It’s never too late…

I’ve been kind of quiet lately. There’s a lot going on professionally, and I notice that when that happens, I’m even more intentional about and protective of my “me time”. 

Contrary to popular belief, when things are crazy, it’s even more important to make time to resource ourselves. When things are busy, the first thing that usually goes out the window is our self care. Simply because “we don’t have time.” Isn’t that what we say?  “Go, go, go” is a symptom of the modern world. It’s not a badge of honor, it’s actually a sure path to disconnect even more from your self. So what the heck do we do? 

When the house is burning, you’re not sitting there wondering how it started or if your clothes that you were going to wear tomorrow are okay. You take care of yourself by getting out of there. When you’re thirsty, you don’t say to yourself “meh, maybe I’ll have some water tomorrow.” 

The truth is that if we keep waiting “until…” we will never get to have time for ourselves. There’s always something or someone vying for your attention and time. 

Over the years I learned that not everything has to happen right now. And not everyone’s emergency has to be my emergency (it rarely is a true emergency anyway.) Your time is a currency. Choose to invest it wisely. 

One of my recent investments is time to re-learn to play the guitar. I used to play when I was younger, but I’ve taken a break from it. A long one…about 35 years! Recently, the Universe has been sending me messages about playing more, so here I am! Picking it up again in my 40’s! 

I’m not good at it, by any stretch, but I’m enjoying it a lot and I’m having fun! Sometimes it’s 15 minutes a day and it’s my time to use my brain in a different way and to engage with the sound of the music.

So that’s one thing I’ve been up to. Professionally, besides my private sessions, you can check out the Q&A coming up on Aug 27th about our life-changing psychosomatic program: Compassionate Inquiry Circles and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga.

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Compassionate Inquiry Circles

If you are a fan of Gabor Maté’s work like I am, then you probably heard about Compassionate Inquiry. His most recent documentary, The Wisdom of Trauma, took the world by storm and opened the eyes of millions of people about the impact of trauma. Through his unique way of asking questions, he was able to bring to surface emotions and beliefs which people had been holding on to, unconsciously, and which shaped their lives, by taking them away from their true self.

Gabor Maté says that the essence of trauma is separation of the self. With this program, we are able to bring to you his unique approach in a format which is safe and facilitated with expertise. For 10 weeks, through Compassionate Inquiry and Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, you have a chance to connect with your true self by understanding what gets in the way right now and how to get back to yourself in an authentic and sustainable way. 

Cristina is a therapist and a Compassionate Inquiry Practitioner and Circle Leader. She’s one of the first generations of circle leaders, working with Gabor Maté’s team for a couple of years and guiding participants through this interactive, experiential program. When I met her, the first thing I noticed is the calm and steady energy she exudes, and her ability to hold space for the people she is connecting with, so I am excited to be able to partner with her. 

Because this is an experiential program which takes you on a road of self-reflection and expression, it can trigger past trauma. So Gabor Maté’s team recommends to be simultaneously engaged in yoga or mindful movement practices. Which is why Cristina and I have decided to bring in Trauma-Sensitive Yoga, a modality which has been studied and validated specifically for complex trauma and PTSD, for a comprehensive psychosomatic program.

You can read more about the program here and also you can sign up or register for the Q&A on August 27th. 

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How my worst migraine day gave me confidence

This is one of the reasons I love yoga therapy and the holistic approach to health! Last week I went a bit overboard with my workout and because I thought I was a pro at this, I did something unhelpful and didn’t stretch. 30 min of cardio in 90degrees weather, with no stretch before or after! Please do not do this yourself, I learned the hard way.

The next day, I started getting sciatica pain – that’s when the glutes and the piriformis (your buttocks muscles) get tight and press on your sciatic nerve, sending pain down your legs, usually just one. But this time, it was both for me and so much pain that I felt my lower back really tight (it was hard to fold forward halfway), I felt the pressure in my middle back and the worst part is that a few hours later I started getting a migraine. I never get migraines! It literally stopped me in my tracks and I felt overwhelmed for a bit, because it was such an intense pain and so new for me. I was in bed for a whole day and had to cancel some of my commitments for the day, that’s how intense it was.

This is where yoga therapy comes in. With the helps of the medical information we studied as part of the yoga therapy training, I knew enough to understand the connection between my workout and the sciatica pain. But I could not figure out the migraine. I was suspecting a connection but didn’t know enough about it.

So, I started researching and what do you know. There’s a study from 2013, which shows the link between chronic migraines or chronic tension type headaches and low back pain! For those who like numbers, there’s another article, which looked at 14 studies and concluded that there is a positive correlation between the two.

