living

We are thrown into survival mode.

When you are in survival mode, you operate out of your amygdalae — the fight, flight or freeze part of your brain.

When you live in fight, flight or freeze you may find yourself:

• Feeling like you have to fight for every dollar you earn
• Fleeing what you perceive to be major threats to your well-being
• Stuck, frozen and unable to move forward
• Seemingly at odds with everyone and everything in the world around you
• Feeling like the universe is a not very friendly place
• Unable to access your soul guidance.

Survival mode — such as many of us experienced in 2020 when we were literally stuck in the boxes of our homes — brings out the worst in…