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July, for me, was an exploration of creativity. Specifically, creativity as production.

Those of us who are creative, and whose creation is our livelihood, are constantly balancing creating through a sense of urgency, production schedules, consistency, and all of the things they say have to be done in order to be successful, with simply allowing creativity to come through without expectation and without wondering how it may be received.

It is, in and of itself, a practice.

For the past two years, my writing has been a prominent expression of my creativity. It has also helped me process my life experiences and teach and share wisdom earned.

Every Sunday, for over two years, I have published an essay and for the last year, included an accompanying audio poem or teaching.

This summer, my creativity has been taking me in different directions - like traveling around upstate NY with my kids, refinishing furniture, rearranging my kitchen, redesigning spaces of my home, growing tomatoes and basil and training my 60lb puppy to be a respectable member of society.

I have been focused on the creative expression of living my life.

I have been asking myself -

Can I redefine my creativity in a way that’s not about a business or a production or an offering?

Can I allow the urge within me to create something (an essay, a meditation, a course) be primary, rather than adhering to a pre-determined production schedule?

Can I allow writing to come through me when I have something to say, rather than sitting in front of my computer asking, “What do I have to say?”

Trusting the creative process is easier said than done.

When our creative process is also our spiritual process, our practice becomes being aware of our conditioning.

What is true for us?

What have we been trained to believe is true?

I’m a meditation and breathwork teacher, a teacher of consciousness, a teacher of nervous system regulation, and a yoga teacher.

I have a business degree and over two decades of corporate and entrepreneurial experience. There’s a fair amount of business conditioning inside me.

And that conditioning can be distilled into two words: best practices.

Such a corporate way to describe the way things have to be done. The way to do things to get the best results. The way to do things that has a proven track record.

The way to do things.

The way.

Yet my highest self points me in another direction. Points me in the direction of pure creativity.

And creativity isn’t limited to art.

Creation may be the expression of my home, the relationship with my family and friends, the flow of my work.

Creation is what comes through me (us).

What didn’t exist, and now exists because of us.

What is the process here?

Is my process heavily influenced by others? Procedures? Protocols? Rules? Deadlines?

As a yoga studio owner, for twelve years I wrote a newsletter every Tuesday. A thousand words. I became a production machine. I’ve been doing something similar on Substack.

I enjoy writing. I don’t enjoy the production line part of it.

I don’t want to sit in front of my computer asking, “What do I have to say?” because then my creativity is steered by what I believe others want or need.

Instead, I want the words to come through when they want to come through.

This isn’t in alignment with the “best practice” of consistency, which of course is vital and valuable on so many levels.

But can we define our own consistency?

Allow our creations to move through us.

Can we discern when our creations are being infused with conditioning or when they are just moving through us for expression.

Can we trust our own rhythms and urges and impulses more than what we were told was “the way.”

Can we all just create in our own way on our own timing?

My automatic writing this week has been pointing me towards my own way.

As such, you may notice a change in the frequency of my essays here.

I’d like to explore creativity on Substack without a production schedule.

I’d like to explore creativity without expectation of a specific result.

This includes my classes and teachings and courses and everything I create.

If everything in my life is creative - can I allow it all to come through in its own time rather than forcing it because I need a result of some kind.

This is my work right now. And I share the wisdom of my guides, angels, highest self that is pointing me towards creative freedom.

Perhaps it will point the way for you as well.

The urge to write comes sometimes through responsibility and obligation rather than true creative impulse.

When the flow within you feels stagnant, simply wait.

Can you allow the stagnancy without attributing it to something you’ve done wrong? Allow there to be blank spaces. Allow there to be creativity.

Must all creation be production for the eyes of others? Must all creativity be a means to an end, such as the creation of an offering so you can make money?

You are an inherently creative being. Look at all you create. Meals, a beautiful home, finished furniture. Let your writing be like that.

Can you release a schedule?

Can you release what you believe to be expectations you and others have of you?

Can you write when you want to and not when you don’t?

Can you give yourself permission to create in your own rhythm rather than one defined because of old business practices like consistency and showing up?

Just show up for yourself every day. Show up and check into your body and your mind and your emotions and your needs.

Let your creativity be the fruit of that well-tended tree that is your human experience.

How gentle can you be with yourself? There’s nothing you have to do.

There’s just an invitation to allow your creativity to flow through you without expectation as to what it will be or how it will be received.

Allow yourself to go at your own pace. Do your own thing in your own way.

As you release the conditioning of your psyche, let some of that release be your professional and creative conditioning.

The term best practice is conditioning.

How things are done is conditioning.

Who says? Who makes the rules? Why is this true?

Because there’s belief in it - a current of belief.

Believe that you can walk a road of your own design and creation.

As your belief in this crystallizes, see the road appear before your very eyes.

I will be taking the rest of August off from writing on Substack. I will see you back in September!

August is for creativity and family and gathering.

Join me in the Practice Room as we explore what it feels like to come home to ourselves. To do it our way.

July is all the colors of the rainbow.

Last weekend was spent at a quiet lake house in the Adirondacks. Remote. Quiet.

I spent quite a bit of time staring out at the lake, the hills behind it and the stars when they revealed themselves at night. Venus is always the first to show herself - reminding me that beauty is everywhere, if I choose to see it.

Today I offer you a brief video and a poem I wrote last year. The video was taken while I drank my coffee and enjoyed the quiet morning.

The poem written as I explored where my attention lands, where it gets pulled to and how much agency I have over my own perception.

I hope you enjoy them together. Today’s piece is offered to all subscribers - paid and free. I’m so grateful for you. Your attention is to be honored. Thank you for being here.

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The Bridge

Thought energy within you
is like the ocean.

Surface movements
waves, swells, currents, calm
are all noticeable.

They’re conscious.

But the deeper we descend,
the less conscious we are
of the qualities of the water.

We’re unaware
of what moves here.

Yet these deeper movements
affect us,

nonetheless.

The sum total of your thoughts
creates the experience
you have in life.

So - 
bring what is unconscious,
conscious.

How?

Consciously controlled breathing.

Simple - 
but not always easy.

The breath
is your bridge
from the unconscious
to the conscious.

The more you see
the contents of your mind,
the more you can create your life
on purpose.

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***Hi Paid Subscribers!!! I’m trying something new today with a new Substack feature. The listening experience I usually send separately is available at the end of this post.***

With my intention to have a slow, leisurely July intact, I begin to completely reorganize and as Steve puts it, “tighten up” my kitchen. He suggests that I work on this project for only 3 hours a day (intention = leisurely, remember?). I verbally agree this is a great idea. I silently balk.

My mother was really into projects. She would rearrange the furniture in our house every few months. She would paint walls new colors, refinish furniture she was bored of in cool colors and move area rugs to new rooms. She made it all look easy.

When she died, I took two of the pieces that she painted and put them in my kitchen. One of them is the china cabinet that we had when I was a kid. I remember the original color of the wood and where it was placed and what dishes were in it.

Now it’s blue.

