anxiety – Page 4 – Crow and Flame

The Wolf and the Raven: A Wild Lesson in Companionship, Healing, and the Parts of Ourselves That Still Believe in Each Other

There’s a language spoken in the forests long before humans learned to name their wounds. A quiet, instinctive agreement between a creature of the sky and a creature of the earth:

the raven and the wolf.

They move through the world like a promise made in the dark—

one who sees,

one who hunts,

both who trust.

And if you listen closely, their partnership begins to echo something almost unbearably human.

Ravens call to wolves with a voice sharp as cold air, guiding them toward what waits beyond the next ridge. They are the mapmakers of the sky, tracing possibilities into the wind.

Sometimes, in our hardest seasons, we need a “raven” in our lives—

someone whose view isn’t blurred by the storm in our chest.

Someone who can see the exit when all we see are walls.

Someone who whispers, “This way. There’s more for you than the fear you’re standing in.”

It is sacred work, letting another person widen your world.

And terrifying, if you spent years learning not to rely on anyone.

Wolves crack open the heavy carcasses that ravens cannot enter alone. They make the impossible reachable.

Healing feels like that sometimes—

standing before a memory too large to approach,

a grief too dense to hold,

a story your hands are too tired to pry open.

Then someone sits beside you—

a friend, a therapist, a partner,

someone who doesn’t flinch at your trembling—

and their presence becomes the strength you borrow.

Not because you are weak,

but because some doors were never meant to be unlocked alone.

Ravens have been known to watch over wolf pups—dark wings protecting small bodies, calling warnings into the trees.

Wolves return the favor simply by being wolves:

loyal, fierce, unyielding in their devotion.

In human terms, this looks like the people who check on you after the panic attack hits.

The ones who notice when your voice goes small.

The ones who remind you what’s real when trauma drags you into yesterday.

The ones who say, “I’m here,” and mean it with their whole being.

Healing is not self-sufficiency.

Healing is safe connection.

In old stories, the wolf and raven appear as sacred companions.

Strength and sight.

Instinct and intuition.

Earth and sky.

Together, they represent a truth we resist but desperately need:

We are not meant to heal the parts of us that howl without also listening to the parts that know how to fly.

Inside you, there is a wolf—

the survivor,

the fighter,

the part that made sure you stayed alive.

Inside you, there is a raven—

the intuitive one,

the watcher,

the part that knows when it’s time to soften.

Healing happens when they stop tearing each other apart.

When your strength learns to trust your sensitivity.

When your vigilance stops mistaking safety for danger.

When your intuition is no longer exiled from the pack.

The Wild Truth: We Heal Through Partnership, Not Isolation.

The wolf does not apologize for needing the raven.

The raven does not shrink for needing the wolf.

There is no shame in interdependence.

Only survival woven into something beautiful.

Maybe we are more like them than we realize—

built for connection,

wired for companionship,

meant to be seen from above and protected from beside.

Maybe the part of you that is tired of being strong is simply longing for a raven.

Maybe the part of you that sees too much from the sky is longing for a wolf.

Either way, both parts belong.

Both parts are sacred.

Both parts deserve a place in the story of your healing.

Feral Instinct

There’s a moment trauma survivors know all too well: that sudden snap inside the body, the way your chest tightens, the world narrows, and something ancient wakes up behind your ribs. It’s not logic. It’s not personality. It’s instinct.

Being triggered isn’t a dramatic response — it’s a survival response.

It feels like being an animal suddenly backed into a corner.

A quiet room becomes a cave with no exits.

A raised voice becomes the sound of snapping branches.

A harmless question becomes the echo of a threat you didn’t choose to remember.

Inside, the nervous system goes feral.

Not unhinged.

Not irrational.

Just scared.

And like any cornered creature, you don’t rise into grace — you shrink, bare teeth, freeze, or scramble for any way out. Your body floods with the same chemicals it would use if it were trying to escape a predator. You become adrenaline and instinct. Your heart beats so loud you swear it could warn the whole forest.

But here’s the part trauma survivors rarely get told:

You’re not reacting to the present. You’re reacting to a past you never got to escape.

Your body learned what danger felt like the hard way.

It learned what to fear.

It learned that sometimes the world is not safe — and that survival means moving fast, protecting yourself, shutting down, or disappearing.

