Writings From my Heart
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Wow, what a year it has been! I can not believe we are flowing into another summer season AND I am celebrating the first year of opening my healing studio in Central Square, Cambridge!
Right in this moment you are exactly who you need to be. All your choices and all your life experience has forged a path up until this point. All the hurt, all the stumbling, all the darkness as well as all the light, the love and joy has made you perfectly YOU.
This human process is intense but is also incredible if we look at it from a certain point of view.
The way that we are right now is the way that we have NEEDED to be up until this very moment. Literally. There is nothing wrong with that. These internal programs have created survival habits in us that have kept us functional in the environment we were raised. Isn’t that amazing? How beautifully strong and innately intelligent we are.
Then our life path pivots or we have a big aha moment (or two or ten) that wakes us up inside! It could come from an internal struggle or an event that pushes us to say, “Hey wait, this doesn’t work for me anymore. I want a new way of being in the world.”
That is our moment of choice!
I had the honor of being interviewed on Sustaining Creativity Podcast last night (episode coming out on February 15th). The conversation centered around how creativity shows up in my life and how I use it in my daily and it really got me thinking.
For me, it started out in childhood as art and dance and performing, but in my early life, I started realizing it was just the way I wanted to live my life. Through my work in the healing arts and a deep dive with meditation and breathwork, I realize my whole life is my creation.
Being spiritual is not determined by…
Whether you have a daily meditation practice or if you have experienced altered states of consciousness. Whether you have done Breathwork or Ayahuasca or Shamanic Journeys or Vision Quests. And it certainly isn’t determined by surrounding yourself with “spiritual” people or by how much spiritual knowledge you have or don’t have.
It’s interesting to take time and reflect on the question, “what are the stories we tell ourselves?"
Yesterday I had a heartfelt coaching session with a dear client of mine and once again I was struck by how much our stories dictate what we think we can accomplish. I could hear so much of my own story in hers. The same fears. The same doubts. The same stuck points.
The body is amazing! Twenty years ago I became fascinated with it. I was training to be a massage therapist and it was like I was discovering a foreign land. It felt as if I was finally, fully meeting myself as I learned about muscles and attachments; the vascular system, nervous system, and endocrine system. I was blown away by how each point of connection makes up who we are and how all the systems relied on each other to work as a whole.
Even before this pandemic hit, my forties have been about transition. From work to relationships, my entire life has been turned upside down these past five years. Testing my resilience and strength and trust beyond a place of comfort…that somehow the “falling apart” was to guide me towards growth…stretching me into a new person. And believe me, the faith to remain steady as my world crumbled has not been easy, but boy there have been some lessons learned. Here are a few insights I have grasped so far….
The first time I experienced Breathwork I dragged my feet all the way to NYC.
One of my close friends had been raving about this unique breathing practice and how she was experiencing profound healing from it. I thought, that’s cool… But how great can it be? And quite honestly, I was shut down to anything spiritual and anything involving group dynamics.
Our culture encourages us to move at a fast pace, and pushes us to accomplish, to “become somebody.” We all know this, but it’s hard not to get caught in the flow of what is supposed to be normal, so we put a lot of pressure on our bodies, living our days in a constant game of catch up and to-do lists! Our nervous systems are overloaded making us suffer from continuous surges of anxiety. We want the “sensation” of fear to go away so that we can feel better, but we don’t even know where to begin.