The beauty of the work that I do and the fact that I also use Qigong is that it allowed me to have a pretty rounded look at this and understand the underlying cause. I could have taken pain medication, but that only addresses the symptoms and not the cause. And I wanted to understand the cause.

In Qigong, headaches are connected to the digestive system and stagnation in the stomach. Sciatica…you’re probably going to guess…is also connected to the gallbladder meridian. Well, a few weeks ago we all had a stomach bug, which wiped out all the goodies in my stomach. So you see how it is all related? In addition to my workout which caused tension, my digestive system was still weak and sensitive.

So what did I do? In yoga, we usually do a seated or reclined figure 4 to stretch the piriformis and glutes and release the pressure off the nerve. This time, I used a variation of that, which comes from Qigong, and more specifically from Lee Holden’s Tao Yin. I found it to be the most effective movement and it allows me to work with my breath, the meridians, and the muscles. To see the full video and a full library of free resources, sign up for my newsletter.

The next day, believe it or not, I was up and running! So I’ve learned the hard way and I am sharing it with you all, so you don’t have to! 🙂

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What’s the greatest expression of myself that I can be today?

I was listening to an interview with Joe Dispenza and he mentioned this question in one of his answers. I loved it! Read it again and see how it feels in your body. Do your shoulders move forward as a sign of protection, or do you feel yourself standing up straight? Does it feel like a sigh of relief or more pressure?

For me, it feels like a release. Like a permission that I can give myself to release the pressure of all the “should’s” that my mind comes up with. 

In tough moments like the recent events in the U.S., we might feel like we don’t know what to do; and maybe we feel like we “should” be doing something. 

While action is certainly needed, not knowing what the “right” action and what the effect is long term can be daunting. So, the invitation is to go back to this question and ask yourself (and myself included): 

“What is the greatest expression of myself that I can be today?

Then we can look at putting one foot in front of the other, and start there. Step by step, and eventually the whole road will appear ahead of us. 

But for now, let’s go with the highest expression and with today. That means that we are doing our best and there is no need for “should’s”, pressure, attachment, or judgment. And tomorrow is another day.

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“We’re all just walking each other home”

Watercolor inspired by the bird I met this weekend. 

I had one of the most humbling and connecting experiences of my life the other day. A bird flew into the room and was struggling to get out. In our attempt to help, it flew into the window and knocked itself out. We picked it up and brought it outside to lay it on the ground. 

I felt compelled to stay there not really having a plan or knowing what else to do. It looked like maybe one of the legs was twisted somehow… I didn’t want a cat to eat it so I stayed there with it. The bird was not alert, the breathing looked like slow panting and…the only thing that I could think of was to do some Reiki. 

Many people ask me about Reiki and for me, the most important thing, more than the symbols even, are presence and intention. Reiki is a universal energy that’s available to everyone, not only select people.

So while I sat there for about 5-7 minutes, being an instrument and allowing the energy to go through me, I noticed the bird getting more alert. The eyes started to move and focus (at least that’s what it looked like to me) and then it started to move it’s head. I put my hands down and turned my head to see if there was any water around. 

At that point, I heard a flutter. The bird flew away! Not to the nearby fence, but away, over the trees! I was so surprised how quickly it went from being lifeless to being able to fly and I was happy that it was healthy enough to fly. 

It was a beautiful moment of connection with the more than human world and it reminded me of Ram Dass’ quote: “We are all just walking each other home”! To me it means that we are all connected. We all impact each other. The question is how? How do you want to impact those around you? And how do you allow others to impact you? 

Who are the people that we walk alongside with on our path to home? 

I will end with the words of Elphaba (in Wicked) because the people who are walking us home are not only our close friends but also those who are helping us learn a lesson.

“…people come into our lives for a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led
To those who help us most to grow.”

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Are you looking for certainty?

Photo by Shantanu Kulkarni

Often times we hear that all we have is now. The past is in the past, the future is not yet here. And yet, trauma or not, it is hard to be in the now. Understandably so, because there are so many things vying for our time and attention. 

Also, if we are attached to an outcome or consumed by fear, we are looking for certainty, so being “in the now”, especially nowadays, can be very unsettling because we are not getting what we are looking for. 

In reality though, the only thing that is certain is the present moment. We don’t know what the future brings and we can’t connect the dots in the future; we can only do that by looking back. 

The story below is from Ram Dass. It is one of my favorite stories because it shows how the context can change and provide meaning when you look back, so all we can do is be present with what is. That’s where the certainty lies. 

