As 2018 begins in this winter season, I can feel the pull of two distinct directions. One aligns with the natural rhythms of the season. It beckons me to honor the pause...to slow down and move inward in order to receive the blessings of the earthly dark. The other guides me outward, walking single file toward a new year's resolution that demands I take action NOW! In years past I more often followed the external path, allured by
the collective momentum surrounding this time of year. I made plans, got down to business, and began bringing creations to life. I was praised for being diligent, focused, and devoted, and although my motivations were pure, passion quickly waned when external objectives exceeded inner listening...when service or purpose trumped my own self-care.
The well established pattern of moving forward and placing service over self.care certainly fed my sense of meaning and purpose, but often came at the expense of my own inner well.
If I learned anything from 2017 - undoubtably one of the more challenging and destabilizing years for many I know - it was the importance of calling on our greatest resource(s), seeing beyond our fears, and prioritizing our self.care! Personally, I was challenged to re.evaluate my sense of self, value, and alignment - to source them from a luminous center that was not bound to whether I was clear about the trajectory of my work or
purpose...to how many offerings I created...to how "successful" I was at my trade. Life was calling me to move from the outer to the inner. From a path of external resolutions based on objectives and results to and inward inquiry based on the resources that most supported me:
somatic awareness + conscious movement + active imagination
As 2018 begins I challenge you to commit to your personal practices...everyday. To make a priority of your own self.care and nourishment. To tune into your body and listen to what is happening on the inside. It is through this dialogue with your own soma that you will remember yourself home! That you will come to understand the systems of response within your own mind/body/soul and anchor yourself in your own luminous center - grounded, engaged, awake, in choice.
Choose embodiment! Choose Life! Join me!
Love, Teresa
"Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.
Even with the summer so far off I feel it grown in me,
now and ready, to arrive in the world.
All those years listening to those who had nothing to say.
All those years forgetting how everything has its own voice
to make itself heard.
All those years forgetting how easily you can belong to everything
simply by listening.
And the slow difficulty of remembering
how everything is born from an opposite and miraculous otherness.
Silence and winter has led me to that otherness.
So let this winter of listening be enough for the new life
I must call my own."
David Whyte