Sometimes rest is necessary.
Not because the work is done,
but because the work is going.
Ever going.
And yet here and now in this drop of time
hides stillness,
an open secret.
(shhhhh….)
Rest now, little one,
Rest.
The summer wind sneaks across your face.
The cicadas whir in the depths of your ears.
The warm air calls you down to recline,
spread low and long in the sun.
Rest.
Much love,
Rachel
My kids have been tracked out since June 6th.
Scratch that.
My kids have been out of school since June 6th.
Scratch that.
At least one kid has been out of school since June 6th.
Truth.
(Took me a few rounds to get there but made it.)
First, we had almost 5 weeks of track out. That was lovely albeit crazy. Camping, working, day camps, swim team (year round and summer), solo parenting, lake trips, Virginia sojourns, death and fireworks.
Then on July 11th we had back to school for these year round kiddos.
Except we didn’t.
Because my youngest was sick on Day 1.
So two went off to their new year of learning;
one stayed home.
For the entire week.
Sooooo. Next we had Week 2 of school.
During which I was off in the mountains of North Carolina meditating and yoga nidraing the whole time. Husband was here with the 3 kiddos overseeing life and the youngest’s transition into third grade. (Change is hard. Shew.)
And now we’re in Week 3 of school.
And my 13 year old is sitting across from me. Actually, he’s lying across from me spread out on the couch, Day 4 at-home with a gnarly respiratory and bonus symptoms virus.
Ugh. Darn. Blech.
I haven’t seen a client in over a month now.
(Do I know how to be with people any more?)
I haven’t been in my office in weeks.
I haven’t written up post-session notes in so long, pondering what went well and what I could have done differently; what I saw and what I assuredly missed; what I’m curious about for next time.
There has been so much twisty turny in the past 7 ½ weeks.
There has been so much beautiful in the past 7 ½ weeks.
I’ve missed a lot of the beautiful. For sure.
Life is friggin’ hard.
I mean it. Life is hard. There is relentless messy and heavy and no-answer quandaries. There is pain and yes, suffering, aplenty.
But there is also beautiful.
It bubbles up and through the crevices.
It squeezes in and through the cracks.
It seeps down and around the obstacles.
Life is hard. With moments of beautiful.
It’s all always there (here).
Any moment holds the hard.
Any moment holds the grace.
There is no mutual exclusion in this adventure.
There is hard and frustrating.
There is adventurous and exciting.
There is calm and quietude.
There is all of it.
There is room for all of it.
Make way.
Make way.
A life is coming.
Make way.
Make way.
A life is going.
Bow down.
Bow down.
Yes.
Life is hard, with moments of beautiful.
Bow down.
In awe,
Rachel
p.s. If you want to lean into this paradox, join me this Saturday afternoon, July 29th at Cary Yoga Collective for “Touching Joy: An iRest Yoga Nidra workshop.” We’ll unpack this more and explore what’s possible.
“Woah… look at me go!!!”
8 year old Nora’s sitting at the kitchen table. She appears still and upright but her eyes are wide and intense.
“uh-huh…” I reply hesitantly as I scrunch my face in confusion.
She giggles, knowing she’s got me.
“The Earth is spinning SO FAST!!!!!!!!!!!”
she says as she leans hard left.
Riiighhttt.
I’m feeling it right now. The going going going. The overcooked edges of summer eating me a little from inside out. The doing is much in my world and the walls are starting to close in.
A bit ragged in this mind and heart today.
And so. I break open the summer toolkit of yoga and Ayurvedic goodness.
I’m looking forward to sharing some of the favorite ways I balance this time of year… they’re simple and yet profound.
Here’s what’s happening.
iRest Yoga Nidra and Joy workshop
Saturday, July 29th | 1:30-4:30pm
@ Cary Yoga Collective
Cost $89
High Summer day retreat
Sunday, August 6th | 9am-4pm
@ Sky Pond, Apex
Cost $189
During both days, we’ll tend to the body, quiet the heart and open the mind.
Click on the links above to learn more or drop me a note. I’d love to see you and downshift together in the midst of the summer hot and hustle.
Join me.
Take good care,
Rachel
“You know, the craziest thing about the ocean is that the actual water particles don’t ever move… they just push against each other creating what we see as waves,” my big sister muses to me as we gaze over the horizon of endless blue.
huh. yes.
