Blog Archives | Page 6 of 20 | Amy Elizabeth Gordon, MA

May 11, 2021May 11, 2021

a swollen tenderness of unusual proportion

This past weekend was an opportunity for me to rest deeply. Napping three days in a row, I metabolized the 2nd vaccine shot and felt a swollen tenderness in my armpit of unusual proportion. Here are some ways I used this swollen tenderness, this restful weekend, and really the last year:

Swollen Tenderness Practice

a mindfulness practice, noticing my yoga practice is vital to my wellbeing. It requires reaching with my arm, doing downward dog, pulling on my armpit, and so many other activities of daily living require and benefit from this stretch!
a reminder that I’m willing to care for others in a way my selfish (read this clear example:”I don’t need the vaccine”) part of me doesn’t. Prior to the pandemic, I opted out of many vaccines. a demonstration of how I shifted from the extremes and became more “middle way’ in my approach to communal health. (see above)
a curiosity as my in-laws, in their mid-70s, had little to no reaction to their 2nd shot and my friends and I did? (a reminder “we” are not me; we all respond differently to life.)
a reminder to tap into my tenderness over and over again: Releasing the pain of my right hip and embracing the tenderness of my lymph system doing its job. an opportunity to be grateful for what I have and what I don’t. I don’t have a list of family and friends who died in the pandemic. I have privilege. (How do I use it for good is a vital question for me)
an inspiration for me to share and be grateful I know myself even more after the last year of the big pause. (I hope you do, too.)

Mother’s Day 2021

On Sunday, Mother’s Day, I cherished the time with my boys. Snuggling and reviewing assertive communication skills and sharing joys of familial connection. I realized after our hour long huddle/cuddle puddle about this very topic that Everett and I actually taught a Masterclass on it years ago.

Here’s a recording of this golden nugget. The link is below and it is also embedded in one of my favorite photos of him when he won the “Compassion Award” three years ago.

This Masterclass Recording is My Mother’s Day gift to you. Please share freely with others who you feel might benefit from deeply knowing themselves and being able to assertively express that to others. Your Relationships, Reimagined: Assertive Communication with your Child

You matter. Your relationships matter.

Warmly,

Amy | Relational Health Guide
for a heart-storming phone call or an empowering communication clarity Zoom

p.s. Have a laugh with this great video about relationships upon re-entry!!! 2 min Gum commercial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7mOX7NE8ZI

May 4, 2021May 4, 2021

Who you are being is reflective of the change you wish to see in the world.

Dear One.

As I’m sitting here I’m experiencing

As I’m sitting here I’m experiencing pain in my right hip and confusion of the recent discovery of osteoarthritis. I just received my results from an X-ray last week indicating spurring of my hip and my mother says, “there’s nothing you can do about it.”

Where I’m from

Where I’m from is a Caucasian lineage of allowing pain to become suffering and generating a tone of stoic and psychic discontentment. My family doesn’t pay attention to vibes or energy or the transformative power of healing body/mind/soul. Now one discussed our interdependence. Somehow, I do.

Where I’d like to be

Where I’d like to be is feeling the feels, inviting the healing, all without manufacturing my own misery with a “woe is me” tone to my inner dialogue. I’d like to acknowledge the rigidity and frozenness of historical trauma caused by white body supremacy that lives in my White body. I’d like to understand how this lives in my cells, in my ancestors, and I’d like to be a part of the regenerative shift that needs to happen.

One thing I can do

One thing I can do to get me there is to lovingly acknowledge not only the pain, suffering and healing I’ve been through, but also honor what Black bodies go through, and vow to see how my experience can benefit others.

What Matters Most

What Matters Most is metabolizing the pain so that it doesn’t fester into suffering or resentment. Using anger as information and energy. Notice that boundaries need to be re-established and be willing to tolerate greater discomfort.

How can I be willing to set right what is wrong?

What can I do?

These are essential questions to contemplate for collective wellbeing.

I consider myself a Compassion Activist. And I experience anger. One thing that fuels my anger is the institutionalized racism that erodes the human soul and the respective communities that ripple out from the soul-sickness.