I sat at the table eating lunch looking at the cabinet. It was perfectly refinished - almost like it came in that color. I thought of my mom taking out every draw and handle and painting them so carefully on the porch. I thought of my mom as she hauled this giant piece, when it was done, back to the dining room. I thought of all the creativity and talent and grit it took to do all the things she used to do.

And then I was sobbing.

The sob took me by surprise. I was fine and then I wasn’t. A large wave of grief took me over and then receded. I felt a little shy at this burst of emotion. How was I to explain it? The cabinet made me cry?

The cabinet did not make me cry. Grief did.

As I launch into my own refinishing project, I really want to call my mom and talk to her about it. I’m sure she used sheets of sanding paper and muscle power. I want to tell her about my new sanding machine and how fast the sanding part went. I want to ask her how many coats of stain to use. I want to ask her a million things and tell her a million things.

And I can’t.

—

September 10, 2026 will mark four years since my mom went somewhere else.

Four years.

So much has happened in those four years and yet, somehow it feels like yesterday.

I no longer cry at the mere thought of her, although sometimes I do.

My heart doesn’t ache as much, although sometimes it does.

I’m not jealous of women my age hanging out with their mothers, although, honestly, sometimes I am.

Every day I want to call her. Tell her about the girls and their life updates. Tell her about Milo and his training. Tell her about my dreams and plans and wishes and fears.

The role my mom played in my life cannot be filled by anyone else. And that’s just the way it is.

The bridge of one of my favorite Taylor Swift songs comes to mind: Time, mystical time, cutting me up and then healing me fine.

Has time healed my grief? Has time soothed the harsh edges of the hole her absence has left behind?

Yes, sort of - but not just time. These last four years have been a practice of slowing down. Doing less. Feeling more. Allowing sadness without fixing it. Allowing myself to miss her without a resolution. Allowing the waves of emotion to rise and fall and to ride them, as best I can, in the moment.

The experience has changed me. Grief has changed me.

I think, because I let it.

When Grief Knocks You Down

Grief is sacred.

Grief is a portal to your healing,

Your wholeness

Your awakening.

We all experience grief.

Grief is a tapestry of emotions,

all sewn into one experience.

Within grief, there is sorrow.

There is anger.
There is shock.
There is sadness.
There is fear.

Grief carries with it a myriad of emotions, all at once.

The pain of grief is immense.

Many of us do not know how to experience this pain,

so we naturally seek to bypass it

to stay busy through it,

to medicate it,

to rush through it in some way,

to be on the other side of it.

And there is no rushing grief.

There is no bypassing it.

There is just being with it.

There is just the experience of loss,

of devastation,

of shock

Of anger,

and anything else that arrives from this experience.

It can feel like a giant wave.
And that wave can knock you down.

It can knock you out of your daily life,

take away all of your energy,

your will,

your interest in doing anything.

It can leave you in depression,

crying,

sadness,

and darkness that seemingly will never lift.

And just like storm clouds eventually clear and the sky becomes blue again,

grief will change.

The waves will soften

but they may not cease.

They will change,

but they may not stop.

Grief can act as a portal to our wholeness because the explosive movement of emotion can act as an activation of all of the repressed emotional energy we have been holding.

The sorrow of our loss can activate the sorrow of all losses.

The anger of our devastation can trigger the anger of all experiences of anger.

Grief is a power.

Grief has the power to stir up all of the repressed emotions within us for release.

We need to allow grief to knock us down.
We need to allow grief to stop us in our tracks,

so that we may lay down all of our doing,

all of our fixing,

all of our healing,

all of our arranging

and controlling of life

and simply feel.

We live in a culture

of fixing and bypassing

and feeling better.

There is no healing from grief.

There is simply the experience of it

and the allowing.

And in that experience,

and in that allowing,

you are changed.

You are softened.

You become more receptive,

more allowing,

less fearful,

more aware.

Allowing yourself

the full experience of your grief

is courageous.

And it takes time

and it may take years

to fully experience the clarity

and the softness

and the light

that comes after

the release of all of that emotion.

But it will come.

The more we allow ourselves to feel our grief, the more whole we become,

the more coherent our mind becomes

and the more the systems of the body harmonize.

And we begin to harmonize with life itself.

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I’m sitting in my doctor’s office. I’m there to discuss my hormones. I’m tired all the time. I’m having a difficult time recovering from my workouts (ie, I need a two hour nap on heavy lift days) and I feel foggy.

“How are you sleeping?” She asks.

“I sleep ok. I get up a lot to pee but I’ve always done that.” I responded.

“How many times do you get up?” She asks.

“Between 4 and 6 times a night.” I say.

She looks away from her screen and looks at me.

“Four to six times a night?” She repeats what I said. I nod.

She pulls her hands from the keyboard and fires a bunch of questions at me regarding my sleep. We talk about hormones and sleep and at the end of the conversation she essentially diagnoses me with fragmented sleep. She called it “circadian disruption” - essentially my body has been trained to wake up and when I wake up, I don’t really have to use the bathroom, but if I even feel a glimmer of an urge to pee - I have to get up or I can’t fall back asleep.

This has been my experience for over a decade. Even though I’m really fastidious about my sleep hygiene and rituals. Even though I do “all the things” to get a good night’s sleep. My brain has other plans.

What alarms me is not the diagnosis, but now my body has acclimated and normalized the interrupted sleep. I function pretty well although I have periods of being really tired. I thought it was my Manifester Human Design (we need a lot of rest).

I guess not everything is astrological.

So I decided to educate myself.

I joined a year-long program with Elena Brower and Sara Szal, MD called Women: The Portal. The program is many things but what sold me was “medical literacy”. There is so much information out there: what is true?

I have decades of experience with meditation and yoga, mindfulness, trauma work - but the nuts and bolts of my nervous system, hormones, metabolism, lab numbers? I often found myself buried in more information than I needed and not sure what was true for me.

So I got the ring.

–

Everyone is obsessed with the Oura ring. It’s pricey so I opt for one with good reviews, a touch lower of a price point and no monthly fee.

I wait for it to arrive with the anticipation of a 6 year old on Christmas Eve. I squealed a little when it arrived.

I put it on and felt like this was the missing key to my finally mastering my own health.

On the other hand, rushing to my phone to see my sleep score within 10 minutes of waking up is not on the “good habits” side of the ledger, so ... .turns out the ring is complicated.

Regarding sleep, it gave me good information. I could see on the graph how many times I was waking up (8) and that my REM sleep was low. The progesterone and magnesium helped but did not keep me asleep.

Then I went down the HRV rabbit hole.

(I’m kinda still there.)

—

Heart rate variability (HRV) is the measure of the length of time in between your heartbeat. It is controlled by the autonomic nervous system and essentially reflects the body’s ability to handle stress and balance the parasympathetic (rest) and sympathetic nervous (fight-or-flight) system responses.

The more rigid and metrodome-like the beats, the lower the HRV. This indicates a nervous system that is leaning more towards fight or flight, has not had sufficient recovery from stress and/or chronic strain/stress/tension on the system.

