I’ve spent the last month in a bit of an altered state. I went on retreat in New Mexico in early December and then went right into the holidays. The week of retreat was one of the most beautiful and profound of my life. As I was held by the stunning nature at Ghost Ranch, was in community with soulful women, and was guided by my teacher, Kimberly Ann Johnson, I was hearing myself say out loud, “I feel so good. I just feel so good!”
For that week I was off social media. When I did finally pick up my phone it was the same patterns I had seen before. Some of the same characters and some different, similar stories to what I’ve seen time and time again. Violence, destruction, hate this person, hate this group, be very, very afraid of this and this and this. And is your life really good enough?? You might need this to make it better.
The contrast between this and my actual reality couldn’t have felt more stark in that moment. So what is reality?
This is absolutely not to belittle the very real suffering that we see in the news day in and day out, or to brush off politics as being unimportant. Trust…I have lived most of my life somewhere on the spectrum of anger ===> rage about the injustice of the world, spending my 20s in social work and academia trying to “fix it,” and collapsing with an autoimmune disorder.
But as the world becomes more and more artificial, our health will depend upon our ability to feel into what’s real for us. I’m NOT suggesting you ignore what’s happening in the world or other people’s suffering. I’m talking about not being distracted from the truth of our own lives. To do this, we need to be embodied. We do this by reclaiming our connections to nature-based, body-based wisdom. This helps us to engage in our lives with more gravitas, rather than expending our attention and energy in ways that have little impact.
So much of modern life feels like the starts and finishes - what we can “get done” with little embodied awareness of the journey between. But our health, especially as women, will be rooted in our deep presence with the sensory and sensual experience of life.
Did you know it takes a woman 40 minutes to reach full arousal during sex? 40 mins. How many women are actually settling into the sensations between the start and the finish? Or have partners who can engage in the erotic with them, without rushing towards the “goal”?
I think about life now like female arousal. Are we allowing ourselves to be fully present to how eros - our creative life force - wants to move through us, or are we more focused on the finish line? Are we being pulled by the predetermined scripts of how we should be and what we should do? Are we allowing our senses to draw us into the emotional predation of those who aren’t living an embodied, soulful life?
Does every day have to be a spiritual orgasm? Um, no.
But every day gives us opportunities to be with the beauty of our human experience. To notice and touch what is for us. To approach and hold the sensations and emotions of it all.
Here are a few moments that have fed my soul in the last few weeks:
🔆 I soaked in hot springs under the night sky
🔆 I watched a meteor shower
🔆 I laughed hard with my husband Philipp and my boys.
🔆 I took a walk in the fresh snow with my dog, Bodhi.
🔆 I bought a pair of big pink earrings in Santa Fe that I absolutely love.
🔆 I got to see my dear friend of almost 30 years, Beau, who was in town from San Diego with his wife and boys.
🔆 I went with my 80-year-old mother to a lovely reception at the retirement community she’ll be moving to near us. One of the women there said, “I never thought I would be making such wonderful friends at this point in my life, but I have here.”
🔆 Sam, my oldest, just turned 12. He’s almost as tall as I am. It’s crazy and beautiful to literally speak eye-to-eye with him. ❤️
🔆 We discovered my 9-year-old, Archie, was teaching himself how to code. He said, “Do you know what inspired me to teach myself? Mrs. Walsh [his 4th grade teacher] told us she taught herself how to crochet, and now she’s really good. So that gave me the courage to teach myself something new and get really good at it.” ❤️
🔆 My energy - which has been pretty zapped in perimenopause - is returning. On retreat I danced, did yoga and martial arts, and hiked. I’ve rediscovered my passion for movement and dance, and feel stronger than I have in a long time.
🔆 I did a lot of abhyanga, Ayurvedic self-massage with oil.*
To have a healthy nervous system we need to be able to hold both the hard stuff AND what feels good (or at least neutral). The healthiest among us will be those who can hold the spectrum of life, in all its complexity, polarity and paradox.
Will you email back and share some of the moments that felt good or even just good-ish for you during the last month? I would love to hear, no matter how simple or “small.”
Big Love to you in this new year,
Courtney
*(P.S. If you want to learn how to do Ayurvedic self-massage with oil - the BEST winter medicine - you can get that below.)
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