A year ago today I received some very hard news.

I’ll share about it in a moment, but a bit of background first… because it’ll help make sense of the message.

I like to say that my first Master’s Degree I earned in El Salvador. I learned about public health on the ground before I really even knew the term.

I worked alongside some incredible humans, who taught me loads about resilience, living in community, community-wide healing, true courage, revolution, and changemaking.

Oh, and humility in the process of changemaking.

Last week as I ventured out on my morning walk (part of my morning predictability and stability practice – see end of this note for one), I was reflecting on how healing stories can be potent and look many different ways.

I shared with you a client story about her exploding back into her life with purpose, clarity, and confidence, and renewed identity in her leadership and life (if you missed it, read it HERE).

A different story.

This week’s story is about another beloved client whose healing journey in this moment looks very different, though equally powerful, essential and impactful.

This moment in her healing story looks like her pressing pause, turning inward, and “wintering” – so she can slow it all down and do the recalibrating needed before she turns outward again.

What does healing look like?

In these times of diving in deep with clients and having an awareness of what's happening out in the collective, I’ve been observing the many different paths that healing can take - individually and collectively.

This has led me to reflect on what makes a healing story, and what healing can look like.

What's clear is that the healing that individuals do makes a big impact out in the world - I see it over and over again. The ripple is real. And the way it can look varies wildly.

• Sometimes healing looks like exploding in a beautiful way into your (renewed) vibrant life (this week's story)

• Sometimes it looks like diving into grief about loss or illness or change, grief that hasn’t been touched or tended to in years (or decades), and giving yourself wintering (next week's story).

• Sometimes it looks like getting the basics of self-care and well-being on board and making room for yourself amidst all of the needs of others that you regularly tend to (so much so that you forget yourself), making your care non-negotiable. Sometimes that's just what's needed.

• And sometimes healing looks like first getting those basics on board so you can then progress into the deeper exploration of and connection to the spiritual and energetic world that you were seeking, but the basics weren't in place yet for you to effectively seek.

One of the most moving and powerful moments of the movie Moana (if you haven’t seen it, I recommend you do) is when she finally makes it across the ocean with Maui to restore the heart of Te Fiti.

They arrive to where Te Fiti is raging and swirling and threatening. It doesn’t look survivable to get to her.

In this moment, Moana turns inward. She centers, then holds the stone (representing Te Fiti's heart) up high, a lighthouse of sorts that beams and gets Te Fiti's attention.

Moana begins to walk across the ocean, which parts for her to walk on solid land.

She sings to Te Fiti as she walks, unflinching, steady on her feet and in her gaze.

Your brain and nervous system love stability and predictability.

They crave what's boring and predictable, and aren’t interested in you making change because change falls in the category of unsafe.

So even when you know you want to make a big breakthrough in your health or your vision, when you know you’re ready to step into a role with greater leadership, when you’re passionate about launching a new changemaking vision or business into the world -- your brain will often say "no".

And if it doesn’t say "no" in the moment, sometimes that sneaky saboteur can come in and make doing the new things messy, extra hard and complicated, or even disastrous.

Have you ever experienced that?

You’re finally ready to do a big thing, and then you get sick. Or lose your voice. Or everything seems to fall apart on the home front. Or you have a new crisis to contend with that takes all of your attention.

These primal parts of the brain and nervous system aren’t sure if they will survive change, so they work really hard to keep things the same.

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So I'm standing in this enormous room, surrounded by hundreds of other teens and a whole bunch of enthusiastic team leaders, at our most amazing summer leadership camp.

The 80s music is blasting, filling the room, pulsing through my whole being, calling me.

I could feel the rhythm in me, but I was standing completely frozen.

I could not move.

I’m watching these wildly enthusiastic team leaders dance around the room, and I was LONGING with my whole being to dance like them, to move with them, in an unbridled, uninhibited, un-self-conscious way.

To take up space in the room and fill it with joy.

Last Friday at our magical Mother Medicine Retreat, I shared about my own dismemberment journey that happened with motherhood.

(if you haven’t heard of the dismemberment concept before, stick with me – it sounds rough, I know… actually, it is rough, but not in the way it sounds...)

I shared how two things happened after my child was born:

1) My heart burst open and I felt like I’d stepped into the most miraculous journey of my life – and was filled with a love I’d never known before;

2) My world cracked open and seemed to shatter into a million different pieces. I couldn’t make sense of how upside down, isolated and lost I felt. Everything changed – the way I saw the world, my relationships, my experience of time, sleep (oh, sleep, how that changed…), relationship to work, life, caregiving, the world, the city. Everything was different.

Motherhood is brave.

Recently, I was working with a beloved client, someone who’s made enormous changes, on her next big vision.

One that requires her stepping into an unknown realm, requiring her courage in big and new ways.

She said, “I’m going to have to be brave.”

(She happens to be one of the bravest people I know, but we all have our edge…)

I asked her, what examples do you have of “brave” in your world? Where do you see and experience brave?

She thought about it, and landed on one.

“Motherhood. Motherhood is brave.”

Yes, motherhood is brave.

Last week one of my beloved clients excitedly shared a big win during our session together.

