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2023, Hello Gorgeous!
“Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.”
-Meister Eckhart
I’ve been itching to say these words for awhile now: HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
Whereas tangibly nothing is different and the clock just rolled over as it does every December 31st, what does seem to change is our mindset—how we approach time.
There’s a stirring in the air, a blank slate if you will, and yet nothing has really changed. Interesting isn’t it?
I love what Meister Eckhart said, “Be willing to be a beginner every single morning.” A new year presents the invitation to begin again. I believe every morning presents the same life-giving invitation as well. It’s an opportunity to live wholeheartedly, with purpose and curiosity. It’s the opportunity to step into your God-given shoes of worthiness no matter what is achieved, accomplished, or lost.
You are the hero of your own journey. In every single good story, the hero is met with upending challenges that test belief, identity, and most of all, hope. And yet you, the hero, have the opportunity to begin again, every single day, with fresh vision and commitment.
I’d love to be your guide this year on the blog. I’d love to support you with tools, practices, and self-care opportunities I have been creating for a while. You can expect to gain short, practical insights every Tuesday that make it just a bit easier to show up for yourself—and be with yourself—in a courageous and loving way.
I’ll also be offering online Enneagram and self-care classes each month if you’re interested in a deeper self-development dive.
Of course, I’d love for you to join me in my monthly subscription program called the Practice, if you’re interested in creating structure and accountability as you set out to meet the goals and intentions you’ve set for yourself this year. It’s a self-care toolkit that combines practical ways to use the Enneagram, mindfulness, and self-compassion in your daily experience.
Wherever you decide to join me, I want you to know how grateful I am to be a part of your wellness journey. It’s such an honor to have your company.
I’ll leave you with a question:
If you continue on the self-development path you are on, where would you like to be a year from now? What does your life look like? What’s different? The same?
I’d love to hear your answers! Drop me a line if you’d like.
Alright, friends! It’s showtime…
Palate Cleanser
“The visionary starts with a clean sheet of paper, and re-imagines the world.”
-Malcolm Gladwell
Happy New Year!
We’re doing it! We’re about to cross over the threshold of 2023, showing up for ourselves all along the way. 2022 was a year of ongoing cancer-related surgeries and recovery for me, so launching into a brand new year feels especially poignant—and exciting!
There’s always the temptation to bite off more than we can commit to when considering New Year’s resolutions. Like I’ve said before, I’m convinced humans choose extremes over balance more days than not. We go all in, sink or swim, only to wake up a week later in too deep and grasping for air.
So let’s ease into it. Let’s hit the palate cleanse. Let’s listen to the gentle rhythms of our desires, our longings, our needs. Let’s partner with ourselves from a place of self-compassion, like we would a loved one we believe in and want to support. Let’s speak to ourselves with kindness and curiosity, turning down that harsh inner critic that keeps us small and hustling for worthiness. Let’s breathe more—slower and deeper than usual. I’m convinced we could all use a return to the breath and the body as a way of being present.
Let’s start small. And from that place of stillness and silence, we begin to etch out the tiny, two-degree shifts of growth and expansion that over time, create big breakthroughs. It’s often helpful to partner with a professional in order to gain greater support and accountability. If you’re looking to use the Enneagram as a part of your 2023 self-development, I’d love to help make that happen. You’re the expert at you, and I’ve got a detailed roadmap to get you from where you feel stuck to where you long to be.
No matter what you want to create in your life this year, I hope you’ll continue to journey with me. I’ve got some exciting stuff coming your way that I can’t wait to share.
In the meantime, do a little dreaming...a little playing. It’s time to let your true self take the wheel. She’s ready!
A Christmas Letter to You
“Just remember the true spirit of Christmas lies in your heart.”
-The Polar Express
I have a hunch you have a lot going on this week. With Christmas only a few days away and New Years just around the bend, many of us are traveling, gathering, and hopefully… connecting.
I’m reminded of how lonely this time of year can be as well. I’ve had many seasons of life where the holidays were, very truly, bleak. So I can’t help but write you today and check in. As an Enneagram type 4, that sensitive ache is never too far off, for better or worse. I say yes to the ache, though. Without it, I forget how fragile and thin life’s veil is. I learned that big time with my cancer diagnosis.
I feel more connected to you as I connect to my own human frailty. This is why the practice of self-compassion is so beautiful and spacious. It invites our pain and suffering to have a voice, knowing that this is the connective tissue of being human. It doesn’t shut that voice out in the cold, though. It leans in, curiously, with kindness—so as to alleviate that felt pain and loneliness. It says, “I see you, friend. I see your pain—the weight of your heavy burden—and I love you no matter what. I’ll stay awhile with you.”
This season, consider someone in need. Who might be alone? Who may be hurting? As you enter into the spirit of the season, invite them there with you, even in the prayer chamber of your heart. What a powerful message we send to the world as we create space in our hearts for the ones who are broken. We overcome scarcity with generosity—lack with abundance.
I pray this week, you would hear more love than noise, see more light than sorrow, feel more joy than fear. In the quiet hours of the morning, I pray that you sense a palpable belonging.
The Holiday Edit
“Self-Care is not taking time out. It’s taking time back.
-Katie Gustafson
If there is something I hear from clients like a broken record, it’s this: I need tools.
I love hearing this because I’m a firm believer that the reason we don’t see the progress we’d like to in therapy is that we lack ongoing support outside the therapy office. Whatever we practice we improve; however, we often get in the habit of leaving all the insight and growth we experience in session, well, right there in the session.