So when you feel triggered, your body isn’t being dramatic.

It’s being loyal.

It’s being protective.

It’s being the animal you had to become to survive.

But healing is learning that you’re not cornered anymore.

Little by little, breath by breath, experience by experience, you teach your body that the walls aren’t closing in. You teach your instinct that this time you’re safe. You teach your nervous system that it can soften without being swallowed.

And eventually, the wild creature inside learns she doesn’t have to roar, freeze, run, or hide at every shadow.

She can rest.

She can look around.

She can trust her surroundings.

She can step out of the corner and back into the open.

You are not the scared animal you once had to be — you are the one tending to her now.

And that is the quiet, feral miracle of healing.

When You Don’t Trust the Good

When Your Nervous System Doesn’t Trust the Good Yet

There’s a strange ache that comes with healing — the way good things can feel unsettling, suspicious, or even dangerous. We talk so much about trauma as fear, pain, and survival, but we rarely talk about the quiet, bewildering truth that safety can be just as triggering as threat when you’ve never known it consistently.

You finally find calm, love, softness, or stability… and instead of relaxing, your body flinches.

Your brain whispers, “This is too good to be true.”

But the truth you were never told:

“Too Good to Be True” Isn’t Intuition — It’s Injury

So many trauma survivors confuse their hypervigilance with intuition. We think the tightening in our chest is a warning. We think the urge to pull away is wisdom. We think the part of us that scans for danger is the same part that “just knows.”

But hypervigilance is not intuition — it’s your nervous system replaying old wounds, trying to protect you from pain that already passed.

Your body learned that good things were temporary, conditional, or secretly unsafe.

Your nervous system learned that relief was always followed by impact.

Your younger self learned to prepare for the drop instead of trust the moment.

So now, when kindness shows up… you wait for the cost.

When someone is consistent… you look for the flaw.

When life feels steady… you start bracing for the break.

This isn’t your gut speaking.

This is your history.

And still — there is hope in noticing it.

Awareness is the first doorway to choosing differently.

The Soft Grief of Realizing You’ve Never Felt Safe Enough to Receive

Healing isn’t just receiving good things.

It’s grieving the version of you who never got to.

The version who clenched through love.

Who apologized for needing softness.

Who swallowed joy before it could take root.

Who learned to earn everything, trust nothing, and carry the weight alone.

There is a gentle, delicate grief in realizing:

I didn’t know how to relax before. My body didn’t understand safe touch or consistent care. I never learned how to let good things land, because I never believed I could keep them.

This grief is tender — not dramatic.

It shows up like a sigh you didn’t know you were holding.

Like tears that fall when someone holds your hand too gently.

Like the surprising ache of finally being met where you always deserved to be met.

It isn’t weakness.

It’s the emotional residue of a life lived armored.

Let yourself feel the loss of what you didn’t receive.

It makes space for what you can receive now.

Reprogramming Your Body to Believe in Calm

Safety isn’t just a mindset — it’s a physiological experience your body has to learn over time.

Here are gentle, practical somatic ways to begin teaching your nervous system that calm isn’t a setup for harm, but a place you’re allowed to live:

1. Grounding: “I am here. I am now.”

Feel your feet on the floor.

Press your palms together.

Notice the weight of your body supported by a chair or bed.

This tells your system: We are in the present. We are not back there anymore.

2. Breath that signals safety, not survival

Slow exhales activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

Try:

Inhale for 4 Exhale for 6 Repeat 6–10 cycles

Longer exhales whisper to the body, We are not in danger.

3. Orienting: Look at your environment

Let your gaze move slowly around the room.

Name what you see.

Let your eyes land on something comforting.

This is how your brain rewires threat perception: through real-time reminders that nothing bad is happening.

4. Co-regulation: Borrowing calm from safe people

If you have someone you trust — a partner, friend, therapist, pet — allow your nervous system to settle in their presence.

Steady breathing.

A warm hug.

Shared silence.

You don’t have to calm yourself by yourself every time. Humans are wired to regulate together.

You Aren’t Wrong for Struggling to Trust the Good

You’re not sabotaging.

You’re not broken.

You’re not incapable of receiving.

Your nervous system is simply doing what it was trained to do — protect you at all costs, even at the expense of joy.

But with awareness, gentleness, and practice, the body can relearn.

It can soften.

