The Rooted Heart Blog

The Meg Ryan of Grief

dinavarano@mac.com (Dina Varano) — Tue, 21 Sep 2021 14:22:34 GMT

A candid therapist of mine once called me the Meg Ryan of grief. You know that scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally, the one in the diner? Meg Ryan’s character, Sally, simulates a full-blown orgasm to prove to Harry that women can easily fake sexual climax if they so choose. The difference between Sally and me was that my grief wasn’t fabricated. It arrived in a tsunami of tears as I did the hard work of ending my first marriage and unraveling the ties that bound my ex-husband and me together.

If I was an apprentice at grief in my early 30’s, then I am a master now. I’ve easily put in my 10,000 hours of grieving at this point. And when I say grief, I don’t mean a passing sadness or a few tears. I mean consistent episodes of full-on heaving sobs, the kind of grief that leaves you rode hard and put up wet with piles of snotty tissues scattered around you. The grieving that wipes you out from the physical labor of giving birth to your authentic sadness and anger and all the feelings that grief can encapsulate. This is the grief that gives your core a workout from the depth of your crying.

“It rises on a salty geyser of tears, sometimes sung to the surface by a terrific moan, streaming down our cheeks until it moistens the soil where we stand, preparing us for new growth.”

—Toko-pa Turner, Belonging: Finding Our Way Home

The reason I’ve become such a fan of this kind of deep emotive sadness is that it so reliably leads me to joy these days. It took me awhile to pull up the buckets of tears filling that well of loss I was in. I cried … a lot. But over the years I discovered it was a cleansing, purifying process that inevitably led me to connect with the depths of my being. I found bliss in that renewed connection with Source and Self that had been blocked by all that stuck emotion. Being present to the grief fostered my connection with Presence itself, teaching me that eventually we are the wise witness who welcomes all experience with love and compassion.

For me, grieving is paradoxically an act of deconstruction and an act of knitting together. In our grief, we dismantle old structures of self that no longer serve. For example, we might be grieving an old pattern of self-destruction through addiction or relationship choices. As we feel our pain about the hurt we have caused ourselves and perhaps others, the old armor of what Eckhart Tolle calls the painbody begins to soften and dissolve.

“To our culture, obsessed with productivity and perfection, the experience of grief, its sadness, anger, and feelings of loss, can feel like taking steps backward or being stuck in place. But that is an illusion. Grief is the great accelerator.”

—Bethany Webster, Discovering the Inner Mother

Facing our pain is hard work and we tend to judge it as either insignificant or overwhelming, either not worthy of crying over or too much to endure. Both judgments serve simply to repress our tears.

There was a period of several years in which I cried hard every day. Sometimes those tears came as a salty solution to wash out an old wound and allow it to heal cleanly. Sometimes they were tears of gratitude and joy for being able to experience life so intimately. To come to know myself and my belonging in the world so tenderly. I took to heart this beautiful quote from the yogic master, Kripalvanandji:

"Crying is one of the highest devotional songs. One who knows crying, knows spiritual practice. If you can cry with a pure heart, nothing else compares to such a prayer. Crying includes all the principles of yoga."

If only we could see how beautiful we are when we open our hearts to the grief that is there. After a truly good cry, look in the mirror and you will see how clear your eyes look, how relaxed your face is (hint: those are the signs that it’s been a full cry). I’m lucky that I get to see that beauty and bravery every day in my work with others, along with the snotty tissues. My prayer for each of you is that you'll allow whatever grieves you be a path to the ceaseless joy residing within you. So let those tears flow!

Wild For Winter: Returning to Our Sacred Nature

Fri, 16 Oct 2020 23:32:47 GMT

Knowing that you love the Earth changes you …

but when you feel that the Earth loves you in return,

that feeling transforms the relationship into a sacred bond.

— Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass

This winter we 'rewild' ourselves by:

Renewing our connection with the natural elements of winter, allowing nature herself and our own creativity to show us the way. We are drawn outside to ground ourselves in this subtle but wondrous season.
Transforming the isolation of winter during the pandemic by making new connections in safe and sacred circle with others.
Challenging ourselves to get out of our comfort zones; e.g., we step boldly into the cold, explore creative expression, build community with new people, and more!

Who might be a fit for this workshop?

This experiential workshop is for you if you:

Yearn for something to look forward to this winter that creates meaningful community, instead of isolating in ‘hibernation’ through the pandemic

Desire a deeper connection to this living Earth—city, suburban, and rural dwellers are all invited

Seek new or refined mindfulness skills in nature, allowing our attention to be called to things that bring us peace, joy, and awe

Crave ways to cultivate creativity and explore nature-based activities

Join us in the wild winter of your own self discovery!

[WORKSHOP IS FULL -- PLEASE JOIN US IN 2022!

Date: Sundays, Jan 24 — Feb 14, 2021

Time: 10:00 am — 12:00 pm

Where: The first three Sundays we will gather in an intimate circle on Zoom to connect through ceremony, shared reflection, and the expressive arts. Prior to each online session, participants will be invited to mindfully engage the winter season through a variety of playful and heart-expanding explorations, and to share those experiences in the weekly group.

A socially-distanced fire ceremony to complete our circle will be held at White Pine Wilderness Academy on Sunday, February 14, 2021.

Meet your guides:

Price: Register early for only $297 through December 21, 2020. Regular registration after that date is $329.

Cancellation policy: Cancellations prior to December 7, 2020, will receive a 75% refund. After December 7, 50% of the registration will be refunded. After December 21, no registration fees will be refunded.

Sitting in the Known Unknown

dinavarano@mac.com (Dina Varano) — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 16:43:19 GMT

Birdsong punctuates the steady hum of the insects in the background of the conversation I am having with my mother. The last few days of my staycation became a multi-day mother-daughter sleepover. As we sit on her back porch, I notice that my mother's face is softer now, lightly furrowed like a lovingly plowed field. Still, the criss-cross of tiny lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth cannot hide the beauty that has defined every decade of her nearly 80 years.

Despite the signs of her aging, her easy smile and ready engagement in our chatting speak of her continued vitality. I'm glad to see her comfortable in a sleeveless top and shorts on this warm, muggy Indiana day. A few years back she had gotten self conscious about what we joke is the "creeping crepe" of sagging skin and arms that flap more like wings every time you look. She takes good care of herself but there is no stopping the progress of time.

These days with her have been fun. We've had several impromptu dance parties, a few walks, a tiny bit of safe shopping, and some great carryout feasts. Together we also listened to educational podcasts, watched a fun documentary about the world famous Puerto Rican astrologer, Walter Mercado, and witnessed Kamala Harris become the first woman person of color candidate for the vice presidency. Mom's trying to make this staycation fun for us because she knows we'd rather be in the mountains and at the beach for a 'real' vacation.

