What If You Could Let Yourself Be Held?

There are times when I notice how much energy we spend holding ourselves together.

Managing what needs to happen next. Anticipating. Taking care of others. Trying to make the right decision. Keeping things moving.

We become so accustomed to being the one who holds everything that we may not even notice how much effort it requires.

And beneath all of that effort, there can be a quieter longing.

What would it feel like to be held?

Not necessarily by another person, but by life itself.

To soften the part of us that believes we have to manage everything on our own and feel, even for a moment, that there is something underneath us. Something steady. Something we can lean back into.

This is one of the reasons I have been thinking about Uli lately.

The Great Mother within

I was introduced to Uli many years ago through my teacher, Laura Kealoha Yardley, on Kauai.

In the Lemurian Huna tradition I was taught, Uli is the Great Mother. She is associated with the Earth and with the qualities of unconditional love, nourishment, support, compassion and deep inner wisdom.

You don't have to relate to Uli as a goddess, or even share the cosmology from which she comes, to connect with what she represents.

You might experience her as an archetype.

As the intelligence of the Earth.

As the mothering presence within you.

Or simply as the part of you that knows how to hold, nourish and love without needing anything to be different first.

Because ultimately, Uli isn't somewhere outside of us.

She represents something that already lives within us.

Sometimes we need a symbol, an archetype or a spiritual figure to reflect something back to us that we have forgotten is our own.

For me, Uli became that kind of mirror.

Finding the mother within myself

When I first encountered Uli, I was working through some difficult places in my relationship with my own mother.

Like many of us, I carried expectations, conscious and unconscious, about the ways I wanted to have been loved, understood, protected and nurtured.

These longings are deeply human.

But there came a point when I realized that continuing to look toward my human mother to become the source of everything I had needed was keeping both of us in an old relationship.

My teacher invited me to work with Uli.

And something shifted.

I began to experience the essence of the mother within myself.

I remember it feeling almost like falling backward into the arms of an unconditionally loving presence.

Something in me could finally rest.

And strangely, that experience didn't separate me from my mother.

It freed both of us.

I could allow her to be human. And I could begin discovering within myself the love, tenderness, safety and nourishment I had been looking for outside of me.

This is part of what the Great Mother represents to me now.

She is the place inside us that can say:

You don't have to earn your belonging here.

You don't have to have everything figured out.

You can rest.

You can feel what you feel.

You are held.

What becomes possible when we feel held?

There is something important about feeling safe enough to soften.

When so much of our energy is being used to protect, anticipate, control or manage, it can be difficult to hear the quieter intelligence within us.

But when the body begins to feel supported, something changes.

There is more room to listen.

More room to feel.

More room for intuition, creativity and possibility.

Being held doesn't mean remaining still or never taking risks. In my experience, the opposite can happen.

When we feel deeply held, we can become more available to transformation.

We don't have to use all of our energy making sure the ground won't disappear beneath us.

We can use that energy to become.

A place that feels like this

Perhaps this is why the energy of Uli has become so present for me again.

Recently, my husband Paul and I purchased a beautiful old farmhouse and 27 acres of fields and forest overlooking Prince's Inlet, just outside Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.

We have a dream for this land that we are only beginning to bring to life: to create a place for gathering, retreat, healing and transformation.

But what has surprised me is how much the land itself already seems to know what it is here to do.

There are old trees, quiet paths winding through the forest, open fields and water in the distance.

When I am there, I notice something happen in my body.

I soften.

I feel held.

I feel safe enough to listen more deeply.

And from that place, something new can begin to emerge.

It has made me think differently about our relationship with the Earth.

Perhaps the Earth doesn't simply give us somewhere to stand.

Perhaps she reminds our bodies of something we easily forget:

You belong here.

The ground can hold your weight.

The trees don't need anything from you.

You can stop for a moment.

You can listen.

You can become.

We are still at the very beginning of discovering what this place will become, and I look forward to sharing that journey as it unfolds.

For now, it feels fitting that one of the first teachings emerging from this new chapter is Uli.

An invocation to Uli

Several years ago, I recorded a pule for Uli. Pule means prayer in Hawaiian.

The prayer is an invocation of the Great Mother and an invitation to connect with the qualities Uli represents: love, nourishment, guidance, protection, remembrance and the deep intelligence of creation.

You can approach the practice spiritually, symbolically or simply as a meditation.

There is nothing you need to believe.

Find somewhere you can be quiet for a few minutes.

Feel the weight of your body.

Feel the ground underneath you.

Let yourself soften.

And listen.

WATCH + LISTEN TO THE ULI INVOCATION

In the invocation, you will hear the words:

Uli Nana Pono, Uli Nana Hewa, Uli Nana Pono.

You can return to these words, or to the invocation itself, whenever you feel yourself gripping, pushing, controlling or carrying too much alone.

And perhaps you can ask yourself:

Where am I trying to hold everything together right now?

What would change if I allowed myself to be held?

You don't have to answer with your mind.

Feel your feet on the ground.

Feel the Earth underneath you.

Notice your breath.

And see what your body remembers.

There is a place within you that knows how to hold you.

And perhaps the Earth has been reminding you of it all along.