It can trust again.

It can rest.

And one day, you’ll notice that the good no longer feels dangerous.

It feels familiar.

It feels possible.

It feels like home.

The Crows Who Kept Me Alive

There were versions of me I used to resent—

the overthinking one, the one with her guard welded to her ribs,

the one who could never rest because she believed the world would collapse

the moment she dared to exhale.

For a long time, I thought these versions were flaws I needed to fix.

Parts of me I should hide or outgrow.

Evidence that I was “too much,” “too serious,” “too damaged.”

But healing has a strange way of shifting the lighting on your own story.

And when I look back now, I see something different.

I see a girl who learned to survive with the tools she had.

I see a woman who adapted faster than she ever should’ve needed to.

I see protectors—imperfect, yes, but loyal in their own rough-edged way.

There was the Hyper-Independent One,

the version of me who believed asking for help was a burden.

She carried everything—grief, responsibility, guilt, expectations—

until her spine bent under the load.

She didn’t trust anyone to stay, so she trusted no one at all.

And the truth is: she kept me safe when I didn’t have anyone.

There was the Perfectionist,

the girl who sharpened herself into something unbreakable.

If she never messed up, no one could punish her.

If she kept every room spotless, every word edited,

maybe the chaos around her would be a little less loud.

She was terrified of disappointing anyone,

and she tried so hard to earn a sense of safety she never should’ve had to earn.

There was the Silent One,

who swallowed her needs so no one would think she was weak.

She held entire storms inside her chest because she didn’t know

that feelings are meant to move through you, not calcify.

She believed stillness equaled strength.

But she was just trying not to drown.

There was the Vigilant One,

a shadow leaning forward in every room,

scanning faces, predicting shifts in tone,

anticipating danger that wasn’t there anymore.

She was tired all the time.

But she kept watch because no one ever kept watch for her.

All of these versions—

the too much, the too quiet, the too strong,

the “why am I like this?” versions—

they weren’t mistakes.

They were guardians.

They did not fail me.

They saved me.

But here’s the truth healing demands:

sometimes the things that kept you alive

cannot carry you into the life you’re building now.

So I’ve been learning to thank them,

to sit with each version like an old friend,

to tell them,

You did your job.

You kept me alive.

You don’t have to run the show anymore.

I can take it from here.

The hardest part of healing isn’t letting go of the past—

it’s letting go of the selves you became to survive it.

And maybe that’s the quiet miracle of all this:

recognizing that I’m not broken,

I’m simply evolving—

gently, slowly, into someone who doesn’t have to fight so hard

just to exist.

Someone who is allowed to rest.

Someone who is allowed to need.

Someone who is allowed to be held.

Someone who is, finally, safe.

Slow Down

Today I woke up with that familiar tightness in my chest—the kind that whispers, “You’re already behind,” before your eyes even fully open.

It’s strange how quickly the mind can sprint, even when the body is still heavy with sleep.

Some mornings, the world expects too much from a heart that’s still learning how to be gentle with itself.

I felt the old patterns rising—the urge to rush, to achieve, to fix everything before the sun even climbs the sky.

The part of me that believes I have to earn rest.

The part that thinks pausing means I’m doing something wrong.

But today, I recognized the weight for what it was: not failure, not weakness, just a quiet signal from my body asking for care.

So I did something I don’t always give myself permission to do.

I stopped.

I sat in the stillness, letting the noise inside me settle the way dust does when the room finally stops shaking.

And without even trying, I felt myself soften—just a little at first, like the loosening of a fist that’s been clenched for far too long.

In that small, sacred pause, I realized how often I treat myself like a machine—always producing, always proving, always pushing through.

But I’m not a machine.

I’m human.

I’m healing.

I’m learning.

And healing doesn’t happen when I’m sprinting.

It happens in the space I create between the inhale and the exhale.

In the moments I decide to stay instead of run.

In the quiet courage it takes to feel my own emotions without judging them.

Today I gave myself permission to exist without performing.

To breathe without rushing.

To feel without apologizing.

And in that choosing, something shifted.

I remembered that slowing down is not the same as giving up.

It’s not avoidance, or laziness, or lack of drive.

Slowing down is an act of wisdom.

A form of self-respect.

A way of saying, “My well-being matters more than my pace.”

Maybe you needed that reminder too.

