Hello Fellow Inter-Beings  –

Recently, I was in conversation with a group of folks and someone asked for support for an upcoming venture that was feeling exciting and edgy. After we all offered our support and ways of holding this person as they planned to navigate this event, someone on the group thanked them for asking for assistance and for giving the rest of us spiritual employment. This was such a profound way of acknowledging the power of asking and being asked for help. I have really been sitting with this for weeks now.

In the west, and especially in the country of the USA, we seem to pride ourselves on not needing anyone else. We love the stories of the ‘self made person’ and we see the act of requesting support as somehow meaning we are incapable or diminished. But NO ONE is an island…none of us are separate from anyone else and that web of connection is what sustains and supports us in all we do. So the act of requesting support or help is actually a powerful recognition of our interdependence and the role others play in our wellbeing.

Just this week I had the great honor of witnessing and celebrating the arrival of a canoe family on Lopez Island. This was a group of Salish Sea Indigenous folk from the Samish, Stillaguamish and Tulalip tribes traveling by canoe on their traditional water ways and by traditional ways. They have a great gift giving tradition and they offered us the gift of their stories and songs of grief, courage, loss and resilience. And hearing this comes with a responsibility to witness and acknowledge all they have endured and that they are still here tending the land as they have for thousands of years. We are employed to share the story of their history and their continued presence. This is another way to ask for help and engage others into the power of soulful employment…the potency of response-ability that is our work for one another on this planet. And this I am honored to to and am grateful for this “employment”.

I love the idea that my willingness to ask for help provides others the opportunity to be employed spiritually in the act of generosity and giving. So it is a boon for everyone when we are able to acknowledge that it takes a group effort for just about everything; be it physical, emotional or energetic. Help, when requested and granted, flows both ways. My invitation to you is practice asking for help more often as a gift to those around you.

May we be willing to ask for support when we need it

May we open ourselves up for connection with and resource from others

May our vulnerability and human need offer spiritual employment to those around us 

May we bring blessings and love to all we encounter

Practice Prompts:

• Make it a practice to ask for help and support in simple ways throughout your day. Notice when you might stop yourself from doing this and enquire as to why and who it serves to not ask for help and who and how it might be of benefit to others and to yourself.
• Look for opportunities to offer support and help to others when they ask and perhaps simply offer it if you can see they want to ask but are caught in the illusion of self-sufficiency.
• A simple meditation practice…take a moment to notice the space you are are in…the room and building and start to acknowledge all the different people who contributed to this structure…the designers, the builders, the workers, those who forged the nails and the tools, etc. Follow the line of inquiry into all the layers and notice that it is infinite and embeds you in the web of gratitude and life.
• I offer one to one sessions, in person in Bend, Oregon, and virtually all over the world. If you would like to learn more about my offerings please email me or schedule a free 20 minute Exploratory Session.

Live Streaming Practice Opportunities:

• Yoga for Resilience, Mondays, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Body of Insight
• All Levels Yoga, Sundays… Jul 23, Aug 27, Sep 24, 9:30-11am PT, livestream through Two Dog Yoga NEW TIME
• Continuum Inquiry Playshop, Sunday, July 23, 4-6pm PT, livestream through Body of Insight
• On Demand Yoga Practices…All Levels… through Two Dog Yoga

Inspirational Wisdom:

“As long as we have vestiges of internalized self-hatred we will be limited in our ability to be allies to each other. Because there’s an against-ness –  there’s someone inside you who’s against you. And when someone outside of you mirrors that against-ness, you’re toast. Because it is two against one. When someone inside is trying to emerge in freedom, and whoever’s against her joins up with someone in the environment who’s against her? It’s all over. The primary task is to replace self-hatred with a deep, deep, tender compassion. The best thing any of us can do for anyone else on the planet is to love ourselves, because in the place of love is there’s nodefensiveness. It just can hold everything – everything and everybody. The best medicine for everybody is self-love.”

~ Isoke Femi who is a Black woman, an imaginal psychologist, and an anti-racism teacher.