Dear Friend,
I want to share a little with you about what I have been noticing within myself. I am now transitioning and rebranding my clinical private practice into a larger platform that feels more congruent with what brings my heart alive.
I am writing to you, my supportive friend, and to my dear workshop participants and students whom I’ve had the pleasure to meet and know over the last few years.
To be here
I haven’t always understood my heart’s cry, yet I have had a deep desire “to be here.”
When I attended a retreat in 2019, one of the leaders asked me, “Summer, what do you want?”
Through passionate tears, the words, “To be here,” emerged within me.
I was not “thinking” this, but my voice spoke it. As if it had some secret connection with my heart and soul.
“To be here” is to allow my body, heart, and mind to be attuned and receptive to the here and now.
As many of you have heard me share, I have longed to feel a belonging, a “home” within myself. Most of my life, I have looked for it externally, jumping on a roller coaster where my self-image expands and deflates based on my perceived worth.
“To be here” is to learn to be a home within that can hold my ego inflation and deflation without making it right or wrong. In being here, I feel my inner guidance and support. Being here for me, invites a greater mystery beyond the narratives I have for myself.
Those narratives tend to be attached to seeing myself as too small or too big. There is a stillness and a resting in this “within” space. This is not to say that I always feel the “stillness” and expansive mystery.
Actually, in stepping out, I have felt what many feel when stepping out into the unknown…fear of failure and success!
What if no one shows up?!
What if people show up?!
LOL!
While I feel more in touch with the rejection piece, I do agree that most of us are more afraid of shining our light and being a fuller expression of ourselves. We get too comfortable with the status quo and the “devil we know.” Especially those of us who have a touch more angst.
The Special One
Since my earliest memories, the self image I have experienced is that of the “special one.” As a little girl, I felt special to my mom, dad, and, by way of this, to God.
Though somewhere along the way in my childhood, this “specialness” was, and has been, tied to what I can offer, not my being. Hence the development of my sense of ego inflation and deflation.
During this current season, I’m struck by the inquiry that is emerging from within:
What is my experience beyond this image and the experience of my ego inflation and deflation?
I’ve noticed a shift in relating to these parts within me – a shift from shame to curiosity.
Genuine curiosity has invited me into mystery. The intelligence of the heart speaks in the visible and invisible language of beauty, meaning, belonging, value, desire, and inspiration. Our heart when we are able to listen and perceive knows what is meaningful to us and recognizes our value and worth. When we feel cut off or numb to our hearts, our ego’s does its best to create an image that will be valued, but it is not the real deal.
Embodied Intelligence is about developing our capacities to first recognize when we are not actually inhabiting the intelligence of our body, heart, and mind and the tell tale signs of the ego’s best rendition to mimic these centers. Through mindful and somatic practices in community, and in person and online courses and workshops Embodied Intelligence helps us to grow not only our emotional intelligence, but also our body and head intelligence. For what? To help us to be here, experience greater meaning, a fuller life, and have more impact in our service to those we love and our communities.
As I step out into a new venture that requires me to trust and notice a power within. At times in my life, I have felt separate from this power – and yet I am not.
I am growing in awareness of the relationship between welcoming myself (inner trust and power) and this intelligent energy that is co-creative.
Together, these call me towards co-creation – with you.
I am grateful for you, as well as the perennial wisdom, Enneagram teachings, and somatic and mindfulness practices that ground me into greater alignment with who I am and who I am unfolding into.
Come play, practice, grow, and connect with me!
Keep an eye out… I will share more about my shift in call and what it could look like for you to join me.
Warmly,
Summer
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