The Art of Healing by Bernie S. Siegel, MD

I just finished reading this amazing book! If you are sick, you know someone who is sick or have ever known someone who was sick, or really, if you just know someone, I would highly recommend this book. As the title indicates, there is an art to healing, and Dr. Siegel does a great job of explaining how art work created by patients and family members helped him heal their dis-ease. The book describes so much more, though. There were several things in this book that stood out to me, and one of my favorite things is that at the end of each chapter, he gives a Doctor's Rx, which is some type of homework or question to really get you thinking about how  you can live a healthier, happier life. Toward the end of the book, the Doctor's Rx is to "take the Immune-Competent Personality Test, based on Dr. George Solomon's research". It goes on to list the following questions (and I'm taking this directly out of the book, along with the answers):

1. Do I have a sense of meaning in my work, daily activities, family and relationships?
2. Am I able to express anger appropriately in defense of myself?
3. Am I able to ask friends and family for support when I am feeling lonely or troubled?
4. Am I able to ask friends and family for favors when I need them?
5. Am I able to say no to someone who asks for a favor if I can't do it or don't feel like doing it?
6. Do I engage in health-related behaviors based on my own self-defined needs instead of someone else's prescriptions or ideas?
7. Do I have enough play in my life?
8. Do I find myself depressed for long periods, during which time I feel hopeless about ever changing the conditions that cause me to be depressed?
9. Am I dutifully filling a prescribed role in my life to the detriment of my own needs?

ANSWERS:
If you answered yes to questions 1 through 7 and no to questions 8 and 9, you have an immune-competent personality that helps you to stay healthy, to overcome disease, and face challenges when they happen.  If you answered no to the first seven questions and yes to the last two, you need to pay attention to your behavior and rebirth yourself. I even recommend choosing a new name for this new you.

And my favorite part - Siegel went on to add three more questions to this test:

1. I am taking you to dinner.  Where do you want to go?
First response - Rome, Italy. That was the best food I've ever had, y'all! I have such beautiful memories from that city, and a lot of them involve food.  :)

2. What would you hold up before an audience to demonstrate the beauty and meaning of life?
I would hold up a flower. I mean how amazing is it that we get to witness the full life and beauty of a flower every spring?

3. How would you introduce yourself to God?
I'm Emily Rose. Here I am in all of my glorious imperfection. Love me!

Those are my responses to those last three, and here are the responses that Siegel gave in the book:

1. Your response should relate to your feelings, not what it costs or the food preferences of the other person. Be willing to accept the gift without responding to their question, "What do you want?"
2. A mirror.
3. By responding, "It's you" or "Your child is here." The best answer God ever heard from a high school student was "Tell God his replacement is here."

You can find an online version of this test at http://berniesiegelmd.com/resources/organizations-websites/immune-competent-personality-test/

So, as I read through the original questions, I was reminded once again that I'm on the right path. I would have answered "no" to the majority of the first seven questions about five years ago. While my answer may be a little closer to "most days" than to "yes" right now, I'm happy with the progress I've made. I'm becoming more established in a career that gives me meaning and purpose in my life and allows me to help people heal every time I teach a class. I am forming meaningful relationships with people I interact with. I have found volunteer activities at the Center for Spiritual Living Nashville that allow me to help the youth in that community. I pray that every encounter I have with another human leaves them feeling happy and full, and I hope that this blog has an impact on just one person - you?!? - and leaves you thinking about how you can change just one of those "no" responses to a "yes".

Much love,
Emily Rose

Beach Yoga Retreat

I owe a lot of people money right now. Like, way too many people. When I left to go on my beach yoga retreat earlier this week, I didn't tell very many people I was going. I give myself enough guilt that I really didn't want any more placed on me at the time. So, I told a select few people I was going, packed up my suitcase and yoga gear and took a nice long road trip to the beach. I needed this trip. I needed the ocean in all it's healing glory. I needed the yoga, and more than anything, I needed to be around like-minded people with nothing to do and nowhere to be for a few days.

I was a little surprised at how nervous I was going into the trip. I hadn't driven that far on my own since my Colorado trip last year. I haven't shared a room in a really long time, and I was getting ready to share a room with a complete stranger. I haven't practiced yoga with someone new in a long time, and I was getting ready to take a class a day from someone I knew very little about. And I was going to be the last one there on top of it all. I had the last class in my kundalini series that day at Kali Yuga Yoga. Since we had people signed up for the whole series, we couldn't cancel the class. Since I was the only teacher on the roster who teaches kundalini, there were no subs. So, I waited until class time and drove over to the studio praying that there were either ten people there or not a soul so that I could either teach a full class or leave early to get on my way.

