Heather Monson-James, LCSW / A Sense of Place

It is the reaching out that is more important than the sting.
-M. Nepo

SURRENDERING

Like a tree giving up
its bounty,
letting go for want
of something
even more.
Not second guessing
every motion.
Not seeing what
comes next.
Not feeding
the need
to always know.

And you didn't see with clarity,
the very end of each progression,
or what would transpire each time
you said Yes to change.

To make the next move
sometimes meant letting go
of something long-standing
in the process. You didn't know
the exact outcome
of what would happen
if you exchanged security
for the more gratifying job.
Or leave a familiar place
to take a bold step
closer in a relationship.
Or had the significant conversation
that would challenge a friendship,
shake up a lifeless dynamic,
or possibly end a marriage.

Each step in transition
requires decisions,
plus, an element of yielding
to The Unknown.
Before each conclusion
was a struggle.
You decide to give a little
more of yourself
and loosened your hold
of something else.

And the tree won't
back out of its
inevitable transformation
because the certainty of loss,
but gives way
to the surprise
of what might be born,
instead.
We don't get to see
how it'll be in the end,
but we trust our
hearts find the way.

We're like that sometimes.
Like everything in nature.
Surrendering,
without fully knowing.


photo susan frybort

We can make ourselves miserable
or we can make ourselves strong.

The amount of effort is the same.
~ Pema Chodron

2020 is indeed a year of surprise and silence ; and a deep abiding with original self, our isms, our shimmer and shine.

IMAGINE MY SURPRISE

Imagine my surprise
sitting a full hour
in silent and
irremediable
fear for the world,

to find the body
forgetting
its own fear,
the instant
it opened
and placed
its unassuming
hands
on life’s enduring
pain.

And the world
for one moment
closed
its terrifying eyes
in gratitude.

Saying:

“This is my body, I am found.”

…

'IMAGINE MY SURPRISE'
From ‘FIRE IN THE EARTH’
Poems by David Whyte
Many Rivers Press
https://www.amazon.com/Fire-Earth-David-Whyte/dp/0962152420/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3MLA6B0G3YXJ8&dchild=1&keywords=fire+in+the+earth&qid=1597770280&s=books&sprefix=Fire+in+the+earth%2Cstripbooks%2C349&sr=1-1..

Sunday Summer Morning
Photo © David Whyte
May 30th 2016

…

‘Imagine My Surprise’ Looks at one of those strange experiences that lie in wait for us, when we sit intensively, for long periods of silence and the body is allowed to slowly unburden and flower into something so strangely beautiful that we do not feel it is our body anymore, nor to begin with, that we deserve that newly arriving sense of having a better home in the world.; The body transforms when left to itself in real silence; when it starts to become a different body than the one that first accompanied us, with so much trepidation, into that quiet. In this case, looking from the outside, I was ’sitting Zen’ on a black cushion, in traditional fashion, in a formal Sesshin or retreat, but on the inside, there is no descriptor at all as to what you are or are doing. When we get to a depth of silence where we can drop the name we have been given or have given to our selves we are able to stop naming and blaming the world for all the ways it has hurt us. Freedom lies in the giving up of our hoped-for immunity from suffering. It is no wonder then, having to give up our defenses, that we are so terrified of silence, but also why we are so surprised when it yields up its unassuming treasure. DW

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/the-new-yorker-interview/this-is-what-happens-to-couples-under-stress-an-interview-with-esther-perel?fbclid=IwAR2KOxbM12nazvkg2B6c9LtYPzvAmPOIf0tNByvdr134cilpy0uX5CapqoA

“This Is What Happens to Couples Under Stress”: An Interview with Esther Perel The therapist, author, and podcast host offers wisdom on navigating romantic relationships under quarantine.

😀 Cartoon: Dan Piraro

Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul
And sings the tune without the words
And never stops at all.

~Emily Dickinson

Signed up for my first class from Yale. A great time to learn more about happiest as a family! Check it out:

Yale's most popular class ever is available free online — and the topic is how to be happier in your daily life Yale University is offering its most popular course for free on Coursera. I signed up for it — here's what "The Science of Well-Being" is like.

Get out with your beloveds (yes, you count here!) and leave some cheer. Be creative and enjoy yourself.

