The Cost Of Loving

A couple weeks ago now, I had a breathwork session for myself and, since it was the first time breathing since my grandma passed, I knew there were a lot of tears to be shed. (I wrote a tribute to her on the socials here). True to form, my old friend Grief showed up with a slightly new flavor with this fresh new loss and I left the clinic with mascara-less eyelashes, but feeling a deep sense of groundedness and connection… a connection not only to both my loved ones and my grief, but to Life itself.

With the gentle witnessing of my space holder and the coaxing of my breath, I was able to allow the heart-cracking-open deep well of sadness fill my body as we acknowledged that my relationship with grief work is a special one. It takes bravery and courage and the willingness to be overtaken by however it wants to show up. Because no matter how often we’ve experienced grief in the past, it’s still hard. It often still hurts. Even with feeling connected to our loved ones beyond the veil, the space where their physical presence once was in our lives will always be missed.

In the last handful of years, I’ve had the blessing with the opportunity to walk two special people to the threshold between life and death, my grandma being the most recent one. I’m proud of myself for rising to the occasion. For showing up. Near the end of my breathwork session a couple weeks ago, an image of my dad popped in. An image of his cancer-ridden body near the end and I felt my heart say, “see Dad! I can do it! I can show up for this stage of life! My 12 year old body maybe didn’t know what to do with it all and I did the best I could, but I have the tools now to help me navigate and be here with it.”

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Because that’s the other thing about grief. Once you’ve experienced it, you know that the cost of loving is to feel the loss. We love despite the loss. Depending on how long I live and how deeply and openly I love (especially being a dog mama!), there are lots more opportunities for grief to come for me.

And my practice will be to not run away, but to stay and surf the waves and hold the space for all of it, as best as I can with the resources and capacity that I have.

That’s the cost of loving. And loving makes life worth living.

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My full moon wish for us is to honor our grief so we can continue to love deeply. xo!

Hannah Gadsby and the Power of Story

I finished Hannah Gadsby’s book Nanette last Saturday morning and I’ve been savoring each of its pages as I tried to figure out how to put into words for the past month and a half how much her work has meant to me. (If you’re unfamiliar with Hannah, which I was until earlier this year, she’s a comedian from Australia with a couple Netflix specials and years of experience in producing live comedy shows). I was gifted tickets to her show when she was touring in Minneapolis in July. The afternoon before the show, I watched her first Netflix show Nanette for the first time… just to make sure I was a little familiar with some of her body of work before seeing her newest show, Body Of Work.

I loved it. I laughed, I cried, I felt in awe at the weaver of story that she is and the powerful mark she was making while being a woman in art/comedy/the world.

Then, seeing her show live was one of the most transforming experiences I’ve had in a long while. I actually have tears in my eyes at how impactful and special it was just writing this now. The two hour show had me laughing more than I have in years. And laughing out loud with complete strangers felt so damn good! Being able to poke fun and laugh (while also inwardly groaning) at the jokes by an Australian that were made about the health care in this country, the messed up bans on peoples bodies, and the other dumpster fire mess we find ourselves in these days released a small layer of stress, despair, rage, and heaviness I’d been carrying and it felt like a healing sense of solidarity to be in a room of people who also felt similarly. A solidarity that’s different than just the sharing of posts and outrage on the socials (which is helpful too) and I didn’t realize I needed.

And the storytelling! The crafting of the thoughtful and intentional journey of taking the audience on a ride through a feel-good, love story between two women bucking the patriarchal heterosexual norms by choosing to love out loud (but in a quiet introverted way) was perfection. I was enchanted throughout and delighted at the ending. It reminded me of the power and magic of storytelling. It reawakened a part of myself that I had been missing: the part that craves being in the room with other people sharing in the range of emotions of humanity, the part that lights up my cells by being in a theatre with a gorgeous stage, and the part of my soul that has stories and art and expression to share with you.

I lived on the high of that experience for weeks and cherished the continued connection to Hannah and her bravery, brilliance, and backstory as I read slowly through her book every morning while sipping my coffee.

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Shortly after seeing her show, in one of the breathwork sessions I had for myself with my friend Amy, I realized I’ve been hiding a bit recently. With the volatile, divisive energy around those who have differing opinions, with all the changes to the social platforms/algorithms/reels, and with my own excavating of beliefs/biases/privileges/purpose/voice/heart, I’ve been quiet in my creating. Quiet in my art. Quiet in my writing.

(Not that this is a bad thing - not every part of the process and our cycle needs to be on display, especially if the best thing to do is to listen and learn from others - so just sharing my observation.)

I’ve written many a post or piece to you in my head or in my drafts, but they never got posted or published… for a couple of reasons I think. One: out of fear of making a mistake, of causing more harm. Two: the nature of how social media has changed in that it’s no longer just about pictures and words, but videos and short snippets while also favoring frequent posting and less emphasis on the creative process (another conversation for another time). Three: this year is about “homecoming” for me (again another conversation for another time) and I’ve been finding my way back home to myself.

But the other thing I realized in my cells during that breathwork session is, despite all of those reasons contributing to the fear of being seen, I have trained for this. I’ve put time and energy into practicing this art. In fact, in one of the actor trainings I did years ago, we would call ourselves “actor warriors”. Telling story is my craft and my love, whether through stage or page or photo. I want to continue to show up for it and for the process, whether quietly or out loud (maybe even in an introverted way!). Because stories matter. Stories are healing. Stories are nourishment and soul food for times like these.

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And so, this long missive is to thank Hannah Gadsby for her humor and heart. To my brother Eric for connecting me to her. And to the power of Storytelling for its ability to change lives, including mine.

