The trick to resilience

I always burn out before the “actual” breaks in life that I am afforded. Since I very much follow a school teacher's schedule in my work and life, Summer, Christmas, and March Break are the breaks I lean on to re-fuel, re-connect, re-adjust and re-set.

I used to run out of steam right before mid-terms or finals. Like I was flat, deflated, done. This has been my cycle since I was a kid. I can see it so clearly now as I look back. If I had only known...haha...jinx

It got really hard again when my kids were young and now again, since treatment, I can literally slip into burnout within a few days. I strengthen my Immune System, Nervous System, and Spiritual Practice on a daily basis, to help me get through the harder days.

I know my cycles well.

February is a BEAST of a month. My body remembers. It gets easier every year, but the body remembers. Sigh, I made it. Four years post DX. If you are a Yogi, or survivor of life’s tragedy and hardships, you just know what I mean here. If you have survived trauma and feel it in the body, years later, you just know.

Our bodies remember, and sometimes this remembering can hurt like hell. Especially for those of us sensitive souls.

Each of us has the ability to climb the hills in our life with strengths we already possess. Now, finding or tuning into them looks different for us all. Cultivating them takes patience. With ALL the tools I have at my disposal, with ALL I know, have experienced and practiced, have read and studied. It does not change the fact that my body remembers.

I have allowed all the feelings and hurts and healing and hope and devastation to move through me. Year after year. This is my February practice. It began 4 years ago when I began the climb of the steepest mountain I had ever been faced with. I now can remind my body that I am thankful for her messages and thank her for all she holds on to. Then, I can surrender and allow that to release, become less stuck, and move through me.

If you think I am talking about magic here. I am. It is the magic of walking the path of Yoga. It is the path I chose of radically healing my "self".

When we walk forward in every area of our life with love first and fear last, we transform. When we face the hardships and difficulties with compassion first, we transform ALL those around us. We can then turn that love and compassion towards ourselves and fill our cups. We can heal generational trauma with our practice.

This is the trick friends, the trick to resilience….practice, practice, and practice more practices. Then when you think you have it all. Practice more. Practice until it is no longer a practice. Practice until you notice you are not practicing and you are absolutely empty and your practice lift’s you back up to homeostasis. Especially face your practice when you are resisting it, there is usually a message there, somewhere, if you listen. Practice so much that it feels like breathing.

This is a window into the month of February in my life.

Friends and fam, those of you messaging me, holding me up behind the scenes and camera and words. You are my community and without you, things would be very different. Please never underestimate your connection and cheerleading, it means the world.