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It's February. Between Valentine's Day and National Heart Awareness Month, it's a good opportunity to give attention to our hearts and relationships. And, since it's still winter, from a Chinese medicine perspective the bladder and kidney energies are currently amplified. Kidney energy in particular is important for our heart health.
The kidney energy channel travels through the genitals then up through the torso and both sides of the energetic heart center (middle of the chest). While physically the kidneys clean toxins and waste from the blood and excess fluid from the body, energetically they store our life essence and have a lot to do with feeling safe enough to connect intimately, enjoy quiet togetherness, and playfully engage with others and life itself. Have you ever snapped at a loved one when what you really wanted was to feel close, seen, connected? While shame and regret may show up afterward, in the moment it can feel almost impossible not to snap or yell. That's because when we feel like we're not being heard or respected or that something is amiss in a romantic or other relationship, our body's security system turns on - heavily drawing on kidney energy. When the sympathetic nervous system response is engaged, our heartbeat increases, blood pressure rises, breathing is short and shallow, stomach knots, and our large muscles are flooded with the energy to take action (fight or flee). This can feel like the jitters, anxiety, nervousness, a flush of anger or great energy, or being seconds away from imploding/exploding. Certainly, this is all very taxing for the heart (and kidneys), especially when it occurs often. If you're starting to get in touch with these sensations as you're reading these lines, hum. Yes, hum! Hum a little tune or just the sound h-u-m. We're all biologically wired to connect and resolve any conflict within connection. Humming is one of the quickest ways to mechanically shift our nervous system towards a ventral vagal state (our calm and cordial state), return to connection, and repair.
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There can be so much pressure on us to make the first few minutes, hours, and days of a new year resemble the kind of life we'd like year-round.
If we get into an argument on January 1st, get sick right after New Year's, or experience something difficult at the start of a new calendar year, it may strike us as a bad omen or like we've lost our chance at a fresh start. Under all this pressure, we often forget that every moment is a fresh start. There's no ball dropping watch party, but it's available to us all the time. The mind will surely tell us how 2023 is all wrecked and how our dreams are now futile. But if we find a way to treat ourselves kindly, no matter the situation, perhaps we can set the tone for a year of kindness ahead. Now that's a year I'd like to have. How about you? The winter solstice is somewhat of a paradox. On December 21st, we mark the time in which the day is shortest and night is longest. We often view this as "the beginning of winter," the entry point into a time of greatest darkness, when nature all around and within us quiets down.
And yet, from the winter solstice on, every day ushers in more light. Every day brings us closer to the growing season and the full sunlight of summer under which the previously dormant seeds of winter bear fruit. Perhaps this paradox holds the key to balance in this season. Knowing that the light lengthens each day helps us trust the darkness. After all, this darkness is the rich nutritive substance -- not unlike the dark womb in which we began life -- where dreams are seeded and from which new possibilities are born. PERSONAL PRACTICE FOR WINTER BALANCE: Amidst the hub-bub of daily life, the holiday season, and the wrapping up of the year, it's vital to find some space for nourishing silence. This recalibrates our energy and helps us regenerate the fuel to keep going. Whenever you can and for as long as you can, turn your attention to the silence all around you. Listen for it. Find it in between sounds. Discover the places inside your body where the same silence resides. Breathe into the silence inside. Breathe out to the silence outside. Let the quiet nourish you. Order in our lives gives us access to the presents that are available to us now. When all our clothes are in a heap, including dirty and clean, give-away and keep, it's difficult to reach for that one cherished top that'll give us warmth and coziness on a cool gray morning. Likewise, when there's chaos in our family lines, it's difficult to reach for what and who we love. It's difficult to be who we are, know our place, and feel like we belong.