It’s the same with trauma and chronic illness. We might feel like we can’t control some of the circumstances we find ourselves in. What we can control though is how we respond to the situation: by knowing that we can handle it in the “now” and not letting the moment or the situation take our power away. 

Sometimes “handling it” means we need to move, or step away from a conversation or the news. Or we ask for support. Whatever it is, we are the ones making the decision about the next step, as opposed to the situation dictating it. 

“There is a story of a farmer who had a horse that ran away.
His neighbor came by and said, “Oh, that’s terrible.”
The farmer said, “You never know.”

The next day the horse came back, and it was leading two other wild horses. The neighbor said, “That’s wonderful.”
And the farmer said, “You never know.”

Later, his son was training one of the wild horses, and while riding the wild horse, he fell off and broke his leg. The neighbor came by and said, “That’s terrible.”
The farmer said, “You never know.”

The Cossack army came through recruiting everybody, taking away all the able young men. They didn’t take the farmer’s son because he had a broken leg. The neighbor came by and said, “That’s wonderful.”
And the farmer said, “You never know.”

And so it goes.”

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Have you ever been called “sensitive”?

Connection with water.jpg

Years ago someone called me an empath. I was like “what is that?!” Back then, it wasn’t a mainstream term. Even as I am typing this, my computer still insists on automatically changing “empath” to “empathy”. All I could find at the time was that an empath was a sensitive person. OK, I had been told I was “sensitive” and “too sensitive” since I can remember…so? Then I learned that an empath was someone who could easily feel other people’s emotions. Ohhhh…

For a while, I felt special and validated that someone called me an empath. All those times when I felt bad about being called sensitive like it was a bad thing. Now look at me, I could feel someone else’s feelings, sometimes before they could even make sense of them themselves. How do you like me now? I thought. But it’s not all as glamorous as it seems to be. 

Empaths make really good teachers, nurses, therapists…you get the idea, the caregiver type. So what do caregivers usually do? They take care of everyone else, put the needs of others first, take on everyone else’s problems, sometimes to the point of burning out. 

My husband asked me the other day whether someone is born an empath. As much as I would like to give the credit to the Universe for this ability, most empaths – and I say most because I don’t like to generalize although my personal belief is that this is true for all empaths – have suffered trauma, especially childhood trauma.

When you experience trauma at a young age, your survival depends on your ability to stay safe. For that to happen you learn to recognize very quickly any sign of danger. Your brain is constantly scanning for any deviation from the baseline: a change in the caregiver’s tone of voice, how heavy the footsteps are, how fast someone is walking, what words they say or not say, any movement in their eyes or whether someone speaks or not etc. That’s how you decide how to respond to the situation in a way that ensures your safety.

Just like any other skill, after years of practice, you become really good at it. And you take this skill with you into adulthood. People will come to you to tell you their life’s story or to get advice. Also, you might draw narcissists into your life because…well, darkness cannot exist without light.

If you think or know that you are an empath, then you probably also like being close to the water. Water purifies and clears the extra energy that you carry. If you don’t live close to a beach (and let’s face it most of us don’t) then I recommend showers to release the stress and energy you don’t need. Place your hands on the ground. Walk barefoot outside. Hug a tree (c’mon it’s a thing now, no one will make fun of you!) Spend time in nature or with animals. Watch movies that make you laugh.

In a word, take care of yourself first.

Photo by Yoann Boyer on Unsplash

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Do you think it can get better?

Do you believe that it can get better? 

This was one of the best questions I’ve heard in my life! It stomped me by how simple and yet revealing it is. In my 40+ years, I’ve seen plenty of health practitioners and no one, NOT ONE, asked me this question. And here I was, talking to my acupuncturist and she asked me: do you think it [i.e. my health] can get better? 😳 I paused and thought “Holy crap!” 

How we think about life is what we get out of life. No, none of us asked for difficult things to happen, and yet, how do we look at them? Is it something that happened to us or something that defines us? 

Think about it. Have you ever talked to someone who’s always overworked, over scheduled, who’s always responding to things because “it’s always something” as if they can’t do anything about it? Why do you think that is? Let me share a short story with you.

Some time ago, I was talking to a potential client and they knew more than I could possibly ever know about their condition. They’ve done their research, they’ve been living with it since childhood so they had all the information they needed. Even more than they needed. They came to me for help, and yet every suggestion I made was met with a variation of “that’s never going to work for me”. And you know what? They were right and I told them that. It was never going to work because they didn’t believe that it could get better. And that’s fine. At that time they were not ready for it to get better or they did not need it to get better. What they needed was someone to listen, to empathize. So I did just that, because that’s what they needed.

