Dear Heart,
As I sit wrapped in my blanket in snowy Bozeman, and enter another period of Contraction in my offerings in the world, I thought I would share what I'm learning about Suzanne Eder's concept of The Phases of Life Pulse. I hope it will bring ease and emotional context to your inner life, as it is mine.
We each have unique rhythms in how we move within our days, relationships, careers, missions, health and more. Eder says there are four main phases we cycle through, again and again, in the many categories of our lives:
INNER STASIS
This is the phase of inner focus from which our next Expansion comes, the point where we say yes to a desire we hold inside. Ideally, our yes arrises from clear mind and open heart. This is a phase of deep inner connection with your expanded self. You may feel at peace, clear, still, trusting, even if the decision or idea at hand may be difficult.
EXPANSION
This is the outer-focused phase of action. We're steadily focused on our desire. We are inspired with ideas and impulses that move us forward. Synchronistic thoughts, meetings and occurrences come easy; this is the unfolding of our desire.
This is the phase many of us equate with success. We believe we're supposed to be actively pursuing our goals all the time (which causes us to suffer). Our culture far outweighs the value of this phase. If we want our actions in this phase to be genuine, inspired, and efficient, we must stay close to ourselves and how we feel during this phase, making time to go inward, retreat, and listen, so that we don't feel exhausted and forced in action. We may feel inspired, exhilarated, enthusiastic, eager, focused.
OUTER STASIS
The outer focused phase is where we experience the results of our expansion. Acknowledgement, appreciation and celebration for what we have created and how we have grown are important, here. In Outer Stasis, we've reached a new level of experience from where we can identify new desires. This phase has an essence of genuine connection with others because you're now sharing your once internal desire with the outside world. It's the steady state. This is where we live from most of the time.
It's easy to drift into auto-pilot in this stage. We must stay close to ourselves so we can detect subtle shifts in energy, emotion, and desires that signal a shift to next phase. Boredom or restlessness are signals that can come in this phase, indicating that a desire for something different is emerging. In this phase, you may feel content, appreciative, balanced, engaged.
CONTRACTION
An inner-focused phase where we look within ourselves to review where we are, and what we've learned to clarify what we want next. This stage is a reflective time to cultivate thought patterns and concentrate our focus to create energetic momentum for the next phase of Expansion. Energy follows attention, and this phase is about the attention.
This is also the phase where we acknowledge, shift, and feel any uncomfortable feelings that may have been activated on our path, prior. They may have been activated, if the new desire, which made us move from Outer Stasis to Contraction, was stimulated by something unwanted (a divorce, job loss, health issue, etc). They could also be trigged by false feelings. This phase, as all of them, can last a few minutes, or several years.
This is an inward-focused phase most difficult for people to embrace. When we're not in action mode, we tell ourselves we're stagnant or lazy. It is often uncomfortable because we haven't learned to love ourselves through life, and we find fault with ourselves during this phase. But we must maintain kindness and compassion as we review and rest. This phase creates flow and is how we build our reserves, and do the work of evolving for our next Expansion. We might feel contemplative, attentive to inner thoughts, reflective, open curious, exploratory.
When we flow with our own, unique Life Pulse, honoring all the phases as opposed to continually pushing outward with our emotion, energy, time, and more, we see how life shows up to support us. We don't have to make the effort to "force" our current desire. We can let it arise.
To you, whatever phase you may be passing through.
