Hello friends,
We’ve reached the month of December, and while for so many this can be full of joy and excitement, I think for many of us—especially us women—it can also bring with it a sense of anxiety, stress, and pressure that comes with the closing of the year, various holidays, time spent in complicated family dynamics, and also the looming of a looooong winter break if you have children at home.
For many years I’ve held mixed feelings about this season, until last year when I started connecting with the energy of the Winter Solstice, which allowed me to focus on an aspect of this time of year that didn’t have anything to do with gift buying or religion or anything outside of what truly matters.
The energy of the Winter Solstice is very much about aligning with the energy of the feminine, about going within and slowing down, about “being” rather than “doing”, reflecting on the past year and opening up to the possibilities of what the new year will bring. I find that in connecting with the solstice energy, it grounds me and offers a counterbalance to the holiday rush and chaos, and is a medicine for the soul when we can otherwise get caught up too much of the material world.
If the idea of having a grounding force to balance out the holiday hoopla speaks to you, I encourage you to explore the Winter Solstice and find ways that resonate with you to connect to its energy. To this end, I will also send out a separate offering of a meditation practice on the day of the Solstice, which will be on 12/21/2023 of this year, all about finding the light in the dark.
Women’s Writing Circle: A 4-Month Journey Starting in January
On the note of future offerings, I am putting out the option of forming a monthly Women’s Writing Circle membership that would take place on the third Sunday of every month from January to April of 2024 from 1-3 pm. I would offer these sessions in my home as with my previous writing and yoga workshops, and the beauty of having this type of offering is that we get to go on a journey together with the same group and support and witness each other’s growth over that time for a full circle experience. Each month would explore a theme of emotional exploration through writing, meditation, and yoga that would build over the course of 4 months.
If this is of interest to you, please email me and let me know. We need a minimum of 3 participants in order for this to take off.
Prompt Of The Month
The idea of success, and what real success is, has continued to come up in conversation for me over the last many months, and I’ve noticed it continue to be something that many of my friends grapple with as well.
Somewhere along the line, success has come to be defined by how much money you make, or how hard of a worker you are, or how “good” of a parent you are (whatever THAT means). And although I fall into this trap myself, I am grateful that I do remember to pull out of it, or sometimes I am reminded by a loved one to pull out of it.
If only we could see ourselves in the same loving light as those outside of us do.
I watch my friends who work, raise children, show up for their partners and families and friends and neighbours, try to incorporate self care, make nourishing food, exercise, balance finances, and every day put energy into being generally good humans. And yet I hear from so many of those same friends that they want to do more, that they can’t rest until they’ve achieved the next level of whatever defines their success to them. I know that this is their journey, but some days it’s so hard for me to witness because the truth is success of any lasting value has nothing to do with money, or status, or productivity—this we know. I’m not sure that it’s a concept worthy of merit, really. What is the point of success, in whatever terms it is defined, if all it gets you is stressed and tired and ends with wanting even more success? Perhaps if the pursuit of success was traded with purpose—the pursuit of trying to find out what your purpose is, and then following that—the result would be a sense of peace and fulfilment, something more lasting and rewarding than the ever moving goal of success.
But even with the idea of purpose, the ego can wind its way in and make it difficult to know what that is—or to follow it. Many years ago, I remember listening to a talk given by the author and spiritual teacher, Caroline Myss, about purpose. She talked about how everyone wants to know their purpose, but they don’t always like the answer. Because not all of us have a big, shiny purpose. We are not all meant to be movie stars or billionaires, or high academic and professional achievers. That can be part of it, sure. And it’s nice if it is, sure. But, she asked, what if your actual purpose was simply to live on that street, in that neighbourhood? To live there, to be kind to the people you interact with, and to hold the light in that little corner of the world. Would you have the courage then to live your purpose, to just be that person on that street, and to do it fully and completely and have it be enough? This question she asked is one that I come back to so often in my own contemplation.
And so the prompt of the month is on this idea—to ask yourself and then see what comes through on paper, without judgment or trying to change it:
How can I rest in just being rather than doing?
Is focusing on material success serving me?
What is my purpose, or part of my purpose here in this lifetime, and is there a way I can live it more fully?
Pose of the Month: Easy Pose
The pose of this month is Easy Pose, because if there is anything that is true, what’s needed right now is more ease and grace and less forcing and trying. This can be a deceptively difficult pose despite its name for several reasons. One is that if you have tight hips or knees, it can bring up some discomfort. If this is the case, please sit on a blanket and adjust so that you are not in any pain. You can even rest your back against a chair or couch if you need to.
The benefit of this pose and also the challenge is that it asks you to just sit in your being-ness. The challenge is that our minds start racing towards all the things we could be doing on the never ending to do list. The benefit is that in allowing yourself to just rest in being, you are called back to balance, to your true essence inside, that exists beyond the list of tasks that will always be there. This pose is a reminder that there is value in doing nothing.