When it comes to our families, we can't see the disarray like we see a pile of clothes on the bathroom floor. But, we feel it. We feel somehow stuck in life. We may become ill or experience unexplainable symptoms. We may feel burdened but can't seem to find the source. We struggle to move forward. Struggle to fully experience peace. Struggle to find fulfillment in our careers and have intimate and loving relationships. Maybe we are subconsciously standing in the place of our grandmother, trying to parent our father or mother. Maybe we are entangled with a deeply loved great aunt or uncle and without realizing it, we are living out their fate and not our own. Or maybe we are unintentionally continuing to exclude a great grandparent who died at a young age or a past lover or a family member who was shunned for having an addiction or a mental illness. Order comes when we acknowledge each one's rightful place. Then love and immense strength from our ancestors, including all the lessons learned in their struggles and successes, can flow to us abundantly. We start to feel like we belong. We feel empowered to create, love, and thrive. We find it easier to understand each other and get along. This is true for our families as well as our nation and our world. While every moment is an opportunity to connect with our ancestors, the mysterious threshold of October to November -- with Diwali, Halloween, All Saints, Samhain, and Day of the Dead -- is a special one. Maybe today or around the elections or during the upcoming holidays, you'll find yourself moved to honor those who passed life on to you by giving them a place in your heart and receiving their gifts. Or perhaps you'll join me for a Family Constellation Online Workshop. After a year and a half of training and dozens of individual sessions, I'm delighted to share my first group family constellations for connecting with our ancestors, asking for healing of any issue we're experiencing in life, and opening ourselves up to a greater flow of love and strength. Details below. PERSONAL PRACTICE FOR HONORING THE ANCESTORS: Breathe into your wise heart, the heart of who you are, the expansive heart that knows only love and has no limits. Invite your ancestors in. You may do this silently or with a song, by placing a candle or photo in your home, imagining them with you, or offering them a prayer for peace. If it's already in your tradition to connect with your ancestors, perhaps this time you'd like to dedicate your practice to someone who has been forgotten, misrepresented, or misunderstood. The energy of autumn inspires a slowing down. Tiny measures help, like tweaking a schedule to allow 5 more minutes to transition with greater ease, 3 more minutes to breathe, 1 more minute to just be.
The stretch of autumn is like a long walk into the darkness of winter. As we slow down, we prepare. Every step invites a deeper surrender to the unknown, a humble release into the mystery, and a reverent bow to Greater Forces. These steps are necessary for the deep rest of winter. But even more importantly, they may be exactly what we need right now. What do you need right now? Sometimes we feel like we can't slow down. Other times, we might feel like we've slowed down so much, it's almost impossible to get going again. If you want to talk about it, reach out. Missed the Autumn Meditative Card Night on the equinox? The beautiful autumnal meditation and insightful oracle card reading is now available as 2-part video recording for season-long support. When intense feelings show up, they’re almost always linked to previous moments in our lives. If we trace the emotion and its accompanying sensations to one of its earliest instances, we’re likely to find a part of ourselves that was overwhelmed. When we consciously tend to this part, we find greater comfort and ease.
Let’s say we’re facing a new project or big meeting, and we feel intense dread or a tight knot of anxiety in our belly. We may recall that we felt similarly on the first day of second grade or maybe kindergarten. It was so overwhelming that a part of ourselves withdrew inwards or closed off. Since then, every time we encounter a “first day” or new group of people, the same dread shows up. It’s as though that childhood memory is in a bubble, suspended in time, woven into the fabric of our muscle and tissue and bone. How do we release it? We can get grounded in ourselves as the adult we are today, the one who lived past kindergarten or high school or whatever time period holds that tension. With the strength of having lived past it, our adult selves present the company and comfort that our child selves needed then. We may speak to this child part and say, “I’m here. You’re not alone any more. I see how difficult this is for you. What do you need?” With a touch of creativity and lots of heartfelt intention, we envision ourselves offering that needed gesture, that needed solution, that needed care. The body might shake, tears might come, or a big exhale. This releases the charge that the feeling has gathered in us all this time. When our attention returns to the current-day challenge, we meet it with a greater sense of inner wholeness that often gives us just what we need to overcome it. Learn how to tend to your inner child with a private session. Schedule a free Strategy Session to discuss. The autonomic nervous system is your body's defense network in charge of keeping you safe from harm. It's an intricate mechanism that directly engages your brain, digestion, muscles, sensory organs, and heart to either stay present and reach for support (ventral vagal state), fight or flee (sympathetic state), or shut down and play dead (dorsal vagal state).
While we no longer live in the wild and don't typically come face to face with a hungry lion or an avalanche, modern life presents its version of threat ranging from the more blatant, like war, robbery, rape, and abuse, to the more subtle, like thoughts of failure and loss of livelihood, anxiety over contracting a virus, and fear of being alone in the world. What constitutes a threat to our evolved nervous system is subjective. The same thing that triggers one person and floods their body with the impulse, hormones, and energy to run away may make you take a deep breath and try another tactic. And, the same thing that makes you shut down completely and find no words to say at all may make someone else reach out to a friend and communicate more explicitly how s/he feels. Changing Reactions To Carefully Chosen Responses Mechanically speaking, we all have the same nervous system and that seems to be unchangeable. However, we can influence what we perceive as a threat and how quickly we cycle through the phases of freeze, fight or flight, and return to safety and connection. This is where we find the key to regulating our own nervous system. By becoming aware of how our nervous system automatically reacts, we begin to organically make room for new and conscious responses that better fit who we are and the kind of friend/parent/partner/colleague/person we wish to be. Getting stuck in “freeze mode”, lingering in “fight”, or perpetually cycling through “flight” takes a toll on our health, impacts our sleep, puts a strain on our relationships, significantly decreases our productivity at work, and renders us less present for the warmth of connection and the joys of life. But all hope isn't lost! The Polyvagal Theory and Deb Dana's work with integrating the science of the nervous system in therapeutic modalities has shown that when we learn to recognize these nervous system modes within ourselves, we can apply techniques that match how our own nervous system reacts in order to shorten the length of freeze, get out of fight or flight quicker, and reach for deeper connections and calm more safely and more often. Knowing the universal biology behind how we think, feel, and respond to perceived threats reduces the shame from thinking that there is something wrong with us and feeling like we're all alone in it. It frees us from being hijacked by our own nervous system and gives us the opportunity and strength to direct our own lives. Learn how to move towards more calm in the all new Regulate Your Nervous System Course. Family Constellations, developed by Bert Hellinger, help you with a recent concern or longstanding pattern regarding your health, career, success, romance, family life, or happiness by looking at possible hidden family and ancestral dynamics that hold the key to relief, resolution, and contentment.