The point of the story is that when we are ready for things to change, they can change. The first step is in our conscious mind. Then the subconscious will make it happen. So what do you say? Do you believe that “it” can get better? Whatever your “it” is…

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If you were thirsty now, would you wait several days to drink water?


Make Resourcing Yourself a Daily Priority.png

This has been coming up a lot recently in my sessions. Across the board, whether my clients are dealing with burnout, auto-immune issues, sleep disturbance, or anger, we are discovering together in our sessions that even though it is needed “now“, daily resourcing is rarely on people’s radar. 

Someone was recently grieving the loss of their dreams about renewed family connections so I asked:

Me: What would you need right now?

Client: Comfort and nurture.

Me: And what would bring that sense of comfort and nurture to you?

Client: Spending some time at the beach with my partner and kids.

Me: Can you do that?

Client: Yes, we talked about doing that next Friday.

Me: When do you need the comfort and sense of nurture?

Client: Today.

Me: So what is preventing you from going to the beach today?

Client: “…”

So now I am asking you. If you were thirsty now and I asked you to wait until next Friday to drink, you would think I am crazy, right? The difference is that we don’t think about resourcing as vital as food and water. The invitation is to reflect whether it is different though? 

If your answer is “no”, then think about little things that you can do each day to resource yourself. Something that brings you joy and takes 3-5 minutes. It can be longer if you have the time. There is a saying actually (and I am paraphrasing) about the need to be outside in nature for 30 min daily, unless you are too busy. In that case, you need 60 minutes! 🙂 When we don’t have time for something, what we are actually saying is that it is not a priority. So let’s make daily resourcing a priority!

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Study: Trauma Center Trauma-Sensitive Yoga as effective as CPT for PTSD

TCTSY article.png

Some people hear yoga and they think “ugh, that’s for fit people who are super flexible and can sit still to meditate. I can’t do any of those!” Some have maybe attended classes which were labeled trauma-sensitive yoga only to feel triggered and not safe. Or maybe you were one of the people who at some point thought, how can yoga help, it’s not therapy?! To all of that, let me say 3 things: 1) yoga is for everyone; 2) not all classes and practitioners are the same, so find the right one for you and 3) trauma-sensitive yoga is an evidence-based, adjunct treatment for PTSD, meaning it is an alternative or complementary treatment to therapy. 

Before I share a recent article which was published by Emory University regarding TCTSY (trauma center trauma-sensitive yoga), let me say this: Hi, I am Simona and I have suffered from PTSD. I have used (and have been using) TCTSY not only for my clients, but also with myself. How did it help me?

  • I regained a sense of power and agency and I don’t feel helpless anymore.

  • I know that when I am triggered that it is only temporary and that I have the tools to stay present. 

  • I sleep better.

  • I feel safer and am no longer afraid of the “other shoe dropping”.

  • I am still aware of my surroundings but no longer hypervigilent.

  • I can respond to situations instead of reacting. 

Now here’s something that just came out this week and I am happy to share with you. As a certified trauma-sensitive yoga facilitator (TCTSY-F) who works with veterans with PTSD, I am glad to see this method not only highlighted as an evidence-based, peer reviewed adjunct treatment, but also the subject of a recent study by Emory University, which shows how effective it is. I see it every day in my practice. Proud to do this work and be able to support our vets! See the highlights from the article below and the full article here, or click on the picture above.

“Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a sizeable issue in the United States military, affecting approximately 20 percent of all Veterans. Among women, the primary cause of PTSD is sexual abuse or harassment by colleagues while on active service—and it is common. Research suggests as many as one in four servicewomen experiences sexual assault, while more than half are victims of sexual harassment.

Until now, the standard treatment for female Veterans with PTSD has been cognitive processing therapy (CPT), a science-based approach that teaches patients practical tactics to help challenge or neutralize negative thoughts tied to their trauma. Seen as the “gold standard,” in PTSD treatment by the Department of Defense and the Veterans Heath Administration, CPT has its merits, but also flaws. Researchers find more than half of female Veterans enrolled in government-backed CPT programs drop out of treatment. Half of those who complete treatment report continued PTSD symptoms.

The early results tell a clear story. Working with colleagues from Emory University and the Atlanta Veteran Associate Health Care System, Kelly has found empirical evidence yoga can be just as effective as CPT in the treatment of PTSD.

Not only that, the study shows TCTSY delivers positive results considerably faster than cognitive therapy; and that more than 60 percent of patients are seeing the treatment through to completion compared to just 34 percent of those in cognitive therapy programs.”

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