Telling All One's Heart
Sometimes I think an act of courage is crossing the threshold from one space to another. It can seem so much easier to remain where you are. Especially right now, the season of growing darkness and cold, it can seem almost impossible to move. First thing in the morning, you can be stuck in the bed, dreading the sharp transition to cool open spaces. When you step into the kitchen, you have to move from sleepy ease to activity, from stillness to movement, from dreaming to decisions.
And sometimes I think that it can be a great and important act of courage just to stay where you are, say in a conversation that is getting heated or one that is getting silent. Sometimes it is all you can do to stay in the room. Courage has it’s roots in the word for heart. From Brené Brown:
“The root of the word courage is cor—the Latin word for heart. In one of its earliest forms, the word courage had a very different definition than it does today. Courage originally meant “To speak one's mind by telling all one's heart.”
“Telling all one’s heart” can seem terribly scary, and like a very tall order. Yet, there is a kind of relief that is only possible when you drop from your head into your heart and let body and mind speak together from there. And you can often see the relief on the face of someone you may be speaking to. They can, in fact, tell when you are “telling” all of your heart and when you are holding back.
Telling, in a way, requests “witnessing” from the listener, a kind of engagement that our culture is not so used to. We usually want to be talking, telling as it were, without regard for whether anyone is actually hearing what we are saying. So much do we do this and value it culturally that we have created Twitter, a very “telling” medium. What happens when we “tell” from the heart is of a very different order. When we speak from the heart, we invite witnessing, we invite others to see us in our truth, in our authenticity. Witnessing invites us to listen from our hearts just as someone else speaks from theirs. Can you drop your mind into your heart? Can you speak from there? What does that feel like?
In Chinese medicine the heart is also the residence of the mind. The brain may be the place where we process information, but the heart is where the spirit resides, where we can know what is true for us in a given moment. When you speak from the heart, you allow the spirit to enter the conversation. When you listen from the heart you allow the spirit to rest in the space with you. Everyone can tell.
'Tis the Season to Jumpstart Your Health!
Clouds are settling into the valley, temperatures at night have fallen precipitously here in the mountains and the time for nesting and resting has begun. What makes a nest for you? How do you feel best cared for? Do you know what you need?
Often, this time of year, we chastise ourselves for thinking of ourselves, instead of thinking of others. Yet if you don’t know what you need or how to care for yourself, you can easily become ill, burn yourself out or become a burden to others. Strangely, it is turning inward, caring for yourself, that allows you to best care for others. In our culture, it is not the norm, especially this time of year to take time for yourself. Yet, it is an especially important time to remember your own needs, to check in with your available resources and to plan to spend some quality time with yourself, your body, and your health.
You might have noticed that though I've been calling my one-to-one work "retreat work" for a number of years now. Recently, though, I am trying out a shift to calling these extended sessions "intensives." Much as I love "retreats", the notion doesn't quite capture the nature of what I am offering. Retreat is not escape in the vacation-sense of the word. You can't really get a vacation from your health! Retreat does say that you will be away from your usual world, which is certainly part of the plan, but more importantly, you will be in your own being in new and profound ways during an extended one-to-one session with me. The one-to-one setting that lasts all day or several days can provide both the relaxation of separation from your ordinary chores and work, as well as an intensity of focus and feedback unavailable anywhere else. This combination is supported with extraordinary food customized to your health circumstances, meditation instruction tailored for your place in the process and beautiful countryside accommodations.
I would like to invite you to consider spending some time with me for a Personal Medicine Intensive. An Intensive can be 1 day, 3 days, 5 days or even 18 days, in which we come together to jumpstart your health on all levels. No matter what your current health circumstances, an intensive will allow you to cultivate yourself at the deepest level and provide you with the widest range of choices regarding your health.
If you schedule a retreat for 2019 before December 31, 2018 and make a deposit, I will offer 25% off the usual price. AND if you book a Blueprint for Change for December 2018 or January 2019, it will count for twice the price against the cost of any retreat you book for the following 6 months!
I hope that you'll consider spending some time with me this season jumpstarting, rebooting, and reconnecting with your health!
Invest in Yourself NOT Your Stuff!
How do you spend your resources? Especially this time of year, when everyone everywhere seems to be clamoring for your attention with all kinds of beguiling offers, this is a good thing to consider. Sometimes it does make sense to buy stuff; new toaster, new computer, new shoes. Sometimes you need them. For sure. And sometimes, it makes sense to ask yourself what you can invest in that makes you stronger, deeper, clearer, more in yourself, more of yourself.
To be clear, I don't mean the self that has an endless appetite for stuff. Not the self (at least the one in my closet) who thinks I have nothing to wear even though I haven't changed a size in over 30 years. Not THAT self. But I do mean the self who lives way beyond the stuff. The self who knows and treasures experience, wisdom. Stuff you can't buy.
Your health is something you can’t buy. Your health is not a thing, but more precisely it is an experience, one that includes body, mind and spirit. What is health to you? How do you know you are healthy? No matter how much you spend on supplements, food or treatments of any kind, your health will always be something that you cannot purchase. But you can experience health, you can know when you feel healthy. How does it feel?
You can buy lots of stuff today and pretty much every day these days. But what if the stuff you buy today nourished the self who gains wisdom with every experience? What if you only buy stuff that supports your connection to your own wisdom, to your ability to care for others, know what is true for you? What kind of stuff would that be?
I'd say for me, anyway, that stuff would be education. I could never repay my teachers for all they have offered me over the course of my lifetime. The value is inestimable. For real. The only real offering I can make is to follow their example, to take what I’ve learned and offer it to others.
Interested in increasing your resources, investing in your own wisdom? Check out mentoring with me. There is no greater way to bring more value to your life than to invest in yourself and your own growth.