Hello Fellow Body-Mind-Hearts –

I typically post this blog and send out the email around the new moon. I do this partly to have a regular marker to help me stay consistent but mostly it’s because the new moon is the dark moon, a time of gestation and the beginning of the moon cycle. I like to make my offering at this time in hopes that it sparks something for you that can grow and deepen over the coming month. The dark moon is a time of pausing and restarting.  Marking these cycles seems important somehow and yet, in truth, every day…every inhale is a new beginning. 

The paradox is that even as we mark the larger cycles of seasons, moons and years we are simultaneously dancing in the smaller cycles of each day and each breath. I don’t know about you, but I can often feel trapped in a certain rut of thinking, acting or being. Like I have no choice in the matter but to react a certain way. But the wise ones teach us that although we may not have much choice about the challenges that come our way, we do get an opportunity to reframe, restart, and respond with any given inhale. If we learn about our habits and ruts and where they come from and we learn some ways to shift our nervous system and perspective, then we can explore starting again at anytime.

Giving ourselves permission to start again in any given moment is an incredibly generous and kind act of love. An act of love for ourselves as well as those around us. Not only an act of love but an act of rebellion in a culture that demands perfection and doesn’t take kindly to re-dos.

Back in 2020 (seems like lifetimes and just moments ago!) I took a powerful course for wellness practitioners to deepen my understanding and commitment to being an embodied anti-racist person, in my professional life as well as my personal life. One of the potent practices we explored was The Three Beats…the idea of pausing (which you know I am always in favor of) when we are super activated and challenged; not just taking three breaths but re-centering our selves in our bodies with three ways/ideas/actions to re-orient ourselves and start again from a place of presence and love. This could be stop/feel my feet/soften my gaze OR settle/shake and shimmy/sigh OR slow/open/soften…the permutations are endless and the gifts are the infinite possibilities to show up for life with more presence. If you would like to to learn more about this training (a new cohort starts in the spring) and the incredible facilitators, Lo and Reya, check out their website, The ReCenter. I can’t recommend them enough and the on-going support community is an important part of my life now and going forward.

So, as we start a new year and a new moon cycle, I invite you to consider how you can give yourself permission to start again as often as you need to. To take three beats to land in your body and shift the direction of your thoughts, words and actions. To dance with the knowing that we can continually learn and unlearn and relearn ways of being that bring love and presence to the moment, no matter how challenging. 

I am adding a new section to this blog/newsletter in which I will share some of the podcasts and books I am currently taking in and learning from. And I hope to hear from you some of what you are taking in.

Guiding Lights…
For the last few months I have been listening to the podcast, Some of My Best Friends Are… which is hosted by Khalil Gibran Muhammad and Ben Austen, two best friends who grew up together on the South Side of Chicago in the 1980s. Today a Harvard professor and an award-winning journalist, Khalil and Ben still go to each other to talk about their experiences with the absurdities and intricacies of race in America. They invite listeners into their unfiltered conversations about growing up together in a deeply-divided country, and navigating that divide as it exists today.

Blessings for this new year and this new breath.

May we pause and take three breaths, three moments to re-orient begin again when overwhelmed 

May we allow ourselves and each other the grace of beginning again when needed

May we mark the cycles of life that are important to us even as we remember the moment to moment unfolding 

May we be compassionate and kind with ourselves and others during these trying times

Practice Prompts:

• Take some time to consider and write down what your three beat might be. What might help you reconnect to your body and awareness when you notice you are overwhelmed or super charged and are somehow in auto pilot of the not so good kind? Post them on your fridge on on your phone to help you remember to use them.
• Make a practice of pausing and practicing your three beats even when you don’t need them just to become more familiar with them and the possibility of using them when activated or triggered.
• Tend the cycles of nature around you and the ongoing possibility for new beginnings and fresh starts. Pick a cycle to track through this year…the moon, the seasons through the solstices and equinoxes, the garden planting season, etc…track the cycles within the cycles and allow it to inform your own beginnings and endings.
• Schedule a free 20 minute Exploratory Session to learn more about what I offer in my private sessions and how I might be able to guide and support you in cultivating resilience.

Upcoming Live Streaming Practice Opportunities:

• Slow Flow Yoga, Mondays, 10-11:30am PT, live stream through Seattle Yoga Arts
• All Levels Yoga, Sunday, January 23, 10-11:30am PT, live stream through Two Dog Yoga
• Yoga Nidra Practice, Sunday, January 23, 5:30-7pm PT, live stream through Two Dog Yoga
• Continuum Inquiry Playshop, Monday, January 17, 5:30-7:30pm PT live stream through Body of Insight
• On Demand Yoga Practices…All Levels… through Seattle Yoga Arts (practice with me anytime, anywhere!)

Inspirational Wisdom:

Finally on my way to yes
I bump into
all the places
where I said no
to my life
all the untended wounds
the red and purple scars
those hieroglyphs of pain
carved into my skin, my bones,
those coded messages
that send me down
the wrong street
again and again
where I find them
the old wounds
the old misdirections
and I lift them
one by one
close to my heart
and I say holy,
holy.                                                                  

~ Pesha Gertler