I still can’t quite grasp this reality. It’s slippery.
But I feel its poignancy.
To see a wave ripple up on the shore and to pause in wonder,
how did it get here?
Gentle
push
after
gentle
push,
formed by…
connection.
Connection allows us to know
balance, supple and steady.
Connection grows in iridescent webs
within us and
far (far) beyond us.
Connection inward
to body,
to mind,
to heart.
Connection outward
to each other.
Connection downward
to earth, nature and ground.
Connection upward
to something more, Ever More.
Here’s what I’ve got coming up to help you nourish connection in all the ways:
iRest Yoga Nidra and Joy workshop
Saturday, July 29th | 1:30-4:30pm
@ Cary Yoga Collective
Cost $89
High Summer day retreat
Sunday, August 6th | 9am-4pm
@ Sky Pond, Apex
Cost $189
4 Class series: Gentle Yoga & Yoga Nidra deep relaxation
Fridays, August 11, 18, 25 & September 1 | 12:15-1:15pm
Virtual series by Zoom (Also recorded for future viewing)
Cost $160
How to Use Yoga in Grief
Tuesday, August 22nd | 7:30-8:45pm
Hosted by Transitions LifeCare
Donation based
Connection with Self, connection with others, connection with nature, connection with the Bigger… gentle push after gentle push.
Steady as we go.
If you’re interested in any of my classes or workshops, all you need to do is reply to this email.
Take good care,
Rachel
YOU PUT YOUR RIGHT ARM IN AND YOU S.H.A.K.E. IT ALL ABOUT!!!
YOU DO THE HOKEY POKEY AND YOU TURN YOURSELF AROUND,
THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT!!!”
I’m downstairs cleaning up the kitchen from dinner before we leave for our bi-annual camping trip to Cape Hatteras.
That sing chanting? That’s my 8 year old in the shower upstairs. She’s singing the song we adopted at Hatteras to convince ourselves to place body part by body part in the cold shower.
Hey, they’ve got knobs now at least. When I was a kid going there, I had to steal myself to pull.the.cord to dump the cold water upon myself.
Brrrr.
I would scream bloody murder to the point that my mother – not at all prone to bribery in the day to day of my childhood – would offer me FOUR Oreo cookies if I got through it without alerting the entire campground to my sentiments about said shower.
Clearly Nora has evolved my genetics in this way. She sings instead. (Yet she also asks for the cookies.)
Now let me tell you a little more about Hatteras.
This place has wisdom to share.
I love camping at Hatteras because it reminds me of things.
Not just the things from my childhood. (Uh, pull-cord showers.)
My first time camping there was before I could walk or talk or write in this magic of word song.
Hatteras helps me re-remember things.
The balm of ice water in scorching mid-afternoon summer; the thin mattress in our pop-up trailer when the twilight has set in and the cicadas are deafening; chasing the shade during afternoon siestas at camp. The pain that someone inevitably feels from a prickly pear cactus picked up in their foot or a bee they ran into on their scooter. The squadrons of dragonflies, dive booming to eat all the mosquitos that materialize from last week’s standing water. The racoon that pops his head up out of the thicket to check-out whether you left any food scraps. The teeny, tiny frogs in the outdoor showers. (Yes, those showers.) The deluge of rain that lets loose when the sky can hold no more. The seagulls circling above you on the campground hill high above the blue waters. The opening your eyes to the sun breaking the day. The moonlit walks to the bathroom down the hill from your campsite. The sharp winds whipping the sand across the beach and stinging your legs.
This land is raw and real.
It sounds miserable to so many people. They tend to ask me, “Why would you do that? Why don’t you just stay in a house?” Or, “Well, do you at least have air conditioning in your tent trailer?”
Nope. No, I don’t.
Because this place and how we do it reminds me of a biggest thing.
Like there’s not enough, never enough.
When there is. There is plenty. And more.
Right here and right now.
Wherever here and now may be.
(Why must we learn that? Deeply learn that? Ah… what we feel is what we see is what we know. And what we know is what we create more of and so…)
Are there unknowns in life?
I won’t lie.
There are infinite unknowns.
It all could fall to shit in a second.
But it hasn’t. Yet.
Or it has.
A million trillion times and counting over and over again, it all falls apart.
