Developing a Morning Practice

Image Christopher Campbell

Developing a Morning Practice

I am sensitive and I have the good fortune to work with many sensitive people in my practice. As with all gifts, there are liabilities of which sensitive people need to be aware. Sensitive people are more prone to compassion fatigue and can greatly benefit from a morning ritual during fair weather and foul. A morning practice is one of the best safeguards against compassion fatigue. A morning practice also helps sensitive people with the transition from dreaming/sleeping to doing/waking/interacting. Ever wonder why you have anxiety in the morning, trouble getting started or getting oriented? You are probably sensitive and a morning practice may be of great benefit. A morning practice/ritual can consist of anything you like. The key is consistency and recommitting when we inevitably lose consistency. My morning ritual in its barest bones is as follows:

• 5 sun salutations

• Saying the LBRP (a special prayer to me - for grounding, protection and connecting with resources)

• Writing in my Alchemical journal: drawing a tarot card, recording the day, the position of the sun and the moon found here and recording my dreams and intentions for the day

• Enjoying the delicious coffee my husband made for me - So helpful!

This entire practice takes 15 - 20 minutes. I often do a 20 minute walk and 15 minutes of meditation in addition which extends the morning practice to about an hour. I always encourage people to start small and build up their morning practice, adding and subtracting elements as needed. Even 5 minutes of morning practice can calibrate your entire day towards well being. Working from home may be an opportunity to develop or enhance your morning practice and reap the benefits.

Tell me about your morning practice!

Secondary Trauma and Compassion Fatigue

Image Cicely Mary Barker

Book Online Session

Happy February…

Deep sleeps the Winter,
Cold, wet, and grey;
Surely all the world is dead;
Spring is far away.
Wait! the world shall waken;
It is not dead, for lo,
The Fair Maids of February
Stand in the snow!

~Cicely Mary Barker

Hello and sending best! I am looking forward to February and the Celtic celebration of Imbolc. My husband and I like to make all our candles for the year around this time. It is so fun meting the wax, adding fragrance and pouring our mixture into little containers. Sometimes we use old tea cups and sprinkle in dried rose petals or other dried flowers. Making candles is easy. You can find lots of full kits on etsy here.

Secondary Trauma/Compassion Fatigue

It's not been an easy start to the year for many of us. I encourage everyone to practice as much self care as possible. Therapists and other health care providers learn about secondary trauma and compassion fatigue as part of their training. These are things that everyone should know about now because even if we don't work in these fields we are vulnerable to both. It has been nearly a year now that we have been dealing with the changes and stressors related to the pandemic. We are all on a spectrum of loss, change and transformation. Secondary trauma or compassion fatigue can happen when for extended periods of time we are hearing about, witnessing or helping someone who is experiencing trauma or distress. Some symptoms are exhaustion, irritability, having persistent feelings of not doing enough or being enough and disturbed sleep. The good news is, if we are experiencing any of this - there is a solution.

1. Name our symptoms as compassion fatigue or secondary trauma

2. Avoid optional sources of re-traumatization like the news or social media

3. "Empty out." This looks different for different people. Some possible ways to empty out are:

• spend an extended period of time in nature

• take time off work

• take a break from screens and immerse yourself in the elements (air, water, fire and earth)

• develop/deepen a prayer and meditation practice

Let me know if there are other resources, rituals or tools you recommend!

Simple Solstice Ritual

Image Hannah Green MFT

Book Online Session

Happy Winter!

I am hoping each of us has a chance to replenish, renew and recharge during these long winter nights. The light is returning! After the winter solstice on the 21st of December we will be ushering in the longer days once more. For many of our ancestors, this has always been a time of deep reflection, gratitude and celebration. This solstice is very unique ~ an opportunity to things differently and perhaps find a new way of safely celebrating and remembering what is important to us.

I know it is tough to keep the faith during such big challenges and changes. I am reminding myself...
It is ok to grieve.
It is ok to not have all the answers.
I can choose to trust the process.

I am sending deep gratitude to each of you for being part of my life and my practice. We made it!

Image Upsplash

The following is a simple solstice ritual that I love:

• Get a candle and a lighter.

• Turn out all the lights and sit...either by yourself or with loved one(s).

• Experience and greet the darkness.

• Reflect on how you have grown and changed this year.

• Ask yourself...what am I bringing out of the darkness and into the light? (This could mean...what am I bringing into awareness, compassion and acceptance and/or what gifts and abilities am I bringing into the forefront.)

• Say "I am bringing _________ out of the darkness and into the light" as you light your candle.

• If you are by yourself just reflect quietly on the candle's light.

• If you are gathered with others, listen and watch the light grow as each candle is lit.

New Tori Amos Christmas Album :)

Recovery and the Holidays

Image Eric Muhr

Book Online Session

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all of you a safe, happy holiday.

I recently had a great time talking with Annie Schuessler on the Rebel Therapist Podcast. Her podcast has been a source of inspiration to me over the years. I talk about the Embracing the Shadow Women's group, my morning practices and staying away from burn out by channeling creativity. Hope you enjoy!

Listen to Me on the Rebel Therapist Podcast

Art: A little fairy indulging by Omar Rayyan

I feel the pull to consume more around Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Plus, who on earth has done enough spiritual practice to stay present and grounded during a family dinner ~ let alone through an entire holiday season? The old coping mechanisms can come down the chimney during the holidays as well...