I encourage you to take a quiet minute—or five—in easy pose this month whenever you find yourself too much in the “doing” part of life. Come to the floor or a chair, take a cross legged seat and allow yourself to sit in quiet, hands at your heart or resting on your lap. Breathe.
Final Thoughts
Last year, right around this time, I would say that I began a second spiritual awakening, or perhaps it’s better put as entering the next level of my spiritual journey. I had been feeling lost and disconnected for some time, and as December rolled around, I started receiving intuitive hits and guidance during my meditations to study and delve into the teachings and energy of the Divine Feminine.
Aside from what I had learned during my Yin Yoga training, I hadn’t ever really explored this aspect of, well, life. What began with following that guidance one step at a time evolved into my working deeply to balance my own feminine and masculine energies (still working on that), and in doing so, realizing how out of balance so many of us are as a collective. I felt called to do my part in sharing what I had learned, to be of service in helping others find balance, which then led to doing my 200 hour yoga teacher training, re-launching my therapeutic writing workshops to include yoga as well as meditation, followed by this newsletter, and here we are again, one year later.
What I find so fascinating is that as I reflect on all I’ve worked on and worked through this year, I feel in many ways as though I’m back at the beginning, starting over again. And that comes with mixed emotions. I think my ego would like me to be farther along—with what, I don’t know exactly, but probably all of the usual trappings—money, status, accolades, validation. And yet my heart, my higher self, knows that I’m exactly where I’m meant to be, and the fact that it seems as though I’m starting again from the same place is not even a slight coincidence, but, rather, divinely intentional.
One of the aspects that has been calling to me as I come back again to this beginning point is the idea of remembering. I feel pulled to go back to the foundation, to remember and revisit all of the trainings that have brought me to this place, but with fresh eyes, fresh ears, and an even more open heart. I’ve felt called to listen again to audiobooks and meditations from teachers that I first listened to when I was a teenager and my mother introduced me to the works she herself was reading. So rather than fighting the idea of starting over again, I’m going with the flow, and it’s as though I’m being given the chance to integrate those lessons and teachings in a deeper, visceral, and more embodied way now because I’ve lived enough life that I can understand and receive them with a bit more clarity on how they were meant to be received.
There is one teaching in particular that I’ve been called to revisit in which is the audiobook Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life: Living The Wisdom of the Tao by Wayne Dyer. I remember listening to this on CD while I drove around in my parents’ green Pontiac Bonneville over 20 years ago. The concepts in this book are translations and interpretations of Lao Tzu’s Tao de Ching, which was recorded based on his teachings 2500 years ago and is, coincidentally (or not), the foundation on which the principles of Yin Yoga is built, although at the time I first listened there wasn’t even a glimmer of a thought in my mind that I would one day go on to be a teacher of yin yoga.
I remember having a lightbulb moment listening to this on CD years ago as Wayne Dyer explained the importance of learning to Just Be. He uses the analogy of an otter, explaining how an otter doesn’t try to be a different kind of otter—better, faster, more attractive, more successful; it doesn’t try to be a different kind of animal, like a hawk or a wolf. It just lives in its otter-ness and is thus entirely content in its experience of life as it was intended.
I hadn’t thought of this analogy for 20 years, so when I heard it again the other day as I went on my usual daily walks, I couldn’t help but chuckle to myself out loud. I laughed at the idea of my 18 year old self hearing this for the first time. I remembered hearing it that first time and sort of getting it and also being entirely perplexed—be like an otter? Sure, okay. I also laughed at the fact that it’s been 20 years and I’ve only now started to be able to embrace and embody this concept of just being—being myself, being human, being exactly where I am without trying or forcing to be somehow or somewhere other.
I laughed because it’s either funny or scary or sad or maybe all three that it can take us humans so damn long to learn these lessons that if we could just understand sooner would save us from so much pain and confusion and suffering. And yet, because all of life is paradox within the unity, therein lies the whole point. We are here to learn, to experience life in its entirety—the hard, the easy; the love, the pain; the mundane, the joy.
It’s the WHOLE point.
So as we move towards the Winter Solstice, and the sometimes frenetic energy this time of year brings, I wish you the ability to just be. To rest—if even for mere moments—in the heartfelt belief that you are enough, just the way you are, just for being here. Not because of the money you earn, not because of the activities you organize for your family, or the healthy or nutritious meals you make. Not because of your work ethic, or because of your productivity. Not because you are a good friend, or a good child, or a good parent, or a good partner. But because you are here, and that it took an entire miracle and confluence of energies and events to bring you here. And so just living, breathing, and being you, makes you entirely worthy and enough. Just like the otter.
Until next time…
All good things your way,
Allison