Hello friends,
Welcome to the inaugural offering in the Subrosa newsletter series, written and sent with love by me to you at the start of each month. I’m so grateful you’re here! I intend to provide free writing prompts and poses that you can do from home so that I can share with you what it is that I have found healing and supportive in my own practice (because everything I share with others, I also do myself). You will also find details and sign up information for my current workshop offering. This month it will be held at Evergreen Brickworks with the changing leaves and sounds of birds and nature as a backdrop. Lastly, I will let you in on any lessons and insights I’m working on or working through because I’ve learned that sharing of our individual experiences can sometimes make the difference in another’s journey.
So without further ado, here we go!
Prompt Of The Month
This month's guided writing exercise is about joy and being in the moment. September can bring with it a sense of melancholy and time running out as summer comes to a close and winter is around the corner. Commercials and social media posts remind us of this incessantly, and as we enter back-to-school or back-to-work mode, it brings a mixed bag of lifestyle and schedule changes, all of which can be (at the very least) overwhelming. This kind of messaging that we see in the media and even from well meaning friends and family who vent their own stress about this season just don’t serve us, and actually do so much to induce an anxiety that doesn't need to be there. So your writing exercise for this month is one you can use daily, or weekly, or just as a one off, but it will help you to shut out all of the noise and come back into the present where you can access the wisdom within about what’s actually true for you at this time of year.
Get set up:
Grab your notebook, light a candle if that feels good, and take 6 deep cycles of breath, in through your nose and out through your mouth to settle into your body and the moment. Once you feel like you’re “here”, answer the following prompts, letting the writing flow without stopping or judging. Make a commitment to write for at least five minutes, but if you’re there for longer, great!
How can I bring more joy into my life?
How can I release the pressures of linear time that are no longer serving me?
If I could do anything, just because it was fun, what would it be?
It’s one thing to receive guidance from your inner wisdom and know yourself more deeply. But if you can, find a way to act on what came through—even one, small action that would answer the call of what came through—and you might just feel a little bit lighter.
Pose Of The Month
If you do nothing else this month to give yourself time to move your body intentionally and find ease amidst the hustle and bustle of September, I highly recommend Legs Up The Wall Pose (Viparita Karani in Sanskrit). This pose is my go-to. I use it on stressful days to help reduce any unwanted cortisol uptick or to simply have five minutes when I’m transitioning from my work to home life to help me reset. The beauty is that it only takes five minutes to get the incredible benefits of this pose. If you don’t have fives minutes, take two. Just a few moments in this pose will serve you on a physical, emotional, and mental level (that’s why it’s my go-to pose!)
Here are just a few of the well-documented benefits:
Activating the parasympathetic nervous system (your rest & digest response) and deactivates the sympathetic nervous system (your stress response).
Improves circulation and reduces swelling and inflammation
Helps alleviate low back pain and stretch tight hamstrings
You can listen to relaxing music or a gentle podcast if sitting in silence is too hard at first. But if you can, use it as a time to just be quiet and go inward. (Bonus: By doing that you’re also meditating at the same time—two birds, one stone!)
*Some cautions for those new to the pose: Watch for any pressure being felt in the head and reduce the incline if this is noticed. For pregnant women, use with caution and consult your doctor before trying anything you are unsure of. Watch for any tingling or numbness of the legs and bend the knees until the sensation has passed.*
September Workshop Offering:
Healing Through Writing & Yoga For The Autumn Equinox
When: Thursday, September 28 @11 am
Where: Evergreen Brickworks
Cost: $33 to reserve your spot (by e-transfer to allison.mcdonald.ace@gmail.com)
What To Bring: A notebook, a pen, a yoga mat & comfortable walking shoes
What It’s About: The Autumn Equinox on September 23rd heralds the beginning of harvest time, both in the material world and also internally. This is a time to reflect on what you have built, the progress you have made (however slow or small it might seem) and begin to gather all the benefits that come from that to sustain you through the coming colder months. Evergreen Brickworks provides a beautiful nature setting where we will walk together to our sacred circle up a hill to the top of the quarry. Our time will begin with a gentle yin yoga practice to come into the body, followed by a meditation to settle the mind, all in preparation for a guided expressive writing session where you will be led with prompts to go inward and allow to come through what needs to come through.
Final Thoughts
Before I sign off, I thought I would share the lessons I learned this summer from my travels in case they resonate with you.