But that’s the star stuff, you see.
Because if you’ve got the room to fret and worry, then this moment has something good in it.
Something, even if it’s teeny tiny is baked in that is beautiful.
It can be so hard to see.
Which is why we get to train ourselves to see the good, the possibility, the “what’s next?” wonder of it all.
In the midst of the hard and the hurt, we have to try.
Because the world needs us to try. To pause and re-remember over and over
Even as it might chew you up. It spits you out to see,
More.
That’s what I get to do at Cape Hatteras.
That’s what I wish for all of us in whatever we’re doing.
The space to pause,
the space to ponder,
the space to re-remember,
what matters?
Take good care,
Rachel
In 2018, I lost someone very dear to me.
With the deafening silence of deep grief came
a world
that was
too
loud.
WAY too loud.
In the early days of stunned stillness, I knew I needed to quiet the input.
Shutup the excess.
Release the chatter.
Be in the vastness of loss.
I knew I needed to enter the abyss of “what now?”
I turned to quiet, to stillness, to nature,
and
I gave up social media.
Bizarre as it sounds, this wasn’t a hard choice.
It was necessary and it was done in seconds.
Facebook,
Delete.
Instagram,
Delete.
Email subscriptions that didn’t warm my heart,
Unsubscribe.
(In Ayurveda, a foundation of yoga therapy, deleting stuff is called medicine of subtraction.
I took a serious dose of it here.)
And then.
The softness.
The quiet.
The rest.
Fast forward over 5 years later…
I still have no Facebook account.
My dear friend forwards me a single TikTok every few weeks that makes me giggle.
My Instagram account is technically for my business but I open the app once every couple months so not exactly effective marketing.
See, my comparison brain is super duper active, always has been.
But I found that when left to my own mindspace without thousands (millions?) of others
trying to bend it,
it was quite healthy in there.
Bearable even in the hardest of hard.
Because now, I have more say over the input.
Not the Algorithms and the endless feeds.
I know that not everyone needs to put down social media nor wants to.
But I also know that numerous clients have lamented their phone’s hold on them.
Lamented that it has somehow removed choice from their lives.
That to walk away isn’t even an option.
I don’t wish a death like I experienced on anyone,
but I’m forever grateful for the long walk from there to here.
So.
If you also wonder what it could be like with a little less social media and a little more Being in your life, check this out.
Wisdom 2.0 is a phenomenal organization that cultivates mindfulness in the tech space. They’ve got a Digital Reset coming up in July that is donation based,
https://www.wisdom2summit.com/
I’ll partake, for sure.
(If it sounds right to you, trying out this Reset would be medicine of addition, a strategic add-on to support what you want to feel more of in your life…. whatever that may be.)
If you do sign up, drop me a note and let me know what you’re hoping to feel more (or less) of from doing it.
Exploring new habits can be tricky.
Structure and community can make it a tad easier.
Keep me posted on what you decide.
(kmp, right? Thank goodness I have an almost-teenager that educates me on the basics.)
Take good care,
Rachel
Getting myself out of bed when I’m camping isn’t so hard.
The sun comes up and the day’s fresh-born light spills over into the world.
The birds test their voices once more.
The sound of the ocean waves creeps over the dunes and up the hill into my ears.
It’s natural to awaken early when camping,
to feel the day expand into being and my body follow in lock step.
But back at home. Back at home getting up is —
UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH.
For me.
I don’t tend to feel sluggish or slothish or downright stuck to the mattress.
That’s not my typical challenge.
Instead, gosh-darnit, I love it in my bed.
It’s warm and cozy and soft and quiet (there’s no kids in there!)
and generally magical.
I.
DON’T.
WANT.
TO.
GET.
OUT.
HARUMPH.
Soooooo….
how I “best wake up” has been a multi-year Ayurvedic morning routine exploration.
But I love what I do now. I really do.
I set the alarm early so that
(wait for it)
I can wake up
and
DO NOTHING.
Or at most, very little.
I savor being in my bed alone (my husband gets up earlier),
warm and nestled in,
and perhaps doing a yoga nidra or a little bit of bed yoga.
Bed yoga, you may ask. What’s that?
Let me show you. (Minus the bed.)
