2018 Reflections & Pictures

Here we are again.

The year is coming to a close as we find ourselves in this final month of 2018.

I’ve made it a ritual the past several years to carve out time to sit and reflect on what’s happened the past year and share a few highlights with you from RFW headquarters.

So let’s get to it.

In no particular order, some highlights and reflections from the year…

New Digs:

I’ve engaged in some business self-care, having moved offices out of a collective shared office space I’d been a part of for 5 years into my own office once again. Within the first month of moving I noticed an increase in energy and overall contentment with the change.

Teaching:

After a year or two of cutting back on community teaching, I re-entered the scene this year taking on projects and collaborations that have been meaningful or interesting to me. I accepted an invitation to guest teach at West Michigan’s Better Body Image conference alongside some other inspiring women. I collaborated with a friend and colleague of mine, Susanne Werblow, for a Kundalini workshop series teaching students diet and body-based practices to to take good care of organs of detoxification. I’ve also continued to lead a few training modules for yoga teacher trainings in West Michigan. (Namely, Ayurvedic Nutrition intensives and a training on the psychological shadow – both favorites to teach) A big thank you goes out to Viki Distin and Shannon Austin for the invitations and the trust.

There’s now a small library of 20-30 minute Facebook Live classes covering a variety of topics that relate to eating, nutrition, psychology, and healing. If you’d like a look at the mini-lessons, you can access them HERE. It could be a helpful place to direct people who are looking for support.

And a beautiful push forward: I co-led a 5-day intensive at my home with Michael, my partner, over the summer on Healing Traumatized Soul Parts – deep healing work. This workshop had a strong Shamanic and depth psychological bent, acknowledging the shamanic multiplicity of mind, the Jungian model of the polycentric psyche, and the IFS model developed by Richard Schwartz. Our friend Nick led live percussion journeys and our group joined together for a community favorite, Dream Theatre, led by our friend Susan. These are very talented people.

Behind the scenes:

I continue ongoing training in inner parts work, studying the ways that the personality organizes itself, pre-empting and reacting to personal, collective, and even ancestral wounding. I’ve mentioned this work before. Wonderfully supportive and healing for eating and health concerns and relationship.

I am 4 years into apprenticeship in psycho-shamanism. It’s plugged me into a powerful lineage of teaching. I feel I’ve got a ladder up the right wall here

Both these have really worked on me personally – lots of inner work.

The Blog:

I’m still writing these regularly. If you’re curious, these have been the most read or shared:

#1 Reflections at 35 #2 Eating to the point of energy #3 Butter for Breakfast (ha)

A bit outside the office:

As you may have guessed, I still continue to indulge my fascination around what the body and mind have the potential to be with different nutrition and body-based practices.

I can’t even begin to express how much my eating and body have healed and changed over the years.

I have faith this is possible for anyone. So much so, that I was willing to craft a career based on my convictions long ago.

A few other highlights include travel to visit with family and friends, continuing to pursue my love of dance (with beloved dancer/choreographer Abbi, below), and those meaningful conversations with precious close ones.

I continue deepening my spiritual life and the most resonant practices for Self-renewal.

As a sensitive and intuitive type this is a real anchor in my life. Though none of us, sensitive or not, are without need for periodic renewal. The old people of the earth knew that without regular renewal and return to The Center, for both individuals and communities, things would start to disintegrate and move toward chaos (and also acknowledged the natural and necessary cycles of disintegration and renewal).

Whether we were ready for it or not, saw it coming or not, these are the waters we navigate now…

(digital art collage by friend and multi-media artist Rhonda Skinner)

To close:

I am grateful for another year of good work.

When a client and I are working together and things open in a way where there’s healing, or insight, or progress occurring, I still feel a deep level of satisfaction in my heart and in life.

Something about this keeps moving me forward. One of those threads in life…

And wow, I’ve found when you study one thing closely and long enough, you’ll see how deeply it’s connected to everything else…

Okay, that’s it for now. I’ve cut this thing down a few times so it wouldn’t be a novel

Thank you for reading, for supporting my work, and a big thank you for our ongoing relationship!

I hope you take wonderful care these final days of the year.

I look forward to another year of good work.

With love and respect,

Laura