Stepping into a new space and/or a new activity is scary, stepping into a new life—a new version of you—is seemingly impossible. Until it’s not.
We are each on our own healing journey, and to heal—and thrive—we need to be with ourselves. But lasting, transformative healing is bolstered, supported, and sustained by, and in, community. On my own journey, as an introvert, and from amidst a sea of shame and fear, the need to ask for help and the need to connect to a community felt impossible. It was difficult to face the truth that connections with other people are key to healing, let alone embrace this fact. What I have learned about trauma and healing is that we have to move our bodies and learn practical tools for emotional regulation. And we need to participate in mind/body, somatic, embodied practices consistently—yoga and dance are the most impactful practices for me. There is no magical pill or one and done miracles; there is only hard work. And it’s worth it. While there are many approaches to healing, to movement, to embodiment—the practices that we offer at The Spiral Goddess Collective are thoughtfully designed and curated toward sustaining healing and transformation. Our community—and the classes and workshops that we offer—welcome each individual just as they are, providing tools and resources and a brave space for exploration. But you have to be willing to take that leap... * I survived for decades using yoga and dance as a way to mitigate my trauma and attempt to stay sane, but it wasn’t until I started to better understand trauma and embodiment that I was able to actually start to heal and transform—to stop using these practices as a way to avoid myself and to use them as a way to connect to myself. The way I practiced and taught dance and yoga transformed as well. Talk therapy helped and daily yoga and dance practices helped, but JourneyDance was a game changer in so many ways. Training to be a JourneyDance facilitator was something that I did for myself, but now it is something that I am driven to share with others, especially those who don’t know that they need this kind of medicine or those who fear what embodiment might bring. We need practices designed to help us ground, center, explore, and release. We need a brave container and a supportive community—space and support. And we need consistency. We need to return to the dance floor or the yoga mat (or, ideally, both!) over and over again. We return to ourselves again and again, finding love and compassion for ourselves. And each time we do, we not only experience the benefits of these somatic, embodied practices, we also build resilience, access joy, flex our muscle memory, and create new pathways in our brains. We become mentally and physically stronger, more embodied, more self-regulated, and more able to respond rather than react to the stress in our lives and the chaos in our world. The path toward healing and transformation is long and winding. There is no magical destination, but there is comfort and ease and a better quality of life. So, if you are standing at the edge of the precipice—frozen and frazzled and fearful and insecure, numbing your senses (with alcohol or drugs or social media scrolling or shopping or whatever) because you don’t know what else to do (and because this is the norm of our culture)—maybe it’s time to take that leap. It feels impossible, but once we do, we find that it’s just what we didn’t know we were looking for.
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I’ve been an “entrepreneur” and “small business owner” for over two years now, and from the beginning I have treated both of these terms like dirty words. I have proclaimed how very bad at business I am, and I when I signed the lease for my third year in business I wondered if this might be the last year that I could maintain the time, energy, and financial support that has sustained The Spiral Goddess Collective. I don’t give up easily, but fear and doubt are insidious feelings.
And then I met Christine Hakkola of Hakkola Horizons and I began to shift how I see my business and the role that I have played in imagining, creating, and sustaining this business. As I described how I came to open The Spiral Goddess Collective and what I am trying to achieve, she immediately understood and echoed back to me that I am running a heart-centered business. I had heard the term, but I had not really stopped to think about what it meant—and, more so, that there was a category of business that fit what I was struggling to conceptualize and sustain every single day. With Christine’s heart-centered business recognition in the back of my head, a few days later I turned to my oracle cards for clarity and guidance. (Check out my past blog about the "woo-woo" I discovered through my JourneyDance training. And check out our vast collection of oracle and tarot cards!) When I first drew the Desire and Devotion cards from The Awakened Soul oracle deck, I was struck by their romantic and sexual overtones. After all, I had asked what I needed to keep in mind as I take the next steps on my business journey. Two people locked in an embrace and two ballet dancers locked in a dance were not exactly what I expected. But one of the things I love best about oracle cards is that the meaning is always more than the surface appearance. And, in this case, the two cards that I drew—that were stuck together and fell out of the deck and into my lap—could not be more accurate to the juncture where I found myself in need of insight and guidance. And these two oracle cards—Desire and Devotion—also echoed this heart-centered understanding.* ~ Desire—passion, fire, connection, motivation Desire is the driving and motivating factor that helps us complete creative work and bring new things to life. What is important is the “why” of the work we do. On this particular card, two individuals’ passions are aligned with a desire for connection, success, and feeling that spirals upward. If you feel it in your body, the card proclaims, you can create it in your life. The Spiral Goddess Collective emerged from an embodied vision and the why has always been embedded in passion and fire: because I can’t not follow this dream of bringing embodied movement and opportunities for healing and transformation to my community. And the shadow meaning—abandoning dreams & goals—is exactly what I had been grappling with. Desire is further clarified through Devotion—discipline, commitment, loyalty, and support. It is no surprise that this card features two ballet dancers who have been devoted to their art (a field where success is found when completely committed), working together and separately with open hearts. While dance is something very different to me—embodied, empowered, transformative movement—I am just as devoted to my art. The card description reminds us that when we devote ourselves to something—when we allow ourselves permission to do what we love and what we need to do—it often takes more work and commitment than we thought it would. Heard. It’s exhausting and overwhelming to keep stoking that fire. More importantly, I need to remember how much loyalty and support I have found trough The Spiral Goddess Collective Community. My commitment to this dream isn’t only a commitment to myself. Here, the shadow meaning of the card comes into play: giving up when things get hard, letting people down, not following your purpose. Devotion is living a passionate life, being who you really are and shining fully in the world. And the kicker: Don’t be afraid to allow others to see what you are capable of. This is certainly a fear I struggle with as I often downplay my success and all that I have achieved—in my head and in my interactions with the world. ~ As I read and pondered these two cards, once again, the synchronicities on this path are difficult to deny. I have always been driven by desire and devotion, even if I have not used these two words to describe my dreams and ambitions. (Ambition has also been one of those dirty business words.) I often describe this drive and ambition as “positive obsession” (a concept that comes from Octavia Butler). I have often wondered where my energy, commitment, and discipline come from. I have experienced fear when I have shown my light too brightly. I have doubted and dimmed and dumbed myself down. I have refused to give up and have worried about letting people down, especially those who believe in me and who have supported me in this Collective dream. So, message received. Rather than abandon my dreams, giving up when things get hard, letting myself and others down, and not following my purpose, I have to recommit to myself by investing in my business, which is also investing in myself. I need coaching. I need someone who can help to guide me along my path, who understands my goals and dreams and is just as devoted to her art as I am to mine. I am grateful that my path has led me to Hakkola Horizons and I am excited to discover where this heart-centered journey of desire and devotion will take me—but not just me, the entire Spiral Goddess Collective Community... and beyond! *I paraphrase from these cards though some of these phrases should definitely be in quote marks! |
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January 2025
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