Fine-Tuning

Some of you know I’ve taken a step back where I could for a while, this past year has presented a few more mountains to climb (as well as ones not to climb).

While navigating significant family and personal health challenges, I have had to listen deeper and wider to fine-tune what my body was telling me and to catch the covert need to rescue.

Following my back operation two years ago, I leaned more into my embodied path that I've danced for nearly two decades. But this past year has been a vivid reminder of how easily those of us who ‘hold’ others can slip into over-responsibility and self-neglect. Throughout my 25-year career in mental health, addiction, and suicide prevention, I’ve seen how the weight of ‘holding’ can eventually rupture even the strongest among us.

As my 50th birthday pokes its head over the horizon, I am under no illusion that I have changed; my body is different, and so too is my mind, and my heart.

This past year forced me to take off another layer.

Over the past 17 years, I have been engaged in a deep unlearning of old patterns—of pushing through pain and thinking limits are there to be broken. Alongside, a true education of listening to my body and a felt understanding that the body remembers what has gone before.

Last year gave me more opportunities to give back to myself, to nourish my own heart and soul - finding medicine in the clarity of a cold water dip and the warmth of the sauna (photo of Lake of Menteith from my most recent dip! ) and many times to be grateful.

I am returning here with a renewed commitment to the ‘Holders’ - the helping professionals and caregivers who are always there for everyone else.

I’m launching the Embodied Resilience Circle—a peer support and learning community where we can practice alongsideness and learn to care for others without losing ourselves. I also have a day retreat coming up next month called REPLENISH, specifically for those drained by the cycle of giving.

It feels like right timing to offer; patience was one of the values offered to me by a beloved teacher of mine, it was never something I appreciated! But now, I understand. And certainly I am learning, year by year.