Hi digital friends and family 👋

It’s been longer between updates because I am without a laptop now, and writing this update on my phone. So I will try to keep it short and sweet 🙂

But there is a lot to catch up on!

At a glance:

• I am finishing up my three month trimester of movement study at Movement Mexico
• TVM (Triple Vagal Method) explorations: in-person practitioner training, receiving 1:1 sessions, gathering stories and experiences of others
• Receiving the Rolfing series
• Life Purpose explorations

Okay! Short & sweet updates, here we go!

Movement School

School is in session for… two more days! The last weeks here have been a time of integration and bringing all the pieces together… and also saying goodbye already to some friends who have had to leave early.

I am actually a bit speechless and unsure what to share. It’s been kind of crazy dedicating three months of my life to exploring and practicing movement in this school setting in Mexico… crazy, maybe. But also fruitful, full, fun… multi dimensionally challenging… artistically satisfying… it’s been a chance to grow and evolve with new teachers, new students, inside the same practice I was exploring in San Francisco for a year and three months before coming here.

It’s been a great container for learning and growth. And the amazing thing is that I will carry it with me forever not just as a memory but in the way my body moves. I’ll always have a little bit of Mariana and Jonathan in my movements.

Speaking of Mariana and Jonathan — What an interesting way to make an impact on people! To change the way people move, to improve the way their bodies work. Since I quit my job I’m looking at the world and asking “how do other people do this work/service thing?” My teachers have dedicated so much of their lives to Movement – a never-ending commitment to learning and growing in Movement in perpetuity, as well as a commitment to teach others and pass on what they know. And they’ve created such a beautiful space to hold these learning experiences. I’m truly grateful and blessed to have experienced what they offer here.

And I don’t think I’ve wasted the opportunity. I’ve showed up every day and given my best… as best I can 🙂

Some highlights of the Movement practice in the past few weeks:

• Holé to QDR – I’d never seen it and would not have guessed I’d be doing it, but I am!
• QDR circles are coming along!
• Getting more time and more frequent catches for freestanding handstand kick-ups… incremental growth may be small but it still feels amazing!!! “Poco a poco”, or little by little 🙂

There’s a Movement blog post hopefully coming soon. It’s partially written, but wrangling writing pieces from a phone is not my most coveted task at the moment lol.

2. TVM

At the start of the month, Valentina and I went to Mazunte for an 8-day training in a somatic trauma healing modality called the Triple Vagal Method. We both had really deep healing experiences and saw and experienced some wild stuff in that training – both in ourselves and in others. I think I maxed out my nervous system’s capacity for processing emotional information because the whole next week I was raw and sensitive and an emotional rollercoaster with legs.

I feel like during the training I opened a portal into my own healing process… it gave me a glimpse of something that I knew I needed more of. So I went back to Mazunte the next weekend and saw my teacher Renee for two more TVM sessions.

And… I was flabbergasted by where they took me. It was an experience that redefined the term “ancestral healing” for me, and made me feel a profound sense of peace and rightness, like I am doing the spiritual work that was meant for me. The messy stuff that no one else in my line has known what to do with, yet.

I will never fully understand the ripple effect of the work I’ve done so far with this method, but I know it’s good 🙂

And now I’ve begun the online part of the TVM training. Renee left Mexico, but I’m hoping to find another local practitioner here before I leave. I just want to explore it as much as I can… since clearly there’s something here for me to learn and utilize. And maybe I can share it with others, too.

3. Rolfing

WOW. Like, I didn’t plan this one, it just was put in front of me. My superstar friend Valentina has been taking me through the Rolfing series, 10 sessions of “Structural Integration” bodywork to reorganize the whole fascia network in the body. And it’s been so deep and profound.

We just finished session 8, and together she and I dissolved something really big and tense in my right outer thigh… it was so painful, and I had to go through this deep well of pain and let out this deep crying from a confused and tight place in me, but she was there carrying me through it, and at the end it was gone. Poof. Something physically in my body dissolved, and some kind of emotional thing was released. Kind of like a more explicitly physical version of the releases I’ve been experiencing with TVM.

Doing healing work in my body truly gives me a feeling of purpose during this time. It feels like… karma work. And an investment in my future health and well-being.

4. Life Purpose Explorations

Okay, I quit my job a little while ago now. And now my Movement trimester is ending. And I’m doing this TVM thing but I also have no real clue what’s next. Which is very uncomfortable for me!

I’ve been struggling at times with a deep insecurity about not having a job and income, or a plan for “what I’m doing with my life”. I desperately wish for clarity on my “life purpose”, or a decision about what really matters in my life. I wish someone else could just tell me the answers to my big questions!

But… I’m wanting the answers to be authentic and true… to me. Unique, individual me. If I’m going to have a plan, I want it to feel like it’s coming from the right energy and I want to feel good about it.

And… I don’t think big answers to my big questions about what I should do with my life are going to just immediately appear out of thin air. I can tell I’m in a process that is unfolding on God’s timing, not mine. And I don’t want to rush it. I don’t want to fix it. I don’t want to anxiously over-fill my life trying to get it “right”.

Actually, I want to take better care of myself. I want balance. I want right relationship with my own life force. I want to be more relaxed about this life thing, more faithful and open hearted. I want to live in the moment and be able to connect with others.

So although I’m not working right now and don’t know what my big picture game is yet … I can still notice what has been feeling meaningful to me. And I’d like to share.

What gives my life meaning right now?

• Doing healing work feels… of utmost value right now. I know that whatever I carry in me gets passed on. So when I take the time to work through whatever is in me, be it residue from my own life experience and traumas or something I inherited… it feels like part of my soul’s work here on this planet. And when I am getting through pieces of healing work… I am receiving this amazing feeling that being in the unknown right now, is worth it. That investing my time and energy into self work, is worth it. That quitting my job was worth it.
• Moments of beauty. For me it’s coming a lot through dance and movement, and it’s hard to put into words. But I’m throwing myself essentially into moving works of art-in-progress… and it’s very alive. I love to feel the smooth and subtle and sensual and sublime via salsa and bachata… and to basically donate my body to a living art form. I feel like I am communing with a spirit, like the dance forms themselves are alive. And they are full of wisdom and beauty. Giving some kind of special nourishment to my soul as I spend time with them. Transcendent. I always wish for this kind of experience to be a part of my life. Music, dance, art. And somehow I think I need this more artistic energy to infuse whatever my next vocational path is. I can’t go so far away from it again. I need to be able to sing or dance while I work, I think 🙂
• Taking my time. Actually there is something beautiful about not knowing what’s next. I have a great opportunity to start getting to know myself better. And Life, for that matter.

I’ll wrap this one up now but hope to be able to post another update soon. I really have no idea what’s about to unfold in my journey – how exciting!

Con amor y besos,

Emma