The more the time in between heart beats fluctuates, the higher the HRV. This indicates autonomic balance, nervous system resilience and good recovery from stress.

HRV changes moment to moment. The key is to look at long term trends. Averages over time.

Also, my cardiologist seems only concerned with imaging to ensure there is no active heart disease (I go every six months because of genetic factors) and my corresponding cholesterol which is borderline high. I asked him why he doesn’t look at HRV. He basically said it was not a good indicator of heart disease and frankly - he brushed me off.

I realized, HRV is a number that measures nervous system health, not heart health.

And because I am obsessed with nervous system regulation, I am now obsessed with this number.

(My obsession is controversial on the home front. Steve has observed that the ring I use to measure my stress, can in fact be, the cause of my stress.)

Onward. I’m in detective mode now.

The first thing I uncovered is that my overnight HRV was my lowest score. Waking up several times a night was preventing my system from recovering fully.

This does not surprise me but was an absolute hit to my ego. The ego part of me that believes I have finally achieved NERVOUS SYSTEM REGULATION is squashed.

I am aware that it’s not binary. We aren’t regulated or dysregulated. It’s a spectrum. Yet, my results oriented mind takes a hit.

My exploration becomes how to consistently lean towards the regulated and resilient side of the spectrum. How can I get this number up?

My first obvious task is tending to my sleep. I have prided myself (hello ego, I see you!) on not having to use sleep aids. Now I’m open. My doctor offers to prescribe Ambien and I balk like she just suggested a nuclear option. She increases my progesterone, tells me to take magnesium every night and suggests I come back in a few months.

I start to ponder THC sleep gummies. I have a complicated history with THC. I don’t consider myself an addict although I’ve called myself that before. I am capable of over using weed when I’m really suffering. I mention the possibility to Steve, who is not a fan of weed and he suggests I try it. You never wake up when you take THC, he says.

So I try it. I take a 10mg sleep gummy and wake up only ONCE. My fragmentation decreased significantly!

Win!

My HRV and my REM also decreased significantly.

Not a win.

I learned that while THC may help me stay asleep, it can also reduce REM sleep and lower HRV for some people. So the question became: am I getting the kind of sleep my body actually needs?

Perhaps not.

Ok so cannabis is not the solution here. I made an appointment with a sleep specialist. First available appointment: October. I’m not the only one struggling with sleep.

—

My next task is investigating what increases my HRV. When my ring records my HRV as high, what am I doing?

After about a month of tracking this, I can distill it into one sentence.

My HRV is highest when I’m doing something I enjoy, when I am engaged fully with my moment and when I am in the flow.

So effective immediately, I’m going to stop doing everything and anything I don’t enjoy.

Just kidding. Life doesn’t really let us do that, does it?

Despite having to still experience cleaning the house and traffic in the Bronx, I’ve come up with a pretty clear list of what increases my HRV and what doesn’t.

Here are things that increase my HRV:

• Strength training followed by yoga/recovery

• Zone two heart rate workout followed by yoga/recovery

• Walking in the park

• Doing one thing at a time

• Writing and creative work

• Teaching/mentoring/leading meditations

• Hanging out with my family/friends

• Laughing

• Breathwork

• Gratitude

• Going slow

Here are things that lower my HRV:

• Cannabis

• Alcohol

• Interrupted sleep

• Worry thoughts and mental weight

• Future/Past thinking

• Pressure

• Multitasking

• Planning/strategizing or otherwise thinking of goals/results/achievement

• Screen time that isn’t creative (news, scrolling, games, etc)

—

I’m still working on my sleep. AND I feel like I have more data on what I need to properly take care of myself.

My meditation and movement practices are vital but they are not the entire picture. This is when our practice and our lifestyles merge. When life becomes our practice.

Exercising and meditating cannot move the needle on our nervous system if much of our day is spent moving from one task to the next, immersed in thoughts/plans/anxiety/life drama and only stopping to smell the roses when we have a glass of wine in our hand.

(I know this because this was me once upon a time.)

My practice is acclimating to a new pace. To enjoy the space that comes from two kids in college now and not try to FILL it. My practice is simply to expand the activities in my life that increase my HRV and limit what doesn’t. As best I can.

And some day (not now, but some day), I’ll put the ring aside and know that I don’t need to track what I already know.

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For most of July, all of my children will be away.

I’m of two minds about this. On one hand, it will be nice to not have everyone’s things everywhere, all the time. It will be nice to wake up to a clean sink. It will be nice to not have to mentally clock their whereabouts and comings and goings.

On the other hand, I’m nervous. I notice my mind trying to plan projects or tasks to fill the time.

I notice how much of my identity is wrapped up in the role of Mother.

I’ve always wanted to be a mom. I started pining for kids as soon as my friends started having them - a good decade before I did. The desire came from deep within me, like a pull.

And also within me, at the same time, was a desire to teach, to grow professionally, to be seen professionally, to be valued for my work.

And for the first 10 years of motherhood - those two desires tangled with each other. My desire to be a mom and my desire to achieve. I ran a busy yoga studio that was open all the time while I had two kids in elementary school. I created my own schedule which was great. I could take them to the park after school. I could also answer emails from my phone while they played.

Not exactly present in either place. When working, there was guilt. I should be with my kids. When I was with my kids, there was this urgency that pulled at me. Like the business would fall apart if I took my eyes off the ball.

Pressure. Everywhere I turned, pressure. I energized myself with coffee. I came down at night with weed. There was no room for consistent practice. I grasped at peace and regulation by scheduling shamanic healings, astrology readings, massages and acupuncture. I participated in ayahuasca ceremonies, san pedro ceremonies, and re-birthing breathwork circles.

All adding insight. All showing me pieces of myself. But none of them could replace the slow, ordinary work of practice.

Life has a way of helping you when you can’t help yourself.

–

I find life re-arranging me again. The last five years have been an immersion into my practice - motivated, really, by my desire to be the most steady, present and emotionally available mother I could be.

And now, two of my girls are 18 and ready to fly. And ya’ll - they are READY.

And my 15 year old is independent and social and more and more, on the go with her friends.

And Steve is teaching political science in a prison program and writing his book.

And I am looking at a blank canvas of time and space and quietly freaking out.

Who am I if I’m not cooking and managing and checking emotional temperatures and soothing turbulent emotions and signing permission slips and listening to school drama stories and telling someone, for the 5th time, to clean their room.

Who am I when so much of that drops away?

What will I do with all that time?

July is my practice run. All the kids are gone.

What happens if I don’t fill the space?

What happens if I allow myself the grace of not knowing, not doing, not fixing, not performing and not producing?

What happens if I don’t put pressure on myself to create videos or meditations or teachings just because I have the extra space?

This will be my practice for July. Allowing space to exist without having to fill it.

—

Every Wednesday morning, I teach Somatic Meditation and Automatic Writing on Insight Timer. The last 10 minutes of the class is for writing. Automatic writing is simply allowing the words to rise up within you and be released through your hand.

All of my Sacred Kisses came through this way. Most of my poems. And my audio course - Awakening the Multidimensional Self.

