Empathy has No Agenda, only Love

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A spiritual guide warned me recently to be more selective about who I empathize with. I was advised that empathy was for those who are “ready.”

This unfolded at the same time as Elon Musk shared his view that, empathy is the “fundamental weakness of Western civilization,” pushing us toward “civilizational suicide.“

Having always believed that empathy was a virtuous quality of spiritual significance; and, that empathy may well have been the catalyst that inspired the development of divided countries to united states; and in the like, aspiring a future of global co-operation; I had to pause and reflect.

This double-warning around empathy confused me.

Merriam-Webster got my reflection started with clear delineations. Empathy, compassion and sympathy all refer to a caring response to the emotional state of another person, but they all have distinctions…
• Sympathy feels like sincere concern toward another’s problems.
◦ Like a co-worker saying, “I’m so sorry to hear this, good luck with your treatment.”
• Compassion is being conscious of another’s distress and having a desire to alleviate the problem.
◦ Like a doctor saying, “I’m sorry about your situation, but follow this treatment protocol for 3-months and we’ll reevaluate your progress then.”
• Empathy is sharing in the emotional vulnerability of another’s problem.
◦ Like a friend saying, “I’m sorry the medicine is worse than the disease, let me come sit with you through the treatment.”

Sympathy is given to those who want to be heard, so they feel seen in their justified victimhood.
They see the problem as outside themselves.
Compassion is given to those who want to change, so they feel supported in their plight.
They realize that they need help solving the problem.
Empathy is given to those who want a shared experience, so they feel loved in their imperfection.
They understand the problem is within themselves.

This means, the level of care someone is willing to accept from another, to alleviate their own problem, directly correlates with the level of responsibility they are willing to take on themselves.

Care-responses have two sides: the caregiver and the caretaker. There are two perspectives to care for when choosing a care-response. Here’s the thing I’m learning, emotional maturity runs parallel with the ability to choose the appropriate care-response in a situation.

Let’s say, we caretake ourselves and caregive others. Taking responsibility for the caretaker and caregiver within ourselves prepares us to choose healthy care-responses outside ourselves. But not everyone considers the choice between sympathy, compassion or empathy. So, they respond from an unconscious default setting; and, when they’re rejected feel punished for caring.

This is a cycle that I have naïvely lived repeatedly!

When sympathy is all my mother, my partner’s daughter, or my aging friend is comfortable receiving, they can’t see how compassion and empathy could be their change-agent to feeling better! They’re busy defending themselves, not recognizing that taking responsibility for their problems isn’t the same as being responsible for their problems!

Empathy is the care-response that only the most emotionally responsible people can engage in. It requires no personal agenda and a wholistic attitude: first, the body identifies with the problem with sympathy; second, the mind evaluates how to ease or remedy the problem with compassionate suggestions; and third, the spirit’s ability to empathize holds a safe space where the other person feels seen, supported and loved.

Without the emotional maturity of empathy we would live in a dog eat dog world. We would self-sooth and blame-others. Use up the sympathetic concern, compassionate support and empathetic love offered from others. Only to feel insatiable and alone.

This is a path to both personal and “civilizational suicide”… one person, one community, one nation, at a time!
Until, the only way to survive is to change…

To be selective with empathy, I now realize, means co-operation from both parties is required. The outward focus of a victim attitude isn’t “ready” to consider the inward responsibility to change one’s own attitude.

To collectively turn the corner from victim to champion, the way we can live in the spirit of empathy is to return to its original 1900’s definition: Empathy imagines ideas, feelings and attitudes as fully inhabiting something or someone “infusing” it or them with meaning.

Empathy was not primarily a means to feel another person’s emotions, but the very opposite! It was spiritual Divination, whereby one augurs another’s potential to the surface by regularly perceiving them in that light.

I intend to practice the skill of empathetic imagination, to rise above the blame and judgment of those who have rejected my care using spiritual Divination. These are my “infusions.”
• Mother—You are open-hearted, self-accepting and self-reliant.
• Partner’s Daughter—You are seen, supported and loved.
• Aging Friend—You are peaceful, humble and appreciative.

How could YOU practice empathy from a distance?
Imagine light into being with ME.

 

Give Them Something REAL To Talk About

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Light over Darkness

Too often my greatest accomplishments and deepest sentiments have been judged or dismissed. And, no matter how often it’s happened, I’m surprised by it.

I believe, that my surprise comes from their response being so distant from my reality.

