“There are days I drop words of comfort on myself like falling leaves and remember that it is enough to be taken care of by myself.”
Brian Andreas
Okay, my friends, let’s get real for a moment. Who among us has not had to draw up a knee when we sneeze or cough? A minor inconvenience, or potential embarrassment, that most women who have had children or are of a “mature” age have experienced more than once. Unfortunately many women experience more than just a minor inconvenience. Pelvic and core weakness can lead to serious issues including incontinence, uterine or bladder prolapses, lumbar pain, etc.
“The Pelvicore Pro is an innovative exercise tool designed for COMPLETE Pelvic Core Training.The Pelvicore Pro Training program will enhance your Pelvic Core Function, improve mobility and strengthen your entire CORE! Whether you are a Fitness Professional, recovering from surgery or have issues with weak Pelvic Floor muscles,The Pelvicore Pro is the ONE TOOL SOLUTION designed just for you!”Pelvic Solutions LLC
(use code SAVEME10 for a $10 discount)
It’s a simple tool to help strengthen the whole core as a unit. Most exercises work individual muscle groups which, in my case, kept causing more instability and pain in my back, feet and legs. Using PelviCore Pro, I’m gradually building strength without causing harm. I love the feeling of happily sore muscles and the hope that comes with progress.
The brilliance of PelviCore Pro is, as we strengthen the pelvic and core muscles, we strengthen the muscular and fascial integrity around the organs of elimination and childbearing. So, young or old, woman or man, recovering from injury or advanced athlete, the PelviCore Pro is a perfect add to any physical therapy or workout.
I made an agreement with myself many years ago on the day I opened a pink hardcover book, Simple Abundance, A Daybook of Comfort and Joy. Every morning I’d read the page of the day and, as requested in the book’s introduction, I’d write five things I was grateful for. How hard could that be – Right?
I was an angry 30 something woman, having survived a severe illness, struggling with a myriad of autoimmune symptoms and in the throws of a divorce, my three, beautifully strong willed daughters depending on me. I was sick of my world, sick of the anger and sick of being sick! I was about to find out how little I knew about gratitude.
I filled notebook after notebook with my appreciative lists. At first they were polished and neat, the perfect student’s compliance, but as the weeks and months pressed on and life’s complications felt like a ship navigating an ice flow, my lists became scribbles of desperation, small screams scratched out in thin lines on a page. I couldn’t believe, and refused to accept the hole that had swallowed my light. There were days that the best I could muster was:
Somehow the practice of writing, I am grateful, thousands of times over, shifted something in me. The shift grew into a habit until I was seeing beauty in places I’d never paused to notice before. I remember the tipping point, a miraculous day when I realized I was feeling joy more often than not. Eventually I was even grateful for the things that felt difficult or ugly.
“The authentic self is the soul made visible” – Sarah Ban Breathnach
Today, all these years later, my life is blossoming in new directions and that pink hardcover book still occupies space by my bed. No longer filling notebooks, I carry an internal mantra of joyful graces, a symphonic vibration, too big for any one page.
I’d like to introduce you to the Thirteen Grandmothers…
I woke this morning thinking of the The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers. Their message of global of peace, healing Mother Earth and bringing forward ancient wisdom, speaks to me.
“We, The International Council of Thirteen Indigenous Grandmothers represent a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Mother Earth, all Her inhabitants, all the children, and for the next seven generations to come. We are deeply concerned with the unprecedented destruction of our mother Earth and the destruction of indigenous ways of life.”
Some years ago, I had the opportunity to hear Grandmother Agnes Baker Pilgrim at a Pow Wow in Oregon. Her words are powerful and and her actions even more so. We are all Grandmother’s in training. Words of wisdom find their way into our hearts and reshape our cellular make-up. That reshaping creates stability, a solid place for our authentic light to shine and as each of us shine just a bit more, we can illuminate any darkness.
In your light I learn how to love.
In your beauty, how to make poems.
You dance inside my chest,
Where no one sees you,
but sometimes I do
and that sight becomes this art.
Standing with my back to the new year, the fireworks seem small. The brilliance of each event, every emotion of last year, receding in memory.
Turning to face the new year with it’s expanse of time full of promise, I breathe in a champagne breath. The opportunity to begin again has me intoxicated.
I turn again, exhaling fire, burning anything not worthy of bringing forward on this journey. Embers of memories dance and twist before finding their place with the stars.
Forward, I fall knowing my wings will open and catch the current.
I always feel fresh and vibrant with the New Year. It helps that my birthday lands just after cracking open a fresh calendar (yes, I still use an appointment book and pencil). Not a good birthday if you’re one who likes parties, but fantastic if, like me, you are an eternal optimist who thrives on new beginnings.
I learned years ago that making resolutions usually leads to failure. With a resolution you either succeed or fail. I found instead, planting seeds of intention allows me to nurture growth and make room for expansion. It allows me to flow with the current but retreat to the shore when I need rest. In my garden, some seeds will sprout, some will be tilled under and some will thrive. And like my garden, my life is cyclical not linear. There is no race to the finish, no great accumulation of resolute accomplishments, but seasons within seasons, and, with each season, my intention flowers will bear different fruit.
This year I’m planting seeds of communication, a voice for the divine feminine, and a focus on harmony rather than discord. Every thought is a new beginning. Every step alights the path of spirit. When I look over my shoulder, it’s to examine what worked, what I got right. I’m letting my problem solving smock fall away and dressing up in a fine new gown of hope.
So with this, I welcome all you beauties, my Sisterhearts, who find my blog. I hope you’ll jump in and share your voice. Open your heart and your spirit to the collected wisdoms we all hold. Together we are strong. The time has come for our voices to be heard. the time has come for us to stand in the authentic nature of our spirit.
Welcome to Sisterhearts.
SisterHearts 