Honoring everyday miracles through compassion, mindfulness, and spiritual discovery.
The posts in this journal are not and should never be taken as advice ( medical or otherwise). They are a sharing of my practice and experiences which you may find useful as prompts for your own exploration.
The sun rises this morning over a great deal of tragedies.
Now-days we have such constant communication with each other and the world’s trauma. What. A. Blessing.
The internet and social media may be just the tool we needed to break the spell of severance that has numbed us for so long. Fairytales are not to be read word for word, they are secret messages. The only way some Truths can find their way to the future. Re-read sleeping beauty as a metaphor of our times. Hmm, is it love which saves humanity?
The reason everything feels so heavy and you feel so powerless is because you’ve been trained to feel that way. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s just plainly written, even in our very well scripted history books. Plain and simple.
With great privilege comes great responsibility and it is your responsibility to train your body, heart, mind, and culture to stay with the excruciatingly pain of our times. Because it will indeed be our times, it will be ongoing. The ache of today is from those who looked away or, only at themselves, for centuries. Do you want that legacy? Or do you want to be part of the legacy of peace? Those teachers, peace-makers, activists and community leaders have a legacy too- it’s much harder to hear and see over the violence. But it’s there, woven into your hope.
The first wars were over diminishing resources. The last wars will be over diminishing resources. But we get to decide if they are the last because we finally drove ourselves to extinction or if they are the last because we finally grew up. Grew into fully mature humans capable of balancing their nervous systems, reasoning, compassion, and using the magic of our brilliant brains to solve problems together. WE right now get to decide. No one asked if we wanted responsibility- they just passed it down the line to us. So, now we must find a way.
This is all my work, helping us train our bodies and spirits for peace. We cannot find peace because we haven’t invited ourselves into the “space” where we can access those solutions. We can’t even dream them up in our current state.
You must train yourself to tolerate fear and panic and pain in yourself and another. Not so you can “make it through” but so that you can feel it. I challenge you today to find just one tragedy which moves you and let yourself really mourn. Maybe post to your stories on social media. Why? Because mourning is meant to be done together. This digital connection fosters that. Maybe we cannot get physically handle being together, all together, in our grief. But we can practice.
It is from that primal wail of collective grief that peace will be restored.
I don’t really know where to start with this conversation. So we will just start here.
I have to spend my days doing something that brings income into my family. I have creatively figured out how to do that as a self employed person, while remaining true to myself and the life I want to lead, for almost 20 years. I am good at it. I’m phenomenal at what I do, and I’ve found a way to make a living doing that. Also, while in the midst of a business transition there was a global pandemic and I’ve had to change my business plan too many times to remember. Still here, creatively. I’ve offered programs that were essential and valuable while we navigated these trying times. I was able to do that because I was already studying what we needed with the foresight that these situations would arise. As people opened back up and returned to the world, and the government stopped being concerned about the economy - many of us who are self employed still haven’t returned to business as usual.
Retreats are one of the most time efficient ways for me, and The Whole Health Center, and most spiritual teachers to make significant income. This is purely because that is what people are most comfortable signing up for ( we could teach you the same things for less cost to you and we try but not as many folks are interested). If not for COVID-19, I would have held probably 6 retreats in the last year and WHC at least that many. We were finally starting to breathe easy knowing that come fall we would be making full income again. But now, all of that is gone. I’ve had to cancel the first retreat and I cannot count on the others.
I need to reinvent all over again. Some days I think “I’ll just do some other job” but almost every day I get a message about how something that came through my work changed someone’s life in a profound way- and it’s really hard to give up on that. If I knew I didn’t have something we needed- I most definitely would not ask you all to participate.
I’m a great business person, I’m a great coach. I’m creative, and smart. Even before the pandemic I’ve had a lot of barriers, I’ve learned to identify them and work with them. I also have a lot of strengths. I’ve been running my own business and supporting The Whole Health Center with my children at home with me, and with non of our regular activities. I’m tired too.
And- I think I found a way forward.
In an effort to continue to support myself, my family, and continue my work- which i know is valuable, I have developed this plan. The plan to write the book that has been in development for years but I haven’t had the resources to make happen. However, with the possibility of no retreats for the foreseeable future, I have the time to work on the book. I will though, in order to give that time to this, need to know that my family is supported. If I receive 100 pre-orders before the date of the first canceled retreat ( September 16, 2021), I will write the book. I need to know we have readers before I can commit myself and my family to this project.
