Imagination

Happy first new moon of the new year! *deep breath* Ah! Doesn’t a new beginning feel sweet? That energy of a fresh start can be light and expansive.

The start of my new year began with lots of rest (like, so much rest I was sick of sitting on the couch! It was glorious) and then a whirlwind of activity. I didn’t feel like I landed in my “normal” routine post-holiday until January 13th and by then my brain was telling me that the month was almost half over. It felt like I missed the start of the year! Which is silly because the calendar year is a human made structure and thank goodness for the moon cycle, which gives us fresh starts frequently and often!

Last weekend, thanks in part to the snowstorm that visited Minnesota, I finally cracked open my copy of The Body Keeps the Score that’s been sitting on the pile of books by my bed for almost exactly a year (I discovered early on that it was not a pre-bedtime book and never moved it to the coffee table where I would see it…).

I’ve been thinking about this one concept a lot since I read it and I’d love to share it with you about:

the healing power of our imaginations

In this part of the book, the author Dr. Bessle Van Der Kolk is working on a study with veterans where they show the ink blot image and have them share what they see (the Rorschach test). What they found was the vets would either only just see the image as is (aka a blot of ink) or they would be brought back to the one traumatic image from being in war. Their trauma had effected their imagination.

He writes:

Imagination is absolutely critical to the quality of our lives. Our imagination enables us to leave our routine everyday existence by fantasizing about travel, food, sex, falling in love, or having the last word - all things that make life interesting. Imagination gives us the opportunity to envision new possibilities - it is an essential launchpad for making our hopes come true. It fires our creativity, relieves our boredom, alleviates our pain, enhances our pleasure, and enriches our most intimate relationships. When people are compulsively and constantly pulled back into the past, to the time they felt intense involvement and deep emotions, they suffer form a failure of imagination, a loss of mental flexibility. Without imagination there is no hope, no chance to envision a better future, no place to go, no goal to reach. - Bessel Van Der Kolk, MD

On one hand, I knew this. I use imagination every day in my healing and meditation practice by visualizing and tapping into that elusive feeling of energy.

On the other hand, I hadn’t heard imagination described in this way and was delighted to read a scientist and researcher’s take on it. Often, I find myself thinking of imagination as something we do as children. That art of make-believe that was fun and carefree as youth. BUT WE ACTUALLY HAVE THIS TOOL AVAILABLE TO US ALL THE TIME.

The other point that was important for me to read was how trauma can freeze our mental flexibility, where we might lose our imaginations while being stuck in a memory or painful moment of our past. All of us have experienced trauma in some way and this is why I love breathwork in collaboration with therapy and other healing modalities. When we feel safe and held, we can use our breath to loosen and soften the trauma from the somatic memory of our being and release it from our bodies gently in order to re-invigorate our imaginations and create space for a different story to lead our lives.

In honor of the new moon, now is the perfect time to practice using the healing power of your imagination.

Plant some seeds for your new beginning and your new year.

Do you need more self-care in your day to day? Use your imagination to visualize what that would look and feel like?

Do you need to ask for more help? What would that look and feel like?

Do you have a project or desire that’s ready to be worked on, created, brought into fruition?

What can you plan for yourself as something to look forward to and work towards over the coming cycles and seasons?

To close, here’s my new moon wish for you: that you find some sweet time to yourself. That you feel inspired by your heart’s wishes. That you use your colorful imagination to fantasize about how beautiful life is capable of being. That you remember you can START anytime and doesn’t “NOW” sound nice? That you embrace YOUR timing as you pay attention to the earth/season’s timing. And that you feel the love I’m sending from my warm heart to yours.

Full Moon Guided Grounding Meditation

Yesterday was the last full moon of the decade on 12/12, today is FRIDAY THE 13TH, and tomorrow is my birthday - a week out from the Winter Solstice! It feels like there’s so much going on cosmically and in our earthly lives.

I’m really excited about it and want to do all the things to celebrate such moments, but also, last night I was EXHAUSTED. After working a long day at one of my part time jobs, the only thing I wanted to do was slouch on the couch with my man and pup while gazing and basking in the light of our Christmas tree.

So this is a little reminder to you and to me that we don’t have to do all the things, all the time.

The special events that happen in the cosmos and the cycles of the moon and the changes of the seasons are not meant to add more stress to your life or add shame for not completing your to-do list.

They are an invitation to remember to do things with intention.

To pay attention to the inner wisdom of your body. To listen to the inspiration from the stars. They are an opportunity to make time for the things that are sacred in a way that feels uplifting and fulfilling.

And making things sacred doesn’t need to take a lot of time or be super elaborate (although it’s fun to do that too). You can literally just take 5 minutes to feel your feet on the floor, close your eyes, and breathe into your heart. You can take a few minutes gazing at the candle light or the twinkle lights in your space before diving into bed (that was me yesterday!) The full moon energy extends beyond the one day of it’s fullness, so you can still take a moment to honor the fullness of yourself now.