To have days of leisurely time with her is precious and if there's anything the pandemic has reminded us, it's that we don't know what's coming next. So appreciating and enjoying the good things we already have in our lives becomes a top priority.

The Known-Unknown

Feeling the breeze freshen the humid Indiana air, I ask her about her experience of the pandemic, what she's learned, or how it's changed her. She acknowledges her privilege. "For people in my situation, with few financial worries, a good relationship, and no children to raise, the early days of sheltering in place were a blessing." She reflects on how rewarding it was to have more time with her still-working husband. And she mentions the stories of many others who appreciated being home with their kids and partners, finally able to give and receive the kind of dedicated attention that wasn't possible in the bustle of pre-pandemic life.

She talks about how, especially in the beginning, we were all dealing with the ‘known unknown’ of the virus. We knew it was dangerous, we knew we needed to be vigilant, but we didn’t know to what degree:

How long would we need to shelter in place? How do you contract it? How much food should we have in the house? When will it come to my community? Will I lose my job? Will the economy completely crash? Who will care for me if I get sick? Will I lose family or friends? Will I die?

This kind of vigilance is subtly exhausting to our nervous system until its fatiguing effect eventually registers in our conscious awareness. Obviously many of those same questions my mom raised remain unanswered so we are still vulnerable to a kind of low-level chronic stress that saps our usual energy and drive. Friends and clients complain that it has been hard to muster real momentum on projects or plans.

Grief over the real and often sudden loss of friends and family is another drain on our usual vitality. And so is the more ambiguous loss in not being able to gather for weddings, graduations, funerals, and even sports events, all the big and little rituals that mark our connectedness. The burnout that led me to take two weeks off from work was clearly due to this pandemic-induced depletion. Whatever extra energy I had, seemed to be used up in coping with the uncertainty and social deprivation of this time.

Psychologists say this kind of burnout happens when we reach the end of our surge capacity . According to science journalist Tara Haelle, "Surge capacity is a collection of adaptive systems — mental and physical — that humans draw on for short-term survival in acutely stressful situations, such as natural disasters. But natural disasters occur over a short period, even if recovery is long. Pandemics are different — the disaster itself stretches out indefinitely." Apparently by mid-summer, my surge capacity was kaput.

Not knowing when the pandemic will end is part of the stress, which has raised new questions for me: How do I renew myself under the subtle but chronic threat to my sense of emotional well-being? How do I build reserves for the other stressors I will inevitably have to bear down the road, both personally and as part of the collective?

Again the 'known unknown' haunts me.

Mom and I fall silent for a moment as the chattering of squirrels alerts us to the resident hawk flying near. Each of us contemplates what the benefits of the pandemic might be. We wonder how this sudden and mass vulnerability to illness and death might be helping the privileged among us to discover a more accurate empathy for those who live with this kind of vulnerability all the time, those whose connection to jobs and healthcare and physical safety have always been this tenuous.

My mother is a great systems thinker. She offers the idea that maybe COVID is giving people of privilege, as a whole, an experience of being trapped or put in check by a larger force that doesn’t give a damn whether they live or die. And that this experience offers us more empathic insight into how people feel who live all the time in a system that doesn’t fundamentally protect or care for them.

We share our hope that the pandemic is opening our collective heart to the pain of all who can’t breathe freely, including not just people but also the forests, oceans, and animals whose lives are choked out by a mindset that does not perceive or value our fundamental interconnectedness.

The known unknown also haunted us in the police killings and the protests against them. How violent might law enforcement or even the protestors get? How many would be needlessly hurt? How would it affect me? How would it affect my community? Mom shares with me that she spent several weeks grieving an even deeper level of awareness of others’ suffering for the systemic maintenance of her white privilege. Of course, having time to reflect and grieve is itself a privilege.

She tells stories of moments in her life where had she been a person of color, she knows she would have experienced a very different and surely negative outcome. Listening to her, I feel grateful to be mentored by this nearly 80-year-old woman who is still thinking, still feeling, still doing the deeper work to keep her heart and mind open.

One of the beneficial paradoxes of the pandemic is how the restriction of our normal activities offers us a certain kind of freedom to consider doing things differently. The relative adversity of this experience gives more of us time to reflect on how we are living our lives and to assess what part of ‘normal’ feels worth returning to. The difficulties accompanying all this collective change take us to the threshold of our potential for greater connection, compassion, creativity, and cooperation. Whether we step through that door, or some other, remains to be seen.

Things do cook faster when the lid is on the pot. The pandemic turned up the heat on issues simmering just below the surface for some time now: political divisiveness, extreme individualism, systemic racism, climate change, income inequality, access to health care, voting rights concerns, and the epidemic of loneliness, depression, and anxiety in our country. On the other hand, it has revealed our strength, resiliency, and neighborliness. When I'm feeling optimistic, I think perhaps we are developing a kind of keep-calm-and-carry-on spirit that taught previous generations to curb their individual desires for the social good and to collaborate on solutions to pressing problems.

I tell my mom that I believe our current generations need this opportunity to work together for the greater good. We need to discover the grit we actually possess in order to face our collective challenges and to cultivate the grace that lets us address them with kindness, intelligence, innovation, and generosity. She doesn’t disagree.

Life itself is a known-unknown. Nothing is really different about this current reality we share except our heightened awareness of its universal truths. The pandemic shines a clear light on the certainty of change as well as our interdependence, fragility, and mortality. That light also reveals the presence of love and the necessity of kindness in the midst of it all.

An Inner Pilgrimage to the Rooted Heart

Thu, 12 Mar 2020 17:18:36 GMT

A human being has so many skins inside, covering the depths of the heart ... Go into your own ground and learn to know yourself there.
—Meister Echkhart

Back in my late 20’s I began to experience a singularly compelling desire. My heart longed to connect with the high desert vistas of the American Southwest. In my mind, I walked alone for days or months, even years, across an arid and timeless landscape. The earth bare beneath my feet, red dust rising in the rhythm of each step. The sky wide and clear and infinitely blue. Over time my clothes would become sun-bleached and tattered. I wanted to keep on walking until everything inessential had dropped away. Until all that was left was dry white bone. Never had the work of Georgia O’Keefe felt so true to me.

Like most people, the genesis of my spiritual journey did not begin with some lofty ideal of enlightenment, but was motivated simply by the wish to be free from the mess and muck of my life. Perhaps, I thought, if going into the wilderness worked such wonders for the likes of Jesus and Siddhārtha then maybe it would work for me.