Sending you all love and courage 💕

Jai!

For all the parents struggling with the tough choices right now, here's a short blog that might be helpful.

https://www.insider.com/coronavirus-italian-mom-and-these-are-the-mistakes-we-made-2020-3?fbclid=IwAR04g4jiY9WRaIXUAfHeIrshBNoVdrNIh-SmAdihDqcMcBVySacny2RfPJ8

I'm an Italian mom under coronavirus lockdown. Here's what I wish I had done differently before things got bad. Katherine Wilson, a mom of two in Rome, said she wished Italians had listened to warnings about the coronavirus before the situation turned dire.

I will continue to offer regular therapy sessions via phone and video platforms during this time. Please email me at
[email protected]

Stay home and stay well. Steady as we go.

Learning to Lean into the bittersweetness of today.

Bring your joy back into the light

Beloveds,

Due to the changing nature of the COVID-19 virus in Chattanooga and all over the world, I am implementing increased measures to continue providing a safe and secure place for healing, as well as additional options to best meet your therapeutic needs.

Video and phone sessions are available for you, per your need to meet remotely. This option is recommended for those who are immunocompromised, at risk populations, and those who are currently sick with any respiratory symptoms. This also supports the parents who are struggling to meet their family’s needs from home. Please continue to honor the 24-hour cancellation policy, allowing me to support those who are on the waiting list. Do note all yoga privates will be held via video until further notice.

In addition, I will be closely monitoring the schedule, and will be moving on-site sessions into the common room to increase aeration and social distancing. I ask that you be timely to your appointments and wait to come inside until I come to the front porch for you. My goal is to have a 15-minute window between clients which will prevent cross traffic and allow me to clean between each client. As the weather permits, a walk and talk or patio session is also a refreshing option available to each of you.

My highest priority is the health and wellness of all my clients and their families. This includes not only your physical health, but also your emotional and social health and needs during this challenging time facing our community. I strongly encourage you to reach out for the support you need to stay steady and grounded, with a warm and generous heart through these times.

If you have any questions or concerns please reach out to me, as I am here for you!

*PLEASE NOTIFY ME OF YOUR INTENT TO MEET ONSITE VS REMOTELY SO WE ARE BOTH APPROPRIATELY PREPARED

Warmly,
Heather

“Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Christian Schloe

"Each one of us has lived through some devastation, some loneliness, some weather superstorm or spiritual superstorm, when we look at each other we must say, I understand. I understand how you feel because I have been there myself. We must support each other and empathize with each other because each of us is more alike than we are unalike." ~ Maya Angelou
(art by Sascalia)

“I worried a lot. Will the garden grow, will the rivers
flow in the right direction, will the earth turn
as it was taught, and if not how shall
I correct it?

Was I right, was I wrong, will I be forgiven,
can I do better?

Will I ever be able to sing, even the sparrows
can do it and I am, well,
hopeless.

Is my eyesight fading or am I just imagining it,
am I going to get rheumatism,
lockjaw, dementia?

Finally I saw that worrying had come to nothing.
And gave it up. And took my old body
and went out into the morning,
and sang.”

~Mary Oliver

Only 2 days until we Gather2Restore at Rising Fawn Garden! There is still time to sign up if you need to checkout to check back in with yourself.
Gentle yoga, meditative wandering, yummy Ayurvedic teas and lunch to soothe and pacify, and delightful Puddle People via Restorative cocoons.
Link in bio

“I was laying in bed one night and I thought ‘I’ll just quit...to hell with it.’ And another little voice inside me said ‘Don’t quit...save that tiny little ember of spark.’ And never give them that spark because as long as you have that spark, you can start the greatest fire again.”
Charles Bukowski

Christian Schloe

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
Louise Erdrich

“We do not live an equal life, but one of contrasts and patchwork; now a little joy, then a sorrow, now a sin, then a generous or brave action.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

“I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”
T.S. Eliot

Super stoked to Gather2Restore at Rising Fawn Garden on September 21, 2019. Gentle yoga, meditative wandering, yummy Ayurvedic teas and lunch to soothe and pacify, and delightful Puddle People via Restorative cocoons.
Link in bio

“Our greatest strength lies in the gentleness and tenderness of our heart.”
Rumi