Day 63: Presence & God's Grace
A Simple Practice to Self Regulate in PTSD Recovery
This morning, I had a call with one of my philosophy teachers, Rolf. Lately, it feels like I’m in an intensive therapy immersion, rotating between spiritual teachers and therapists. My weekly cycle includes:
Anvita, raised in an ashram in India but educated overseas in London, with a broad, global perspective. We study The Bhagavad Gita and The Yoga Sutrastogether—Tuesdays are intellectual discussions on the Gita, and Thursdays are a mix of mental health counseling, chanting Patanjali’s Sutras, and Yoga Nidra, which I call my “Brain Spa.”
My counselor, a talk therapist with a background in shamanism, specifically guiding me through trauma recovery. She is from Israel but lives in Bali.
My personal trainer, who listens as much as he coaches. He is from Spain but lives in Qatar. Half our session is spent discussing my healing process before moving into physical training.
Rolf, whom I meet twice a week. He’s in California. I wouldn’t say that we really have a curriculum. He teaches what he calls “the most important thing”—the teaching that meets the moment’s need. It’s often teachings from Buddhism.
A couple of weeks ago, in the immediate aftermath of an incident, I vaguely mentioned to Rolf that I’d had a negative experience with someone I was dating. Without knowing details, he offered a metaphor about building a fire and creating chaos by being addicted to choosing unhealthy partners. (To be fair he has heard about some awful men in my life over the past four months). While insightful and a great metaphor - and it might have been appropriate at a different point in time, when, for example, my motorbike ran out of gas on the drive to Nusa Dua - it didn’t quite fit the situation or recognize the fact that I was in a direct trauma response to assault.
This morning, when our call began to drift in that direction again, I stopped him. I wasn’t angry, but I just openly stated:
“I don’t think this is the narrative I need right now,” I told him. “I actually haven’t been dating much-I went on five dates in the last year. I don’t think being addicted to harmful relationships is a problem for me. I experienced male violence. I don’t think I chose for him to assault me - he chose to assault me. I should be able to go on a date without being afraid of getting assaulted. Right now, I don’t know if and when I will ever feel safe to start dating or to be in a romantic relationship again. I don’t feel safe with any men right now. So I don’t think this narrative of me creating chaos by choosing romantic partners that are harmful is relevant to me right now.”
It was difficult for me to say this to him, because Rolf is one of the most important teachers I’ve ever had in my life. Also, I have been conflict avoidant my whole life. I have avoided saying what I mean and avoiding expressing myself. I have just sat and listen to people say things, and let things bottle up inside of me and let them explode in negative ways. And this moment was a moment where I was choosing something different.
He thanked me for telling him and said that by telling him how I felt, I was saving our relationship. Because I could have just stopped doing calls with him and not expressing this to him. And this shows that our student-teacher relationship is so important to me that it’s worth having this difficult conversation.
He admitted he hadn’t considered the distinction between what I was choosing and what my attacker was choosing in the moment. He said he didn’t want for me to start to take blame for the violence the man had enacted on me. Then, he gave an example: “As residents of a country, we don’t choose what our politicians do. But we can choose how we respond to what’s happening. Let’s work on how we respond.”
He said, “I teach teachers the most important thing. And right now, the most important thing is how to work with people who are dysregulated. And I’m not talking about me helping you get regulated. I’m talking about you helping yourself get regulated.”
He brought up Yoga Sutra 1.1:
“A lot of people say this translates to “And now, begins yoga.” But I’d say it really means,
“And now, we begin to guide ourselves.” Because in our yoga practice, we are learning how to guide ourselves.
Rolf reminded me of a powerful teaching:
Before the Buddha responded to suffering, he touched the earth.
He put a crystal into a lake instead of a glass of water.
And it is an important skill to stay rooted in that connectedness.
These metaphors resonated a lot with me.
Before responding to suffering, the Buddha touched the earth.
This refers to the moment before the Buddha’s enlightenment. When challenged by Mara, he did not argue - he simply touched the earth, calling it to bear witness. This bhūmisparśa mudrā represents deep grounding, stability, and connection to reality beyond illusion. Before we respond to suffering, we must first root ourselves in something larger than the ego.
He put the crystal into a lake instead of a glass of water.
This symbolizes how transformation happens in an expansive, interconnected way rather than a confined, isolated space. Placing our suffering into a vast lake allows its effects to ripple out, rather than being contained in a small glass of water. This basically means we need to connect to the larger world around us beyond our own mind, our own experience.
Staying rooted in connectedness is a skill.
True wisdom and healing require staying deeply connected-to the earth, to reality, and to something greater than ourselves. This can be practiced through meditation, mindfulness, and community. It prevents us from being swayed by illusion or suffering.
We practiced meeting the moment. Rolf guided me to rest in the presence of nature—to simply close my eyes and notice what I could hear from the world around me.
I told him, “I hear the jungle. The jungle vibrates in Bali.”
We practiced again. This time, he had me focus my gaze on a drishti, a single point of focus. I chose a flower in my garden.
Afterward, he asked, “What was that like for you?”
I told him that what I’ve noticed is that listening and seeing are different for me. When I listen to the world, I hear everything—the buzzing of the jungle, the distant hum of a power tool, water flowing in my pool, the sound of my villa’s owner sweeping the ground. My focus shifts from one sound, to the next, to the next. But when I focus on a single thing with my eyes, I only see that one thing. My dhristi point was a flower, and I’d never seen that flower before. It was a red tulip in my garden. I had never noticed this flower before, though it had always been there.
I teared up. So did he.
“That’s so beautiful. And how much effort did that take you?” He asked.
“Not much,” I said.
Then he said something that struck me:
“Imagine that every time you connect to the present, you are connecting to God’s Grace. God’s Grace is in the world around you. And you don’t need to strive for grace. Receiving God’s Grace is effortless.”
At the end of the session, he asked me, “What do I want you to do right now?”
I told him, “I have the most consistent meditation practice I’ve ever had—twice a day for twenty minutes. But I still see violent flashes. Some are rooted in memory (smriti). Others are my mind imagining what happened when I was unconscious (vikalpa).”
I told him that what I take from this session is that whenever I see a violent flash, I can pause and connect to God’s Grace through the present moment. I can look at a flower, a leaf, a tree I’ve never seen before, and focus on it.
Rolf reminded me that grace is effortless. The Buddha did not strive for enlightenment - he simply touched the earth. We do not earn grace; we are only trying to unlearn the habit of separation and relearn the habit of oneness.
He told me, “You’ll want to write this down. The Buddha said to take refuge in three things. One of them is to take refuge in the way things are.”
“Throughout the day, take refuge in the way things are—not the story your mind tells you, but the actual way things are.”
“The way things are is how they smell, how they feel, how they look, how they sound.”
“The more often you do this, the more often you’ll realize there is no reason to be attached to any story.”
“It’s not the stories we make. They’re not the way things are.”
I left this call with a deeper appreciation for my teacher and a gratitude we were able to have this conversation. I’m continuing to heal my relationships with men.
And I left it with a deeper understanding of presence, healing, and grace. When I find myself lost in the echoes of trauma, I will return to the way things are. To the smell of the air, the sound of the jungle, the sight of a single flower. Because grace is effortless. And healing happens in the present moment.
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