Maybe you’ve been stretching yourself thin, giving the world more than you’ve been giving yourself.

Maybe your body has been whispering what your mind refuses to hear:

You cannot heal in a state of constant urgency.

So here is the truth I’m choosing today, and maybe you can choose it with me:

You are allowed to slow down.

You are allowed to rest.

You are allowed to take up space without hustling for it.

You are allowed to be a work in progress and still deserving of tenderness.

Healing doesn’t demand speed.

It asks for presence.

It asks for honesty.

It asks for patience.

Today, I honored that.

Today, I met myself with softness instead of pressure.

Today, I chose to breathe in a way that reminded my body it is safe.

And in the quiet, I found myself again—steady, grounded, and whole, even in my becoming.

The Apology that I Keep Chasing

There is a particular weight my tongue knows too well—

the shape of sorry before the story even unfolds.

I have carried it like a feather soaked in rain,

heavy, drooping, always threatening to fall at the slightest tremor of life.

Somewhere along the way, I taught myself that existing required explanation,

that breathing required justification,

that any ripple I caused—intentional or not—

demanded an immediate bow, a whispered apology,

a shrinking.

The Crow in me learned this first.

She perched on the fence line of all my younger years,

watching the world with sharp eyes, always calculating the safest path.

She knew that peace could be purchased with quick repentance,

that “sorry” was a shield against anger, disappointment, abandonment.

She meant well—she always does.

But ever since, she has mistaken her survival instincts

for a personality trait.

And then there is the Flame.

The part of me that burns bright and honest,

that wants to speak, to take up space, to exist without permission.

But every time she leans forward, warming the room,

the Crow swoops in with the same old offering:

Sorry.

Sorry for having needs.

Sorry for taking a moment too long.

Sorry for the tone I didn’t mean.

Sorry for the tone I didn’t even have.

Sorry for asking a question.

Sorry for not asking a question.

Sorry for being too much.

Sorry for not being enough.

The apology becomes a smoke signal—

but not the kind that calls for help.

The kind that warns people away from the fire

before they ever feel its warmth.

Lately, though, I’ve been listening to the Flame more.

She flickers against my ribs, whispering that maybe the world

doesn’t crumble when I exist without shrinking.

Maybe the people who love me

don’t need my constant self-erasure to stay.

Maybe I don’t owe anyone an apology

for simply being human.

The Crow resists, of course.

Old survival patterns die like stars—

slowly, beautifully, in bursts of light and grief.

But even she is learning that presence is not a crime,

and taking up space is not an act of war.

And so I practice new words:

“Thank you for waiting.”

“I appreciate your patience.”

“I hear you.”

“I’m here.”

And sometimes—beautifully, bravely—

I say nothing at all.

No shrinking.

No bending.

No burning myself down just to make others comfortable.

The Flame glows a little brighter.

The Crow settles her wings, unafraid to perch in the open.

And for the first time,

I feel like I’m learning the language of living

without apology.

Guided Meditation- Campfire

Find a comfortable position—sitting or lying down. Let your body settle.

Take a slow, gentle breath in… and out.

Again… in… and out.

Now, imagine yourself stepping into a quiet clearing in the woods.

It’s night, and the air carries that crisp, unmistakable scent of autumn—cool, earthy, clean.

The sky is deep and dark, sprinkled with stars that seem to shimmer with their own soft breath.

In front of you is a campfire.

The flames are low and steady, glowing amber and gold, dancing in slow, deliberate waves.

You walk toward it and feel the warmth reach you before you even sit down.

Choose a place close enough to feel comforted, far enough to feel safe.

You settle in.

The ground beneath you is cool, the air just a hint cold on your cheeks,

but the fire casts a gentle blanket of warmth over your front side.

Breathe into that contrast—everything balanced, everything in harmony.

Listen.

There’s the soft crackle of wood, each pop like a tiny spark of life.

A log shifts, glowing deeper, and the fire responds with a warm sigh.

The wind moves through the trees, slow and hushed, as if the whole forest is exhaling with you.

Breathing in…

you inhale the scent of burning cedar and fallen leaves.

Breathing out…

you release whatever weight you brought with you tonight.

Feel your shoulders drop.

Feel your jaw soften.

Feel the muscles around your eyes ease.

Let your belly expand naturally with each breath—no forcing, no striving.