Embrace the wounded heart with the bigger heart.
Let the human heart be found by the heart of being.
—Adyashanti, The Revolution of Being

We tend to think of the heart as something either physical (an electro-mechanical pump) or vaguely metaphorical (“the heart center”). As I explored the terrain of my personal heart with all its sorrows and joys, the walls around it began to dissolve. And in that dissolution, a deeper heart revealed itself as a primary portal to the infinite, radiant space of awareness itself.

To the personality side of me, this was not just a realization but a revelation: a revealing of the profoundly awake and subtly loving quality of everything within and around me. I came to sense that the heart could “see” and “hear” and “feel” in some way. This heart center was an organ of direct perception and of clear knowing. And thus the deeper space of the heart was both a soulful guide and the ground of all being in which this “Dina” was rooted.

In this new awareness, something in me began to relax. I became more connected with my body. I felt that I would always be both continually healing and no-thing to heal, continually evolving and no one to evolve. Emotions seemed less sticky when there was plenty of space in which to feel them. I had more trust in my lived experience as the primary teacher. It became easier and easier to allow all of my experience to be held in love.

"These childlike parts are also closely connected to a native innocence and essential qualities of being. These parts live on the borders of the soul [where] we discover that these apparent troublemakers are also unknowing gift-bearers."

The soul level of the heart lies in-between ego and the universal Self. This is the subtle energetic realm of the archetypal, the shamanic, and the transpersonal. He writes that "when we are open and attuned to this level, we feel ourselves moving more intuitively in harmony with a great flow."

The level of the Deep Heart , which he also refers to as the Great or Universal Heart, is the unbound nature of consciousness itself. Here we discover pure Being at our core. Fortunately, he reminds us, the more deeply we engage with our ordinary or personal heart, the more it can serve as a powerful passageway to the realization of our true nature or Presence.

I cannot recommend this book more highly for its clarity, intelligence, and unique insights. It is an authentic transmission of the writer's own heart wisdom and his words are alive with truth. Again and again he invites us to answer the call to journey to the heart of who we are:

“There is a light in the core of our being that calls us home—one that can only be seen with closed eyes. We can feel it as a radiance in the center of our chest. This light of loving awareness is always here, regardless of our conditioning. It does not matter how many dark paths we have traveled or how many wounds we have inflicted or sustained as we have unknowingly stumbled toward this inner radiance. It does not matter how long we have sleepwalked, seduced by our desires and fears. This call persists until it is answered, until we surrender to who we really are. When we do, we feel ourselves at home wherever we are. A hidden beauty reveals itself in our ordinary life. As the true nature of our Deep Heart is unveiled, we feel increasingly grateful for no reason—grateful to simply be.”

No claims on enlightenment here. Believe me, I’m still living in the mess and muck of my little life. But it's lighter now, knowing that the root of who I am is infinitely grounded in the heart of Presence itself.

Get Un-Hypnotized: Waking Out of the Trance

Mon, 17 Feb 2020 17:34:09 GMT

You will not achieve your happiness. Or rather you will not "achieve" your happiness. I’m not saying it’s impossible for you to be happy but that happiness is not an achievement. It is the wholeness and inner peacefulness that is already the natural state of being or Presence , within you. The only thing between you and knowing a deeper sense of joy and contentment with yourself is the thinking mind’s fixed ideas about who you are.

These ideas might be positive or negative: I am successful or I am a failure. Either of these beliefs is conditioned on your external circumstances. They rely on the conditions of your bank account or job title or mood state or relationship status or even the contents of the thoughts moving through your mind, in order for you to feel good about yourself. But what if there were something underneath all the judgments of success and failure, good and bad, pleasant and unpleasant? What if you could relax into the abiding wholeness and peacefulness at the very heart of who or what you are?

In A Great Wagon , the great Sufi poet and mystic Rumi invites us to enter this space of deeper insight, connection, and wakefulness: 

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, 

there is a field. I’ll meet you there. 

When the soul lies down in that grass,

 the world is too full to talk about.

 Ideas, language, even the phrase “each other” 

doesn’t make any sense. 

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. 

Don’t go back to sleep.

 You must ask for what you really want. 

Don’t go back to sleep. 

People are going back and forth across the doorsill 

where the two worlds touch. 

The door is round and open. 

Don’t go back to sleep.

Most people come into see me because they have become entranced by the negative beliefs running through their heads. I ’m not good enough. I am unworthy. I am unlovable. I don’t matter. I am broken. And often at the root of it all, like the three-year-old we once were, we somehow believe I am bad. Such fixed ideas are actually hypnotic trance states or what we most commonly call ordinary waking consciousness or “reality.”

  Most of those negative beliefs have their origins in our earliest interpersonal experiences. This is partly why they have such sticking power. But the other reason is that between the ages of two and six our brains are operating in Theta -wave frequency. Theta is the brain wave length of hypnosis. So basically until we’re about seven years old, we are literally in a trance-like state, receiving a big download from our direct experience about how to survive in our families and in our culture. That download programs the software of our perceptions and lays down the tracks of our subconscious and often self-sabotaging mind.

Up to age seven or so, children have very little access to critical or rational thinking. They live mostly in the realm of the abstract and their imagination. This is why children are so good at “pretending” in their play. The divide between what is possible and what is real is nearly nonexistent. At this stage, children are much more likely to accept what you tell them: Good children do what they are told. Big boys don’t cry. Nice girls aren’t loud. Your sister is the smart one (or perhaps, the pretty one ). And all of those messages are about as true as the tooth fairy left that quarter under your pillow last night.

From this perspective, the process of healing is about getting un-hypnotized from these old, inaccurate beliefs. What we call hypnotherapy is just another way to wake up out of the trance state of our early conditioning and get grounded in the reality of our wise and loving nature. Hypnosis supports us in broadening our state of consciousness so that we can engage in a transformative process of self-inquiry from the perspective of our higher self.

For more information on hypnosis, read Hypnosis FAQs .

What is EMDR?

Sun, 09 Feb 2020 15:53:44 GMT

John sat in the chair practically buzzing. His anxiety was palpable as he described the recent onset of panic whenever he had to audition. As a professional musician, this fear had become quite a hindrance to his career. It was starting to take a toll on his marriage and everyday life as well. “I just don’t understand it,” he says. “I’ve auditioned hundreds of times over the years. Sure, there’s been some anxiety like all performers have but why am I so suddenly terrified now?” His words expressed the mix of fear, despair, anger, and confusion he was so obviously feeling.