When I got to the studio, I waited, and waited and waited. No one showed up.

I guess I should say that part of the reason I needed this break is that I've been starting to question myself and what I'm doing. I have people in my Saturday afternoon class at the studio, but anything I've tried to do on my own has left me sitting in an empty classroom. This kundalini series was no different. We started out with 4 the first week, no one the second, and one or two at two of the other ones, and absolutely no one at the other two classes of the six-week series. The studio lost money on this effort. I'm not completely sure that I made money all things considered between prep time, drive time and time sitting in the studio waiting. I've gotten good feedback from everyone who comes to one of my classes, but getting people there has been a challenge for me. Even people who seem excited about coming just don't show up.

I firmly believe that if I'm doing what I love and living fully in my purpose, the abundance will come. Abundance of people or money or whatever. Yoga has been such a good place for me over the last year, and I know that it's something I want to continue, but I am going to need a nice huge sign to (gently, please) smack me in the forehead in the near future if it's something I'm going to do on my own to make a living. Otherwise, I'm going to continue to teach a class here and there and continue my private lessons and figure out where my next path is going to lead. It's all growth, learning opportunities, lessons, and we just have to continue learning as we go.

Anyway, I was actually incredibly grateful when there were no students in my class so that I could get on the road an hour earlier to head to the beach yoga retreat. This retreat is something I've had my eye on for a very long time, and the email that there were a few spots left came right at the same time I received my tax refund from last year. I had been pulling angel cards telling me to Reward Myself, Balance Giving and Receiving, The Ocean, and Connect with Nature. I didn't need too many more signs that this was something I was meant to do, so I followed my instinct and signed up for the retreat.

Did I say earlier that I was nervous about going to the retreat? My stomach apparently knew that better than I did, because in the first few hours of the trip, I had to stop four times to go to the bathroom. This is not normal for me! It was a good way to release the old before welcoming in the new, though, I suppose. Haha!

When I finally arrived at the house, everyone was sitting around the large dining room table laughing and enjoying dessert. Most of them had been there for four hours and had already enjoyed a yoga practice on the pool deck and a delicious meal prepared with love by Deborah, one of the owners of Unity. With my already nervous tummy and a cloudy head from an eight hour drive, walking into the laughing crowd of people made tears spring to my eyes. Were they going to like me? Was I going to fit in? Which one was my roommate? Would she hate me after living with me for four nights? My insecurities settled in, and Rebecca Carey, one of my absolute favorite yoga teachers and the reason I was on this trip (well, aside from the ocean of course), got up from the table and ushered me into the rest of the house for a tour and encouraged me to be easy on myself, settle into my room and get acclimated before joining the crowd. She had no idea what was going on in my head, but she's such a loving and intuitive soul that she knew I needed a little time for myself even before I did.

I took everything to my room and went out to the balcony overlooking the ocean and took some deep breaths, enjoying the vision of the moon reflecting off the waves, the sounds of the ocean and the wind, the smell of the salt in the air. It was beautiful. It was why I was there. One of the first things they had us do at the house was pick out a plant and set an intention. The intention cards and nametags on our rooms were all painted by the beautiful Rebecca Carey. Daryn and Rebecca did an amazing job of putting everything together!

My plant in the cupholder on its way home to Nashville.

I learned over the next few days what role each of the individuals in the group would play in my healing, too, and I in theirs. My roommate is going through a divorce, with similar circumstances to mine, except that they had kids together. She reminded me so much of myself from two years ago, and the struggles I was going through and still occasionally go through. Another retreat friend is an engineer who has gone out on her own and has worked in the technical and sales sides of things and is super happy with her engineering life. We talked about how hard it was to work for other people, and how much she enjoys working on her own agenda. The one guy there was in the military and traveled to Thailand when he was stationed in Asia, so we got to relive our Thai adventures together. The more I talked to people about themselves and their lives, the more I realized what a great puzzle the universe had put together when it drew this specific group together. I grew to love each of them through our practices together, on and off the mat, and I think they loved me back.

I woke up early every morning without an alarm and walked on the beach after doing my energy work. One morning, I even got to watch the sun rise. To my surprise and glee, when I was taking a panoramic of the sunrise, I decided to continue on and ended up getting a photo of the sun and full moon in the same photo. Amazing!