I trust what comes through in that manner. It’s effortless, it flows, and the words always orient me towards the highest vantage point.

The last two classes, I’ve taken to writing along with my students. This is what came through this week:

Gentle Dear One, you are learning a new pace of being. The pace of a creative teacher who creates through urge rather than urgency.

You are now exploring a new way. It’s uncomfortable. You have used the fuel of urgency for many years. That fuel has become obsolete.

Now your fuel is pure creation - sometimes flowing like a mighty river, sometimes quiet and soft like a gentle stream.

Trust yourself in knowing the difference. Trust that when the mighty river flows there is nothing that can stop it.

When creativity is a gentle stream, there is no need to force. There is just waiting. Enjoying the space and allowing for rest.

—

This is my practice now. What is yours?

Two of my daughters graduated high school this week.

It’s a huge thing, graduating high school. It’s the cusp of adulthood. It’s a liminal space. After childhood, before adulthood. It’s tender. And scary.

I think graduating high school is a big deal for any kid. And for any family.

For our family, this accomplishment is powerful. (And if I’m going to brag a little bit, one of them is even valedictorian.)

My girls had a difficult start to their life. I didn’t get to be their mother until one was five and one was ten years old. So by the time they came to Steve and me, they had experienced really difficult things. Abuse, neglect, illness.

When they arrived, they were motherless. They were without a mother who could properly care for them.

Perhaps this piece is about motherhood. Perhaps this piece is about the experience of mothering children who came through another. Who not only came through another, but came to you with trauma and heartbreak, and wounds so deep you couldn’t see them with your eyes.

When I decided to become a foster parent, I didn’t necessarily know what I was getting myself into. We came to it honestly, simply wanting to serve children and love children.

And the daily experience of this had its ups and had its downs, like all things do. There was navigating the foster care system and family court. There was navigating therapeutic schools and IEPs. There were more therapists than I can remember. One legal aid attorney that is basically a superhero. There were more than one mental health crisis and almost ten hospitalizations.

One of my daughters experienced the death of her biological mother. The other, the possibility of an inherited illness that could change the trajectory of her life.

And through this they grew. They fell down and got back up again. They got bullied in school and kept showing up every day. They stood up for themselves. They stood up for others. They held their heads high.

Graduating high school, when you experienced PTSD and complex PTSD for most of your childhood, is no small feat.

Graduating high school on time and getting into every single one of your colleges that you applied to, is an accomplishment that goes beyond mere words..

Growing from a young girl who wouldn’t speak to a young woman who gave the valedictorian speech at her graduation ceremony takes my breath away.

My girls are the very definition of resilience. They are the embodiment of healing. They are the epitome of strength.

And so sure, Steve and I had a lot to do with this. And he can have his own reflections on what it’s like to be a father.

Motherhood, as I’m reflecting upon it now, is simply holding steady so your young ones can thrive.

It’s keeping the ground stable. Keeping the environment safe so the children can grow into themselves, whoever that will be.

As I reflect on parenting and motherhood, and on launching my girls out into the world, I look at it from the perspective of growth and evolution. My own and theirs.

Each of these young women came to me with a genetic orientation different than my own. Imprints in their psyche and in their system that are not my own. They have their own lineage, conditioning, and patterns that they will need to sort through in their lifetime.

My hope is that my own awakening, my own sorting through my conditioning and lineage patterning, taking what serves and releasing what doesn’t, helps them in some way.

That it models something.

It’s a tender time as I get ready to release my little ducklings into the world.

There aren’t any words, really, for how proud I am. And how magnificent these young women are.

What a gift.

This piece came through automatic writing at a time when my children were having a difficult time. CPTSD started showing scary symptoms. Parenting felt like chaos. It felt scary and unhinged and I felt unprepared for the experience.

This message was from my angels, my teachers, my highest self. It was my reminder. It was my teaching.

Motherhood is a life purpose,
a calling,
a mission.

Do you remember when you used to pine for children?
Pine for the experience of being a mother,
for the very experience you are living now?

Motherhood has always been a heart calling for you.

For good reason.

In your work,
you see every day the patterns
adults must unravel
in order to experience themselves as whole.

Patterns passed through lineage.

You had some unraveling to do yourself.

And now, in this sacred role of mother,
you are capable of torturing yourself
with thoughts of what could go wrong,
or what you might be doing wrong.

But in this experience of motherhood,
you must first show yourself
the deepest compassion.

You are the healer of your lineage.
The pattern disrupter.

There is sacred work happening here.
Sacred - 
hidden in the mundane.

Notice your internal dialogue:
I can do better.

You learned this from your father,
who learned it from his father.

This is a lineage pattern.

And now,
you are aware.

You notice when this thought...
I can do better

tries to project itself onto your children.

The words and feelings may rise within you,
but you do not give them voice.

The pattern is still alive,
but your awareness dissolves its power.

The lineage pattern stops with you.

You are a mother to other women’s daughters.
They have arrived carrying their own inherited pain.

You will teach them
awareness of their thinking.
Awareness of their actions.

You will help them unravel their patterns
before they become mothers themselves.

Their lineage patterns stop with them.

This is Sacred Motherhood.

This message was from my angels, my teachers, my highest self. It was my reminder. It was my teaching.

Motherhood is a lif…

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MILO NO!

MILO! MILO! MILO!

This name, spoken at volume, is on repeat in my home. Such is the experience of having a puppy.

Steve wanted a low energy dog. That didn’t quite work out. I wanted a large dog. I got that. We all wanted a friendly dog.

None of us got that.

So this is what I’m up to these days, ya’ll. I get to learn how to rewire the nervous system of a chronically scared dog.

We got Milo December 30th. He was a rescue, 8 weeks old, adopted right from his litter. We thought because we wasn’t born in another state, shipped to NY and then shuffled to different foster homes until adoption - he would be more chill. We thought that because we had him so young and loved him so much and kept him safe and warm and fed, he would be less skittish than other rescue dogs we’ve had.

We knew nothing.

For the first four months of his life he was mainly at home knowing only our immediate family plus the girl’s boyfriends who are over a lot.

Because of the snow storms and also because the vet told us not to, we didn’t start leash training outside on the city streets until after he was four months.

And when we did, he freaked out. He was scared of everything: cars, cats, squirrels, scooters, sirens, birds, wind, leaves, bags blowing in the wind, his tail. He would try to jump in our arms, he would scratch our legs and nip at us to get our attention.

He was literally scared of the world.

We kept bringing him outside. We (mostly Steve) read Positive Behavior training books, we worked on leash training and heeling and all the things.

We had to tell strangers on the street not to look him in the eye. We had to tell friends who came over not to look him in the eye. To ignore him and let him sniff you out and come to you when he was ready.

That worked for a bit. Until the birthday party.

A bunch of teenagers in the house is generally a good thing. Not for Milo. For Milo, it was the apocalypse.

And because the end of the world is scary, when the sweetest and quietest guest went to use the bathroom, he lunged at her and nipped her hand while she walked by.

That was a first. And a last. At this point, we sought help.

