Musing around Fall Equinox release, transformation and attuning to the natural cycles of life and nature. reflections on massage therapy school, intuitive guidance, and energy healing.
Prayer and blessings
Give thanks and praise for the death, rebirth, life cycles of nature. Give thanks for the abundance and bounty of summer harvest. Give thanks for the shifts, transformations, endings and beginnings that come with a new cycle/season. Give thanks for all that was summer and all that can be Fall. Give thanks for our mother earth Gaia and all the life on planet. Give thanks for what must Fall, Equinox is upon us.
Many blessings to you and yours!
Highlights you don't want to miss! scroll to the bottom to Links to for your ease and access
Thoughts and prompts for moving into the new season
Now is the time of releasing, letting go, and relinquishing control over things we really never had control over in the first place and embracing spaciousness, creativity, and flow in its place.
Embracing spaciousness can only happen when we allow for the process of release or releasing to happen. So as to create spaciousness to then be able to embrace.
Fall purge anyone?
Time to reorganize, rearrange, and clear out and put away all the summer stuff. Haul away, give away and sell anything that feels like it's occupying precious space. Anything you do to make your living, work, or other spaces feel better to you, is a form of release and that creates more spaciousness both in the physical space and the mental space.
I think of letting go as a conscious decision to drop the rope in the mental “tug of war” considering the “tug of war” you are currently fighting in, maybe it's not even in your conscious awareness, is it a battle that needs to continue? The power and ability of consciously deciding to let go, comes from the realization that: you are all parts of the scenario, you are all the people on one side of the rope and you are all the people on the other side of the rope, and that you are the rope itself. Drop the rope! Walk away from digging your heels in, stop resisting, stop pulling, stop holding on for dear life, out fear of what would happen if you let go. This sentiment is akin to: taking a leap of faith, going with the flow, Parts work, and embracing what our shadow selves are trying to tell us. Imagine what might be available energetically, and what we could be doing with that energy, if we weren't hyper focused on the game of “tug of war”. Maybe once you decide to drop the rope you get to have some say in the matter of what happens next, maybe you get to circle up with all the aspects of self that were tugging and pulling and fighting with each other and sit down and work it out in a different way. This is very general, so please be mindful, this is subjective and to take what resonates and leave the rest.
If you could communicate with each part, what would you ask?
How can you be curious and hold space for their feelings?
Whatever comes up is totally ok, sit with the discomfort for as long as you need, allow for all parts of you to feel heard and validated. Have fun with the process, let it be journey, meditation, exploration, writing exercise, a walk in nature, a time of contemplation, rest, soak, nap, repeat.
Some of my go to Somatic practices:
Shaking, bouncing, rhythmic full body oscillating, joint rolling, particularly the hips. Fall inspired movements, slow steady swaying and rocking side to side, forward and backward, wrapping arms around the body in various inspired ways, like a hug, or caring embrace. Authentic dancing, energy moving, synchronizing breath with movement. Hip and booty freedom movements i.e. twerking, droppin like it's hot, and grindin…, sprinting in place, high knees in place, yoga postures that feel nurturing, tapping, and self clearing massage strokes.
Journal, free write and drawing prompts:
What is your emotional body trying to get you to notice? And how is that connected to the seasonal change? What is your usual emotional state during the fall? What could be supportive?
What is your physical body trying to get you to listen to? What movements are needed right now? Or do you need real and deep rest and relaxation? What could be supportive?
What is the state of your mental body right now, take note of if it has changed over the seasons, or not? What could be supportive?
What is your spirit calling you to recognize, understand, or reveal about yourself? What could be supportive?
How are your energetic boundaries doing? Do you feel safe, protected, fortified, and clear about what’s yours and what’s not, why or why not? What could be supportive?
Letting emotions be our guide.
Resentments, anger, fear, guilt, shame (or any other emotions that are coming up for you)… expressing your emotions in words or pictures, safely with yourself first and foremost, drastically reduces the electrical charge of said emotional states. It brings clarity, and allows parts to be heard, validated and seen. Once we get the emotions out, expressed and on paper, or in a voice recording, or in our notes app, or whatever is the easiest most accessible modality to do it that, then we begin to understand the core, the roots and source of it, and a clearer path to reconciliation can come from our own true inner guidance. Excitement, joy, pleasure, peace, and contentment, expressing our “positive” emotions is just as important and healthy too. Gratitude practices cultivate and generate these feeling states. I would be a completely different person if it weren’t for the active gratitude practice I have. I think it's this practice that allows us to be equipped to handle the very real and inevitable, heavy, hard and challenging emotional states that come with being alive.