While my intent is consistent: to be my best. The response is of me being bad, wrong, or intentionally hurtful to them. And, as a result, an unfortunate parallel and parallelizing truth is amplified. A part of me believes they’re right.

I must be bad, wrong and hurtful, if people feel this way around my life choices and direction. I feel annihilated and embarrassed to be me!

When consulting therapists and friends over the years about this sensitivity, I’m met with, “you SHOULDN’T feel that way. They’re jealous… they’re resentful… they’re scared.” But, why THEY are the way they are, doesn’t remedy MY reaction, of being the cause of their cut-me-off, shut-me-out ways.

• In my childhood, I had to grin a bare parental annihilation until the summer after high school, when I could run away as fast as I could.
• In my sister’s passing, I had to create distance with family members who insisted I didn’t love her, because I hadn’t visited through the Covid years.
• In my friendships, I’ve had to, at times, silently withdraw myself from the confusion of their belligerence toward my good will.

There’s a darkness to this dynamic that I just don’t want in my life. It’s joyless.
So, I run!

Now this annihilating darkness is asking me to stay.

My boyfriend’s daughter is poking-the-bear, as they say. I’ve assumed the role of the “wicked step-mother,” while doing nothing wicked. To run would mean annihilating my relationship with my lover.

Unless I can rise above this sensitivity, it’s a him or me situation!

While I believe that there are times one needs to extricate oneself from dark influences, to protect one’s own light. I also see that there are times one needs to stand up to dark influences, and project one’s own light.

I don’t believe that means condoning poor behaviour or accepting what’s unfair and unjust. Taking the high-road requires boundaries that protect our self-respect.

But what I’m beginning to understand is, the JOY that is behind our intentions, is the light that can vanquish the darkness. Not the darkness that lives in them, but the darkness that has infected us.

If my light dims, or goes out, then I’ll be just like them. The annihilator!

Under the details of each situation, it is my joy the annihilator tries to steal. When my joy threatens others, I need not be sorry that I imposed myself. But instead, I can feel sorry that they can’t meet me in it.

When we’re threatened, we make a lot of noise about it. We talk about it, cry about it, get angry about it… we become the darkness. Might JOY be the answer to preserving the light… our light.

Let’s give them something REAL to talk about… unbridled fearless JOY. And, transform embarrassment into gratitude for being joy-full. Perhaps, with time, light can ingest darkness. Just as darkness has infected light.

Wrapped in Hand-Me-Downs

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Mason & me with Grammy’s knitting!

As I took my first steps into the winter freeze, my braced body surrendered into a sense of unexpected safety. I was warm!

Out my window, heads were buried as they bustled by. NYC had a white dusting that looked like frost. A mixture of snow, salt and sand made every color fade into dusty white hues. The Hudson carried giant blocks of ice that groaned as they traversed.

With temperatures dropped into record breaking lows, wind chills that felt like razor blades on faces, the warmest clothes were unburied: a floor length shearling coat, fur aviator hat, lined knitted mittens, a thick-knit pocket scarf and heavy-knit socks.

As much as I always try to avoid the emotional angst of being cold, just the thought of it triggers my survival instincts into overdrive.

Truth is, feeling safe in the cold has never happened to me before. I actually have an odd fear of cold weather. It’s as if I have to fight for my life! So, when I felt warm and safe in the cold, I was disarmed.

At that moment, I felt overwhelmed with gratitude.

My shearling coat was gifted from a client’s closet. The fur hat was gifted from a friend. Mittens, scarf and socks were all homemade by my mom.

It was the generosity of others that protected me from the extreme weather that was beating up others.

As the youngest in my family, I grew up wearing hand-me-downs. As a dancer/personal trainer, who fits into my friend’s outgrown clothes, I still wear hand-me-downs. I’m a 62-year old hand-me-down queen!

In the past, I’ve appreciated receiving unwanted treasures and enjoyed making them my own. But, gratitude felt like appreciation on steroids!

Gratitude felt warm inside and out.
• Gratitude required me to fully receive what was given… to accept the gesture as them wanting me to have it, rather than them not wanting it.
• Gratitude made me feel worthy of these gifted items, rather than less than because I didn’t or couldn’t get it brand new.
• Gratitude blessed me with abundance byway of my appreciation for YOU—the care giver, as well as, ME—the cared for.

I learned that, appreciation reflects my feelings for the giver; and, gratitude reflects my capacity to receive.

It’s been said that, it’s better to give than to receive. I disagree, it’s a full circle of gifting/celebrating/ honouring. To fully receive is what the giver intended. It’s what makes the giving worth while and honours the love being exchanged.

