Buzz Therapy: Bee-Balming Your Soul When Joy Feels Zapped

"Go inside. Listen. Feel. Notice what's happening. What's the Buzz?"

Navigating change has everything to do with Soul-scaping. We have to be able to go inside, explore the interior landscape. Making any move, whether it's relocation for a job, re-homing, vocational discernment, pursuing or altering a relationship paradigm, or changing a habit requires more than a cursory acquaintance with the interior life. It requires that we notice movements of Consolation (e.g., joy, abundance, gratitude, peace, etc.) and Desolation (e.g., fear, anguish, anger, turbulence, etc.) each day.

Many people are afraid of going inside. That is, they wait until a personal or world crisis requires them to make a significant choice. Why? It may feel dark or scary, out-of-control or overwhelming, definitely mysterious. There's a good reason people avoid the journey inside. Their Joy may feel zapped. Buzz-kill.

Consolation and Desolation come in tidal waves when we're children, and tend to leak - or explode - out of us in the form of water: tears of delight, surprise, outrage, and sadness. We might call them "outbursts." As adults, we have squelched and distilled the waves into manageable facsimiles, mere droplets. They appear as stiff upper lips, veneers of sniffs and drips and fetid pools that collect in our memory and seep into our bodily dis-eases - where we like to ignore, deflect, and sandbag them for another day.

That other day is now, isn't it? While we're still alive and wondering what we should do in this moment?

Going inside means taking a Soul-pulse. It takes practice, daily practice. It's a discipline (>L. discipulus/disciplina = instruction/knowledge, or its L. root discere = to learn). It requires us to go deeper inside ourselves and learn what lies beneath our daily actions, factions, inactions, and distractions. Going inside means getting the Buzz on our own Soul.

If we go inside right now, what does it feel like? High hill country in the springtime, full of color and light? A cool leafy summer glade, dipping our toes into a mountain stream, or chasing skippers and fireflies, hooting with the barred owl at night? The forests in autumn, foliage rippling out golds and reds and purples with fragrance that allures us into its magic? Moonlight on the snowbanks in winter, crisp and clear and gentle in its silent embrace?

Could it also be feeling like parched desert inside our soul, like no trees or shade for miles, just barren remains, and desolate dryness?

Could it also be feeling like the aftermath of a hurricane or wildfires, or like the cacophony of incessant industrial machinery or endless traffic noise?

Could it feel like the onset of a raging storm, shredding trees, sending shocks of lightning and thunderous refrains to our nervous system?

Could it also be feeling like whatever's inside us reflects our beleaguered biosphere - stripped, violated, and left for dead?

Sadness, fear, residual anger, confusion, disintegration, and hopelessness are sometimes what we find inside. And that's why we might avoid the journey to the interior.

But what if we found something else besides?

Imagine the Bee Balm in the garden alive with vibrant color and the unmistakable fragrance of mint, sometimes a citrusy scent, and often like a subtle oregano. Pollinators are so attracted to Monarda fistulosa (bergamot, bee balm) because the pollen/nectar is healthy for them, and is key to their survival. It's a vital energy source. "Balm" for pollinators, indeed.

It's also "balm" for humans. Bee Balm has been used as an anti-inflammatory for treating skin irritations like bee stings and burns, for example, but its healing effects reach far beyond. It is an anti-fungal, anti-microbial plant, used to heal digestive disorders and even to treat colds and flu. What else can this healing balm do?

It's the "Come Hither" plant! It's gorgeous, fragrant, attractive, delicious. Like us, Bee Balm stimulates all our senses, attracting the buzzers and the floaters, the ones who nourish us and need us to nourish them. Bee balm provides a great launching point for going inside because we notice and gravitate to the healing properties immediately. We can find the healing balm in our interior Soulscape too, if we pay attention.

Interior balm can be observed through healing memory - as the effects of a lingering embrace from an old friend; a song of laughter on the spring breeze from the kid next door; flying down the lane chasing our beloved canine-kin; or the feeling of freedom when we first learned to ride a bike. Our first chaste kiss.

Interior healing balm can be felt as hopes and dreams - making that once-in-a-lifetime trip to the lake, or the island, or the mountains, or the ocean; hearing our favorite musician in concert under the stars; graduating; landing that dream job; moving to our forever home; seeing our kids grow up; retiring with the love of our life to a little cottage by the sea.

Interior healing balm can be relished in this present moment - plunging our hands into the warm, moist spring garden to plant seeds; wrapping our hands around a hot cuppa - an elixir in the chill of a wintry day; kneading a pan of fluffy dough for fresh bread for our family in the autumn; wading in the living stream, or feeling the splash of rain around our toes; holding the envelope to the wedding invitation that says life is beginning anew; swinging from the oak tree limb on a summer day, breathing in the color and fragrance and joy of the garden alive with hope and wonder. Walking hand-in-hand with someone we love, someone who loves us to the moon and back.

Now, what's the Buzz inside? If fear is holding you back from making the interior journey, take a lesson from the Bee Balm. Go inside. Your Soulscape is calling.