My apologies for a late newsletter-I've had an experience to remember.
Short story is I suffered a bad cat bite breaking up a fight between 2 of my cats who are not friends, which led to 2+ weeks of not having full use of my right hand.
With that, though, came much insight, healing, clarity and gratitude. I had planned for a retreat of sorts for that week which was my birthday....just not like that!
The thing is I'm not much for asking for help, but I knew that this was beyond my medical capacity, especially with only 1 hand.
So I searched out a former trusted resident who is now an acclaimed hand surgeon who agreed to see me on the 20th anniversary of the very day I closed my surgery practice. Very interesting synchronicity. I had totally forgotten. He was so kind and it was wonderful to see him.
There were a lot of tears when he said that he often thought of all the things I taught him, surgical techniques, yes, but mostly, he said, how to really take good care of patients.
That was a surprise to me... to realize that all this time, I had (mistakenly) thought that my time in practice, my teaching did not matter.
But in those moments, on that auspicious day, I am sure there was as much heart healing as there was physical healing as he tended my wounds-both of heart and hand.
The worst of the injury was at the base of the thumb and index finger.
In Chinese medicine, this is the area of Lung (thumb on palm side) and large intestine meridians (index finger, back of hand side).
I had been working with these meridians, which are governed by the element Metal, and had found them to be out of balance for a while now.
Curiously, (or not), Lung out of balance can be experienced as grief; Large intestine out of balance as difficulty letting go...Hmmmm.
I never dismiss such associations because they are always teachings for me.
So I was able to use my injury as a metaphor, as a vehicle for healing deep, old wounds. A healing retreat after all, albeit different than I may have planned!
For weeks, I sat, and tended, rested and practiced non-doing.
It was challenging and frustrating and memorable and necessary and deeply healing.
And I am beyond grateful for the lessons that this hard stop brought... and for the gifts of hands and those who tend them🙏💕🙏💕
I'm on the mend physically, though slowly, now, but I am certain that as much healing came from my friend/doc's kindness and my submission to what was needed as anything.
Slowing it all down to a near stop was both delicious and challenging.
Yet now, I find that I do NOT want to speed up again...thus the delayed newsletter🙃 (that and having only 1 working hand).
I'm learning that healing happens on its own timeline in every way, on all levels.
Some insights and learnings:
Don't ever underestimate the power of a kind word or the power of a memory to open a door to deep healing.
Don't refuse the opportunity to heal if it arises-no matter how hard it may seem
Don't wait until you are forced to to slow down-slow down NOW!
Practice being here NOW with things as they are
Let life soften and open your heart
Look for the lesson, the gift in the challenge
Tell people that they matter even if you think they know
Thanks from my heart (and my hand), Dr. Raymond Wittstadt🙏💕
Practicing not-doing means the causes and conditions that create many problems and struggles vanish. No solution needs to be found, no cure discovered, and no help is even necessary. That’s why the Buddhist tradition is grounded in not-doing—because so much of the suffering in the world could be entirely alleviated if we simply didn’t cause it.
~Kimberly Brown
It is nearly the summer solstice!
There is one thing I know to be true-most of us are out of balance!
And the other thing I know is that Yoga Nidra brings us back toward balance.
I invite you to a yoga nidra challenge: Try it for a day or a week or a month. Let yourself see how it matters.
Please visit my store for even more recordings for home use.
And please share with the stressed out and sleep deprived people in your life💕🙏
More practices and videos on my you tube channel
There is only one opportunity to practice together virtually this month-AND IT"S FREE!!!!
I am offering a complimentary yoga nidra on behalf of Razz Yoga on the night before the solstice- Join us!
Welcome the solstice in balance, ready to tap into the abundance and joy that summertime brings
June Yoga Nidra
FREE Community Yoga Nidra For Razz Yoga
Welcome the Summer Solstice🌞
Monday June 20
7pm EST
*link will be sent out 15-30 minutes before class so you MUST register🙏💕😴
💐Work With Me💐
As the world continues to spin out of control, you may feel that you are losing your way.