While saving money initiated my childhood recycled closet, and environmental concerns initiates my adult recycled closet, hand-me-downs are a form of cycling the energy of love anew.

A Buried Heart Still Loves

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The magic of Christmas was found by cracking a rock open. No matter how it appeared on the surface, we were reminded of what has always lived beneath it—love.

It’s been 3-years since my sister’s death. Three years of silence that abandoned relationships and fragmented the family.

This Christmas, my nephew and I initiated a reunion. Four generations gathered together. The oldest 89-years and the youngest 9-years. It was as if no time had passed. Our love was preserved.

The 9-year old’s interest in rocks, and the momentous nature of this reunion, inspired me to gift him a geode I’d been carrying around for decades. The perfect moment to break it open to see what magical world would be buried inside it had arrived!

A crystal heart was revealed after we laboured over cracking through its hard surface. (Enjoy the attached video!)

Inside an un-cut geode, pressure and time had formed a quartz crystal heart. Inside my family, pressure and time had froze our hearts until now. When we cracked that rock open we also cracked ourselves open to love again.

Could the pressure and time of those 3-years of silence have safeguarded our love, just as it had the crystal heart?

Could pressure to love wholly, mangled by the spewing rage of grieving a death, ultimately be greater than the hard shell we guard our broken hearts with?

Could time soften the judgements and revise the assumptions that we held so tightly to survive?

Nature shows us that pressure and time create beauty. A beauty that carries an energy of light that purifies, inspires and heals. Precious and semi-precious gems are worn for their healing properties all over the world. All these gems are laboured over and dug out of dingy dark mines.

Are we not the same?

To value, the hard exterior shell we armor with, more than the inner light we heal with, keeps us grieving a love that is ever present. Be reminded that love lies deep within all of us, and Nature will beckon it forth. Pressure and time is on the side of creating and preserving light.

Be beauty. Stand in your light as a beckon. Create an environment that your light can survive and thrive in. And, be patient––stay the course––as Nature digs light out of darkness.

The best present this Christmas was the resurrection of love. The inner light of my family has found its way back to the surface again.

Happy Holidays.

 

 

 

 

Christmas Tree Quartz Crystal

A Truthful Thanksgiving: Aligning Family Relations

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Christmas Tree Quartz Crystal

A Family Tree

After 3-years of silence, my Thanksgiving blessing was getting a phone call from my nephew. He has ghosted me since his mother’s death.

We spoke for an hour about my sister’s (his mother’s) illness and passing, his father’s behaviour then and now, my aging mother’s (his grandmother’s) care-giving needs, and our individual reactions to all of it.

Rather than focussing on how I couldn’t and didn’t live up to expectations around my sister’s plight, judgment was replaced with understanding and shared disappointments re-bonded our relationship.

The timing of his call, however, was uncanny.

The day before his call, I had a heart to heart talk with my mom regarding my boundaries in her care-giving needs. I had taken on the responsibility of paying her bills and driving her to doctors after my sister’s death.

Sis took over these tasks when mom had open heart surgery. It was an emergency situation that required extra care-giving. But after mom’s physical recovery, she never took back her personal responsibilities. She just let sis take care of her year after year.

From a very young age, my sister and I were trained to care-give mom. Are daily chores were traditional mother tasks. We’d follow a daily check-off list that was reviewed end of day. Not done or not done well resulted in being grounded!

Mom never even had to ask us to help her, it was set-up and expected to be done. And, we obeyed to ensure our own freedom and parental approval.

As a grown woman, it may seem shocking that I’m still vying for mom’s approval. But, the pattern is well laid; and though, a new aligned path comes with personal freedom, the same disapproving consequences lay heavy.

I recently learned that mom gets free rides to doctors through her insurance and she’s still sharp enough to write her own rent check. So, I thought it would be better for her to reclaim her own life and take responsibility for her own affairs.

And, practically speaking, sis lived 1-mile away from her and I’m 60-miles away in another state (NYC) without a car. So, this arrangement was costing me professional time and financial strife. This was not sustainable.

Practicality, however, has little influence in emotional matters.

As anticipated, mom responded to my needs with, “Sherry wanted to help me, but if you don’t FINE!”

She had an opportunity to say, “thanks for your help the last 3-years.” Or conversely, “I really need your support, could you please still help me with…” But instead, she focused on how I can’t and don’t live up to her expectations.