Through the rescue organization we adopted Milo from, we found Diana. A trainer who specializes dogs who find city life hard. Or as with Milo - life outside of his house or life that includes humans outside of his pack, or life with excessive sounds.

Here is what I learned right away: Puppies need to be exposed to as much as possible as early as possible. Different environments, different people, different sounds and smells. Their nervous system needs to be trained for the variety of inputs early on.

There are two developmental windows that are really good for training dogs. The first is 8-16 weeks (which we missed) and the second is 6-18 months - which is now!

So all is not lost. Milo can become a great dog. It’s going to take a fair amount of work and a lot of practice.

So we practice. We practice pattern games, we practice sitting and then lying down and then staying down. We practice keeping his attention on us while he walks on the leash (hard because he has canine adhd).

We practice and then we practice some more. And we are in it for the long game.

—

I share this because this is a good part of my daily life right now. Once upon a time we were therapeutic foster parents.

Now we are therapeutic dog parents.

And, not to compare my kids to my dog - but I’m about to compare my kids with my dog.

Retraining of everyone’s nervous systems takes repetition and consistency.

For my girls, it was having set schedules, predicable times for meals and bedtimes. Consistency in the energy of the home, consistency with how we communicate, with how we respond to their challenges and melt downs. The consistency brings safety for a nervous system anchored in PTSD. Repetition breeds familiarity which trains a new experience of safety into the body.

For Milo, it’s also repetition and consistency. It will take time and vigilance on our part. He may need a muzzle in certain situations. He may always be excitable and nervous but we can learn to modify his behavior. He can learn to be a good dog.

And we are learning a lot while we help him do that.

—

As I write this today, there is a carpenter in my kitchen fixing some chairs. Milo spent the first hour of his time here behaving like a demogorgon was in the house while he was trapped in his crate.

I was managing the dog, showing the guy what I needed, waking up the teen to study for her regents and figuring out when I was going to get my practice in before I go to the eye doctor.

So I put the dog in my room, put earbuds in and a mask and did my chant right on my bed while the dog calmed himself down.

We do our best. I do my best. Life is hard. It can be stressful. But without my practice, I am not as soft or as graceful or as loving as I want to be.

To myself or to anyone else.

Practice doesn’t make perfect. It makes it familiar. And familiar, for the body, is safety.

—

As luck would have it (😂😂) the very first group gathering for The Practice Room is June 30th at 12pm EST. The theme is “Safety in the Body”.

Learn more about The Practice Room HERE.

Silence

What do i want to say today
What wants to be expressed
This morning though my writing
My soul is not impressed

With any ideas that pop up
With thoughts that wander by
The space inside is quiet
As spacious as the sky

Presence filling me like a balloon
I can feel the inside of my chest
My cells vibrate softly
The feeling i do love best

The sil…

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The other is you.
We are all One.

We are connected at the level of the heart - 
made of the same cosmic consciousness.

We are God
disguised in many costumes,
playing with the energy
of different stories.

God seeks to reveal themself
to itself.

They does this
by poking at the layers of consciousness
that obscure their light.

This can happen through …

Read more

Today I am piece of automatic writing that came through me after the studio closed five years ago.

Oh what a clusterfuck of a time that was - on so many levels.

Professionally, for 12 years, I was a yoga studio owner. A solo entrepreneur holding significant financial obligations for a business that was not legally allowed to operate in person for almost a year.

For over a decade, we were a tight community of teachers and students. Honestly, it was the most beautiful thing I’ve done professionally to date. The space, the vibe, the offerings, the collective. All of it.

And then slowly, it began to dissolve. All of it.

I held on (as I do) which meant making decisions from a financial perspective. Taking long-time classes off the schedule that did not translate online. Letting long time teachers go who’s classes stopped working and were now operating at a loss.

I made unpopular decisions. Had difficult conversations and tense exchanges. Some close relationships didn’t survive.

And in my traumatized, disregulated state all I could see what was I was doing wrong. All I was hearing was what I was doing wrong.

You are doing it all wrong, Alyssa.

All fucking wrong.

—

Now, hindsight being 20/20 and all. I see much more clearly now. That experience was a mirror for me. The first of many calling my attention to this false belief that I’m doing it wrong (“it” equals everything).

I know I did my best back in 2021. I know that decisions I made were necessary from a business perspective even if they were painful. I know that some relationships are not meant to last forever.

I know now that my experiences in life are mirrors of what is inside of me. I'm not talking about global events or systemic realities here. I’m talking about the very intimate nature of our personal experience to our moment. How are we perceiving it? What is our vantage point? What is it showing us? What is it reflecting back to us?

Whatever that is, that’s us. We have agency over that. Its easier to change our perspective of the world then to change the world itself.

And who knows, maybe if enough people change their perspective of it, it will start to change.

—

I know my practices help me see more clearly. My mirror is not reflecting back to me shadows and distortions.

Well actually, sometimes it does. And when that happens, I know it. I know I’m not seeing clearly. I know I need to tend to my self, to forgive my thoughts and emotions and wait for them to pass. Because they will.

It took me a while to really inhabit this teaching that came through when I was in the thick of it. I share it with you because maybe you are in the thick of something and perhaps this teaching will create some space for compassionate reflection.

The other is you.
We are all One.

We are connected at the level of the heart - 
made of the same cosmic consciousness.

We are God
disguised in many costumes,
playing with the energy
of different stories.

God seeks to reveal themself
to itself.

They does this
by poking at the layers of consciousness
that obscure their light.

This can happen through the play of love.
It can happen through the play of suffering.

In this dimension,
in this realm of existence,
suffering is a common technique
to peel back the layers.

How?

If we remain conscious
that nothing happens outside of us
that is not also within us,
we begin to see:

Conflict with others
is a reflection of conflict within.

So ask yourself - 
what is this conflict stirring up in me?

Am I being blamed?
Do I blame myself?

(You must—somewhere.)

Unconsciously,
within your field,
lives the same vibration
being projected at you.

That doesn’t make it true.

The only truth is this:
You are Divine.
Without beginning.
Without end.

Love yourself
by loving the source of your conflict.

You cannot wake up from a dream
you still believe is real.

Rise.
Come to the surface.
Let the truth of the situation
reveal itself.
Bless it.

Bow gracefully out of the story.
Honor the flow of energy
without amplifying it.

Does a relationship need to end?
Then let it go.

Do you need to soften your heart?
Adjust your perspective?
Then do that.

The more you can see others
as reflections of your inner state,
the more compassion 
you will offer 
to them,
and yourself.

I invite you to check out The Practice Room. Doors are open and practices are ready to help you see your life clearly. Audio practices and video practices for your particular state in the moment.

For when you are anxious and overwhelmed and need to regulate.

For when you are annoyed and irritated and need to steady.

For when all is well and you feel ready to strengthen and increase capacity.

For when emotions and energy need to move and you need release.

For when your mind is busy and your body is tired and needs to relax.

These are the tools I have used and continue to use. I invite you into my room to practice with me.