After having been locked down in a pandemic, I, like so many, was excited to get back to travelling abroad. On top of that, I turned 40 along with my closest friends, so this summer held a bit more meaning to it. It felt like almost every weekend I was celebrating with friends and family. The peak was a bucket list trip to France that my husband, two boys and I embarked on. We started off in Paris and Lyon and then drove south to Provence to a villa with a pool overlooking a wild valley nestled among the mountains. It was, in short, stunning. But here’s the thing about bucket list trips. They come with expectations. And while it was a wonderful, life affirming experience, it wasn’t as carefree as I had envisioned, and for no other reason than that when you turn 40 (or any age where you feel the start of a new chapter) there is a lot of introspection that goes on. Here’s what came out of that self reflection:
1) Expectations are a waste of mental energy. See below.
2) Bucket lists are overrated. Honestly, this trip was so incredible in every way. I can still taste the cheese and baguette we ate beneath the Eiffel Tower sitting on a blanket as my kids chased pigeons. But the thing is, it never ever looks or feels how you think it will (sometimes it’s better). I think having trips you think about and dream about for years on end and set up as the culmination of your life’s experience up until that point is just going to set you up for anxiety. It will never look and feel as you envisioned, and so even when it looks and feels EVEN BETTER, the dissonance between what you imagined it would be like and how it actually lands is disconcerting. I think planning a year or two in advance is great, but don’t hold out for a trip ten or twenty years from now as holding some kind of magic. You’re just going to end up having the Sunday scaries half the time you’re there.
3) Timing is EVERYTHING. If I had gone on this trip even one year ago, I wouldn’t have been able to fully enjoy and sink into the many layers of it as I did this summer. Not because I wouldn’t have loved where we went and who we spent time with, but I wouldn’t have been able to appreciate as deeply what it all meant and how privileged I was to have this kind of experience. This trip came at the exact right time for myself and my family.
4) Kids get a bad rap for so many things, especially with travel. I was so nervous about how my kids would do on the long flights, long drives, and all the unknowns, but they blew me out of the water with how wonderful, adaptable, and in awe they were of everything and everyone we encountered. In fact, I think they travelled better than I did. So, just to say (back to that expectations thing) sometimes, people will surprise you in the best of ways.
5) Having a routine is very important, and shaking up that routine is just as important. I am a creature of habit, a typical homebody Cancerian, a true extroverted-introvert. I thrive on a quiet routine and being in a space where I feel at home and comfortable. While living that way is so important to my equilibrium, I know that without change there is no growth, and so I embraced the discomfort of not being in my routine and found a sort of resilience within myself in seeing that I was able to exist outside of my comfort zone for longer than I have in many years.
6) Getting older is a privilege, and 40 is a wonderful age. It's the start of a second act and an opportunity to take inventory of what's working--and what isn't--to empower the next phase of your journey. Coincidentally, leaving the country is a great way to find the mental space and clarity to take that inventory.
7) Comparison really is the death of joy. I can’t tell you how many times in Paris I had to remind myself of this as I wondered how the beautiful woman walking by me was able to pull off long pants in 45 degree heat without looking entirely frazzled while I was close to expiring in—horror of horrors to Parisian fashion—shorts! But when I was able to turn that comparison and envy into celebrating that woman’s awesomeness of being in her skin so effortlessly while also celebrating me in my own, my experience changed from one of feeling a kind of internal squeeze to an expansive love and acceptance for people in all shapes and styles.
8) The life you were given was not an accident. You were meant to live it fully—the joy, the sorrow, the mundane. All of it. So when the good stuff comes, embrace it completely, as it will carry you through the hard stuff when it inevitably shows up as well.
9) Gratitude will get you everywhere. We hear it over and over again but it really is true. I believe that the gratitude I felt and expressed regularly on this trip—to my husband, my children, the taxi driver who got us to the train station in time, our villa AirBnB host, my best friend and her family who drove all the way from England just so we could have 3 days together—made a difference to the energy of our trip, and to the everlasting memories I will carry with me. Not only are they indelibly marked in my mind, but because of the gratitude I made a point to cultivate, that feeling has stayed with me and made an impression that has lingered long after our return back to Canada.
On the note of gratitude, thank you once again for your presence, your support, and your friendship. I hope that this has been helpful, entertaining, or insightful (or all three!) wherever this finds you on your own path.
If you have any questions or comments you would like to share with me, please do email me. My wish is that this platform serves as a catalyst for connection from here and beyond.
All good things your way,
Allison