February 2021...
In this wintry month where heart images abound...I'm hopeful that you are using this time to find your way back to your own heart
Despite what can feel like endless cold, we know that Spring is already stirring beneath the frozenness here at the midpoint of the winter season.
Winter is a time of rest, stillness and restoration, a time to gather strength and resources, preparing for the bountiful, expressive glory of springtime.
I know this whole last year may have felt like a very long winter...but I invite you to shift your awareness, to tune into the stirrings of fresh new life and possibilities in your own life and heart.
It has become too easy in this pandemic for many of us to become frozen and numb.
In this month of hearts, how about focusing on opening your heart?
Open to yourself, honoring and tending all the challenges of this last year, of the years before, of this lifetime... and then letting that healing, tenderness and acceptance spill out, so you can open your heart to others with greater understanding and true compassion.
Because you know how hard it is, has been, will still be.
This is necessary work to change the trajectory of our lives, to heal ourselves and therefore this country at this critical time.
The hatred and divisiveness is at new heights, or at least more visible. It is horrifying to see that people feel the need to demean and debase others for their own benefit. I believe that fear, lack of self worth and trauma both personal and generational drives divisiveness and hate. I recently read that a common mark of fascism is the lack of empathy...so let's devote ourselves to refusing this.
Starting right now, let's make it our lifelong project to reject the hate, incivility and lack of care for self and others by healing our own wounds and then letting that healing be a gift, a guidepost to help others find their way. Let's make sure that everybody has what they need to thrive and live with ease. There IS enough-it is just not shared equally.
We do not know what others lives have been.
It is time to care and tend ourselves and each other.
We are all connected
In this season of hallmark-y hearts, let's focus on authentically opening to the challenges many of us face with new clarity and care.
It is way past time to be kind.
To yourself. To everyone.
One of my mentors, Eduardo Duran, PhD says:
"One of the teachings that I have heard is that since words are made of air that when we cause the air to vibrate with our words, these vibrations affect the air all over their world"
We can change the vibration, the reality around us by choosing our words with care.
This does NOT mean that we don't hold others accountable for their actions. To the contrary, it means that we DO, but without the more familiar and habitual blaming and shaming that we have unfortunately learned and accepted. Changing the vibration by the way we speak to each other.
There is no need to stoop to the same behaviors that we criticize.
This is a time to be mindful of the power of words and actions.
It is time to heal our own hearts precisely because of the unacceptable levels of violence and hatred in this country, in our families, our neighborhoods and our world. Let's change the vibration to kindness and inclusiveness and healing.
(💕As always, I want to be cognizant of the privilege that I/many of us enjoy-and offer these thoughts so that those of us who can, will begin to heal so that we can speak for those who are truly trying to survive, those who are oppressed and fearful and lonely and without resources that are essential for life and do not have the luxury of rest or healing at this moment.
May we be ambassadors and supporters to change this unacceptable reality💕
I know this is a slippery topic and want to acknowledge that I am doing my best from where I sit to help but in no way mean to be tone deaf to the suffering all around💕
I am fully aware that at times, it may well be inadequate 💕)
Parker Palmer, a favorite Quaker author and teacher says:
"... Left untended, our hearts break into a million shards...
and those shards are thrown like fragment grenades at the ostensible source of their pain.
Violence is what happens when we don't know what to do with our own suffering..."
It is only when we can hold our own suffering with tenderness, understanding and compassion that we can do the same for others. Truly, each of our healing benefits all of us.
For that reason, I believe it is our individual responsibility to do our healing work.
Yes, it is for each of us individually, but ultimately, it is for all of us.
Many of us have proven to be awesome caretakers of others...but not so good at tending ourselves.
I know this first hand.
As a young surgery intern on my Open Heart Surgery rotation, one of the least favorite jobs of the intern was to don a white cotton glove and hold the heart of the patient while the cardiac surgeon performed the revascularization. Well, you may not know this, but hearts are heavy and slippery and interns are sleepy and surgeons are grouchy, and this is a BIG deal so it was NOT a favorite job for the lowest man/woman on the totem pole.
But while it was not easy, it was an essential part of the surgery.
I always felt like it was an honor, as daunting and scary as it often was to barely move or breathe, to literally hold someone else's heart with the utmost of care. In that moment, nothing else mattered.
But it wasn't until many years later that I reflected on this, and wondered why I had never considered holding my OWN heart with the same precision, care and tenderness that I held so many others, both literally and figuratively.
It was a breakthrough, transformative, life-altering moment of loving kindness for myself for the first time ...and the work continues to this day.
And if I asked you
to name all the things that you love
how long would it take
for you to name yourself?
The truth as I know it is that we cannot really serve others from an empty cup-our own self care and practices to strengthen and uplift ourselves are NOT time away from others and our responsibilities, but in SERVICE to them all.
Many years ago when I was in a master's program at MUIH (Maryland University of Integrative Health-then Tai Sophia Institute) a classmate of mine was ALWAYS late for afternoon sessions, which irritated us all.
I remember the instructor saying that he was late because he was napping...and that his nap was actually for us all so he would be nicer and less grouchy...
So just like that, I learned that our work for ourself is a gift to us all!
