Solstice Blessings
Inspiration is a mysterious, allusive, and inconsistent thing, and what this year has embedded in me is that when it strikes, I must act upon it! Otherwise, it floats away as sure as it came to visit.
Upon its most expected, auspicious, and this year’s uber-anticipated Solstice, today brings a little extra umph with it. With all the clearing and upgrading that 2020 has brought along with it, the right ingredients have been placed in my cauldron to cook off the residual sludge of the past, courage to grieve and release, and the precious gift of spaciousness to expand into caring for myself in new and enriching ways. Along with my rituals of cooking nourishing foods, reading for pleasure, journaling, and walking my dog down to the river, I have been incorporating different ways to experience life.
This year has been a massive curveball and instead of getting stuck or fighting against the current, pushing for the ‘same’ and ‘comfortable’ habits, I have been comically yelling “PLOT TWIST” and making micro-changes in my life’s flow. The same activities, perspectives, and script was NOT fitting. I took off my guilt/shame hat and put on my curious ‘what if’ hat, which has opened up so many opportunities.
While this year has brought the forced environment for change, I took it as an opportunity to make the best of what’s been presented because honestly, the life I had been leading was not sustainable. An overbooked social life; work fun every morning, noon, and night while running my business; caring for patients; all while trying to prioritize partner and family. Part of my grief has been seeing this and letting go of the expectation to hold it all together - being honest with myself about what truly matters to me and how I want to spend my time.
My most favorite activities:
Ritual!
This can look like whatever you want. I like making tea, lighting candles, writing letters, stories, poetry, or whatever is moving me or what needs moving for that matter. Thoughts are powerful so when I release (sing, speak, write) them with intention they tend to shift the energy inside me. After I write I tend to be more available to meditate. I know many people like to meditate prior to writing - do what feels aligned for you!
Living my ritual is a huge perspective shift for me, it is not something I do, it is moving through me always. My actions come from my heart, not my head. This is my adaptation of what they mean when I hear ‘intentional living’. It comes more readily when my nervous system is in a calm state - and of course it does, that’s the easy part! So when I am in a stacked schedule of a week/month, THAT is the space I challenge myself to enact my flow state, to see if it comes forth. 2020 has been a wonderful platform to practice!!
Reading!
I have been having a love affair with books and audiobooks (thank you Libby app!) Each one of these touched me in ways whether humorous, creative inspiration or *digging into the depths of my soul (*= HOLY SHIT must-read). Here is my 2020 reading list:
The Gifts of Imperfections by Brene Brown*
Mating in Captivity by Ester Perel*
The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Radical Acceptance by Tara Brach
Night Circus & The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstein (because sometimes I need a novel)
Women Who Run With the Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes***
City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
Untamed by Glennon Doyle**
Glaciers by Alexis M. Smith
Jonathan Livingston Seagull by Stephen Bach
Big Magic By Elizabeth Gilbert**
Fourth Uncle in the Mountain by Quang Van Nguyen and Marjorie Pivar
Eating Intuitively!
“The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.” -Joseph Campbell
What does this have to do with food? Food is nature. You are nature. Aligning with what your body needs can be eclipsed by outside influences and it can be really hard to hear what your body is saying if you don’t connect to your body in these ways. You may not know its language, and that’s ok. For instance, maybe you ‘should’ eat a salad because it has the imprint of health in your mind, but place a hand on your belly, close your eyes and in the heart of winter, your body is a “No” (perhaps you feel cold or a visceral aversion). Then offer something else, does it want vegetable soup instead? If you notice a warming or a smile come over your face, you may want to nourish with soup rather than a raw offering.
I have an allergy to soy so I always pay the price eating miso... UNTIL I recently got Dr. Aviva Romm’s newsletter with her Immune Goddess Bowl, informing me about Brown Rice Miso! She is incredible by the way, please check her out. This recipe has been an inspired game changer for my kitchen world, I have been doing wakame seaweed and a chickpea miso (my store just had this) ferment and it’s been a delicious base for more veggies and protein, the rice koji has aspergillus spores which my gut loves! If you’re getting a yummy ‘yes’ in your body, try it out!
Modified Media!
Nearly everyone around me is saturated with media sources, whatever they may be. Trying to stay ‘up to date’ with this everlasting gobstopper of a year. It was abundantly clear six months ago the impact this was having on my emotions and spirit and those around me who would share their experiences. So I tweaked the amount of information I would take in and the frequency in which I did. It is impossible to digest all that I was consuming and my health was mirroring the effects in real time. I took in small bits, enough to get the highlights and be informed from trusted arenas and sit with what I read, not allowing myself to get steamrolled. I also learned to recognize what time of day I could best digest news, first thing in the morning was not the time to consume, especially on an empty stomach.
Our intellectual mind is a beautiful aspect of life, known as the Yi, or the spirit of our Earth. Earth is our center, its job is to stabilize and ground us as gravity well displays. Its correlated organs are the spleen and stomach, in charge of transforming and transporting, and rotting and ripening respectively. When the mind takes up all the energy (qi) it gets redirected and there is little energy to digest food because the thinking mind is siphoning your qi to the head. When these systems are out of balance we will tend to worry, literally worrying ourselves sick. One of the best ways to support these systems for healthy breakdown and assimilation if you are noticing you are losing your appetite, more gassy/bloated, and having loose stools? Turn off your device. Give yourself curfews and times of day that you are not taking in information, especially around mealtime. Refrain from harsh or heavy conversations around mealtime, avoid working, driving, and reading while eating and give yourself easy and gentle foods to digest such as congee, soups, and herbal teas such as hawthorn, fennel, and ginger to aid digestion.