I filmed this luxurious 20 minute clip so you can see my go-to early morning movements. These are all perfect for lingering in bed and gently waking the body. With strategic stillness, I coax my sweet little self into a place of more blood flow and less stagnation.
Wanna’ try???
If waking up feels gritty for you, give it a whirl now.
All you need is a bed or a floor. That’s it.
Go ahead and click so we can hang out for a bit.
It’s time for you and me to move – just a little –
and discover a day together.
Take good care,
Rachel
p.s. Building just-right-for-you morning routines is one of many tools I co-create with my clients. If you want your own, check out my schedule. I’d love to see you.
I’m annoyed by the world. Good for no one. Irritated by everything.
My head is aching on the inside.
Left side of my jaw is buzzing.
Tongue feels thick as a beef steak.
It’s hard to feel icky. Really hard.
Not sick.
Icky.
I hate how I am for other people when I’m in this spot.
This locked down tight and drawn up spot.
I can feel my upper chest climbing into my throat.
It’s not comfortable. At all.
I don’t want to write.
I don’t want to deliver.
I don’t want to watch screens.
I don’t want to do anything.
I want to curl up and tuck in and not emerge for anyone.
Ugh.
Yoga allows me to let go of the why to this state. And to be with the what.
Yoga whispers, “This is.”
And I respond, “Bah-humbug.”
Because the river flows. Annoying as it may be sometimes.
And the friggin’ river is sludgy right now.
Ugh.
Let me sink in. Let me drift down.
Let me seep heavy and warm.
Let me soften from this lump of clay.
Let me find my way into a puddle of nothingness.
Let me melt so that in the melting,
I flow a little more.
Or.
Just let me be sludge.
Sludge has a time and place too.
Let sludge be the thing that is here.
Let it be what I accept and feel.
And welcome.
Even as the 10 year old pads in on freshly showered feet, leans toward me on the bed, and softly hums the Lion King song, “Can you feel the love tonight?”
She rests her hands upon my belly, face smashed into the bed with her soft and heavy end-of-day self.
She peaks up at me.
That smile.
Her smile loosens the sludge for a moment.
A single moment.
And that counts.
Sludge still here. But thinned a bit.
Now.
30 seconds later.
Post Ru’s impromptu sing-along,
I’m smiling.
And that counts too.
Thinner sludge. And I’m smiling.
Onward goes the river.
Muddy sludgy, clear and light.
Onward goes the river.
Flow baby, flow.
Take good care,
Rachel
Open the little stapled book and it reads,
Nice job.
Good kick!
I believe in you.
Would you like to play?
How’s it going?
That’s all.
hmm. I smile at this under-the-bed find.
“Did you make this during quiet time?”
“huh? Oh yeah,” she says.
A little book of words.
Those words are skill in action.
Those words are an offer of grace.
Offered to another.
Offered to ourselves.
And if we say nothing else,
if we allow the inner commentary on self and others to quiet,
or to run its course and fizzle out,
what are we left with?
If we listen carefully,
(and don’t miss it)
we
are left with
space.
In the space, we get to choose
how we talk to
each other
and
how we talk to
ourselves.
Nice job.
Good kick!
I believe in you.
Would you like to play?
How’s it going?
That’s all.
Yes.
That’s all.
Take good care,
Rachel
p.s. Last year, I wrote a little article on Metta meditation for the International Association of Yoga Therapists. It’s worth reading (or re-reading) if you need some practice phrases for kindness to self or kindness to those that make it a bit tricky. Check it out: Cultivate clarity through the practice of metta.
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I don’t know have many words right now.
Some days are just like that. There’s a lot rolling around in this thing I call Body. A pretzel of sorts including (but not limited to) A pretzel with each twist barely resting before riding into a new turn. (Missing all the salty and buttery goodness of the super yummy soft bake version.) There are a bunch of why’s and what’s behind it but this How… this how interests me most. This how is the pretzel. I feel like a pretzel inside. Hello pretzel. Welcome to the Kingdom of Me. I might not always be the most gracious of hosts to care for you while I’m here. Or to care for me while you’re here. Or both. Hello pretzel. With love, p.s. Here’s a thing I did today to take good care. It’s a 3 minute practice with Neil Pearson, an exceptional educator, a physical therapist and a certified yoga therapist, titled “Breath Regulation: Longer, Softer, Smoother.” Give it a try and see where you land. |