It is my experience and opinion that in these times, those of us who believe in something bigger, deeper, stronger and more inclusive are increasingly disheartened and overwhelmed...
especially when we feel as if we are alone.
BUT you are NOT alone!
This seems especially true for all of the caregivers in the world-whether personal or professional. In fact, we are all caregivers!
We just need to remember to give ourselves the same good care as we offer others that we love.
Let's work together and forge deep connections so that we can each identify and then deliver our unique medicine to the world.
Please reach out and let's create safe growing space😍
** PLEASE NOTE*** Several of you have reached out for sessions and I have not heard back from you.
I have discovered that many of my emails were being sent to junk folders as "unverified"-I have been answering you but we are not connecting!
🤞I have addressed this and hope that this is now resolved💖
In the meantime, PLEASE check junk if you were waiting for a response for me and let's connect-
I appreciate your patience and apologize for making you think I wasn't here for you- I am!!
🙏💕
Click the button below for more info
It seems that the number of of difficult and challenging things happening in the world are beyond imagining. You know what they are and how deeply they touch you.
All I can say is don't give up
Refuse to become despondent
Now is the time to get to know yourself and discover what really matters to you
Find out who you are, what you need to be your best self and live it out loud.
Let's create a new world view that works for all of us!
It all starts by changing how you think...let's do it together!
Things to Think
Think in ways you’ve never thought before
If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you’ve ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.
Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,
Maybe wounded and deranged: or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he’s carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you’ve never seen.
When someone knocks on the door, think that he’s about
To give you something large: tell you you’re forgiven,
Or that it’s not necessary to work all the time, or that it’s
Been decided that if you lie down no one will die.
-Robert Bly
You can relish a rainbow and a cup of tea, sunrise and a flock of birds, a cemetery walk and a friend’s newborn, the first blush of wildflowers in a patch of dirt and the looping rapture of an old favorite song. You can’t tidy up the White House, but you can tidy up that neglected messy corner of your home; you can’t mend a world, but you can mend the hole in the polka-dot pocket of your favorite coat. They are not the same thing, but they are part of the same thing, which is all there is — life living itself through us, moment by moment, one broken beautiful thing at a time.
~From Maria Popova- The Marginalian 5/16/22
My DNA results came in.
Just as I suspected,
my great great grandfather
was a monarch butterfly.
Much of who I am is still
wriggling under a stone.
I am part larva, but
part hummingbird too.
There is dinosaur tar in
my bone marrow.
My golden hair sprang out
of a meadow in Palestine.
Genghis Khan is my fourth cousin,
but I didn't get his dimples.
My loins are loaded with
banyan seeds from Sri Lanka,
but I descended from Ravanna,
not Ram.
My uncle is a mastodon.
There are traces of white people
in my saliva.
3.7 billion years ago I swirled
in hydrogen dust,
dreaming of a planet overgrown
with lingams and yonis.
More recently, say 60,000 B.C.
I walked on hairy paws
across a land bridge
joining Sweden to Botswana.
I am the bastard of the sun and moon.
I can no longer hide my heritage of
raindrops and cougar scat.
My mud was molded with your grandmother's tears.
I was the brother
who marched you to the sea
and sold you.
I was the merchant from Savannah
and the cargo of blackness.
I was the chain.
Admit it, you have wings,
vast and crystal,
like mine, like mine.
You have sweat, dark and salty,
like mine, like mine.
You have secrets silently
singing in your blood,
like mine, like mine.
Don't pretend that earth
is not one family.
Don't pretend we never hung
from the same branch.
Don't pretend we do not ripen
on each other's breath.
Don't pretend we didn't
come here to forgive.
~"Ancestry" by Fred LaMotte
May we use the fiery energy of the solstice and summertime to remember, to forgive, to love and to come fully to life-for the good of us all
Let's get to work to save your life, the world, each other
But let's not burn out trying to save it all-find your medicine and commit to your path with joy.
Be grateful for all who are doing what you cannot
Every single light matters
I love you
I trust you
I honor you in your unique medicine
Let's all balance and shine
Wishing you a glorious, abundant, deeply healing Solstice
Love
gina
💕🙏🐝🌞🦋💖