Maybe you feel like you end up with jobs that don't quite suit you or relationships that aren't completely fulfilling. Or perhaps you're dealing with a health issue that seems to show up out of nowhere, or losses that have made you feel drained and ill-equipped to face life. While these issues may not seem directly related to our family of origin, when we look at them through the Family Constellation lens, we often reveal unconscious familial and trans-generational entanglements or burdens we're carrying for others. We then make healing shifts to put things back in order, find our rightful place, and free up the strength to live life more fully. Family Constellation Individual Sessions online offer a safe and private setting for a powerful healing shift around any issue and especially tough, unexplainable, maybe embarrassing or secretive circumstances that you want handled with utmost care. These sessions are a one-time intervention that keeps evolving in you for the following 6 - 18 months. Are you ready? Learn more about Family Constellations Individual Sessions with Shira. Dear one,
We've arrived at the point in the summer optimal for just being. For many of us, a calm, peaceful state where life flows easily is something we yearn for but do not know how to maintain. That's because just being correlates with a part of our nervous system that can feel out of reach when we've experienced trauma and stress. Locating a safe kind of just being that works for you stretches your Ventral Vagal State and its capacity for more. We can teach ourselves how to intentionally unwind, rest, chill, and enjoy the moment. Consider then, what kind of just being feels safe, accessible, and replenishing for you now? May you find relaxation this summer and just be, at least for a while, Shira Oz-Sinai P.S. Want to learn how to cultivate your Ventral Vagal capacity and access relaxation more easily? Schedule a free Strategy Session now or reply to this email. P.P.S. In-person and virtual sessions continue regularly throughout the summer, except for the week of August 7-14 in which I will be practicing my own just being. Schedule your session @ https://bit.ly/3HsCEfi. Dear one,
When overwhelm happens, we have a tendency to pull away from connection in order to protect our tender hearts. It’s a reaction programmed into our autonomic nervous system, not unlike pulling our hand away from a hot stove. My heart knows this disconnection reflex well. At the first sign of "too much," it beats loudly in my right ear and then contracts physically and emotionally. After that, it's a quick drop down the nervous system ladder to a dorsal vagal autonomic experience, best known as the freeze response. Work emails go unanswered. Friends' prompts to meet up unreturned. It’s harder to hear or speak. Harder to decide anything. And the vibrant part of me that shines my light retreats to the background, out of reach. It may go on for moments, hours, or on-and-off for several days, months, or years. I had grown so accustomed to the automaticity of freeze in my nervous system that I was actually shocked to discover that I absolutely adore connection. I love connecting with birds, breezes, and the warm sun on my face. I love connecting with the sound of my father’s voice and my mom’s colorful emojis. I Iove connecting with you in these newsletters and in sessions when we talk about some of the hardest stuff in life. And I absolutely love connecting my heart with yours in awe of our shared human tenderness. If it was safe enough to connect, what would your heart love to connect with? That “hot stove” can take on any form, like news about acts of violence, a post about recession, or the barking of a neighbor’s dog. In reaction, we may pull away from life, loved ones, and our own selves. But we can also come back. We can come back into connection, following the nature of our hearts, and reach out for life again. And again. And again. A RECIPE FOR RETURNING TO CONNECTION: As summer, which is the season of the heart, arrives, how can you honor your own reflexes of disconnection and connection? Here are some ideas.
May your heart know safe connection and shine brightly with your light, Shira Oz-Sinai P.S. Want to learn how to recognize your patterns of disconnection and return to connection quicker and easier each time? Let's study your nervous system together in the safety of one-on-one sessions. Info @ https://bit.ly/35aVFpv. Not sure? Email me. |
SHIRA OZ-SINAII am an acupressurist, educator, and practitioner of complementary medicine. My background in literature, teaching, and Yoga Nidra informs my wellness practice. My approach is personalized and holistic, tailored to each individual's unique needs and goals. Archives
December 2023
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