During my first sober Christmases I often thoroughly enjoyed walking around with a bottle full of Christmas colored M&M's and taking liberal swigs of sugary goodness. I would fill a glass coca~cola bottle with these little chocolate pearls and loved feeling their silkiness fall into my mouth as I tilted the bottle back. After all, I wasn't drinking alcohol and I was so grateful for that.⁠
⁠
I thought of myself as Buddy the Elf, on a happy diet of sugar and celebration. Those were good years in early sobriety. They were necessary years. I wouldn't change them. ⁠
⁠
It seems however, that years of therapy, recovery, magic and building awareness through a plethora of mind expanding modalities has slowed (not eradicated) my unconscious consumption.
⁠
I had a hungry little girl inside me...that had never had enough....enough love, enough attention...so I fed her well. Really well.

And I still do...but it is more conscious now. ⁠I am able to taste sweetness in many things, including a more conscious relationship with food.⁠ Feeding her "well" has new meaning.
⁠
I don't have to get stomach aches from celebrations with the precious little girl inside me.⁠
⁠
I sincerely hope my reflections don't come off as discouraging or shaming of anyones enjoyment or reveling this season. I once bought 20 Tartine eclairs to share with my graduate class! Enjoyment and celebration with food was and still is a core value.

I am writing this though for all those who are bringing consciousness into their relationship with imbibing and consuming, wether that consciousness resulted from a happy and miraculous insight, through hitting a painful bottom or through painstakingly being willing to pause and feel a moment of seemingly perilous discomfort...only to find out....a craving passes. ⁠

I am writing this for those who commit to pausing before reaching for an old coping mechanism and ask: Is there anything really wrong with this moment? When we pause and ask the question, sometimes we find out:

This moment is enough. I have enough. I am enough.
⁠
Rewiring the pleasure center of my brain to enjoy the dopamine available from a nutritious meal, a calm connection, a fresh morning walk is a gift I am so grateful for.

I no longer drink spirits but I drink in Spirit as often as I can. I find spirit in this moment, the moment I almost missed in my endless quest for enough.

Perhaps this anomalous 2020 holiday season will give me a unique opportunity to pause and experience this moment and appreciate the abundance within it.

I do not regret the years of imbibing large amounts of intoxicants and sugars. The associated dopamine rushes were the training wheels for the grounded ecstatic experience of recovery...and provided the necessary relief at the time. ⁠
⁠
I am so grateful for another sober Thanksgiving and am looking forward to a more conscious enjoyment of bountiful, beautiful food. ⁠
⁠
Enjoy! Love to all.

I've Got This Song On Repeat

Scorpio and the Art of Transformation

Image Andreas Selter

Happy New Moon

How are you holding up?

This month I am focussing on the art of letting go in order to be reborn.

I am wishing you the best and hope that despite the heaviness of this year your heart is finding some hope and lightness. Loss and change has been a major theme for all of us one way or another this year.

I have watched so many people make brave choices in the face of uncertainty, handle loss with grace and express their deep feelings with courage and vulnerability. I have watched changes quickly catalyze in the wake of the pandemic and seen people let go and allow these changes. As a result I've seen many of these changes bring them deeper into alignment with their values and needs. Priorities have changed.

I have seen people get married, get divorced, lose their business, start a business, deepen their relationships and spiritual practices and transform their lives in ways they thought they would do...someday...but the time was now. I am in awe of the transformation that has occurred: both internal and external.

With all change comes loss and letting go.

November is a month of transformation. We see the leaves falling to the ground and the earth letting death release the deadwood so that once again Spring can bring new life.

Scorpio, the Art Nouveau Astrology Oracle Deck

November corresponds with the Scorpio archetype ~ the archetype of the death rebirth cycle. Scorpio corresponds with the Death card in the Tarot major arcana. (see image below). These archetypes remind us that death is part of rebirth and that the two seeming opposites are in fact one phenomenon. This beautiful poem by Sri Aurobindo the Indian sage captures this truth:

Life, death, - death, life; the words have led for ages Our thought and consciousness and firmly seemed Two opposites; but now long hidden pages Are opened, liberating truths undreamed. Life only is, or death is life disguised, - Life a short death until by life we are surprised. ~ Sri Aurobindo

I am embracing November as a time to consciously let go in order to transform.

These are some questions I am asking myself:

• Is there anything that feels like “deadwood” and am I ready to let that go?

• What are my boundaries?

• How am I letting go and reducing stress by utilizing my boundaries?

• What is dying and what is being reborn as a result?

• What am I realizing it is time to let go of and how do I feel about letting it go?

• What old ideas about myself am I ready to let go of ?

Janine Roth's book below is a beautiful story of letting go. She describes the gut wrenching experience of loosing 30 years life savings and the ensuing painful but enlightening process that followed. She models in a very real way how to dig deep and find the willingness to step into loss as a portal for transformation and reminds us we don't have to wait for big losses, we can start embracing the fact of impermanence and change now.

This time of year calls us to slow down and let go...wishing you the very best this November as you navigate your own changes, transformations, deaths and rebirths.

Love to all.

Favorite book this month: Lost and Found: One woman's story of losing her money and finding her life b

Death Card Radiant Rider Waite Tarot Deck