It’s wild times here in my heart.

For you too, maybe.

We had the most joyous trip last weekend, and happy times with friends, and magenta streaks in my hair, AND– life feels like a blender.

If you’re feeling scattered and overwhelmed and life is swirling SO fast and your brain feels like molasses, you’re not alone, and there’s nothing wrong with you.

Our bodies and minds and hearts aren’t meant to take in the vast and overwhelming tidal waves of horror and heartbreak that sweep over us in every news cycle.

And some of us (I’m whispering this quietly because it is absurdly trivial and yet wildly true) find that the end of the school year swirl with its 89,000 details and logistics and change in routine puts us almost over the edge.

Listen. Some of us are ever so slightly more sensitive than the average bear. Don’t be afraid of that; it’s also our superpower. But it’s our job to learn to work with ourselves and our big feelings so that we can wield them with courage and love instead of ending up in puddles of empathic overwhelm.

Here is a simple, powerful thing we can do for ourselves in intense moments.

It only takes a few seconds, but it can reverberate inside you for years.

Press your hand over your heart, or just above it.

I like to push pretty hard on my chest with my palm open and fingers spread, so I can feel the pressure, like I’m holding myself back from hurtling into a dangerous abyss, not that I have a vivid imagination that veers toward the drastic, not at all.

Then I say to myself, my sweet ridiculous panicky beloved self,

I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.

(I don’t usually do this out loud, as it tends to unnerve passersby.)

It’s so simple. It takes only a few seconds.

I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.

But it’s deeply reassuring.

It slows things down when they get swirly. It steadies me when I feel shaky.

Sometimes I do this half a dozen times every day.

(The world is a pretty shaky place.)

And it brings me right back to the present moment, to myself, to this sacred ground.

I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.

It reminds me that my most important job really is to be a safe place for myself before I do anything else. To make choices that are good for me. To be kind and strong to and for myself.

And it reminds me that I absolutely have the capacity to do this.

This isn’t selfish or heartless, by the way. When I begin here, I have a better chance of bringing a gentle, fierce, loving, brave presence into the world. When I feel safe, I am more likely to extend that safety to the people around me. Most of us humans are at our worst when we’re afraid. As Martha Beck once wisely said, “scared people do scary things.”

This promise activates the strong capable warrior mamabear archetype in me, and also comforts the tiny scared aspects of me. (Because I contain multitudes, just like Uncle Walt.)

It’s both a vow I am making to myself– darling self, I’ve got you, you’re safe with me, I’m capable and strong and brave even when I am scared– and a promise I get to receive– oh yes, I am safe, at least in this particular moment. Now that I can stop panicking, let me look around and see what needs doing.

It reminds me to be both tender and fierce.

Sometimes, when we don’t know how to be in this world or what to do next, it can help to come right back to the simplest things.

Roots in the ground, arms to the sky– hand fiercely on chest.

I’ve got you. You’re safe with me.

Start there.

Make it so.