You wouldn’t expect to go to the gym twice a month and see the results you desire without any additional changes made. Quite the contrary. Our results depend on diet, metabolism, consistency, accountability, and mindset just to name a few.
And so it is with our emotional fitness. We need tools: practices and resources to bake into our daily lives that support the change we seek.
I know, I know. We are in the 11th hour of 2022 and the tendency is to coast right past the finish line into the new year.
So, I want to share my top five resources with you to help you finish strong and wake up on New Year’s feeling clear and ready for the dawn of a new day. I don’t know about you, but I’ve got some big goals and desires!
Without further ado, here are my 5 favorite wellness resources to help us round this corner:
1) The Self-Care Workshop: On February 25, Ally Fallon, author and expert writing coach, Koula Callahan, yoga teacher and speaker, and myself will host the second Self-Care Workshop in Nashville, TN. It will be a day of Enneagram exploration, writing, and movement which in my mind is the trifecta of self-care: growing in understanding and compassion for your unique self and creating a foolproof self-care plan for the rest of 2023. Sign up for this transformational experience here.
2) The Practice: Two years ago I created an Enneagram-based self-care membership program to provide you with tools. Tools to use outside the therapy office to help people achieve the goals they have for themselves— mind/body/spirit. It combines a weekly Enneagram exploration with meditations, journal prompts, yoga videos, monthly group coaching, and expert interviews with incredible voices in the wellness and Enneagram space.
3) Streaming Exercise memberships: We must not let up on exercise just because we’re in the home stretch of 2022 and there's a solid sugar coma waiting at every turn!!! In fact, seasonal depression and anxiety are actually spiking right now—physical exercise is crucial for us to process unruly emotions and regulate stress. I’ve been a Tracy Anderson method fanatic for over a decade now, so her streaming membership is my go-to. Another favorite is Mellisa Wood Health for amazing yoga classes and more. Both offer free trials!
4) Huberman Lab Podcast: I’m always on the hunt for a science-backed wellness podcast. This past year I found one of my favorites. But even better, it focuses on neuroscience, my favorite thing to geek out on. It’s so tempting to wait until January 1 to rein in our health and wellness routines. That is exactly why this should be a painless tee-in!
5) Infrared Sauna blankets: My love for infrared is real. Going to the sauna has been a huge part of my recovery road from cancer. So much so I bit the bullet and bought a Higher Dose infrared blanket for at home use!! I absolutely love it for the detoxifying (oh hey sugar), heart, skin, and overall wellness benefits. They are a lot less expensive than buying an actual sauna as well! Alright my friends, I hope these will serve as an extra nudge this season to give yourself the gift of self-care in a time we need it most!
Alright my friends, I hope these will serve as an extra nudge this season to give yourself the gift of self-care in a time we need it most!
Let's Finish Strong
“For last year's words belong to last year's language. And next year's words await another voice. And to make an end is to make a beginning.”
-T.S. Eliot
Last week, a dear friend said something so profound in conversation. I’ve been marinating in it since. She said, “I’m struggling to find my now. I’m either stuck in the past or out somewhere in the future. I desperately want to find my now.”
Can you relate to this? I can. It’s tempting to camp out in what “could have been”: more productivity, success, health, passion, what have you. This temptation is then compounded by the seductive tendency to run tactics on a fresh new start right around the proverbial bend.
You know the drill. The diet and exercise folks join forces and broker a zillion dollar deal every fourth quarter counting on you and I to wake up January 1 after sipping on the stiff and steady cocktail of two parts bloated, one part foggy, and a heavy shake of shame. We buy in to the ultimate extreme makeover our resolution(s) of choice promises only to throw in the towel a week later hangry, and with the selfless support of your dearest pint: Ben & Jerry, or Stella Artois.
It’s so predictable, right?
Thankfully, there is another way. Conscious living invites us into self-awareness. If we accept this invitation, we immediately enter a room full of freedom—and responsibility.
Viktor Frankl, Austrian psychiatrist, Logotherapy creator, and Holocaust survivor, said it best,
“Between the stimulus and the response, there is a space. In that space, there lies your freedom and power.”
These Holiday months present us with a vital passageway—a sacred space. Incidentally, it’s one of the tightest spaces in which to remain present and self-aware. If we consciously choose presence—that powerful space of the here and now—as opposed to the sugar-laced trans of consumerism, I believe we will finish strong.
“Buzz-kill much?” you ask.
Fair enough. However, I wholeheartedly believe our most powerful, abundant lives are built with consistency, brick by brick, and experienced moment to moment. Why? Because if I am present in each moment, I hold the keys to reality and connection. By this I mean, I live in wakeful presence and respond truthfully to my desires, needs, and those of others. I also forgo the trap of extreme, reactionary living.
Speaking of the needs of others, the Holiday season is often one of deep pain and loneliness in the hearts of many. I’ve known this pain well. Yet at the same time, there is this massive expectation to shine up the shell of appearance and ignore the voice of pain that hums a haunting cry for help.
When you and I narc-out in unconscious trance, we are unavailable to those needs all around us. Likewise, we silence our own. Needs such as connection, compassion, and rest get overrun by the loud liturgy of commerce and consumption.
These next several weeks, give yourself and others this gift of presence. Enjoy the heck out of them, consciously choosing to come back to the moment, no matter how often the drone of chaos calls. Each time you make this choice, you step into your freedom-your power. Don’t bother eliminating the noise. That’s a crap-shoot.
Finishing strong looks more like staying soft than hustling hard.