Self-Care Advent
There's been quite a bit of interest in the freebie I designed for my email list, so I want to share it more broadly. After all, it isn’t only bereaved moms who come right up against their stress in December!
The program is this: Self-Care Advent: Simple daily practices delivered to your email this December through the 24th.
I hear so many women lamenting, "I know what I need to do is relax and just be less stressed out..." but HOW?
You don’t need motivating. You already know how harmful stress is. And how painful! If you have any auto immune disease, you feel that pain in your body. Stress can destroy relationships, too, pinning you in one of the four-Fs: Fight Flight Fawn or Freeze. You can’t genuinely love when your poor body thinks it’s fighting or fawning for its life. They are emergency survival modes, not intended for healthy bonding. Stress destroys your dreams. I’m thinking of my infertility friends: you know that your poor ovaries don’t like stress any better than you do — and yet, what’s more stressful than infertility! Chronic illness! Marital strife! Stress causes destruction and destruction causes stress.
You are MOTIVATED. You’ve tried everything you know to try, everything you have the energy to do right now. You’ve even (especially) tried blaming yourself: “I just need to stop stressing, go with the flow” holds inside of it a deep self-judgment: “I’m doing it wrong. I’m always doing it wrong. I’m wrong. If I could only DO better, BE better, I wouldn’t suffer like this.”
Bullshit. You’re doing the best you can do in this cycle, you just need the right tool to break the cycle.
I got sick of watching women use their own stress (a totally natural biological system in the body!) to beat themselves up and make themselves wrong. Self-Care Advent is an entire stress tool kit that you can try on and pick and choose from to hopefully find your own personal best way out.
This December, I've put together 24 somatic practices designed to use your body's innate reflexes to soothe your nervous system. There’s no need to magic-yourself into some different personality disposition. You can move through the world as a type-A person and ALSO counteract unnecessary danger reflexes. Yes, you have safety-buttons built into your nervous system! Let’s mash 24 of those beautiful buttons and disarm your stress, one day at a time. With practice, you can re-balance your entire system and deliver your body the “Ahhh! We’re safe” signals at least as much as the “OH NO!” signals. (Side-note: , I’ve been hearing a lot of peri-menopause discomfort stories lately, and learning patterns of “we’re safe” is how you hold onto enough of your progesterone to feel comfortable in your menopausal body.)
Some of these practices are silly-simple. I’ll link the first three right here, as it is the 3rd of December already and I don’t want you to feel like you’ve missed anything.
If you're looking for a spell of soothing this December, you can put your email in the pop-up or, if you’ve dismissed it, fill in THIS FORM and I’ll add you to the list.
Day 1 = Humming. Yes, humming. You can click that link for an audio guide, but I bet you already know how to hum.
Day 2 = The Ten Churnings. A light mobility practice I learned from my ayurveydic healer, Veronica Wolff-Casey, who fixed my gut (try her kitchari recipe) and leads my favorite yoga class of all time: Monday Restorative, complete with dad-jokes.
Day 3 = Second Brain Reset = self-gut massage and breath training. You need a partially deflated ball for this, and if you don’t have that, a folded up pillow or tightly rolled towel should be a decent substitute. This practice comes to me from my flourish pelvic health modality via Dagmar Kahn.
Heads up that we’re doing pleasure practice on the full moon (Day 7, I believe). So please do share broadly, but not with anyone who would feel embarrassed about invitation to pleasure. I am, after all, a sex-coach, and I am pulling tools from every single area of my expertise.
All practices are OPTIONAL. You don’t have to do all 24 to participate. You can do one. If all you ever do is hum, GREAT! It’s actually my go-to practice because of how easy it is. It’s the only one here I do every day. (That’s why I put it first!) You can do NONE but just treat yourself kindly every day you decide not to do it. Cultivating that kindness is life-changing all on its own. All I ask is that you let your body lead and choose kindness towards yourself this December.
Please accept this gift and take from it anything that feels supportive. Holding you with love and support this holiday season.