Above you, a leaf drifts down, landing near your foot.

You notice its shape, its faded color, its edges curled from the season’s chill.

Let it remind you: it is natural to change.

It is natural to let go.

It is natural to rest.

The fire glows brighter for a moment,

as if it recognizes you—your tiredness, your effort, your bravery.

It doesn’t ask anything of you.

It simply burns, offering warmth without demand.

Let yourself mirror that simplicity.

Nothing to solve right now.

Nothing to prove.

Just the quiet presence of your breath

and the steady heartbeat of the fire.

Take another slow inhale…

and exhale even slower.

Feel the peace of this moment settle into you, like warm embers beneath your ribs.

Let it linger.

Let it stay.

When you’re ready, gently bring awareness back to your body.

Wiggle your fingers, your toes.

Feel whatever surface supports you.

Carry this warmth with you as you return.

It is yours whenever you need it—

this fire, this stillness, this breath.

Dream of Fighting Back

For years, my nightmares were reruns my mind never stopped airing—dark corridors of memory where I was assaulted again and again. The dreams didn’t just revisit the past; they replayed my helplessness. They held me hostage in a story I never chose.

For a long time, I woke up shaken, sweat-soaked, heart pounding like it was trying to outrun the past. I would lie there, staring at the ceiling, trying to convince myself I was safe, even while my body insisted I wasn’t. Trauma has a way of blurring time like that. It’s hard to feel the present when your nervous system is stuck in the past.

So I began writing it out with my therapist. Not to relive it, but to untangle it. To give shape to the shadows. To say, “Here is what happened,” and then slowly learn to say, “And here is who I am now.”

Putting the dreams on paper felt like cracking open a locked door. It let in air. It let in truth. It let in possibility.

And then came something unexpected: talking to my martial arts instructor about how to change the ending.

Not metaphorically. Literally.

We walked through the moments that haunted me. We broke them down, named them, reframed them. We practiced how I would move—how I could defend myself, break grips, angle my body, use my voice, create space. We practiced what my body could do when it wasn’t frozen in fear. Strength over silence. Skill over shock.

For the first time, I wasn’t replaying the trauma. I was rewriting the narrative.

In real life, I pray there is never a “next time.” But if there is, I now know something that my nightmares never showed me: I am not powerless. I am not cornered. I am not at the mercy of the story that once swallowed me whole.

And something shifted.

I still dream—but now I fight back.

The dreams haven’t vanished. But the endings are different. I am different. In the places where I used to be frozen, I now see myself moving. In the scenes where I used to collapse, I now stand up. My subconscious—once a battlefield—has started to understand that I am capable, that I am stronger than I’ve ever been, that the fear isn’t the only truth.

This isn’t about glorifying survival. It’s about honoring the quiet, steady courage of reclaiming your body, your voice, your story. Healing doesn’t erase the nightmares, but sometimes it teaches you how to walk through them with your hands open, your stance grounded, your breath steady.

And one day, maybe the dreams will stop.

But until then, I’m not running anymore.

I’m fighting back.

Triggers

Tonight, I tried to soften.

I tried to breathe slowly, to anchor myself in the present, to speak gently to the parts of me that were trembling. I did everything I’ve learned to do—the grounding, the reminders, the slow orientation back into the room. I told myself I was safe.

And still, it wasn’t enough.

There are moments in healing no one warns you about—the moments when all the coping skills in the world feel like trying to stop a tidal wave with cupped hands. When you reach for softness and your body is too overwhelmed to accept it. When the logic of “I’m safe now” disappears under the weight of old fear that still knows your name.

Tonight was one of those moments.

People talk about healing like it’s a series of successes, as if every trigger should be met with wisdom and calm responses. But sometimes I get pulled under. Sometimes the past is louder than my breath, more vivid than the room I’m standing in. Sometimes my nervous system doesn’t listen to the gentleness I offer.

And that doesn’t mean I’ve failed.

It means the trauma was loud.

It means the memory was strong.

It means my brain was doing what it learned a long time ago to survive.

Sometimes I can soften into the moment.

Sometimes I can’t.

Both are part of healing.

Tonight, I didn’t find comfort. I didn’t win the battle with my own body. I didn’t light a candle and breathe my way back into peace. I shook. I spiraled. I felt myself slipping into a place that didn’t feel safe, even though I knew logically nothing around me was dangerous.