Create sacred space
Set an intentional space to show or signify the change of season. Build a seasonal altar. Pull out the fall inspired decorations. Taking the time to be intentional about how this shift goes for you is essential. Taking time to grieve in ceremony, taking space to allow your biology to adjust, taking extra care to tend to creating sacred space.
In closing
May you be blessed with all that you need right now
May you find spaciousness in whatever ways you need for this season
May you feel, know and embody your unique truth and have the courage to speak it, protect it and hold it sacred
May your heart be tended to, you are worthy, you are enough
May your seasonal journey be blessed in all ways
Peace be with you my friends, love always, many hugs and thank you so much for being you!
Yours truly
Lela Sky
Links to for your ease and access
For my birthday season this year I'm rolling out a Fall Equinox sale on select products: 20% off, order from https://www.facebook.com/Lelasky89 or https://www.instagram.com/lelaskyhealing/
Thank you to all of you have ever received a service from me, I'd absolutely love a Google review: https://g.page/r/CbonN0RWKgCgEBM/review
Here's that super fun gift I'm excited about offering in honor of my Birthday season, Buy one 90min massage get the second one for 50% off: Gift certificate special: https://www.lelasky.com/gift-card
Hey did you know I passed my state exam for massage therapy licensing requirement? Yay, I'll be waiting for my official license but in the meantime my books are open to Schedule your massage now for October and November https://www.lelasky.com/book-online
A little extra sharing for the extra curious. Thanks for reading my blog, I'm so grateful!
My personal Fall Equinox summations, share, and personal journey
It's nice when we can return to moments of clarity and peace amongst a cycle of pressure, transition, inner child healing, shadow work and hardcore reality. Rites of passage, initiations and leveling up require, in my experience, a very real and uncomfortable alchemical process. Involving certain steps with the elements to mostly unbecome what you are no longer meant to be or who we never really were in the first place. Essentially ego deaths. In the most crucial time of my accelerated massage therapy program, I began to fray around the edges, my ability to hold everything together began to crumble, holes were flooding my ship with rushing water, my strength was ultimately reduced down to whimpering, cries of desperation, I was really not ok.
In case you don’t know, I have been in massage therapy school in an accelerated 6 month program, here in Eugene, Or, what the massage therapy program entails? it's much more than learning a few massage techniques, it's mostly learning and being regularly tested on: anatomy and physiology, kinesiology, and pathology, and massage ethics, we took around 40 tests over the course of of the 6 month program and many of the most important and largest test happen at the end of the program, not to mention two written reports, and a million hoops to jump through, outside of the program to get the actual thing you need to practice legally in Oregon, and that's your license which of course also requires a different state licensing test. Which is all fine and good, I like that we have high standards for licensing, so I'm not complaining about it being rigorous, thorough or hard. Rather, this is an attempt to share just how unexpectedly challenging and transformational the experience was for me.
I so desperately wanted to quit, I wanted to go back to my comfort zone of using fight or flight mentality, to survival only mode, which had me moments away from throwing in the towel and walking away from massage therapy. When you grow up in a survival mode, poverty mentality it’s extremely difficult not to let it continue to derail you. Massage therapy school nearly broke me, and I am most certainly financially broke as a result of completing this program. I might be picking up my broken pieces and throwing away what no longer serves me and mending what should have been nurtured all along, for a couple of years post massage therapy school, but I know it was all worth it. I got much more than I paid for and I paid way more than I had expected, literally and figuratively.
In this state is where the real shadow work happens, I had to battle myself everyday all day, something inside of me had to be seen clearly so that it could also finally die, be laid to rest once and for all, parts of me dissolved, parts were held lovingly and nurtured into maturity, I had to grieve, and at the same time fight, what felt like an impossible battle, most of which the details remain solely for myself, I was only guided to share parts with certain close and trusted soul family in the forms of my friends, but so much more was happening, I couldn’t burden anyone else with the details, I just had to grow, change, learn, and unbecome what I am not, so as to reveal even more of who I have always been. Why?, to better understand, to be of service, to help guide others along the journey. I see every test, initiation, all the trials and tribulations, and being forced through the seemingly impossible, all as first hand experiences, necessary for building deeper levels of understanding compassion for myself and for others, forgiveness for self and others, and acceptance of myself and others. In order to better serve, to be of support, to learn effective ways to teach, show, and help others through these exact portals of growth, healing, and awakening.
I am truly grateful to be here now all is divinely assigned and aligned. Feeling blessed to be in love, in all the ways.
Much love and thank you!