As I got a better sense of John’s life history, we began to piece together how he grew up with a very demanding, perfectionistic father and a passive but subtly manipulative mother who relied on her son to provide the emotional support she didn’t receive from her husband. John remembered feeling terrified by his father’s judgment and burdened by his mother’s needs. “But even if that’s what’s contributing to my panic, what can I do about it? How do I get rid of it?” he asked somewhat pleadingly.

I shared with him how children are often very resilient to trauma in general and especially to these more ordinary or what we call developmental traumas, becoming successful adults in many ways. But, often in midlife like John was, what has been unattended in us or left in the shadows of our psyche will start to emerge in the form of symptoms—anxiety, depression, illness, even a kind of restlessness.

These symptoms can be clues that something is not resolved. Something in the past is intruding on our ability to live freely and fully in the present. We talked about how sometimes we have to take a step backward before we can move forward in our lives, and I suggested we incorporate EMDR into the therapy to resolve whatever was underlying his anxiety.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a powerful, evidence-based modality to treat anxiety, acute and post-traumatic stress, phobias, depression, and other concerns. I’ve also used it many times to help resolve complicated grief over the loss of a family member or loved one, or settle inner conflict about a larger life decision like marriage, divorce, or a career change. In our session, I told John that thousands of research studies backed up the efficacy of EMDR, that it was commonly used with military veterans around the world because of its effectiveness and, most importantly, that I had seen over and over again powerful transformation in my clients as they engaged deeply in the process. “Okay, I’m curious,” he replied with a little more hope in his voice. “Let’s do it.”

In the next session, I asked him what was the negative belief he was telling himself when he felt the audition anxiety. I’m a failure, he answered promptly. At my invitation, he then began to identify times in his life when he’d had that same or similar thought about himself. Eventually we decided to focus on an old, emotionally charged memory of being a very young boy of five or six years old. He remembered standing alone in his bedroom, practicing his instrument, knowing his father was listening outside the door to make sure he didn’t stop playing until the hour was up. An only child, that little boy wished he could instead play with his friends or even that his father would play games with him like the other fathers he knew.

I supported John in accessing the body sensations and feelings he felt in the present as he remembered that old scene. Then I asked him to rate how upset or emotionally charged he felt on a scale from zero to 10. He was surprised by the intensity of something that had happened so long ago. “I’d say it feels like about an 8, when I really tune into the experience.” I reassured him that our work in EMDR would likely bring that down to a zero in the next few sessions. He looked at me skeptically. “Is there really any good reason for you to keep carrying around these old feelings of shame, fear, unworthiness, and anger?” I asked with a slight smile. He smiled back, saying no, obviously not.

With EMDR, through gentle, bilateral stimulation of the brain (using eye movements or alternating tactile sensors), we are activating the hippocampus and other key cognitive processing centers, to reprocess emotionally charged experiences that are stuck in a fight-flight-freeze-please survival mode. Unresolved trauma or emotional states can keep us in a kind of trance, which keeps our body and brain looping through the same set of thoughts, feelings, and reactions, even though our conscious mind can assess that there is no danger present or knows that we are adults now, not the disempowered, dependent child we once were.

Through EMDR, we don’t erase or eliminate these memorized and painful emotional states. Instead we transform our relationship to them by supporting the body-mind to complete the cycle of activation and repair that didn’t happen at the time of the experience, allowing us to return to our more natural state of homeostasis and calm. When we can process through those experiences in a new way, our fully adult, more empowered self is back in charge. The past is now in the past. And we embody all the resources we actually have as adults: our ability to make choices, express our feelings and needs, and enjoy intimate connection with others.

In the reprocessing sessions, John began to acknowledge, express, and honor the feelings and needs he had as a young boy and of his inner child today. He brought the inner resources of his adult self—compassion, protection, love, and choice—to shift his whole experience of that younger, disempowered state. Finally he could meet the needs of his child self wholeheartedly, without limitation or reservation.

As he healed the old rift within himself, he was surprised to find that feelings of deeper compassion for his deceased father’s emotional wounds also emerged. “I hated and feared that man for years,” John reflected, “but now I can see how his own trauma, especially as an immigrant who had experienced many losses, made him the way he was. I feel a sort of tenderness now not only for what I missed out on in our relationship, but also for what my father missed. It feels good to let go of that old resentment and fear.”

At our next session, I was the one surprised. John had always been very tense and fidgety in our meetings. His anxiety had been so high before he came to see me that he had nearly been hospitalized. It often felt like he was about to jump out of his skin. But that day, he came in smiling. He sat in the chair, radiating a kind of calm that was now as palpable as his anxiety had been. He shared with me his excitement that he had recently auditioned beautifully without anxiety for two orchestral opportunities. His wife was astonished at the change in him and they had begun to connect at a deeper level. We celebrated his healing and the courage it took for him to trust his ability to journey into the heart of his pain in order to find the freedom he didn’t think was possible.

* The story of "John" here is a composite of many clients' experience in EMDR.

Hypnosis FAQs

Sat, 01 Feb 2020 17:46:07 GMT

Hypnosis FAQs

The natural healing force within each one of us is the greatest force in getting well.

—Hippocrates

People tend to have a lot of preconceived notions of what hypnosis is. Here are a few facts and some myth-busters to help you explore how hypnotherapy might be valuable to your own journey of transformation.

What is hypnosis?

Have you ever gotten so absorbed in reading a book, watching a movie, or playing a game that you didn’t notice how much time had passed or what was going on around you? Or perhaps you have driven somewhere and then realized you were so focused on your thoughts that you didn’t pay attention to how you got there? If so, you’ve experienced an altered state of consciousness similar to what happens in hypnosis.

We also may commonly tap into altered brainwave states in meditation or guided imagery, while spending time in nature or during physical exercise, or any other experience where we are able to enter a flow state of relaxed concentration.

The primary intent of hypnotherapy is to help you gain more control over your behavior, emotions, or physical condition. When you are in a hypnotic state, your attention is more focused. You are relaxed and calm, and more receptive to healing processes and positive suggestions that you determine will support your therapeutic goals.

Why use hypnosis?

In hypnosis, we can learn to listen with more clarity and openness to the wisdom of our inner healer or more authentic self. It is one of the oldest and best-known forms of mind-body medicine.

Clinical hypnosis, also known as hypnotherapy, is a scientifically proven method creating positive change. With hypnosis, for example, you are able to take better advantage of the mind’s ability to control the body’s response. Adults and children in many clinical settings learn to use it as part of their overall treatment for pain, headache, nausea, anxiety, depression, needle or other phobias, skin disorders, and other physical concerns. Clinical research likewise demonstrates significant improvement in surgical recovery and survival rates in persons who use hypnosis to support their healing.