But here is the quiet truth I’m holding onto:

Not every moment of healing will feel triumphant.

Not every trigger will dissolve.

Not every grounding technique will soothe.

And even on the nights when nothing works, I am still surviving them.

Sometimes, the win is simply staying—staying in the body, in the moment long enough to feel it pass. Sometimes the only courage I have is not giving up on myself even when I can’t calm myself.

This wasn’t a soft night.

It wasn’t a poetic night.

It was a survival night.

And survival still counts.

Even when it feels messy.

Even when it feels like failure.

Even when it feels like the past swallowed the present whole.

Healing isn’t only found in the moments you rise.

It’s also found in the moments you endure.

The Strength to Be Soft

There was a time when I believed strength meant never needing anyone.

If I could carry it all, hold it all together, and never ask for help — that meant I was strong. If I could keep my voice steady, my smile convincing, my pain buried deep enough that no one could touch it, then I was safe.

I wore control like armor, perfection like a medal of honor. Every detail, every plan, every emotion managed — because if I let go, even for a second, everything might fall apart. I might fall apart.

Hyper-independence became my survival. It wasn’t confidence; it was self-preservation. It was the belief that the only person I could rely on was myself — because depending on others had once led to disappointment, abandonment, pain.

So I learned to be the strong one. The capable one. The one who didn’t flinch, didn’t falter, didn’t cry in public. The one who built her life with her own hands, brick by brick, wall by wall.

But here’s what I know now:

Walls keep you safe, but they also keep you lonely.

Control feels like protection until it becomes isolation.

Perfection feels like purpose until it becomes a prison.

Metal becomes strong not by resisting flame but by being reshaped within it. There’s a difference between steel that’s brittle and steel that’s tempered. One breaks under pressure. The other bends, flexes, adapts — because it’s been through the fire and come out changed.

I was brittle for years. I mistook my rigidity for strength. I thought if I just held on tighter, I wouldn’t break. But life, in its mercy, has a way of teaching softness through breaking us open.

Grief cracked me.

Loss hollowed me.

Love — real love — softened me.

And in that softening, I began to see that what I once called weakness was actually the most courageous act of all: to stay open, to stay kind, to let myself be seen without the armor.

The crow teaches this too. She is clever and resilient — but she also knows when to soar and when to rest. She doesn’t spend her life gripping the branch in fear of falling. She trusts her wings. She knows that flight isn’t control; it’s surrender to the wind.

I am learning that kind of trust.

To let life move me instead of trying to hold it still.

To believe that I can bend and not break.

To accept that sometimes, the truest strength is in the softening.

Softness, I’ve realized, is not the absence of pain — it’s the willingness to feel it. It’s the decision to stay human when it would be easier to harden. It’s crying when you need to. It’s saying “I can’t do this alone” and believing that doesn’t make you weak.

It takes strength to unclench your fists.

To stop fighting the world long enough to let it touch you.

To stop striving for perfection and start reaching for peace.

It takes strength to stay soft when you have every reason not to be.

There are days I still catch myself slipping back into old habits — reaching for control when I’m scared, hiding behind independence when I feel small. My instinct is still to fix, to manage, to perfect. But now I catch it. I breathe. I remind myself that I am safe even when I’m not in control.

I remind myself that survival taught me how to be strong — but healing is teaching me how to be soft.

There’s a quiet bravery in that shift. A surrender that isn’t giving up, but giving in — to trust, to love, to life itself.

Softness doesn’t mean I no longer have boundaries. It means I honor them with compassion instead of fear. It doesn’t mean I let everyone in. It means I let myself out — out of the armor, out of the constant vigilance, out of the illusion that I must carry everything alone.

Today, the flame that once burned me now refines me. The crow still perches on the edge of that heat, black feathers gleaming in the firelight, watching as I melt down what no longer serves me.

And when I emerge, I am not brittle anymore. I am tempered.

Soft, but unbreakable.

Gentle, but fierce.

Open, but grounded.

Because the strength it takes to stay soft — after everything that tried to harden you — is the kind of strength that builds worlds, that heals hearts, that transforms survival into living.

It is the strength that doesn’t shout, but breathes.

Doesn’t command, but trusts.

Doesn’t fight to prove it’s strong — because it already knows it is.