MARCH 2023
LIFE | LOVE | LOSS
“Deep in their roots all flowers keep the light.”
Theodore Roethke
DEEP ROOTS
“Change your opinions, keep to your principles; change your leaves, keep intact your roots.”
Victor Hugo
If you have been reading this newsletter for a while you know I love nature, its constant changes, its brilliant colors, its gentle lessons, the way it patiently flows with ease from season to season without stress or strain. I love the roots of things. If you have ever had a battle with a tough weed you have learned to respect and curse the strength in which it can grow and the stubborn resolve in which it clings to life inside the ground.
If you have dug up stumps, bushes, or trees you enter a new level of root systems and their strength to hold on. There are specialized tools and equipment needed for those jobs including a stump grinder.
I love this time of year when winter starts to lose its grasp. When the spring flowers start to erupt from the frozen earth. How long they have waited in the cold, in the dark gathering nutrients and strength during this time of rest. Have you done that, have you used this winter to rest and gather strength? Are you making time in the last of this winter to rest your mind and heart truly and deeply? If not there are cold days and nights yet to be had!
Where do you need to focus your energy so you can bring forth your best colors in the spring? What areas of your life need some extra attention?
Do the roots of kindness and love run deep and strong? Or are the roots of bitterness and criticism spread further and longer reaching? Do you need a stump grinder to dig out some old beliefs or thoughts that are no longer serving your best good? Ask yourself does this fit or work for me now? What is your anchor when the storms of life hit?
Think about this? What are the values, ideals, characteristics inside of you that will give you strength to stand firm when the winds of hardship, loss, betrayal, grief, and desperation howl at your soul? Make a list of those. Which ones need some work? Which ones do you lack all together that you want to add to your life list to have so they are a part of you from this point moving forward?
Work on that! Use the month of March for you. Take the month that teeters between winter and spring to deepen your roots in things that will bring you strength, peace and joy in the days, weeks, and months to come! Let the old you go as you create a new you this Spring choosing now what principles and ideals that will govern your thoughts and actions. Will they be gratitude and acceptance? Patience or forgiveness?
I attended a four-day breath work retreat in Sedona, AZ and during an interaction with the instructor when I was talking a mile a minute about something that was bothering me, he asked me to take a deep breath, to slow down. He said, “Genna, what if you could be the slowest person in the room?” This was laughable to me. I think fast, talk fast, move fast. Then we talked about not having to get it right. Not needing things to be ‘good enough’ allowing acceptance to move in where constant criticism use to live. It moved and shifted so many things for me. What if I don’t have to do or get it all right? How about that!! What if I can purposefully slow down, not try to juggle so much? What if in this slowness I am not good at any of it and still feel peace about it all! How amazing and freeing would that be?
I don’t even know! All I can say is it’s a work in progress. I am learning, growing, making happy mistakes! When I got home from the retreat and the dishwasher was loaded ‘wrong’ I left it!! The me before the retreat would have re-loaded it so there is that!!
Find your way to new paths of freedom, create new paths of healing and peace for you! Make time for it, you are worth it!!
All my best,
Genna
RESOURCES
988 – National Mental Health Hotline
https://www.samhsa.gov/find-help/988
Crisis Hotlines: Common Hotline Phone Numbers | Eluna Network
Mental Health App’s
Talkspace – Best Overall Therapy App
Calm – Best Mindfulness App
My3 – Three People / Three Distractions / Safety Plan App
Chopra App – Great mindfulness and free meditations
Pride Counseling – Best Queer Mental Health App
Youper – Best Self-Guided Therapy App
Headspace – Best Anxiety App
The Next Adventure 