​TL;DR (but hope you do): This week was a doozy. If you're not feeling that, might I invite you to slow down and take the next 5 mins to read this 🖤 If you are feeling that, well, same invitation to you too✨
Sharing the resources that have been supporting me this week below, in the hopes they help you stabilize & stay with yourself too.

​

Hello & happy Friday,

This week has been a doozy but we made it to Friday, which feels like a cause for celebration, truthfully.

If this week has been hard for you too, I'm going to risk naming the obvious here and say: Witnessing innocent Palestinian people, children, get murdered with the help of our tax dollars for the last 7+ months is not an easy ordeal to be with. And watching the rise of fascism unfold in front of our faces as people unite against genocide is not a small thing.

It makes good sense to feel capital-B BAD right now.

You might be asking, "why are we talking about Palestinian liberation in this newsletter? This space is about connecting with our bodies and somatic healing, no?"

We can't heal at a body level, while silently witnessing (or turning away from, in many cases) other bodies –other beings– be treated as if they are subhuman; as if they are disposable; as if they are less deserving of dignity, love, LIFE because of their faith, skin color or ethnicity.

Somatic work is justice work. And if it's not, it's not working.

Somatic work is meant to increase our capacity to feel emotions and body sensations, and when we can do that we can process, release, heal and grow.

And when we increase our capacity to feel the full spectrum our own experience, we also expand our ability to feel the joy and pain of others. Congratulations, and I'm sorry.

Congratulations, you're in touch with your humanity in a deeper way and how FUCKING👏🏼 beautiful👏🏼 is👏🏼 that👏🏼. That's what we're here, on this planet for, no? To be so intimately connected to each other and the planet, to feel, to love, to care.

Frankly, if more people in power were connected to their humanity in this way, we wouldn't be having to debate the ethics of genocide.

And I'm sorry, because the pain and suffering happening at collective level is unthinkable.

It's often a lot easier to turn away from it because it's so unthinkable. It's un-human. So we disconnect from our own humanity because witnessing such dehumanizing treatment is deeply disturbing and incongruent with our spirit's knowing: that all lives deserve love, dignity, safety, sovereignty.

But numbing and turning away from our feelings won't make the pain go away. Distracting ourselves from our present moment experience of this reality only leads to more suffering, personally and collectively. Ignoring our own humanity and that of others will only ever lead to more of the same.

Change requires movement. It requires feeling. It requires us to stay with (rather than numb, run, distract or deny) our present moment experience long enough to feel into, learn from, dream up and craft something better.

I want to honor that numbing & distracting are tender forms of protection our systems enact to keep us safe from feeling too much pain, and that's precious. Let's not get stuck there though.

Let us tap into the support, resources and community that show us that we can, in fact, face the hard feelings in small doable bits, and survive them; that we can be with our full spectrum of experience through some of the hardest moments in modern history; that when we stay with ourselves we are honoring our own humanity and that of each other.

So Reader, if you're reading this and thinking, "uh-huh, yessss Holly, but how?! Because feeling all of this is so much. It's too much."

I see you, I love you, and I'd like to offer some resources. When we find ourselves in particularly painful and chaotic times, one of our main focuses has to be resourcing ourselves.

We feel the feels. We ground into support & resources. Repeat. 🔁

​

Here are some resources that have been supporting me, I hope you find solace in one or many 💙

• So much orientation. Probably not news if you've been here for a while, but orientation is a go-to resources for me. I practice it in small doses, multiple times daily. See here for a full how-to, and start where you are.
• Connecting with plants: the ones in my home, the ones out my window, the ones I walk by in my neighborhood. Slowing down and really looking at, noticing, smelling, savoring, sometimes even talking to (yes, I'm that girl) them is a huge resource. We're meant to be in connection & co-regulating with our environment!! Bringing conscious awareness to that connection brings ease to the nervous system.
• Slowing down with the people who matter most to me: my kids, my partner, my friends, my clients, my family. It's all too easy to operate on auto-pilot in the relationships we feel safe within. But here again, when we bring our conscious attention to the love, support and stability those relationships are already offering us, we find even more ease and support there.
• Making: Cake. Pots. T-shirts for Palestine. Dinner. Tea. Making is a huge resources for me. Bringing energy down from our heads into our hands in-and-of-itself is somatically supportive. Sometimes what's in our hearts doesn't have words, and can be better expressed through making. (P.S. Stay tuned on Instagram this weekend for t-shirts I'm printing as a fundraiser for Palestinian liberation. 100% of profits will go to humanitarian & mutual aid)
• Solidarity: I can't be at my community's college encampment for any real stretch of time because of momming and showing up for my client work. But I can give to support and resources those who are bravely showing up in person to protest SU's complacency and involvement in Genocide. If you are a Syracuse local and want to give or get involved, follow along with Syracuse DSA for daily updates and requests for support. Giving & showing up in solidarity might not sound like a lot, but it is. Solidarity is everything.

​

There's more, but truthfully what matters now is for you inquire inwardly as to what resources might be most supportive for YOU, to stay in touch with your own humanity and that of others? What might offer you some stability right now, in order for you to show up for yourself and others in the long haul?

Stay soft and strong,
Holl

​

P.S! If you're still feeling stuck trying to do this on your own, or are called to up your support & resources in a big way, book a free consult to explore 1:1 somatic coaching with me 💙​

​

​

​

​

​

​