Sunrise and full moon

Sunrise over the beach - breath taking!

Someone stuck these huge pieces of driftwood in the sand, and it was too pretty not to take a photo of.

I walked down the beach in the direction of the sunrise. About a half mile down the beach, I heard a bird call behind me and turned around to see a beautiful egret. He stood perfectly still with his head cocked to the side just long enough for a photo opp before he flew down along the beach toward the sunrise.

Egret Pose - he's so good at it!

I would imagine that he or one of his kin left these prints in the sand, too.

Not much further down the beach, I came upon a little inlet where a couple was fishing from the concrete retaining wall. The man would throw the net into the inlet and walk a few steps down the wall before pulling it back in. Twice while I was watching, he had something in the net when it came up. I'm not sure what the first one was that he threw back, but the second was a fish flopping about that he put into a cooler before throwing the net back into the water. At one point, the woman pulled a breakfast sandwich out of her bag and took a couple bites before feeding some to him in between casts. It was such a beautiful thing to watch that I couldn't bear to get up and walk away. I sat there on my side of the concrete wall watching until my butt was numb before I got up to walk back to the house.

Fisherman and wife with birds

The only schedule we had to follow while we were there was yoga in the morning around 9ish and evening around 5ish. The running joke was the emphasis on the "ish". I mean, we were on vacation after all. Practice was beautiful every morning and evening overlooking the sand dunes and sometimes the ocean, depending on where you were on the deck. I even got to release a little more anger while I was down there, which was beautiful. I wrote in my journal and talked and loved as much as I could while I was down there and it was all so beautiful. My heart was cracked wide open over and over again, and every time, I could feel a layer peel away and melt away from my heart. So many layers of protection that we all have, and I love that I'm taking the steps to peel them away so that I can live more openhearted and love more.

When Wednesday rolled around, it was bittersweet. I was physically tired from all the practice. I haven't practiced that much since teacher training in 2013. I also felt stronger. I've noticed that since I haven't been practicing as much, my practice has gotten a little more relaxed. I haven't pushed myself to those edges, and I've given myself permission to back off in class so that I could observe and teach others. It felt good to be back in the trenches. I was ready to come home. To get back into life as a stronger, more relaxed version of myself. I was sad to say goodbye to my new yoga friends, but know that I will see them again when I'm meant to. The drive home was fairly uneventful, although I did get to see an engineering feat on my way. I'm not sure exactly what the function of this is or where it was headed, but it was neat to see this intricate pipe system taking up two lanes of the interstate.

Massive pipe connections! Yes, there's still a little enginerd left in me...

When I got home, to my surprise, the only thing I wanted was more yoga. I visited one of my other favorite teachers, Taunia Rice, at her beautiful Wednesday night practice at Belmont United Methodist Church to ease my way back into the Nashville way of life. I went to Khan's Desserts for dinner after, my absolute favorite vegan restaurant in Nashville, where they now have vegan soft serve ice cream!

This is the first "ice cream" sundae I've had in years! It was delicious!!!

This morning when I woke up, I got to see the knockout roses that bloomed while I was away before riding in to work with my favorite.

Beautiful knockout roses in the front yard.

We discussed my May budget on the way into Nashville this morning, and I cried at the fact that I have someone to help me with my budget and my money system which is one of my biggest stressers. It was also a huge relief that between yoga and dog/house/baby sitting, I'm going to have some money to pay my bills this month, so I rewarded myself with a pedicure this morning.

It's amazing how pretty toes can make you feel so good and change your mood! I'm so grateful that this is something I can do for myself. I'm grateful for the amazing beach retreat and the beautiful women and man I met while I was there. I'm grateful that I have light and love in my heart that I get to share with people I encounter. I'm grateful that I get to be out in nature. I'm grateful that I can hear birds chirping as I write this. I'm grateful for my health. I'm grateful for my healing - physically, emotionally and spiritually. I'm grateful that I have relationships with amazing people who mirror back to me the lessons I need to learn. I'm grateful that my parents have created a beautiful backyard oasis in the middle of East Nashville where I can sit when I don't want to drive to White House. I'm grateful I get to share these experiences with you. I'm grateful for Rebecca Carey, Daryn Jackson and Deborah Jackson of Unity Yoga Room for sharing this beautiful retreat with me. I'm just plain grateful.

I hope you're all out enjoying the sunshine and listening to the sounds of nature on this beautiful spring day, and I hope you'll join me this evening for a little meditation.

Love to you all!

Emily Rose