Glimpses of Sacred Sanity
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Awake Tiger
I didn’t bare my teeth
Or extend my claws
When I was held against my will
Surrounded by cold concrete walls
And glass for staff to observe me
Their narrow view
Seeing only psychosis,
Sitting on the icy metal chair
Bolted to the floor
I shook inside
Seemingly
Still
Frozen
Fearful
Silent
Staring at my surroundings
Fawning
Doing everything I was told
Awake
Tearful
Afraid
Loud
Screams
Shouts
Slamming doors
Another patient called me names
But what no one knew was
I had a different perspective on this unit
Once upon a time,
I was the staff
Gazing through the glass
Outside the fishbowl of understanding
This time I held the patient’s view
Struck by awareness of a familiar face
Behind the glass
I saw a graduate school classmate
Glancing and then staring at me
A squint and a jaw drop
Grabbing a pen and swiftly exiting
Gone
Shame weighed heavily on me, like the concrete walls
I wondered if she told the staff,
“Look at her chart! She was my classmate! We need to get her off this unit!”
All I knew was
The psychiatrist who came to see me
Seemed frantic
Certain I wasn’t a fit for this unit,
Surrounded by others who saw things, heard things, felt things
Just like me
But I was lucky
Because of my psychological training,
I knew what to say, what to do, and how to act
How to escape this unit of glass, metal, concrete
Once moved to another unit
With carpet and comfortable chairs
With a nurse who gave me a blanket and essential oil to breathe
Hot tea and silence
I shared a space with another patient who said kind things
Related with her own suffering
Where we sang Karaoke
And drew pictures of our dreams
This unit brought me
Relief and grief
Wounds and wisdom
The past, present, future
My shoulders fell from my ears
Where they belonged
And I could breathe again
Yet I feel a longing
To speak up about the conditions
Of this other unit
To express what it was like
Behind the glass
In the fishbowl
On those icy bolted chairs
In those moments as a patient, I had no power
As I might today, as I practice as a therapist
Released and Remembering
I am free
No one, not even the awakened tiger
Who uses claws and bares their teeth,
Deserves to be treated like an animal in a cage
There has to be a better way
-dedicated to Dr. Peter Levine, author of Waking the Tiger
Dear Body,
In the quiet of my soul, I once turned against you.
I blamed you for the numbness, the silence, the longing to feel.
You didn’t protect me when the monster’s hands reached out.
I thought you let me drown in fear.
Why didn’t you fight back? Why didn’t you remember?
The pain that lingered deep in your skin—
I held you responsible for keeping it buried.
Memories inaccessible held in my bones.
I sit here with compassion,
I see you never betrayed me,
You were never the enemy.
You shielded me in the only way you could,
So I could survive. So I could one day awaken and begin to heal.
In trauma, sensation fades and disappears—
A refuge, a shield.
But with compassion, awareness begins to bloom,
And a new relationship with sensation opens through gentle touch.
Every breath I ignored, every touch I withheld,
Was life waiting quietly for me to listen.
To feel is to be alive,
To come home to the body in wholeness.
You carried both the sorrow and the joy,
The heartbeat of life itself.
I blamed you, but you held it all,
Protecting me until I could rise again.
To the body that has always known the way.
I will listen to your wisdom, be present in every breath,
In you, dear Body, I find my strength.
Healing is not about erasing the past,
But about honoring the life we’ve lived,
Letting go of the pain we buried.
To touch, to breathe, to be fully alive—
Is to step into life without fear.
Dear Body, I forgive you.
You never failed me.
You held me through every storm.
Now, I return to the beauty of sensation,
To feel, to live, to move through the world with grace.
With love,
Me
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Heart Above All
No teaching, no teacher, no text
Can rival the truth inside my chest
The pulse that knows, that beats and flows
With wisdom no words could ever best
Before the doctrine, before the scroll
There is a rhythm that makes me whole
Unwritten, unseen, it carries me
Beyond the lessons that bind the soul
For the heart is the light, the compass, the guide
Beyond any rule that the mind may decide
It whispers of love, of freedom, of grace
A language divine, untouched by time or place
No teacher, no book, no ancient decree
Could ever speak what the heart shows me
For in its silence, I hear the call
The truth that rises, heart above all.