Hypnosis can also help you to move out of the “trance” of negative thinking and habitual choices. For example, you may think, “I’m not going to eat that donut” and then find yourself taking a bite. It’s as if part of you is saying, “Yes, I’m going to change” and another part says, “No way am I changing!” Hypnosis helps you to access your own resources in resolving the conflict between these parts so that you can make more empowered choices that truly benefit you.

Who can learn hypnosis?

Almost everyone can learn to guide themselves into a hypnotic state, but some people seem to have a stronger native talent for hypnosis that may allow them to benefit more easily. In the actual process, the therapist will support you in using imagery and your imagination to strengthen your hypnotic ability and to address treatment goals. Using hypnosis for change is like learning any other skill, the more you practice, the more you benefit from that practice.

And with practice, most of us are able to use hypnosis favorably if we are highly motivated to address the problem. Of course, like any therapeutic approach, not everyone can achieve the results they want with hypnosis.

Myths about hypnosis

Portrayals of hypnosis in the media or by stage performers lead to many inaccurate assumptions about hypnosis:

Myth 1: I’ll lose control or say or do something stupid in hypnosis.

People often fear that they will lose control of themselves or be controlled by the hypnotist. During hypnosis, you are in full control at all times. In fact, the active participation of your will power and imagination is crucial for you to achieve your goals. The therapist’s role is to act as a guide and coach, and you are always free to ignore or disregard any suggestion made to you. No patients will be hypnotized without their informed consent.

Myth 2: I’ll fall asleep in hypnosis.

Although the Greek word hypnos refers to sleep, hypnosis is not a sleep state. In addition to other observable differences, science has been able to distinguish hypnosis from sleep. EEG studies show that brain waves in hypnosis have a high level of alpha activity, indicating alertness, whereas the brain waves of sleep have little alpha activity. PET scans also show that hypnosis produces a very specific pattern of brain activity not present during sleep.

Myth 3: I’ll lose consciousness in hypnosis and won’t remember the experience.

While spontaneous amnesia following a very deep hypnotic trance is possible, it is rare. The vast majority of people work in a medium depth trance to accomplish their goals, which allows them to remember everything that happens during their hypnotic experience.

Myth 4: I’ll get stuck in hypnosis.

Remember that during hypnosis you are not asleep and you do not lose your free will. You can be conscious of everything around you, alert and awake. Your autonomic responses may be slowed during hypnosis, but your mental awareness remains acute. When the session is over, the therapist will gently instruct you to return to ordinary consciousness. If you need to come out of hypnosis for any reason, you will readily do so.

Myth 5: Hypnosis is a supernatural or “spiritual” phenomenon.

The American Medical Association has recognized hypnosis for decades as a safe and effective tool for creating symptom relief and deeper positive change. While hypnotic trance has been used for spiritual purposes, nothing about hypnosis is particularly “spiritual.” The experience of hypnosis is a natural, relaxing one.

To read more about the use of therapeutic hypnosis in my practice, enjoy the blog Get Un-Hypnotized .

Shamanic Journeying 2019: A Practice for Healing & Self-Care

Sat, 09 Feb 2019 12:30:00 GMT

Date: Saturday, February 9, 2019

Time: 10:00am - 4:00pm

Price: Only $79 for this six-hour personal growth workshop!

For thousands of years, our human ancestors have used the shamanic journey for trusted guidance and healing—physically, emotionally, and spiritually. But how can this earth-based wisdom benefit us individually and collectively in these contemporary times?

In this workshop, we will:

Review the role of the shaman and the shamanic worldview on healing & wellbeing
Examine various ways of understanding the nature of the "guides"
Learn the basic elements of journeywork
Journey to meet trustworthy guides in the lower & upper worlds
Discover how to frame questions to focus our journeys for healing & transformation
Gather resources for building a journey practice at home and further study

Throughout the day, we'll have plenty of time to reflect on our experiences and ask questions. Come connect deeply with the Earth as you hone your intuition and nurture your relationship with spirit as it manifests uniquely in your life.

Read more about Dina's journey into the shamanic world over the past eight years and how valuable it has been in her own transformative process in this recent blog post . She is honored to bring these practices to the Indianapolis community and incorporate them into her healing work with others.

The group will be limited to eight participants. A confirmation email will follow your registration with more detailed information about the day, including what items to bring with you.

Location

The workshop will take place at the Embodied Arts Studio in the Rocky Ripple neighborhood of Indianapolis, near Butler University. We'll have a lovely, secluded window into the winter woods. Directions will be sent in a separate email following your registration.

Lunch

Please bring your own brown bag lunch and/or snacks, and a covered water bottle. Participants won't have time to go out for lunch.

If you'd like more information about the workshop, feel free to email me . I'd love to hear from you.

The Shaman Within

Sat, 19 Jan 2019 22:09:27 GMT

Eight years have passed since my website photo was taken. It feels like lifetimes ago. It probably feels that way to you too. So much has changed. Some days it's almost impossible to calculate what's been gained and what's been lost. Life is not a zero-sum game, however, so I mostly count the blessings of love and gratitude in my heart as the greatest legacy of this passing time.

Back in late 2012, after my meditation practice and my first intensive retreat had begun to open me up in some unexpected ways, I wrote to someone that I feel like a shaman's apprentice without a shaman . I sensed I needed guidance but I didn't know where to turn. Over the years I might hear of someone but it never quite went anywhere. I'd reach out a time or two and wouldn't hear back, or I just wouldn’t feel a sustained heart connection to that particular shamanic tradition. I let the search drop, relying on the old adage that "when the student is ready, the teacher appears."

As a therapist, I've done all kinds of therapy over the decades, but nothing I've experienced has been as markedly transformative as my personal shamanic journeying work. Maybe it was just the timing of things—I was ripe for it—but I have seen again and again how each one of us can cultivate a practice to access this deeper intelligence within. It's here for us if we take the time to tune in to the wisdom of the unseen world around us. I’m even tempted to say it’s just waiting for us to reach out with curiosity and openness.

Because this kind of transformative work has been so meaningful to me, I've begun to introduce my clients to its wisdom and power. And now I'm rather humbly pleased to offer a workshop on the basic elements of using shamanic journeying in your own life. We’ll spend a nurturing, creative day discovering and deepening your relationship with intuition and inner guidance. I’m really looking forward to seeing many of you in this circle. The workshop is limited to eight people so check out the details on my Retreats page and register soon!