She reported how she’d been able to transform a situation with her daughter and husband from upset, chaos and angst into one of learning, compassion and connection.

Her capacity to self-regulate has come with devoted inner work and healing her own nervous system.

As she’s healed and developed her skills, she’s grown her capacity to be settled in the presence of whatever challenge is showing up – in kids, in her leadership work, and in her marriage.

My new dentist peered into my open mouth, her blinding headlamp directing her gaze. She poked around with her instruments, finished her eval, removed her gloves, and then said, “you’re right handed, aren’t you?”

I was surprised and curious. How did she have any idea that my right hand was dominant? What signal in my mouth was telling her which hand I used more?

(Right away I began thinking about my study of the brain and nervous system and wondered if somehow my mouth was shaped differently on one side, giving clues to brain hemisphere dominance.)

She’d looked in and had been able to read the signs in my mouth to tell her information about my body and my behavior.

After this migration to the Northeast last year, I’ll confess that I’m feeling all kinds of grateful for the shifting of the light, the singing of the birds, and the arrival of spring.

The snowy days have been lovely, and my kiddo has delighted in them, but returning to days of more light – and less clothing – is reason for celebration in my world!

But before we shift into spring, are you aware that trees grow most in winter?

While trees appear to be dormant in winter, there’s actually a whole lot happening beneath the surface. They are operating in this invisible, unseen world of the earth’s soil, deepening roots and preparing for spring.

They spend the season growing, searching, gathering and integrating water and nutrients from the soil.

They do this so that they can emerge in full bloom in spring - growing buds, flowers and leaves in the right timing.

And yet, all outward expressions are in a stage of rest. The branches will expend their outward-focused energy in another moment when the buds, flowers and leaves burst forth. But winter is their time for rest.

Almost every single person reported her body giving her some kind of “no” - and then listening to it.

This was last week in my Heal Her Healing Collective - an intimate group program where we explore physical and energetic personal well-being and healing and its impact on the collective.

In this group program, this experience of getting body messages and then pausing to honor them is something encouraged as part of the journey.

After months of coming together, and hearing from nearly everyone about some form of pausing in their “no”, there was celebration and acknowledgment all around.

I remember peering through the trees, seeing hundreds of people dressed in beautiful clothing, garments of black and brown.

I could hear the sounds of their wailing and singing, and almost feel the ground vibrate as they stomped and danced.

My Public Health practicum was in the small town of Juaben, in the Ashanti region of Ghana.

This was one of multiple Ghanian funerals I witnessed from afar – and it left me wondering, what would it be like to grieve, to express loss, in this way?

I’ve been enjoying the slowing down and savoring, taking a real week off, carving out dedicated time to connect with family and friends, and giving myself extra permission to enjoy the slower pace and quieter ways, even while traveling.

I’ve loved creating space to turn inward, to journal, to reflect on this past year, and to set the vision for next year.

In preparation for retreat, I've created space to both review 2022 and vision 2023.

Today, in the northern hemisphere, we've arrived at the winter solstice - the shortest day, and the longest night.

These dark days serve as nature’s reminder to us to rest, to go within, to dive into our own depths and inner knowing.

With nature as our reflection, we are reminded that nothing in the world is created to shine brightly, to produce, to bloom, nor push forward… all the time.

I invite you to take a big, deep breath in.

And then an even longer, fuller breath out.

Do that again.

A few times actually.

This is a hack for engaging the parasympathetic nervous system (the nervous system part that slows everything down) and is a simple calming tool for your system.

And from there, I invite you to read on for some reflections on those amazing trees, thoughts on the seasons (internal and external), and an invitation to a special event.

I’m back!

We made a really big transition, which has held a lot of my energy and attention.

In this year marking the arrival to the half century point of my life, I moved my kiddo and myself across the country. We have returned to the Northeast corner of the US.

I'm really proud of what we just did - and in record time.

It’s been a tremendous feat, with more challenges and more work than I could have imagined (and I'd imagined a lot) – and also so much more joy, support, connection and possibility than I could have anticipated.

There are so many takeaways...

I looked around the room and saw hundreds of bodies, bodies I could see - from head to toe.

I could see all of them - their eyes, their feet. I could read their body language. I could be responsive in real time to what I was sensing.

These humans weren’t a fraction of themselves in a box on a screen. I could move freely around on the stage and use my own body to convey ideas to them.

Last month I sent you a note on the importance of having love and connection with other humans in support of our nervous systems - and then I got to experience it in real time.

What I’m touching into today is the concept of meaningful social connection and its role in well-being and healing.

This is one of the primary reasons I hold retreats and facilitate group programs.

I’ve found that people are hungry for meaningful connection, for being in community in ways beyond social media, and for exploring healing in ways that become more expansive in community.

Much of the time I speak of self-regulation, self-care, self-nourishment and self-awareness.

All of this is to help you create your own wellness, health and vitality first, to tap your own body and nervous system wisdom, and then, from your full(er) cup, to be able to focus outside of yourself and show up well in the world, in your work, with your family and loved ones, etc.

These are essential pieces of self-care, wellness and healing.