I met Erin a couple years back at a pop-up in West Hollywood. She was offering 15 minute Akashic Reading sessions for Place8Healing. A friend and I had made it to the small crystal shop a few days before it was scheduled to disappear, which felt magical in and of itself. But when we heard about this Akashic Reading offering, my whole body shouted, “YES.” And, because I was still living very much in a lack mindset, that yes was immediately shuttered by a voice that said, “but should you?”
So, I’m the luckiest girl in the world: for my birthday last year, my mom bought me a reading with Donna Somerville, a spiritual channel. It was one of those presents where my immediate response was a big, excited, “ugh, you just get me!”
I have a confession to make that might be obvious to you if you’ve been following my work over the last few years: I am a big proponent of spiritualism. This naturally conflicts with my desire to explain the science behind all of the things I preach on this blog. I want you to know the science because I want you to understand how the machine (your mind, your body, your nervous system, your spirit) works. But every now and again there’s a practice I lean into that hasn’t been adequately measured by science—can’t, actually, be measured, yet, because the tools for such measurement don’t yet exist.
I once heard grief described as ‘love that has nowhere to go.’
From a somatic psychology perspective, this makes sense. Grief is often experienced as a sort of restless sadness—a longing for something permanently out-of-reach. But what if we gave that love a place to go?
Yesterday I was about to post a video to Instagram, but stopped when I saw my reflection in the camera. Because I’ve become a pro at recognizing my reactivity, I decided to be honest with my community. I asked my Instagram community if they wanted me to share what it looks like when I reprogram an unhelpful narrative. They said yes! So here we are.
Having a strategy for self-regulation makes growth feel safe. These four simple steps will help you return to resilience the next time you’re off your game.
I’ve had back issues since I was a teenager. The pain was once so bad that I flat-out fainted after getting out of bed. I’d barely made it to the bathroom before waking suddenly, my face pressed against the cold tile floor, no memory of how I’d gotten there. On this day, even the slightest movement would trigger a sort of ‘my spine is being ripped out of my body’ sensation that made me wonder if I’d ever be able to move normally again.
Big trips. They shake things up, shift our perspectives, and push us out of our comfort zones. They are thrilling, eye-opening, even empowering.
But they can also be uncomfortable.
One thing I've noticed is that whenever I fall out of flow on this site, it's because there's some part of my shadow I'm not addressing; something I'm not able to speak to from an authentic place. And lately, my ability to write has been marred by politics.
A few weeks back my husband and I took a relatively impromptu trip to Big Sur, California.
We were both, independently (and also, by default, together) in a funk. But we both, independently (and together) really love beautiful new places—so we consciously left our funkiness in LA and let the Pacific Coast Highway views fill us up with new life.
What a strange year it has been. It's hard to say when the fog rolled in. It must have been early March. It rolled in slowly—crept in, rather, as it always does. By the time I noticed it was there, it felt hauntingly familiar.
The other day, in my Are You Open to Receiving post, I shared a journaling exercise I use whenever I notice any triggering "I am..." voices wafting through my brain.
These painful "I am..." statements show up in our psyches as shame.
I thought it might be helpful for you, if you're wanting more clarity on all of this, if I walked one of my recent shame triggers through the exercise. I personally learn better through examples, and I assume I'm not alone.