My hope is that 2019 is an easier year for all of us. That we reap the rewards of all the challenging inner work we may have done lately and begin to bring those gifts out into the world. And that I finally get a new photo and maybe even a new website before this year passes!

Healing Mentor Meditation

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 17:28:28 GMT

So how do we clear the field? What can help us to defuse these belief bombs that threaten our sense of security and value? Where is the rich compost from which we can nurture the insight needed to transform our relationship to self and others? Who can guide us in rediscovering our natural wisdom and warmth?

Nearly two thousand years ago Tibetan practitioners of Buddhist Tantra devised a powerful visualization practice known as The Jewel Tree or Healing Mentor meditation as one answer to these questions. To this day, monastics and lay persons take themselves through a series of steps to invoke a personally transformative relationship with their mentor or teacher, that is ultimately about healing themselves and, on that basis, healing the world.

"Deep personal and social transformation only happens in an interactive field of love. And the more we plow that field, learning to love ourselves and others with unreserved openness, the more we align ourselves with the vitality, passion, and purpose of the consciousness that wants to live uniquely through each of us."

The basic steps involve dissolving the ordinary sense of ourselves and the world as we experience it. We then create in our imagination what Buddhist scholar Robert Thurman likes to call an ideal "buddhaverse" or mandala inhabited not only by a personal mentor or teacher, but also by a limitless number of awakened beings who also join us to offer their insight and caring concern for our wellbeing. We allow ourselves to bathe in this unconditionally loving and enlightened attention, not only from our personal mentor but also from all those who embody the qualities we want to cultivate in ourselves: wisdom, lovingkindness, courage, devotion, and so on.

In the practice, the loving relationship with our mentor transmutes our ordinary, neurotic, and habitual ways of seeing and reacting to our experience. This deepening connection with the mentor creates a super-charged field of wisdom and compassion that allows us to feel safe enough to acknowledge our flaws without shame, and to recognize the already present wakefulness inside of us that is just like the mentor's. The practice thus begins to reveal and stabilize our bond with our own enlightened nature. From that basis, we activate our unique capacities to bring whatever insight and compassion we have gained to help others' healing and ultimately to transform our world.

So you can see that even these ancient monks and lay people were dealing with the same issues we are! They drew on their intuition and creativity, using positive affirmations and visualization to manifest a better version of themselves and the world. In many ways the mentor represents the wise, all-loving parent we never had, and helps to heal the attachment wounds of our upbringing that keep us walled off from the truth of our basic nature—which is open and loving—and of our inseparable connection with others.

Deep personal and social transformation only happens in an interactive field of love. And the more we plow that field, learning to love ourselves and others with unreserved openness, the more we align ourselves with the vitality, passion, and purpose of the consciousness that wants to live uniquely through each of us.

These days we tend to think of positive affirmations and guided imagery as modern technologies for learning to love and care for ourselves. But the truth is these kinds of powerfully transformational practices have been around for as long as humans have been seeking to heal a sense of separation between themselves and the nature of reality itself.

This genuine—sometimes tender, sometimes fierce—longing to repair the perceived rupture between ourselves and our own awakened nature has compelled our oh-so-human species to invent a multitude of ways to cultivate our connection with unconditional love. Our hearts somehow know that nothing less than direct contact with the spiritual nature of all things, including ourselves, will satisfy this longing and allow us to be transformed in and by this loving and living relationship with the divine.

* * *

I've been working with this practice over the past six months as a support to my own transformation, and as part of my study in contemplative psychotherapy with the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Studies . My most sincere gratitude goes out to Joe Loizzo, Fiona Brandon, Miles Neale, Pilar Jennings, Emily Wolf, and all my fellow students, each of whom have been important mentors for me this year. If you'd like to try a version of this meditation, I've recorded one for you. Click here to access and download it at your leisure. Let me know how it supports your own growth and change!

Wilderness Walk 2018: The Journey from Fear to Freedom

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 11:42:57 GMT

Online portion of the journey: April 25 — June 21, 2018

In-person retreat: June 24 — 29, 2018

The Wilderness Walk is a nine-week, deeply sensory journey into your own internal wilderness with a tribe of other like-minded souls, which culminates in an in-person, six-day retreat in the beautiful Santa Cruz Mountains of Northern California. During the online portion, you’ll engage in weekly, 90-minute coaching calls filled with powerful visualizations, energy healing, and spiritual tools and wisdom. You’ll also do weekly heart work in solitude to deepen your relationship with yourself and your world, and participate in lively discussions on a private Facebook page to support, encourage, and challenge yourself and others. During the California retreat, we’ll engage in life-changing excursions into the sacred spaces of nature and of our own soul’s longing for more connection, expansion, and clarity of purpose.

In this short video, Suzanne shares her vision of how The Wilderness Walk challenges us to step forward more courageously in order to dismantle every block to living a life of greater purpose and meaning:

To learn more or to request an application, explore this year's Wilderness Walk here !

You can also feel free to reach out to me directly via email or telephone at 317.590.5351.

Open Heart, Awake Mind: A Practice + Reflection Group

Mon, 03 Apr 2017 16:03:57 GMT

Sundays, April 3 – 17, May 1 – 15, 2017

1:00 - 3:00 pm

JCC Indy: To register, click on http://jccindy.org/adult-education/arts-education/

You may have meditated for years and dabbled in the teachings of traditional and contemporary masters but the promised goal – spiritual awakening – still eludes you. Well, you’re in good company! In this course, shared practice and reflection provide inspiration for the spiritual journey. From waking up to the reality of our everyday lives to awakening to Ultimate Reality, we’ll explore how meditation offers you powerful tools for deeply understanding yourself and breaking through old habits and patterns that block a more direct engagement with life. Please bring an attitude of open-mindedness and a willingness to fully engage by attending all classes and completing all readings. Participants will sit on chairs or may bring their own meditation cushions.

Required Texts: Shift Into Freedom: The Science & Practice of Open-Hearted Awareness by Loch Kelly (ISBN 978-1622033508).

Rubble and Ruins

Wed, 04 Nov 2015 05:00:00 GMT

When I was 19 years old, I volunteered in a shelter run by the Missionaries of Charity in India. Crowded along the banks of the Ganges, this Home for the Dying Destitute housed dozens of residents in the crumbling palace of some maharaja long forgotten. There I met Ajeet.

Ajeet had once been a poor but promising student at university. Eventually he worked in the civil service where he imagined a bright future for himself. Then tuberculosis struck. He lost his job and a long series of unfavorable events left him begging on the streets. When I met this cheerful and resolute man, the nuns had tended him for several months, helping him to regain some of his strength.

