When my husband graciously asked my parents to marry me, my mom let him in on how difficult I can be.
I get what she meant, but I perhaps would have chosen a different word: optimistic, energetic, ambitious, a lover of life…
My parents and I have had our moment-to-moment ups and downs, and perhaps in the past, it didn’t feel as short as a moment. But no surprise for many of us, parenting courses, communicating, and learning to relate weren’t really a thing when I was growing up.
As a busy working parent now and as a human with half a century of lived experiences, including a devastating loss of a brother last December, sometimes you don’t just WANT MORE TIME, but to TURN BACK TIME ⏰ to do things differently.
Speaking of time, it’s that holiday time of year with all the friends and family gatherings, which can surface some of those memories of the things you’d like to do differently.
Why is that? Because your nervous system, headquartered in your brain, remembers everything, and your brain is an expectation and meaning-making machine.
And because we don’t live in a perfectly Pinterest world where our gatherings are curated meals and family photos, allow me to get raw and real.
For many people holidays are festive and really special. For many others, holidays are a thing that they just want to get through. It feels more obligatory, habitual, a “should”. But when we are habitual and aren’t aware of our autopilot way of being, our patterns emerge. And what you may have thought you’ve processed and passed, in triggering moments your memories are retrieved and have the potential to be expressed aggressively. Ya feel me?
But not you, not this time.
To help you manage triggers during upcoming gatherings, I am offering a special astrology consultation to help you gain insights into your personality, temperament, and communication style. This will offer you a mindful approach to stay cool and not flip your lid, so you are confident to interact with anyone and anywhere.
For me, humbly I divulge, my go-to temperament is anger. Not was, is. But my personality is quite happy and optimistic. When I learned to make sense of all this, I’ve really learned to channel anger in a way that is aligned with my personality and supports my well-being instead of expressing it through potential devastating outcomes.
Let me be clear, this is not about you showing up passively and letting unskillful people walk all over you. Quite the contrary, it’s about you showing up differently, with calm and collectedness that allows you to be in AWE of your calm and capacity to recollect.
Create a holiday experience you deserve…
Holidays are also that time of year that can surface grief and loss. Globally it’s hard to escape even if you don’t watch the news. I am seeing that as I’m currently facilitating a Grief & Loss Discussion Group for Dr. Rick Hanson.
Grief and loss comes in many forms. It doesn’t equate to just death. It can be grief of your age, a pet, a change in routine, relationships gone awry, lost opportunities, or that holiday that just didn’t seem to match your expectation. Grief and loss is any experience that triggers your nervous system and leaves you feeling angry, sad, lonely, fearful, disappointed…
Whatever it is uniquely for you, collectively it doesn’t feel good in our body.
And because your body is triggered by memories that you may not be aware of as memories (your blindspots), I’d love to serve you with some tips to be prepared and to truly find more peace this holiday season.
This leads me to this months Cosmic Espresso shot:
Circling back to timing, astronomically from Earth, the sun is in the Tropic of Scorpio. Regardless of whether you know astrology or are familiar with sun horoscope astrology, my experience is that Scorpios get a bad rap. There’s a depth to this energy that is often misunderstood or not skillfully channeled. Scorpio is a fixed water sign. Using the analogy of water and your emotions, specifically the fluidity of your emotions, water in this sign is concentrated. Visually thinking of fixed water, I imagine an iceberg, heavy, and cold. Emotions like this do not feel good, like triggers. Emotions are energy, and energy wants to move. Your triggers want to move, and if it doesn’t, you or someone else will feel the sting 🦂 and perpetuate the bad rap.
But not you again, not this holiday. I’m here to serve you, not with recipes for your next holiday spread, but a recipe to allow your emotions to spread.
Help yourself BE WITH your emotions
Tip 1 Visualize
To have the holiday you deserve, it takes your creativity, and surprise, what’s the first step in creativity? That’s right, your imagination! Know ahead of time how you want to feel. Regardless if it’s the perfect setting (place and people) vividly vision how you can make it better and connect to how you want to feel.
Tip 2 LET BE
Rick Hanson has a framework that is useful when people are experiencing the heavy things. Why this matter is because the mind ruminates. That’s what ruminates is, to chew cud, undigested food. You get my point. I still think about what my mom said to my husband over 20 years ago. If you will be around someone you are easily triggered by, your nervous system is waiting for the bait. But what if you knew if you deliberately took the time to feel the trigger, it’s actually how it gets metabolized. I know it sucks, but so does throwing up undigested food.
But as the saying goes, the more you resist will persist. John Kabat Zinn introduced mindfulness for people suffering with chronic pain, Grounded in science, is if you intentionally felt it, meaning noticing the ick, the heaviness, hotness, tightness, your tolerance to discomfort increases or perhaps the discomfort fades. You decide. Be the laboratory of your own life.
Tip 3 LET GO
Because learning to communicate was not a thing for many of us, what has been a thing is to hold the shi* in. “Not letting myself process” is a common thing that many of the participants in the Grief and Loss Course share. Not digesting. How we grieve is unique and grief has its own timeline but what I can share is grief wants to be witnessed.
After you are bravely asking yourself :
Too much, consider what Peter Levine offers and pendulate. Swing in and swing out.
Tip 4 LET IN
So, as science tells us, we are meaning-making machines, and our thoughts and stories are on repeat. What’s also grounded in modern neuroscience is that if you are deliberately noticing and extracting any good from letting yourself be, this is the transformation. Mindfully practicing on repeat creates sustainable changes.
Tip 5 Leverage the Scorpio Qualities and expressions this month (10/23-11/22)
The globally dismal, heavy, and intense mood is potent. Energy is about potential. Your emotions are energy that can be expressed more skillfully or not so. Scorpio qualities learned and expressed in it’s higher potential offers transformational emotional security. See signifiant dates below to help support how to direct and focus the superpower of your mind.
High Expression:
- magnetic
- deep
- mysterious
- musical
- intense and transforming
- powerful
- sexual
- resilient
- willpower
- detective
- regenerative
- unwavering loyalty
Low Expression:
- power hungry
- destructive
- possessive
- jealous
- excessive
- obsessive
- lustful
- secretive
- paranoid
- suspicious
- repressed
- vindictive
Hopefully, this lands where it needs to and helps you stay cool under any intensity this holiday season. If you’re not feeling so confident, I got you 💨. For a quick reset to activate your cool this holiday season, book a breathwork meditation journey with me.
Chance favors the prepared mind. -Louis Pasteur
Some Significant Dates 🗓️
Nov. 4 – Saturn direct in Pisces: It’s time to take your spirituality seriously. Year after year, month after month, day after day, we are being reminded that we are not in control. What you can control is how to create structures of support. Create the structures necessary to grow in your divinity.
Nov 11 – 18 P.O.V.: You have been doing the “work” – personal development/self-healing. Feel me? Take a moment to reflect with gratitude for showing up and a kind reminder from yours truly that personal development is a nonlinear process. Setbacks may feel forceful, erratic, and sudden. Keywords to grow: determination, tenacity, resilience, and drive beyond any hardship.
Nov 13 Scorpio New Moon: an invitation to pause and move through the intensity that is palpable. I came across this New Moon intention: Seize the Power Before It Seizes You.
Nov 27 Gemini Full Moon: an invitation again to pause EVEN THOUGH YOU MAY BE THINKING “LET’S GO.” Notice what you are confused about. It’s not a day to find the directions on where to go but to notice where things feel foggy.