Learn More

I’m so grateful for your paid subscription. To honor you, I would like to gift you a practice from my newly launched practice room. I hope you consider joining.

The last couple of weeks I have given you audio file practices that can be found in the practice room. First was a 30 minute practice to regulate your system. Then last week, a meditation …

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Dog on the leash, I head outside. It’s morning but after school drop off, so it’s quiet. I stand on my porch and take in the scene. It’s a spectacular day. The sky is blue, not a cloud to be found. It’s both warm and cool at the same time, depending upon how much sun is hitting your skin. I bring in the garbage can from the curb and see my neighbor has planted sunflowers in his little grass patch that runs parallel to the sidewalk. Those are going to be gorgeous, I think to myself.

Zara and I begin our walk. She wants to go to the park so she pulls a bit at the corner. I have other plans so I insist we go the other way. This is an around the corner walk, not a roll around in the grass and sprint around the grassy knoll walk. She stops at every tree and sniffs. I day dream and wonder why my HRV is higher when I strength train then when I meditate. I look at the flowers my neighbors place in their windowsills. I see the recording device another points that the sidewalk. It’s quiet and peaceful.

I arrive at the corner, where there is a day care center. A father has just double parked and is carrying his toddler with her stuffed animal and lunchbox in his arms. All of a sudden, there are three cars behind him and more coming. Horns start blaring.

The father begins to shout at the first car “My brother, you have muthaF@$&ing room on the left. Where did you get your license, Texas?”

That makes me chuckle.

Horns are aggressive now. It’s been a total of 20 seconds since he double parked.

I cross the street in between the cars and take a peak. He has room. You got this dude, I think to myself. Just pull that mirror in and squeeze through. He starts to do just that.

Horns are still honking though. A man passes me and I hear him say to no one in particular “I hate this fucking neighborhood” in a way that seems like this is some sort of last straw.

And it occurs to me. He and I, just passerby’s on a typical Bronx traffic skirmish, are interpreting “the neighborhood” completely differently.

I am seeing all that is lovely and he is seeing all that is awful.

And we are standing on the same street corner observing the same location.

I have no idea who this man is, where he was before or where he was going. I don’t know the things that happened to him in his life or what his childhood was like. I don’t know the weight of life his body carries. I don’t know why his perception was trained to see all that was wrong. I can guess that his nervous system is skewed towards fear and reactivity. I can guess that he sees what is ugly to him before he sees what is beautiful.

As for myself - I have absolutely gone outside and been irritable at the horns and the traffic. I have been frustrated by the garbage that mysteriously gets dumped on the corner overnight. I have lamented when the guys at the community garden play music so loud it rattles my windows.

I get it. I want to move upstate and not see neighbors. I want to walk on the grass in my bare feet and not worry about glass. I want to know what it is like to sit in quiet and stillness and not hear sirens in the background. Or teach a class online and not have sirens on the background. Or just in general, not have sirens in the background.

Yet, here I am. In The Bronx until my youngest graduates from high school. It is a choice we made and as with most life choices, it is rich with opportunities.

Because you see, if I can regulate my nervous system and control my perception of my own life experiences in The Bronx, I can do it anywhere and any time.

How I feel about my neighborhood on any particular day is a good barometer for me.

Does the honking feel like needles on the outside of my skin? I likely need more sleep or more relaxation for system.

Does garbage piss me off and have me thinking negatively about the entire population of the earth? I would benefit from an hour of strength training or strong yoga.

Do I feel like crying when the music rattles my windows? I likely could use a good release for all the tension in my body.

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that we wouldn’t prefer. I would prefer to live upstate and closer to the earth, but that isn’t possible right now. I can sit in my home and resent my experience. I can bitch and moan and complain and perceive life through the lens of all that is fucked up.

And I could go down a rabbit hole here. I could get on my phone and doom scroll my nerves into a fried scared mess.

Or… I could not.

I could intend to interpret my experience differently. I could elevate my perception in such way that I see all the beauty. And there is PLENTY of beauty to see. I could clarify my perception in such a way that when I am feeling irritated or out of sorts, I care for my nervous system appropriately and in real time so my perception expands again.

I’m not bypassing. I see the garbage and I hear the horns. But thats not the only view available to me. I can shift my gaze to the budding sunflowers and the rose garden across the street. I can sit in my backyard and watch the bees do their thing. I can feel the sun on my skin and the cool breeze in my hair and think what a beautiful day it is.

I can, as my Yiayia used to say, count my blessings.

How lucky am I to be alive? To be safe and fed and educated and able to pursue my creativity and my dreams. How lucky are my kids to have NYC as their backyard - to go to museums, see Broadway shows with their school, to go to Chinatown on weekends and know how to get anywhere in the five boroughs on the train whenever they want.

Pretty freaking lucky. This is what prosperity and abundance actually means. Seeing all that is good. Focusing there.

I wasn’t necessarily raised to see all the good. I was raised to be productive and high achieving and to get shit done and done well. I was raised to see what needed to be improved and fixed (starting with myself). I was not raised in a home where nervous systems were regulated. They were amped with coffee and depressed with alcohol or weed. I mean. It was the 70s and 80s. No one thought about this stuff then.

They didn’t need to. There wasn’t an influx of information thrown at us daily. There wasn’t this intensity of life that we all feel now. There wasn’t an epidemic of mental health issues with kids and teens. There wasn’t AI, constant wars, UFOs that the Pentagon calls “a threat to national security.” There wasn’t an oligarchy of tech billionaires quietly ruling the world and harming the earth while they do it.

But here we are. Here I am. Here you are. With nervous systems that were conditioned in times when no one thought about how we were being conditioned.

Now we are living in times that require us to take control of our own experiences.

Maybe that’s why I’m seeing so many Substack articles about “regulating our nervous systems”. It’s definitely having a moment. As it should.

I can’t do anything about the global stage. I can only control my response to it.

And when my response to it is steady and clear, I can absolutely impact my local stage. My family, my neighbors, my friends and all those who read my words and come to my classes and listen to my work.

Same goes for you.

This has become the heart of my work. My work at home as a therapeutic foster/adoptive parent and my work as a teacher.

Helping others take care of themselves skillfully so they can perceive their lives from a regulated and expanded state.

Because how we perceive our life dictates how we experience it.

And our experience is everything.

The work is embodied. It is physical in that we access higher states of consciousness THROUGH the portal of the body.

In the Immersion we focus on the perception shift.

In The Practice Room, we train the system to be able to hold that shift.

The doors are open and I invite you into my room.

I’m very excited to show it to you!

Learn more

For much of my life, I have not been a “stop and smell the roses” type woman. I move swiftly, from one task to the next. When I ran the yoga studio, even when I put 10 minutes in between meetings, I would skid from one event to another. Rarely giving myself time to pee.

I called this productive. Now I recognize it as a form of anxiety. Or rather, anxiety-fueled productivity.

I didn’t see it as a problem. I was meditating in the morning. Sometimes at night. What I didn’t realize is that I was not creating any space in the fabric of my day for presence.