My full moon wish for us:

May we all find the healing in our own stories and have someone who will listen to it with their whole hearts as we share.

Happy to be back writing to you. xo!

A New Beginning Needs An Ending

Saying goodbye to Stockheart

Covid has not been kind to most folks, particularly yoga centers and brick and mortar spaces.

We’ve all had places we love close or change shape as we’ve learned to adapt, pivot, and expand during a contraction. I feel like many of my newsletters as of late have been the bearer of bad news where another one of the beloved spaces I work out of is closing its current iteration.

So here I am again with some more news! The building I’ve been seeing 1:1 clients at in the Lyn-Lake area of Uptown, MN will be leased out to a group in July and I’ll be moving my practice yet again.

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This ending, unlike some of the others I’ve experienced in the last two-ish years, feels more like a beginning though, despite my grieving the soon-to-be loss of it. This space was the one I first started in when I moved back to MN from NY and it’s the one that has stayed a constant through the height of the pandemic. I’ll forever be grateful for this home to land my work in.

And! I’ve grown and changed a lot since 2017, particularly in the pressure cooker that has been 2020-2022. I feel like I’ve been to the underworld and back again. I’ve traveled to the outside edges of my spiral and I’m working my way back to my center. So it feels appropriate to be starting fresh in a new home where my ever-evolving, learning, unlearning, seeking, healing self can plant some roots in a new way that feels really grounded and aligned.

I’m really excited for this next stage and, while I’m not quite ready to announce my new home yet, you are going to love it.

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So the thing I’m really feeling into right now is:

In order to have a new beginning, there is an ending.

Sometimes the ending is what’s most heavy or what draws the most focus. Sometimes it’s the new thing that’s carrying the most potency. And SOMETIMES, it’s the in between moments. That transition time before the beginning but just after the ending. The unknown. The void.

Each phase of the cycle has medicine to share if we take time to notice. Where are you in yours?

To celebrate this ending and to not rush through to the next thing, I’m offering sessions in June at a discount to finish out my time there with a bang and to give YOU (or your loves) some hands-on healing / touch / breathing / balancing / grounding / care that you need for your own growth and cycles. In-person or virtual! Would love to see you on my schedule and on my table if it aligns with what you’re needing.

Use code STOCKHEART to get $30 off your session!

And in the meantime, I’m sending you big love for your beginnings, your endings, the in-between moments, and your evolution and expansion. We can do this! xo

The Humming Of My Cells

On Friday, as I was entering into the dog park, I noticed that the leaves on the trees were suddenly bigger, more expansive, greener, more stretched open wide than they had been just the week before. Spring has been slow to come in Minnesota and the few pockets of warmth that we’d have here and there would make my cells hum with life as I soaked in the sun in between all the stretches of grey and rainy days in April.

I’ve been listening to the We Can Do Hard Things podcast a lot lately and I’m loving the inspiration I get from the conversations they have with really cool people. Recently I was listening to the episode where Susan Cain talked about being melancholy and how society isn’t orientated for folks who feel sad. I’m paraphrasing here, but the idea being that we need to reclaim the wisdom in sadness. Rather than feeling that something is wrong with us because we don’t feel happy, we have an opportunity to explore the connection and bittersweet-ness we feel because we care deeply about something. How we might get tears in our eyes watching something that brings us joy. How we might honor our longing as a strength rather than a weakness. It’s something I’ve been mulling over and musing on as I prepare for virtual breathwork group this month.

The conversation reminded me of the term “griefwalker” by Stephen Jenkinson, who teaches about “how death empowers us to live and that we must know grief well in order to appreciate our own lives”. While I’m someone who is very easy to laugh and very in touch with my ability to feel childlike joy, I am also very connected to carrying deep grief because of the loss I’ve experienced at a young age.

The spring season reminds me especially of this! I feel an urgency to savor and to take in all the delicate blooms that have just bursted into existence from a very brown winter landscape. Because we know the cycle of the seasons, we know these blossoms won’t last forever! There’s an invitation to enjoy the beauty knowing that the shedding, dropping, releasing will be coming again eventually when the timing is right and can we be in the moment with where we are right now?

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These conversations about hard things and the impermanence of our lives also remind me of why I host breathwork. To offer a space for us to come and allow ourselves to feel all the things we feel as human beings living in this wild, chaotic, blooming, heartbreaking, beautiful life. To offer the opportunity to set aside time to pause and go within. Sometimes we tap into joy when we gather to breathe and that’s such a gift. Some days it’s our rage that we need to feel. Maybe it’s peaceful rest. Perhaps it’s feeling into our deeply tired and burned out bones. Often we allow the sad to bubble up. Always we get to feel the vibration of our cells humming because we are alive in this moment. This is why I love breathwork. There’s space for ALL OF IT. And we get to do it in community. We don’t have to carry it alone. We walk our own specific paths, of course, and we have our own flavor of grief and joy, but we get to walk with each other as we journey.
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Yesterday, we are experienced a full moon lunar eclipse in Scorpio. While I haven’t studied astrology, I know that this full moon has the potential to be an emotional one.

My wish for you this full moon is to embrace the fullness of your emotions. For the curiosity to listen close to the messages they have for you. for you to find those practices (like breathwork is for me) where you feel the permission to be fully yourself. For the opportunity to get quiet and find the spring beauty that makes your cells hum with aliveness.

And here’s an album I’m loving lately as a meditation to help those cells hum this spring: Resonance Meditation by Beautiful Chorus.