Self-Care
What Do You Need Right Now?
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“I learned a long time ago the wisest thing I can do
is be on my own side.”
— Maya Angelou
Greetings to all my precious people!!
What do you need right now?
When was the last time you actually checked in with your Self and asked? We are exquisitely attuned to the needs of everyone else. We know when the baby needs feeding, when the dog needs walking, when our people need a hug, a nap, a snack. But us? How often do we touch base with our own precious Self and ask what needs tending?
Just let that settle for a moment. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Place your hand over your heart — and ask: What do I need right now? continue reading
Health is Wealth: The Wisdom of Late Summer
Photo by Rodolfo Mari on Unsplash
Greetings to all my precious people!!
We are in the “dog days” of summer — that long, sultry stretch the ancient Romans named diēs caniculārēs for the rising of Sirius, the Dog Star, alongside the Sun. But even as the heat peaks, the wheel is already turning. Chinese Medicine recognizes a fifth season the West often misses: Late Summer — the transitional time when summer’s extreme Yang, all brightness and heat, begins to yield and soften into the cooler Yin of autumn. continue reading
The Healing Gift of Self-Compassion
Photo by Greg Rosenke on Unsplash
“The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.”
— Joseph Campbell
Greetings to all my precious people!!
There’s a quality of softness I keep trying to carry home with me — the kind I always find in slower places, where time is measured in togetherness and not in hours. You can feel it when people gather just to sit and talk, when mornings are unhurried and the birdsong gets a chance to be heard. That softness is available to us anywhere, but most of us have to consciously choose it, because the pace of modern life conspires against it. continue reading
Speaking Your Heart Outloud
Photo by Oliver Cole on Unsplash
“Courage starts with showing up
and letting ourselves be seen.”
— Brené Brown
Greetings to all my precious people!!
Longtime readers may remember The C.O.A.C.H. Method I’ve shared over the years — five movements I keep returning to: Curiosity (the radical act of not knowing), Optimism (hope as a practice), Awareness (seeing what’s actually true), Courage, and Healing. (New here? Welcome — you’ve arrived right where you need to be.) This week I want to dwell on the one that turns insight into action: COURAGE.
This is where insight becomes action. Where awareness meets the world. Where your authentic truth gets to have a voice. This is where transformation moves from internal to embodied. continue reading
The Medicine of Rest
Photo by Aleksandar Cvetanovic on Unsplash
“A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.”
— Lao Tzu
Greetings to all my precious people!!
In the thick of summer, I want to make the case for something we’re strangely bad at: rest. Real rest. The kind with no agenda and no arrival time.
We live as though rest must be earned — as though we have to spend ourselves all the way down before we’re allowed to stop. But Chinese Medicine sees it differently. Rest isn’t the reward for depletion; it’s how we prevent depletion in the first place. The whole system runs on the balance of Yin and Yang — Yin being rest, stillness, receptivity; Yang being activity, drive, output. A culture like ours runs almost entirely on Yang, and then wonders why it’s so tired. A true rest — even a small one — is a deliberate return to Yin, and it’s how the body restores balance. continue reading