It’s been over five years since the studio business closed. I’m different now. I look back on that woman who ran herself into the ground and smiled through it all with a lot of love. She didn’t feel safe, or worthy or lovable unless she was productive.

Why would she? When I lay on the couch as a child staring at the ceiling my father would ask me, “What are you doing that is productive, Alyssa?”

Conditioning is so obvious sometimes, it’s like the nose on our faces.

But we can only see it with a mirror.

My mom was my mirror. How she lived and ultimately, how she died. She was maintaining a 3000 square foot home, gardening, taking care of her husband with Alzheimer’s and managing a pool that brought me to my knees all while quietly dying of cancer.

She was productive until her body just stopped.

And I finally saw the nose on my face.

—

We all have this conditioning to a certain extent. We all do more than one thing at a time, a good deal of the time.

Walking and listening to a book.

Cooking and listening to a podcast.

Standing on line and scrolling on your phone.

Watching a show and playing Blockblast or some other game on your phone.

Working on your computer and shopping on amazon.

Weight training while watching old episodes of Fringe (this is weirdly specific because it’s what I do).

I’ve recently been tasked to engage in mono tasking. Doing one thing at a time. It’s hard. Even though I move much slower than I used to and have much more space in my day, reducing the amount of input in my field is hard.

Yet, my nervous system is asking for it. My body is asking for more space, more silence, more pausing woven throughout the fabric of my day.

This is the path to becoming more quiet within myself. This is the path to experiencing myself as fully embodied consciousness.

When I am fully embodied consciousness, I know what I need in any moment because my body tells me. My body holds the truth of me and when I listen, I am fully sovereign in all aspects of my life.

My only job then, is to listen.

—

The teaching I share today was inspired by my work on Insight Timer. What a gorgeous group of humans who show up for live classes. We talk a lot about pausing. Pausing to check in with ourselves. Pausing to watch our breath. Pausing to feel our feet on the ground.

Pausing as a way of re-connecting to our present moment.

This transmission was for my Insight Timer students and for me. I’m always learning right along side of those I am lucky enough to teach.

Pause

Trust yourself. Trust your heart. And the impulses and desires that lay deep within you.

Not the surface pulls. Or the surface wants. Or the surface grasping for control to soothe your restless body.

Seek to quiet that layer of noise.

Pause.

Pause in your day as frequently as possible.

When you notice yourself encumbered with noise - thoughts, opinions, judgments, memories, plans, goals.

Pause.

When you notice yourself swirling with emotions - urgency, frustration, excitement, disappointment, longing.

Pause.

Notice all that moves within you. Feel all that moves within you. Without doing anything about it.

No actions other than feeling.

(This is hard. Otherwise more people would do it more frequently.)

We don’t learn to do this as children. Children don’t see their parents pausing and placing their hands on their hearts and asking themselves:

“What am I feeling right now?” And then giving themselves time to feel it.

Most of us didn’t learn this.

So we learn it now. We begin where we are.

Right here. Right now.

Feel yourself in space.

Feel your breath.

Feel your body breathe.

As many times as you can in a day, pause and stop and feel yourself in space.

Place your hand on your body, on your belly, on your chest and feel yourself.

Give yourself permission to feel whatever it is you’re feeling and feel it fully.

No story. No narrative. No reason for the feeling.

Let all that go.

And just feel this moment now.

How frequently can you do this over the course of your day?

Without interruption. Without sound in the background.

Silence and quiet around you will help silence and quiet take root within you.

Pause.

Stop the constant gerbil wheel of doing.

Stop performing, improving and producing.

Whatever it is.

Stop.

Let yourself simply float.

An anxious, scared body will sink under the water.

A relaxed, trusting body will float.

Pause.

Over and over and over.

Slow down.

Take time to smell the roses.

Literally.

Take time to go for a walk. A slow walk.

Lean against a tree and feel the support on your back.

Put the phone down.

Turn the podcast off.

Listen to the sound of silence.

It’s okay if the noise within you amplifies briefly.

Let it.

Breathe.

Let the noise within you have its say so it can quiet down.

That which we resist just persists.

Allow everything.

And watch the noise dissolve.

As this noise on the surface dissolves, and as you experience a quieter sense of being, you know yourself.

You see yourself.

You feel yourself.

You trust yourself.

You love yourself.

This is everything.

All because you learned to pause.

Over the last year I've been creating practices that help us do exactly what I’m writing about today. Not think about pausing - but actually practicing it. Next week, I'll be opening The Practice Room, a library of guided practices organized around the nervous system states I teach most often.

Tune in next week for more info and even a video tour!

Meanwhile - have you listened to Awakening The Multidimensional Self yet? Give yourself some time to just lay on the couch, put me in your ears and listen. (also, it’s not 10 days, it's 10 episodes ranging from 11 minutes to 17 minutes long.)

I’m so grateful for your paid subscription. I’m excited to share with you The Practice Room next week.

Also…

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Hello!

If you haven’t already - read today’s essay called Understanding My Nervous System.

Today, the audio I share is a practice for when you feel anxious and overwhelmed. It is a 30 minute practice to center you and reset you. Simply stand and put me in your ears and listen. At the end you will be back in your bo…

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How does my breath change when I feel safe and when I feel threatened?

What happens when I feel scared? What is happening in my body? Cortisol increases. Chemicals that increase blood flow to the limbs, the legs, the arms surge.

My heart speeds up. My blood pressure climbs. My body needs to move. To do something. Anything.

FIX. ARRANGE. CONTROL.

My breath becomes short and shallow. Maybe I breathe through my mouth.

Because of the tension in my chest, a long deep breath is not accessible.
There’s no time for a long, deep leisurely breath. There’s only, flee, fight or freeze.

My body in a frozen state is not relaxed, it’s simply... disconnected. My consciousness and my body are not together.

There is no breath awareness. There’s no body awareness. There is only an unconscious reaction to whatever it is I’m scared of.

The reaction could be thoughts in my mind, words I speak or actions I take.

When my body feels safe, when there’s no apparent stress or activation, the systems of my body, the chemicals, are more neutral.

My heart rate is normal. Regulated. My blood pressure is normal.

And because my body does not have a baseline of chronic tension anymore, my breath is relaxed. It is longer, deeper and through the nose.

My system is generating chemicals that relax my body and allow my mind to rest on the awareness of my breath and the sensation of my body.

I’m present. There’s no impulse to flee or to fight.

There’s no need to disconnect the consciousness from the body.

A safe nervous system allows me to experience fully embodied consciousness.

Fear and relaxation affect my breath and my body.

I can also use my breath and my body to affect my nervous system state.

When I become activated or fearful, which look for me like emotional states of anxiety, worry, resisting, for example, I stop.

I stop what I’m doing. I stop what I’m saying. I give myself a time out.

I am still in my body. I lay down if I can. I consciously breathe.

I breathe through the nose. Slow and long and deep. As best I can. Once I can do that, then I make my exhale longer than my inhale.

The extra long exhale is telling my body all is well. There’s no danger. There’s no problem.

I have plenty of time to breathe out all of my breath. There is no urgency.