Anger and compassion are not mutually exclusive.

One thing I appreciate

One thing I appreciate is author, healer, trauma specialist Resmaa Menakem’s talk yesterday at the Science and Wisdom of Emotions summit about Somatic Abolitionism. He reminded us that Individual wokeness is insufficient, we must help others. Here’s some of the nuggets I gleaned from him and I strongly invite you to tune-in to him if this lands with you. He states:

Compassion is not for the feint at heart. It means you’ve been through some stuff and are able to touch some softness in yourself.The somatic collapses, constrictions and speediness in white body supremacy means we never slow down to feel it.We gotta feel it to heal it. We gotta grow compassion without doing a spiritual bypass and wanting everyone to just get along. Let’s dive into our “toybox” rather than our “toolbox” to do the essential healing required whatever the color of our skin.

What are you doing today to be the change you wish to see in the world?

Lately I’ve kept my discoveries and personal process to myself and I’ve received the universal nudge that I’ve got to keep sharing my thoughts about the regeneration needed for human hearts to endure this time of epic transformation and for all of us to thrive.

Hit reply and let me know if you, too, wish to heal your body, tenderize yourself heart, and take a stand to save the world.

You matter. Your relationships matter.

Warmly,

Amy | Relational Health Guide

schedule a heart-storming phone call or an empowering communication clarity Zoom

March 27, 2021March 27, 2021

Moonshot Magic: Declaring & Committing to Something Extraordinary

check out this article I wrote for Best Self Media

https://bestselfmedia.com/moonshot-magic/

One woman’s journey to an extraordinary life — from addiction and disconnection to seizing life in all of its sacredness, opportunity and exquisite beauty

—

There is tremendous sacredness in the seemingly mundane. Ordinary life avails us ample opportunities to connect with a deeper appreciation and grounded sense of gratitude. From this place, ordinary life, I fully recognize that Source sources me.

Living in Hawaiʻi has granted me the opportunity to find the peaceful paradise within myself. Sure, the outside conditions are exquisite here in this tropical and abundant beauty.

Yet there is truth in the notion of no escape; wherever we go, there we are.

How are you being these days, People?

People ask for an update on how I’m doing/being during these pandemic times and I wonder how to reply. You know me, real, raw, vulnerable. Here’s what I know for certain, as I’m sitting here, I’m feeling grateful beyond measure. I acknowledge my privilege to pause and reflect, and for this, I am grateful.

The briefest answer of “how are you?” is in the form of this haiku:

life gets lifey again
waves of energy exchange
lift me high once more

The longer version of my personal update is this:

Physical:

Grateful for health in 2020 & 2021 and for today’s massage and last month’s acupuncture and chiropractic work to restore me to alignment. I’ve felt a collective exhaustion and neurologic re-triggering of old trauma, mine and ours. Healing on profound levels happening little by slow. And sometimes it happens in an instant. It’s both/and.

Mental:

Grateful for the ability to slow down and take a break from paddling and learning new skills as a steers-person. The intensity of this during pandemic-mask-wearing-winter with my own hormones surging has been quite intense. But the whales and dolphins lifted my spirits. I’m learning to voice what I need and want without throwing a fit, though I have erupted a few times lately. I’m sorry. Please forgive me. Thank you. I love you. (yes, you, too). I detect there is some spiritual progress and definitely I’m nowhere near spiritual perfection.

Spiritual:

Grateful for all that is and an even deeper knowing that the Creative Spirit of the Universe is everywhere; in you, in me, in my guts and in the rocks and roots around me. Inhale, Exhale, Spirit.

Emotional:

Grateful for the unflappable calm within me as a result of the above relational health. I’ve lost friends and feel estranged from some family, but I’m not beating up on myself for it. I’m humbled by the challenges of being human and how, no matter what we intend or do, we still end up hurting others. Today, I have greater reservoirs of compassion for self which offers skillful means with others. And, you know what? Sometimes the most skillful means I can muster is to back off, go within, take time and allow space for grace to enter my heart and mind and work in a way that is indeed miraculous.

