Vagus Nerve Yoga: Tenderness in the Turmoil with Dr. Arielle Schwartz

Come take a live class with Dr. Arielle Schwartz. Sign up here: https://drarielleschwartz.com/therape...

We are sitting in the wake of Hurricanes, floods, ongoing wars…There is a degree of collective suffering and grief…for which there just are not enough words. And still…we show must show up no matter how dark it is out there. This is not a time to succumb to despair.

Card from the Post-Traumatic Growth Guidebook: A Healing Crisis
When any system has been out of balance for a long period of time, it is common to feel powerless, helpless, or numb. This is true about the
physical body and of more complex systems such as families, corporations, countries, or ecosystems. Initially, a process of awakening can feel terrible. You might want to retreat and shut down again. But wait, this might just be a healing crisis—a temporary worsening of symptoms that arises as you go through the healing process. When you come out of numbness, you increase your awareness of how much pain is actually there. Stay the course. It is time to heal.

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Talking with friends impacted by these storms…I also hear of the powerful coming together of community. Of people showing up in their best selves to bring water and food, to clear out the mud, and care for the children. This is how we shine. As rumi says,
“If everything around seems dark, look again, you may be the light.”

Today's energizing practices give us opportunity to tap into resources that are strengthening, enlivening, and playful as we focus on building your endurance, we awaken your cardiovascular system with quick breaths and movements followed by recovery phases and rest. You will come away with a greater capacity to stand in the storms of this world with an open heart.

Order the Applied Polyvagal Theory in Yoga book here: https://www.amazon.com/Applied-Polyva...

the five rememberences:
1. There is no way to escape growing old
2. There is no way to escape the inevitability of illness
3. There is no way to escape the inevitability of death
4. I will eventually lose all that is dear to me and everyone I love
5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. They are the legacy that I will leave behind.

Poem for today: Come sit by my garden by Emory Hall

let my gardens speak for me when i am gone. let them speak in colored whispers of all the beauty i have seen. and felt. and lived.
let them speak of how much death had to find me; how many hard seasons it took to make me a living, breathing thing. let them speak of my seasons of growth and abundance, but let them also tell of my seasons of loss and decay. let the soft, wet earth be a reminder of hardness that didn't win. of sadness that didn't calcify. of surrender that triumphed over resistance. and let the glorious, fragrant blooms speak of my life and its greatest lesson: that the beauty we make never dies.
// come sit by my garden