I use my body and my breath to regulate and steady my nervous system so I do not slip into unconscious words, actions and thoughts.

So I don’t, for example, overwork or overproduce, pick a fight with one of my family members or punish myself in my mind with conditioned inner dialogues that are so familiar they are hard to not believe.

When I can tend to myself in this way, overtime, I train my nervous system to respond appropriately to my life.

And I consciously strengthen it. My life can be stressful. I need the capacity to remain conscious and intentional under stress.

I do this through physical effort. Weight training. Strong yoga. Intentionally and intelligently putting my body under stress and then resting consciously. Allowing myself to breathe, to stretch and to just be for a little while. No plans. No distractions. Just settling.

This expands my capacity for stress. So when stressful situations arise, my system does not respond in a fearful state of DO SOMETHING.

Instead, it maintains steadiness and calm and responds appropriately to whatever is in front of me.

My nervous system was trained to be hyper vigilant, to over perform and over produce in order to feel safe and to relax only when sleeping or using chemicals.

It has taken time to retrain it. It has taken daily practice and attention.

It is the best fucking thing I’ve ever done for myself. The only thing that truly created change in my life and in my children’s lives.

For those of us who truly want to be sovereign over our life experience, who do not want to feel like a feather at the mercy of the direction of the wind, we have to learn our own nervous system.

And respond to it accordingly.

You can determine where your nervous system is at any particular time by feeling the breath in the body. Notice how your breath is breathing. Notice your heart rate. Notice the sensation of you.

And you can shift your nervous system state by using the same things that helped you become aware of this state.

Pause. Still the motion of the body and become aware of the sensation of your breathing.

As best you can. As often as you can.

Slowly but surely, shifting the body from a chronic fear, reactivity state to a more neutral, steady state.

Understanding My Nervous System

How does my breath change when I feel safe?
When I feel threatened?

What happens when I feel scared? What is happening in my body? Cortisol increases. Chemicals that increase blood flow to the limbs, the legs, the arms surge.

My heart speeds up. My blood pressure climbs. My body needs to move. To do something. Anything.

FIX. ARRANGE. CONTROL.

My breath becomes short and shallow. Maybe I breathe through my mouth.

Because of the tension in my chest, a long deep breath is not accessible.
There’s no time for a long, deep leisurely breath. There’s only, flee, fight or freeze.

My body in a frozen state is not relaxed, it’s simply... disconnected. My consciousness and my body are not together.

There is no breath awareness. There’s no body awareness. There is only an unconscious reaction to whatever it is I’m scared of.

The reaction could be thoughts in my mind, words I speak or actions I take.

When my body feels safe, when there’s no apparent stress or activation, the systems of my body, the chemicals, are more neutral.

My heart rate is normal. Regulated. My blood pressure is normal.

And because my body does not have a baseline of chronic tension anymore, my breath is relaxed. It is longer, deeper and through the nose.

My system is generating chemicals that relax my body and allow my mind to rest on the awareness of my breath and the sensation of my body.

I’m present. There’s no impulse to flee or to fight.

There’s no need to disconnect the consciousness from the body.

A safe nervous system allows me to experience fully embodied consciousness.

Fear and relaxation affect my breath and my body.

I can also use my breath and my body to affect my nervous system state.

When I become activated or fearful, which look for me like emotional states of anxiety, worry, resisting, for example, I stop.

I stop what I’m doing. I stop what I’m saying. I give myself a time out.

I am still in my body. I lay down if I can. I consciously breathe.

I breathe through the nose. Slow and long and deep. As best I can. Once I can do that, then I make my exhale longer than my inhale.

The extra long exhale is telling my body all is well. There’s no danger. There’s no problem.

I have plenty of time to breathe out all of my breath. There is no urgency.

I use my body and my breath to regulate and steady my nervous system so I do not slip into unconscious words, actions and thoughts.

So I don’t, for example, overwork or overproduce, pick a fight with one of my family members or punish myself in my mind with conditioned inner dialogues that are so familiar they are hard to not believe.

When I can tend to myself in this way, overtime, I train my nervous system to respond appropriately to my life.

And I consciously strengthen it. My life can be stressful. I need the capacity to remain conscious under stress.

I do this through physical effort. Weight training. Strong yoga. Intentionally and intelligently putting my body under stress and then resting consciously. Allowing myself to breathe, to stretch and to just be for a little while. No plans. No distractions. Just settling.

This expands my capacity for stress. So when stressful situations arise, my system does not respond in a fearful state of DO SOMETHING.

Instead, it maintains steadiness and calm and responds appropriately to whatever is in front of me.

My nervous system was trained to be hyper vigilant, to over perform and over produce in order to feel safe and to relax only when sleeping or using chemicals.

It has taken time to retrain it. It has taken daily practice and attention.

It is the best fucking thing I’ve ever done for myself. The only thing that truly created change in my life and in my children’s lives.

For those of us who truly want to be sovereign over our life experience, who do not want to feel like a feather at the mercy of the direction of the wind, we have to learn our own nervous system.

And respond to it accordingly.

You can determine where your nervous system is at any particular time by feeling the breath in the body. Notice how your breath is breathing. Notice your heart rate. Notice the sensation of you.

And you can shift your nervous system state by using the same things that helped you become aware of this state.

Pause. Still the motion of the body and become aware of the sensation of your breathing.

As best you can. As often as you can.

Slowly but surely, shifting the body from a chronic fear, reactivity state to a more neutral, steady state.

And over time, your life begins to change.

The first cohort of The Nervous System Immersion has begun. I am so excited and proud of this program.

The heart of this work is teaching participants how to sustain higher states of consciousness in daily life. How to respond instead of react. How to stay conscious when stressed. How to stay graceful under fire.

The key to sustaining these higher states of consciousness is the regulation of your nervous system every day.

Understanding that it’s not just fear and safety. We are more complicated than that. It’s a spectrum.

Can we understand how to regulate ourselves when we are overstimulated and overwhelmed?

What do we do with our body? What do we do with our breath? How do we relate?

What about when life is uncomfortable and we want to steady ourselves? To tolerate discomfort consciously?

What about when we are feeling fine and want to strengthen? Increase our capacity to walk through the fiery portals of life?

We’ve got so much pent up tension. So much emotion that wants to move. So much irritable energy that’s gotta go. How do we release all that?

And when we really need to relax, when we find ourselves hyped up, when our body is tired and our mind is not quiet.

What do we do?

The Practice Room is a collection of practices organized by state. Both audios and videos ranging from 5 to 30 minutes in length.

This is how we learn to regulate ourselves to sustain higher states of perception

On June 7, The Practice Room will become a membership of its own: full access to the practices and one monthly call studying our states and how to respond to them.

Where the Immersion is personal and relational emphasizing perception of life experiences through higher states of consciousness.

The Practice Room forms the foundational practices that create the ability to sustain capacity and clarity.

More on that next week.

This week, paid subscribers will get a sneak peek at a practice to bring you back to your center when anxious and overwhelmed or otherwise on edge. Upgrade to be a paid subscriber to experience the practice.