He became an unofficial supervisor of the daily tasks I was set to. One day I commented on his obvious gratitude for these women who had given him a home and a measure of dignity. He acknowledged his thankfulness, then added: “But love is the thing that saves us.”

I’ve never forgotten Ajeet but I’ve often forgotten what he taught me that day. Not many of us reading this will face the hardships he did, but all of us will experience some adversity in our lives. Only a single moment stands between us and devastating heartbreak, disability, or death.

True adversity, I'm discovering, teaches me that life is precious and that each day could be my last. It reminds me that how I spend my time matters. It demands more discipline, courage, and strength of character than I think I'm capable of. Eventually hard times may even offer an advantage to those of us who survive them: the gift of a certain steadiness in response to life's inevitable ups and downs.

The word adversity has its roots in to turn toward, to face, or to confront . Facing our difficulties does not mean that life has to be a joyless, teeth-gritting endeavor. In fact, to hold both the beauty and suffering of our lives in an open handed, open hearted way is rather the point. Turning toward our difficulties with curiosity rather than resistance invites us to accept our experience just as it is—pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral.

But this means we have to be willing to confront our attachment to the belief that this is not supposed to happen to me or my life should be different . Loosening the grip on our ideas about how life should be can allow us to enjoy the life we actually have. How we let these beliefs go is part of the practice in mindfulness: again and again we gently guide the mind back to here-and-now awareness.

If we let it, our own suffering can break us wide open to the suffering of others. Sometimes the heartbreak of others helps us find the cracks in our own patched together life. That's what Ajeet’s presence did for me. And when he asserted that love is what truly saves, he was teaching me that love is the only thing that redeems our lives from self-centered purposelessness.

Ultimately it is in facing the reality of our lives that we uncover a capacity for compassionate connection that is steadier and more spacious. A deeper confidence, even lightheartedness, can emerge as we begin to accept ourselves as we are, rather than as we think we should be. In the rubble and ruins of our imperfect existence, adversity strips away our inauthenticity, and opens the gate to a life more fully lived.New Paragraph

A River of Maitri

Thu, 01 Oct 2015 04:00:00 GMT

A few weeks ago I was housesitting for friends who live along a river. The river snakes around the edge of the neighborhood, providing sanctuary for eagles and foxes and muskrats. Each morning I would sit on the levee with my tea, watching the water ripple over rocks in the shallows. The chatter of birds and the distant hum of traffic awakened my senses. Streams of thought flowed toward the river as I pondered what I’ve learned over the past several years.

One of the primary revelations has been just how much compassion for myself had been missing. I never would have pegged myself as particularly harsh but what I discovered—as I dug through the mud of my inner life—was a driven, perfectionistic, judgmental and impatient gal who was trying her darnedest to get distance from a deeper pain. That gal was also fairly demanding of others, in subtle ways, wanting to be right much of the time and wanting life to conform to her needs to feel safe and valued.

Part of my newly emerging self-compassion is to recognize that this is the human condition. We want to feel secure and loved. We develop coping mechanisms that uniquely reflect our childhood conditioning and individual temperament. We want the “rightness” of our point of view and the “necessity” of our wants validated.

At an intellectual level, I’ve known that all along. But lately hard knocks and hours of therapy have brought that knowing into my bones. And that’s another thing I’m having compassion for: we can’t get there until we get there . A deeper level of self-insight only comes when we are ready. And so we can be patient and kind with ourselves, trusting that everything comes at the right time for our spiritual and psychological awakening.

Buddhism talks of maitri . From the Sanskrit it is a view toward changing our relationship with pain and difficulty:

"It means unlimited friendliness toward ourselves, with the clear implication that this leads naturally to unlimited friendliness toward others. Maitri also has the meaning of trusting oneself—trusting that we have what it takes to know ourselves thoroughly and completely without feeling hopeless, without turning against ourselves because of what we see."

—Pema Chödrön

Or as Thich Nhat Hanh says, maitri is the intention and capacity to offer joy and happiness, so by deduction we have to start with ourselves.

You are probably familiar with the story about the Dalai Lama and maitri ? When queried many years ago by a Western practitioner about the topic of self-hatred, he was befuddled: “What is self-hatred?” The concept was so foreign to him that he couldn’t begin to fathom this common experience of personal shame and self-loathing that many Westerners feel. We suffer when we don't feel connected with our basic capacity for self-oriented lovingkindness. This is particularly true in societies like ours where not being enough and not having enough drive the spend-and-acquire economy.

It’s been a long, winding journey to be tender with myself, even to be tender with my tendency to beat myself up. When I was on retreat a few years ago, I had an interview with one of the teachers. We sat across from each other on our cushions without speaking. She looked at me intently. Then she calmly said, “Dina, I really encourage you to practice maitri.” It took me three years to understand what she had intuited but I am joyful now to dip my feet into this river of compassion and feel its cooling, calming effect on me and, with luck, on everyone around me.

For a lovely and good-humored five-minute teaching on maitri by Pema, click here .

Photo Credit: Dan Axler

This Old See-Saw

Wed, 15 Apr 2015 04:00:00 GMT

My childhood was spent in a small college town. Our three-story apartment building stood watch over what seemed at the time a very large park across the street. I loved to run down the hill to the playground, joining other kids on the industrial swing set, crawling over the giant steel jungle gym, and letting centrifugal force wing me off the merry-go-round.

One of the great rites of spring after a drenching rain meant taking off our shoes, toes squishy in the mud, to push that merry-go-round as fast as we could. We’d jump on at the last minute gleefully dipping our heels in the puddles below and watching the arc of mucky water plaster our bare arms and legs. It was baptism by mud, a renewal of our faith that summer, and summer vacation, would come soon.

Even today those experiences are embedded in my muscle memory.

Recently I went back to visit that old park. It was much smaller than I remembered. Filled with memories but not much else. I couldn’t help but feel the passage of time.

These days it doesn’t take much for me to reflect on time's evolution. Balancing on the fulcrum of life’s teeter-totter, tilting toward the end, it’s not just my memories that are aging, it’s my body. Last week someone guessed my age correctly.

At 50 the jig is up, at least for women. You can no longer pass as a “young” person unless you’re talking to a 70-year-old. I won't go into the litany of things that change in a now arrhythmic heartbeat, but change they do.

These sags and bags seem to arrive overnight. Unlike Rumi in one of his most famous poems , I want to tell these unwelcome visitors to go home. The problem is they are not visiting. They have taken up permanent residence and I am forced to accept that I will age and I will die.