The girl in me was twisted in angst to speak of my own needs with her, while the woman felt empowered to stand up to her life-long entitlement. I hung up the phone shaking with a mixture of terror, uncertainty and relief.

But, when I heard from my nephew on the heels of this stand off, I felt validation.

The Universe showed me that owning my own boundaries, as I did in both these familiar relations, makes the other person as uncomfortable as it makes me. At least for people-pleasures, like myself.

But allowing the discomfort the time to fully expand and express offer’s personal maturity, deep connection, and mutual respect.

It strikes me how my mom never asks for help, yet finds people to give it. Without the humbling act of asking for help, the giver is given no opportunity to say no. Instead, they have to remain the obedient child, a people pleasure, or create a dialogue where they can say no.

May my mom and I follow in my nephew’s and my footsteps… only quicker.

 

Trauma is an Entangled Bird’s Nest of Fears

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Human Size Bird’s Nest

Trauma is not the traumatic event.

Trauma is the aftermath of self-sacrifice. It consists of beliefs, confusions and tension patterns that unfold after traumatic circumstances interrupt love’s natural earnest. Patterns that can take a lifetime to discern and dissolve.

Healing from childhood paternal sexual abuse has asked me to repeatedly tell my story in an effort to find the gift within the hardship. And there was a gift. The experience inspired a mind body approach to physical alignment—BodyLogos.

BodyLogos means, the body’s Divine wisdom; and, the BodyLogos practice dissolves tension patterns that plague a traumatized body.

BodyLogos has offered me (and others) a way to exorcise trauma held in my body as I exercise. Utilizing my body as my therapist, I’m able to recognize habitual tension patterns, discern the lost-self that fear created, and restore alignment in mind and body.

This restoration of self has not included forgiving my perpetrators: my father’s repeated assaults and my mother’s inability to protect me.

Instead, recognizing trauma’s wake within my own being has helped me see that the person I need to forgive is me.

The process of forgiving is like dismantling a bird’s nest, one stick at a time. In my case, each stick represents the places I fell short. The places I sacrificed myself, and as a result, live dishonestly.

Why couldn’t I just scream, “get out dad!” Loud enough for the world to hear?
Why couldn’t I value my body’s cry? And, silence my mind’s fears.
Why couldn’t I stand up to his misjudgment, so it wouldn’t have continued for 3-years!

If I had stood up at 10-years old for what I needed to love myself, rather than what was needed to gain his love, I wouldn’t have continually questioned if I’m lovable? And, I wouldn’t continually struggle with feeling irrelevant and dispensable.

Many of you will relate to this struggle, and live in a similar trauma, even though your traumatic events are different than mine. Living in trauma is living in the shadows of your story without knowing it.

Instead of feeling empowered by choosing ourselves earnestly and honestly, we fear being punished: losing a job or client, losing a friend, losing a lover.

When I state my own needs the stick I’m trying to pull out of the nest gets snagged on the lack of love and protection I suffered as a kid. The same love and protection I still crave.

The forgiveness I need to embody now reflects this snag.

To forgive myself is to recognize that the fear-based decisions of my youth were, in fact, based in love and protection. Love and protection for my parents. Not the lack of love and protection for myself.

I wasn’t motivated by self-loathing or being unworthy of love and protection. I was simply navigating through a high-stacks game where saving-face for my parents was a matter of survival.

I have the capacity for love and the instincts to protect in spades. It’s now just a matter of directing it toward the life I want.

I’m not the irrelevant dispensable child who was sacrificed to save-face.
I’m a passionate woman who loves deeply and fiercely protects her world.
And for this, I am proud.

May we find compassion for our shadows and restore the light in our world.

 

The Heart is Always Searching for Love.

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Anthony Maulella clay art

Why can it feel like a heart-punch when someone doesn’t express gratitude, care or affection when you’ve demonstrated yours to them?

In theory, it’s been said, the need to hear others express their love spikes, when our belief in being loved or lovable dips. Reassurance feels like the only way to soothe the body’s ache and the mind’s worry. So, we seek it out.

If you’re anything like me, you hate feeling needy. Especially when asking for love.

Like it or not, this search for reassurance creeps into my world when I feel taken advantage of by my mom or unwanted by my man. When I don’t get the reassurance I need from them, I feel heart-punched.

It’s like a One-Two-Punch! First, I don’t feel loved by them. Then, I don’t feel lovable by my own deduction. A punching match with myself that’s un-winnable!

Matters of the heart are a layered cacophony. A mind-body maze.