I made you a quick little guided grounding meditation in case you need it as we round out the end of the year, which you can listen to on your device here whenever you need it:

Guided Grounding Meditation

May you find little pockets of moments for deep breaths, big dreams, child-like wonder, relaxing rest, and grounded energy. xo!

Don't Forget to Look Up

The river was looking quite beautiful in a way I haven’t seen recently at the dog park this morning and it wasn’t until I snapped these photos that I realized, oh, there’s a blue sky out today! The blue hue I was witnessing in the water was the river mirroring the sky because the brightness of the sun was filtered by the few patches of clouds covering it. Which made me think of a few things - I’d like to share in case it resonates with you too:

DON’T FORGET TO LOOK UP

Sometimes when we are in the autopilot of our routines, patterns of our traditions, or with our nose to the grindstone of our schedules, we forget there are also other options, perspectives, avenues of doing things differently and maybe even more aligned with who we are and who we are becoming. A playful practice in being more present is to take in all of the stimulus from where you are through all of your senses. What does it feel like, sound like, taste like, smell like? What else, what if, why not?

ALLOW YOUR ENERGY TO EXTEND BEYOND THE CROWN OF YOUR HEAD

When we get stuck in our minds or feel alone and disconnected, our crowns can be blocked. Take a moment, if you like, to breathe in deeply and imagine your energy going out the top of your head and expanding into the sky, like tree branches. When we do this, we are tapping into the infinite energy of POSSIBILITY that feeds our creativity and helps us to feel more connected to all that is in the cosmos. For myself, I can sometimes be so focused on being grounded that I forget to also feel into that spaciousness of being “skied”.

WHO OR WHAT IS BEING A MIRROR FOR YOU RIGHT NOW?

What situations or relationships are wanting to teach you something about yourself? When we are drawn to people, irritated by something, feeling the heat of anger or passion, we are being offered the invitation for some self-reflection, self-study, self-compassion, and self-healing. What lesson is showing up for you? How can you love all parts of you more fully?

Gratitude to Nature for sending us these reminders and thank you for giving them a read. As always, take what resonates with your inner Truth and leave what doesn’t!

Fall Back into Seasons, Ancestors, and Sorrow

We’ve turned our clocks back, the temperature is dropping (depending on where you live), and our evenings are filled with more darkness. How is your body adjusting?

One of the important pieces of my healing journey has been tuning into the lessons from nature (I know I write a lot about nature!).

Being a recovering perfectionist and, dare I say, workaholic, I’ve been known to push myself to exhaustion a number of times. So it was so relieving to discover that my energy, body, system and true nature are actually just like Nature. I don’t have to push myself to produce and be productive all of the time. There is a time for sowing, growing, blooming, dying, and hibernating. There is actual value in slowing down, resting, and the space BEFORE growing happens. I love this term I learned from Kate Northrup : THE FERTILE VOID. It may feel like nothing is happening there. But it’s the space for planting the seeds of what will be.

{Image by @rockinruksi }

So if we are living our lives in spirals, rhythms, and non-linear beingness, what is this particular season asking of you?

Is it asking you to slow down and find more rest? Is it asking you to release some things like the leaves of the trees? Is it asking you for warm foods, warm layers, warm friends? Are you needing more vitamins and minerals, bodywork, quiet time, social time, sauna/sweat sessions? What does your heart need?

This season of autumn is potent time to connect to our ancestors and loved ones who have passed.

Invite them to join you at the dinner table with lighting a candle. Pull out some photographs and devote a space in your home for them to be seen. Connect with your well ancestors and loved ones through meditation, prayer, breathwork, your spiritual practice. Journal about what their struggles where, what they enjoyed, what harm they might’ve caused, what good they did, and what lineage patterns are ready to be healed.

Fall is a season of endings, decay, transitions, and grief.

Which is not the most comfortable things to feel and go through, so make sure you’re giving yourself enormous amounts of self-compassion. We can honor our sorrow and all the feels that come up around endings and transitions by doing similar practices as celebrating our ancestors: light a candle for it, provide a space for it to be seen, meditate, pray, breathe for it, journal about it. Talk to someone about it, create art with it, trust your intuition around how your heart wants to express.

For me, fall is also about GRATITUDE and I am so grateful you are here with me on this journey.

To close, I’d like to share this Blessing for the Center by Starhawk from her book Earth Path:

We give thanks and gratitude for the center, the heart and the hearth, and for the complex and beautiful patterns of life. We give thanks for the flow of sap through branches, water through rivers, blood through our veins. Thanks for the spiral vine and the sunflower, the daisy and the dandelion, the sunburst and the star. We bless the random element that brings freedom into the pattern, and thank the weaver of the web of life for teaching us that all is interconnected. May we be aware of our patterns, able to change those that do not serve us and to cherish and strengthen those that do. May the cycles of the moon's and the sun's journeys through the year help us remember that light arises from dark, rebirth from death. Blessings on the cycles, the patterns, and the center.