The beauty of this eternal realization is that wisdom blossoms, like bulbs of hyacinth and paperwhite, when vitality is forced against the absolute limit of any life. It’s the wisdom of no escape that sensible friends and sage teachers counsel us to remember.

It may seem strange to write of death in the midst of spring but that’s how it is in the natural cycle of growth and decay. Buds die so that flowers can bloom, flowers die so that fruit flourishes. Ours is a journey of discovering what must die so that life can renew itself in infinite variety and form.

We all wish for a peace-filled death. Lately I've taken up a practice of snuffing out the flame of my meditation candle by watching the wick slowly deprived of oxygen. I invoke: "May all beings go out gently like this flame.” May all of us be blessed to give up our last breath with grace and conviction, and release our spirit to its next abode.

Photo credit: "She Saw" by Hiroh Satoh .

Mindfulness Meditation: Living More, Stressing Less

Tue, 17 Feb 2015 05:00:00 GMT

Sundays, February 7 – March 13, 2015

1:00 - 2:30 pm

JCC Indy: To register, click on http://jccindy.org/adult-education/arts-education/

Mindfulness has taken the nation by storm as research consistently shows the significant physical and mental benefits of meditation. Mindfulness meditation calms the body, stills the mind, and helps us to engage the present moment with greater awareness and ease. Through practice we can rediscover a balance between “being” and “doing.” This course will include instruction, guided meditations, and shared reflection. Topics covered will include: why it’s impossible to fail at meditation, how to cultivate calm and tranquility, overcoming common challenges, working with emotions, and the deeper spiritual potentials of meditation. Participants will sit on chairs or may bring their own meditation cushions.

Required Text: Real Happiness: The Power of Meditation: A 28-Day Program by Sharon Salzberg (ISBN 978-0761159254). The book includes a CD with four guided meditations.

Just Enough, Oryoki Style

Thu, 10 Jan 2013 05:00:00 GMT

Wrestling napkins into the correct shape or sneaking peeks at the neighbor's chopstick position, we could hear the oryoki master remind us that eating mindfully in this formal practice was another portal into our experience. It was just another door of practice swinging open to reveal the nature of mind and to put us in direct contact with reality itself.

Over time it was easy to notice the negative and positive judgments about self and others, the unexpected joy of learning this beautiful form, and the desire to be competent and to belong. As I became more skilled, I noticed how often the proud knot of confidence would shortly unravel into carelessness. I felt the pleasure of seeing, smelling, touching, and tasting my meal so fully. I observed how the strict form calmed body and mind, and gave me the freedom to eat simply and joyfully with others. I saw clearly how much my life depended on others' generosity. And most tenderly, oryoki became a gateway to experiencing such kindness in myself and my dining companions as we did our best to help each other learn something new.

Given all that I learned, it was surprising that a few days after coming home, I found myself rather compulsively overeating. In the cartoon thought bubble above my head, you would've heard a whole lot of bargaining and chastising going on: Just one more spoonful of this almond butter and no more. Might as well eat up the rest of that loaf of sourdough then be done with it. Okay, you're out of control; you need to stop!

Finally I surrendered to the obvious. I looked at myself in the mirror, took a few deep breaths, and asked that critical question I always ask when I've gotten into some jag of emotional eating: What the hell are you feeling that you're trying to stuff down??

Now I know that's not asked very lovingly but believe me it catches my attention in a fiercely compassionate way. Before long, awareness could touch the sadness I'd been avoiding and as the body softened, I began to experience and express it. I won't bore you with details about the sources of this sadness; suffice it to say that experiencing the feeling directly allowed it to be transformed into something much more interesting and usable. Soon I felt lighter and at the same time more satisfyingly connected to the deeper emotional hunger that had been trying to get my attention.

This morning I got out my chopsticks, scrambled two eggs, and cut up half an apple. Looking at my little bowls of breakfast and breathing, I smiled. It truly was just enough.

For more about the practice and view of oryoki, take a peek here . Curious about how to open and close an oryoki set? Check out this YouTube video .

True Heart: Women's Midwinter Retreat

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 05:00:00 GMT

Date: Sunday, February 19, 2012

Time: 9:00am - 4:00pm

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakens.

- C.G. Jung

Are you tired? Do you need a break?

Want to get away from it all just for a day?

The True Heart Retreat offers you a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with the beauty, courage, grace, and wisdom of your own heart awakened in a warm, supportive community of women. During the retreat, we look forward to guiding you through a day of reflective sharing, quiet contemplation, and mindful movement as we encourage each other in openhearted exploration of this "one wild and precious life" we are living right now.

Our lives are so full these days. So many projects, responsibilities, and distractions demand our attention that we have little time for reflection, play, and rest. The needs of the heart are put on hold. We forget to tune in to what we really need, or to listen more tenderly to what our bodies and hearts have to say about the choices we’re making or the dreams we’ve postponed.

Of course, we'll have plenty of time for inner reflection and restorative stillness. But you just can't get a group of wise women together without healthy doses of raucous laughter, juicy sharing, and some mindful movin' & groovin'!

And we won't be sitting in formal meditation at this retreat so don't let that intimidate you. Instead guided meditations will support you in exploring the themes of the day and connecting with your own inner wisdom.

Similarly all our movement will be gentle and exploratory. You can engage these experiences with a sense of curiosity about your relationship with the body, and an openess to discovering something new about yourself in the world. As a special treat, Ash Crofoot of True Nature Embodied Arts, will be there to support us along the way!

One of the great joys of winter is that it naturally invites us inward to reflect, to rest, and to germinate the seeds of our own re-creation. Yet how rarely do we get to take advantage of this season’s support of our own inner process and our heart's reawakening? Maybe now's the time to prioritize YOU and give this wonderful Valentine to your own sweet heart!

Details

Sunday, February 19, 2012

9 am - 4 pm

The retreat will be limited to 20 participants. A confirmation email will follow your registration with more detailed information about the day. Lunch is included in your registration.

Location

The retreat will take place in the Peace Center at Jameson Camp on Indianapolis' west side. If you are not familiar with this venue, you can look forward to a lovely window onto the winter woods. Jameson Camp is located approximately 20-25 minutes from downtown Indianapolis. For directions, click here.

Lunch

I am delighted to say that a fabulous vegetarian lunch will be provided by Chef Becky Hostetter, currently of Duos: Slow Food Fast fame! If you don't know Becky from the farmers' markets, her Duos food truck, or Essential Edibles, you are in for a real Valentine's treat!

If you'd like more information about the retreat, feel free to email me . I'd love to hear from you!