There’s the real-time dynamic that flood’s your senses, triggering physical urgency for requited love; followed by trampled expectations that flood your mind, questioning how to think when that urgency is unrequited.

This mind body energy-surge bombards our hearts and we feel an eruption of emotions. An eruption that directs the heart to be IN love or OUT of love.

  • IN love means to choose love. To love yourself and invite others in.
    • Feel generous, even when mom doesn’t see it.
    • Enjoy wanting, even when my man doesn’t feel it.
  • OUT of love means to witness love. To invite others to love you while you don’t.
    • Feel generous only if mom sees it.
    • Enjoy wanting only if my man feels it.

To soothe a heart-punch, I’m learning to keep the whole situation in tact. Not just focus on the rejection or slight, that offers proof that I’m unlovable. But also, stay connected to the generous, uniting spirit that I offer to the world, that demonstrates my lovability.

When I love what someone else isn’t seeing or feeling in me or with me, I don’t have to feel unloved. I can simply feel alone in love… rather than, lonely in life.

For the mind and body to have a balanced inquiry about love, stay true to what you feel, unabashedly so. Feel what’s true for you, no matter what someone else is doing. Just because someone else isn’t responding to your love, doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy your love.

Love to love. No matter what.

The heart is always searching for love. But remember, you already have it within you. Dare to choose it, even when someone else doesn’t.

If this speaks to you, please comment.

Returning to Nature Deepened My Way to See

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A view of the Adirondack Ridge

As I relaxed into my Adirondack vacation, complete with a mountain view; cooking on campfires; hiking through wooded paths; canoeing through lily-pads; and, watching the sky drift by, I began to see better without my glasses.

I started to notice that when I was physically “in-feel” with the natural world I would remove my progressive lenses because they made me feel nauseous. But, as soon as I needed to be “in-think”mentally, I would put my glasses back on.

It seemed that my glasses were most useful in the man-made world of written words, driving cars, doing needle-point, and even, organizing my thoughts.

As I reflected on this phenomenon, I noticed that the layers of mountains on the Adirondack ridge looked more and more blurry with their distance (of course) and their unknown dangers (hmmm). Or when l looked deep into wooded underbrush, exploring the scary unknown shadows, what was blurry elicited caution.

Blurriness offered me obvious information about distant formations; and, the less obvious recognition about my fear of the unknown.

Did vacation offer the time and space to play with the scary unknowns?
Was I prompted to remove my glasses to deepen my comfort level with the ever present “I don’t know abyss?”

Being in-feel—sensing from my body—always incites these kinds of questions.

This attention to blurred vision reminded me that when I look at someone’s physical alignment in a workout I look slightly past them so they’re slightly blurry. In doing this, I’m able to see them more clearly, to see their underlying formation or skeleton accurately.

Blurriness offers me information about what’s invisible to the naked eye, what’s going on under the body’s surface, and it allows my understanding of human anatomy to be seen.

Perhaps there are two ways of seeing?

One way of seeing is coupled with mental scrutiny, eliciting a sense of safety and “in-think” knowing. The other way of seeing is coupled with physical connection, eliciting a sense of soundness, or fear, and “in-feel”conditions. Together, they elicit right-action.

The saying, “I’m home safe and sound” comes to mind. Might “safe”refer to the mind’s understanding of safety, and “sound” refer to the body’s experience of safety.

Allowing blurred vision to be a part of the way we see, I’ve come to realize, offers us a whole spectrum of information. Seeing both, what’s known and unknown. Seeing with, the mind and body. Seeing for the sake of safe and sound conditions.

20/20 vision may only be half the purpose of sight?!

Please comment and start a mind-body conversation here!

 

Aging into Physical Grace

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Age is often the excuse for having less physical or athletic potential. But as we are witnessing in the Olympics, mindset overrides physical performance. And for the aging, emotional intelligence is your greatest asset to manage mindset.

How often do you hear, from yourself or friends, “I used to be able to do that!”

This is a statement that could be said with personal pride and joy, or with self judgment and defeat.

We all have the choice to appreciate what we’ve HAD, or reject what we HAVE.

A critical difference between young and old bodies is how they respond to injury. Young-body injuries are typically acute breaks that heal quickly. Old-body injuries are often wear and tear chronic conditions that heal slowly.

Of course, this is a very general comparison. But under the surface of most injuries is this basic truth. And, it’s often experienced as going up or down the ladder of life.