This book will feature The Nurtured Life Recipes ( which folks regularly contact me about) and stories, interviews, and research around the importance of food for healing our relationship with ourselves, each other and Earth. Food is an essential element in all our lives, it is a universal need among all our differences. Because we all require food, our diet is an ideal structure for collective healing. Through small changes in our attention regarding diet, nutrition, and mealtime rituals we can sooth the places deep within ourselves and our culture that are craving deep and lasting nourishment.
Pre-ordering this book is also a way to support me and show you value me, my work, and my efforts for our healing. I hope that even if you are not interested in recipes and food, you are interested in me. Without the success of this project, I may need to spend my days doing something that generates income for my family but does not utilize any of my strengths or gifts. This seems such a waste. Not only does this work I do bring me joy, but I know ( because people tell me) that it is good work that brings about healing and change.
When we talk about somatic and sensory experiences we tend to focus on emotions. Emotions are valuable and need our attention. Yet, emotions are the result of deeper somatic and sensory experiences we are dismissing ( or just missing) because of how disengaged (severed) our consciousness has become from our bodies. It is this attention, articulation, awareness system where the severance is occurring. Your body is in constant connection with your inner and outer worlds. It is processing data/phenomenon constantly. Your body is processing in RESPONSE to stimuli inside and outside your body. The light. The wind, the smell of a baby, the taste of a strawberry, the texture of your clothes. Food ingested. The nervous systems of other people.
When we give attention to this response our mind begins to articulate (clarify) the sensory information. Usually, its not a formal statement, but a feeling. If we are curious or the experience is novel, or we are on a healing journey, we might formally articulate with language the experience our bodies are having. And, we don’t always need this formal articulation ( it takes too long to be functional for everyday life). However, we cannot have the full everyday articulation experience without the full sensory experience. If we are lacking attention/ability to feel phenomena with our bodies, we are lacking information and we cannot articulate that experience fully with our minds. This is dangerous. We won’t recognize fundamental differences in experiences or which stimuli requires action, we may misinterpret ourselves, others, and our environment. We will be unable to develop full awareness. With hampered sensory awareness we won’t be able to articulate ( clarify/feel) feelings; empathy and resulting compassion are less accessible. For ourselves, and therefore for others.
Awareness happens when stimuli is given attention and is articulated ( clarified) by the mind so that an understanding is reached within the spirit. Attention is given to the texture, smell, appearance of stimuli, the mind recognizes the phenomena and clarifies points about the data; awareness is developed: “This is a ripe strawberry”. When this happens, the chain links CONNECT. This gives our body another sensation, the sensation of knowing. The sensation of Truth. Our bodies gave us sensations from stimuli, and we processed it through the chain of articulation and awareness. In response to those connections our body experiences a sense of calm, contentment. “oh, good, they are aware it is a ripe strawberry”. ( singular presence)
When we do not live life with this attentive devotion to our sensory experience, our bodies act pretty concerned. They are processing stimuli and “no one” is articulating it into awareness. The chain remains open, the body remains seeking. Sometimes the body de-sensitizes to the stimuli. The senses become less attuned, unable to gather as much data from the environment inside or outside of ourselves.
When we do live life with attentive devotion, little links are made each and every moment connecting our sensory experience to awareness. Each little closed link-system connects with others to inform us. Our bodies are relaxed even in the face of tragedy because “they” know “we” are aware, we understand. (Collective presence) All of these connected links and our relaxed mind/body/spirit state allow us to engage the world with trust and confidence.
I have been observing this system for decades. I witness clients mending this system within themselves.
As we start to recognize the severance we have within ourselves, with each other, Nature, and the divine- it is important to clarify your body isn’t telling you how you feel, your body is feeling. Your mind is telling you how you feel, when mind and body make the connections that match, awareness is developed. The body, mind, and spirit are at ease even in the face of challenges. When we feel dis-ease, that is the body asking we give our attention to stimuli.
What sensory data is my body experiencing, what needs clarification/articulation?
This is all enlightenment is, an experience when all the little links are connected for a brief moment. This is psychic ability, or intuition. Anyone can give more attention to the stimuli and have greater awareness- greater wisdom. We just need to re-tune our sensors and let them feel fully again. It will take practice, but we can mend. The more attention you give your sensory experience, the more sensitive you become to sensory experiences. The more sensitive you become to your bodies response to stimuli, the more information your mind has to clarify each experience, the greater your opportunity for awareness. If we opened ourselves up to our full capacity to sense and respond, our world would look and be very different.
Mending this attentive devotion system is fundamental to healing Earth or systems of oppression- because it is the disengagement of our attentive devotion which has allowed us to harm Earth and each other.