Familial:

Grateful my mothers’ pelvis is healing after she fell and broke it a few weeks ago. She lived alone in Florida during the pandemic and is an incredibly resilient and resourced woman who inspires me greatly. My husband still works his state job out of the laundry room and the boys were lucky to be in-person at Parker School. My in-laws are struggling getting older, but teach me kindness and loyalty daily. We miss hugs with others.

Financial:

Right livelihood continues to elude me and we filed bankruptcy in 2019 and had some debt discharged in 2020. We still owe 100k in student loans and remain in committed action to unplug from a system of debt, overwork, “owning” land, and numbing out to the addictive currents running rampant in dominant culture. Sharing resources, valuing health, and honoring connections, we march into gladness, tenderness, wholeness and return to love, again and again.

Holistically:

I consciously choose mental wellness, radical self-care, continuous sobriety, and a desire to serve others. This means I’m unwilling and no longer able to play the game of the system. I don’t want to medicate in order to cope with the hustle and bustle of capitalism, toxicity of white supremacy, and chronic exhaustion so rampant in dominant culture. By medicate I mean take psychotropics or pain meds or self-medicate with booze or pot.

I’m committed to invoking wholesome states as much as possible, and learning to release judgement of other’s decisions around this. Forgiving everyone everything, including myself, I release shame, blame and criticism as coping strategies and instead invoke resilience, compassion and service.

Let us dwell here, in these realms of a tender heart.

Finally. Powerfully. Thankfully.

Thanks for asking how I am. Now I’d like to know how you are.

How you be, Dear One?

Let me know if you feel motivated to join me in my new core connections coaching program. Learn more about these powerful Realms of Resilience, Compassion & Service so that you can finally unhook from exhaustion and live an extraordinary life of gratitude and relational health with Self, Other & Spirit. click here to contact me and get on a waitlist

Holding you tenderly. You matter. Your relationships matter.

February 19, 2021February 19, 2021

Dive Deeper into Deep Listening

You can tell this beautiful creature is deeply listening. It is hard-wired for survival. To hunt food. To avoid danger. To survive.

When are, collectively, caught in a wave of survival presently. It takes a bit of focus and energy to remember to mask, to stay put at home, to care for loved ones without falling into overwhelm or despair.

We need our energy to survive, and dare I suggest, to thrive, even in these unimaginable times. So listen up, I’m here to help you have that energy needed to thrive. First things first, I give you permission to quit trying to fix anybody. Seriously. It is not your job.

I give you permission to quit trying to do it all perfectly. It is impossible.

I give you permission to quit trying to focus when you are tired and not feeling 100%.

Every single person I talked to in the last week is experiencing some new level of overwhelm, tiredness or boredom.

And I talked with a lot of people.

Folks in certain parts of the world are cold…let us send warmth (I had a moment in the sun and sea and it warmed my soul to overflowing).

Folks are tired…let us send a good nightʻs sleep (I had one last night and today is markedly better than yesterday).

Folks are tired of the Groundhog-Day every day is the same scenario…let us send adventure and mystery in the power of our imagination to create a new reality.

So here is the ONE THING I’m nudging you to do today. Deeply listen. Listen to your own tender, beating heart. Listen to your pet purr with appreciation. Listen to your beloved share his or her experience in the moment. Don’t fix. Listen. Don’t exert. Be. Don’t succumb to the temptation to numb out. Be present with what is.

You can handle it. Trust yourself to no longer abandon yourself. Focus on your own hula hoop. Stay in your own lane. And know, that by deeply listening, you are uplifting the world.

Monthly Masterclass Series

I’m inviting you to join me on my Monthly Masterclass Series on the 3rd Friday of the month. Tomorrow, Feb. 19 at noon Pacific Time. https://www.timeanddate.com/ link posted for your convenience.

Canʻt make it at that time, no problem. Recording available afterward. Pay what you can: $20-$60/monthly. feel free to cancel your membership at any time. come once or stay as a member of the Moonshot Magic Movement.

$20 scholarship option

$40 core member option

$60 sponsorship option

You Matter. Your relationships matter.

February 10, 2021February 10, 2021

Relationships and Resilience – Building Constructive Habits

guest blog from Imago Relationships North America