When we climb the ladder of life there’s a lot of Creating Forward and Determined Power energy eagerly motivating our mindset.
• Creating Forward sparks the heart’s potential to FLY.
• Determined Power drives the body’s fight to FLY.
When we descend the ladder of life there’s a lot of Suspending Judgment and Coming Home energy delicately comforting our mindset.
• Suspending Judgment GROUNDS you in the moment.
• Coming Home GROUNDS you in yourself.
We’re either preparing to fly or grounded!

But what if we change the visual?

What if a hierarchy of life replaced the modern-day ladder. A sacred system that deepened our connection to living and allowed potential to shape shift, rather than a mere rise and fall from grace.

Take walking, for example. Our first steps are celebrated when we traverse from one pair of outstretched arms to another. No one teaches us how to walk. We simply power ourselves through. And everyone values us for it.

And so it goes in life. We power ourselves through until we get injured or are taught another, more effective, way.

Experience—age, time, wisdom—teaches us to value what it takes to fly, what it means to ground, and what is empowered by standing still. This holistic capacity offers choice, so a right-for-you life can be crafted. Maturing out of powering through, to right-for-you, is emotional maturity.

For some Olympic athletes, this meant not attending the opening ceremony. Right-for-you adjustments are made at every age. It is a sign of maturity. Thinking that it’s only when you’re old, that limits infringe on your choices, is not only false, it’s misleading.

Considering your limits doesn’t take you out of your potential—doesn’t make you less than your younger self—unless you decide it so. It simply shifts your connection with it. Emotional intelligence is having appreciation for the journey and having the courage to make right-for-you choices along the way.

Learning to walk effectively through life takes a lifetime. First you connect to your own weight, then you connect to the weight of the world, then you connect to a universal weightlessness.
• Universal Connection deliberately stands STILL.
Stand in your potential. Know when to fly. Know how to ground. And be still, so you can hear the deep guiding voice within you that lives for your potential.

All bullet point references are reflected in my upcoming program: The Art of Posture. I look forward to walking “deliberately”with you soon!

 

The Gratitude that Lives Beneath Pain

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During my nine-months of foot pain due to a ruptured fascia, I yearned to be back in dance class. I feared that life as I knew it could be over. Now that the pain has decreased to being without a cane, I am grateful to just walk to the grocery store.

But here’s the thing, and I’m unexpectedly comforted by saying it…
Life as I knew it is over!

Life is now a series of deliberate steps that consider what speed, aggression, and distance is best for me. Rather than single-mindedly sacrificing all else for my goals, angered by anything in my way, my COMFORT has become as important as my AMBITION.

You see, I couldn’t be angry at my foot. It granted me a dance career into my 50’s?!

Many people have said through the years, “dancers are masochists.” And in a way, it’s true. Without pain we don’t know if we’re working correctly. Being sore in the gluts and inner thighs means it was a well executed ballet class. Being sore in the quads and hip flexors means it was not.

Pain was a part of life.

But pain that keeps you from living your life asks you to DIG rather than QUEST. The questions change. Rather than, how could I execute movement better moving forward; it becomes, how have my life choices brought me to this juncture?

Has being tough sacrificed my foot, my future, my wellness and strength?

A client recently inquired about my dance career. As I gave the chronology of my career, I realized that my choices to go from one dance form to another was due to my feet. I didn’t want to wear point shoes anymore, jump anymore, wear heels anymore…

My experience of these choices, at the time, was simply wanting something different. I adapted again and again to experience all that the dance world had to offer.

Now I’m considered—at 61-years of age—to be in the Autumn of my life. The time where we reap the benefits of our younger years’ hard-labor. But what does that look like?

This 9-month reflection has delivered a renewed vision of myself in the world. While my body will always inform what I do, I need not physically do it all. The mind-body relationship, I’ve grown expert in, has informed my dancing and aided my healing.

These nine-months has birthed an understanding that my next chapter is to educate practitioners in mind-body alignment: fitness trainers, physical therapists, psychotherapists, nurses and the like. Those who know body mechanics already and are interested in the emotional healing added by understanding the mind-body connection.

My toughness surely contributed to my foot’s present condition. But even that, now gives way to gratitude. My future feels on track; and, my wellness and strength are enthused by this interruption. It’s been a reality check directing me toward the next step of my life’s work.

Adapting my focus through my dance career gave my career longevity. Considering each step I now take will give my life longevity. We learn to be more deliberate and present as we mature so we can recreate our place in the world as we age.

Now my choices will give BodyLogos longevity. So that, my work lives longer than me, through the commitment and promise of other practitioners. This is my promise.