Another thing I know personally, is that when you are living in survival mode, you cannot connect with, or be empathic with others (seems important to know as we "evaluate" the behaviors of ourself and others when we/they seem to "not care").
It is simply neurologically and energetically impossible.
So how in the world can we break out of survival and start to connect and thrive? Especially when there seems to be chaos all around us?
One of my very favorite ways to begin to balance, turn off survival mode, open the heart, deeply rest, restore and renew is
YOGA NIDRA.
This 90 minute practice begins with a short energy medicine session
(another awesome way to break out of survival mode) followed by meditation (yet another way!) to ensure a deeper experience.
The formal practice is 60 minutes long and you don't have do ANYTHING but listen to my voice and rest.
At the most superficial but essential level, it has the equivalent of 2-6 hours of RESTFUL sleep!
With continued practice, the work deepens to allow the release of old and engrained neurologic and energetic habits and subconscious programming that no longer serves.
Deep healing can occur while you rest.
Yoga nidra has been used at Walter Reed Medical Center in returning Iraqi war veterans with PTSD with excellent healing results.
Anne Lamott says
" everything works better when you unplug it for awhile"
That goes for us too.
Please join me in a class soon!!
It's the best nervous system balancer and rest I know-
and an awesome way to do good heart work for yourself and the world.
Not sure about it? Try a free recording here:
Learn more about yoga nidra here
Here are the virtual offerings for February
🙏💕✨❄️
February Yoga Nidra
Community Based Yoga Nidra for Razz Yoga
* free for Razz Community
$20 drop in
Friday February 12
7pm EST
Global Donation Based Yoga Nidra via Zoom
~Tuesday February 9 at 7 pm EST
and
~Sunday February 28 at 1 pm EST
**NOTE NEW TIME**
Join me LIVE via Zoom for a deeply restorative and healing practice, especially beneficial for the nervous and immune systems
and enjoy the physiologic effect of
2-6 hours of RESTFUL sleep!
* All registered participants will receive the full audio recording after the class
* No prior experience required -this is a restorative practice done lying down-NOT a posture practice
Can't join us live?
The recording will be offered on my website after the class for $10
Individual guidance via Zoom
These sessions are tailored specifically for you, with your unique life history and circumstances. They are meant to be empowerment sessions to help you see your own magnificence, open your heart and begin to thrive rather than just survive.
I offer a customized blend of mindfulness meditation, yoga, yoga nidra, energy medicine and life support to guide you in finding your gifts so that you can share yourself with the world
These self empowering tools and practices have transformed my life-and continue to do so.
I'm honored to share them with you.
Remember: your healing work serves us all🙏
Email me to inquire about cost and availability
MORE FOR YOUR HOME PRACTICE
(AND awesome gifts for those you love💝)
ALL MP3s are still 33% off 💕
I cannot overstate the fact that deep restorative rest, quiet, and stillness are so very necessary for all of us right now! Practice at home to maintain vibrancy and resilience
Visit my store for NEW full length yoga nidra recordings
from the last virtual sessions-
**If there is someone you know who may benefit from my work but does not have the means to invest, please either consider offering a gift if you are able, or reach out to me. I am willing to discuss payment plans or reduced rates because I personally know the power of these offerings that I am honored to share.
Like so many, I too am trying my best to keep my small business alive but will not deny anyone in need🙏💕
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💝In case you haven't seen Amanda Gorman's beautiful poetry performance from Inauguration Day in the USA, here it is.
It is a work of heart and art:
Amanda Gorman: The Hill We Climb
💝And for those of you choosing to get the COVID-19 Vaccine, one of my energy medicine mentors, Michelle Earnest, a certified nurse practitioner and Advanced Eden Energy Practitioner and faculty for the Eden Method, offers some energy tips to help the immune system adjust
Michelle Earnest: Preparing your Energies for the COVID 19 Vaccine
ALSO
Join me for the FREE 30 Days to Health Summit airing
February 10-12, 2021
Click the button below to learn more and register
May We (A Prayer)
May we come together after so many bitter words and such division.
May our minds open to the experience and points of view of those who are not just like ourselves.
May we heal from sexism, racism, bigotry, and misunderstandings of all kinds.
May we have imagination enough to transform hate.
May we practice compassion, empathy, patience.
May we work together to steward the planet, the water, our benevolent institutions, our children, our future.
May we strengthen and expand a political process that excludes too many of us.
May the arc of the universe bend toward justice.
May kindness prevail. And decency.
May neighborliness take root—let’s get to know one another. Let’s find ways of living together without walls.
May we come to understand that we are multitudes, and that is a good thing.
May we nourish the seeds of peace in our interactions with one another, because how we speak to, and treat one another matters.
May we find our place, and do the real work that needs doing, and trust that we each have a role to play in creating a healthy, inclusive, resilient, beautiful society.
May hearts open, open, open, open, open, open, open, open, open wider than before.
~HOLLY WREN SPAULDING
Open, Open, Open❣️❣️❣️❣️
💝🧡💛💚💙💜💔☮️
Sending big love and deep gratitude for you and your strong, resilient, expansive, loving hearts...it is time to open that gift and share with EVERYBODY! ( you first...😘)
Take gentle care and stay well
Love
gina💕🙏✨