When: Friday, January 1, 2021

Time: 12 PM (noon) Eastern US Time / 9 AM Pacific

Fee: FREE! (use coupon code 2021welcome)

Place: The Pause | It’s at the corner of Now & Notice (where that old dive “Reaction” used to be)

The Pause is a body-oriented meditation class. No previous meditation or focusing experience is necessary. It takes place via Zoom. (You can be as visible or invisible as you choose).

You’ll need to “purchase” a class and enter coupon code “2021welcome” at checkout to have the $10 class fee waived entirely. (Even though you will not be charged, you must complete the transaction to be sent access link to join Friday’s class).

Friday’s New Year Welcome class will be one hour long (rather than the usual 45 minutes). Heidi will guide you settling into a sense of grounding and safety and then offer invitations for you to notice your experience in different ways. Then there will be quiet time to practice in silence, followed by reflections and sharing from class participants (totally optional).

Join us this Friday to mark the turn of year by tuning into your body’s wisdom, which is conveniently right where you are, available for the noticing.

Want to give it a try?

Read more about The Pause and register HERE. (Remember: coupon code “2021welcome”)

Can’t wait to see you!

xo
Heidi

P.S. PLEASE forward to your friends! Let’s welcome the new year in our bodies!

The post A Warm Invitation for You to Welcome 2021 at The Pause appeared first on Heidi's Table.

Metaphors aside, The Pause is a body-oriented meditation class I am offering every weekday. (Drop-in, Covid-safe, 45 minutes.)

A sense of grounding and calm –even (and especially) in these challenging times we are living– are a few of the things that dropping in at The Pause can help you experience. Clarity and right action can arise naturally where reaction used to take place automatically.

Want to drop in and try it out? Your first shot of ease or cup of calm is on the house. Seriously, it’d be my pleasure to gift you your first class. (Use coupon code cupofcalm when “purchasing” 1 class.)

No long term commitment is required. No meditation or Focusing experience is required. Come once and give it a try! If you like it, come back every time, a couple times a week, or just when you can.

I miss you, and hope to see you soon at The Pause. (Learn more & see class times).

xo
Heidi

Please and thank you for posting this invitation on social media and/or forwarding it to your friends! I really appreciate it.

The post A special invitation for you appeared first on Heidi's Table.

It’s been too long: too long since I’ve greeted you at my office and asked what it’s like being you these days… too long since I’ve worked with your body… too long since we’ve scheduled your time to come back… too long. I miss you!

As much as I wish we could work together in person, I have decided not to reopen my massage therapy practice at this time. As I said in my open letter last week, I cannot confidently conclude, based on what we know (and don’t know) about COVID-19, that I can safely do my work right now. I write this to you with sadness and grief, even while I know that it’s the right decision.

Please know that I will let you know as soon as anything changes. 

I wonder how you are, what your days are like these days. I hope you have stayed healthy and well. And let’s not forget sane! I wonder how your body is feeling, where it hurts. I wonder how you are sleeping. I wonder how your mood is, and if you’re being friendly with your dear self. I wonder what’s been hard for you, what you miss, whom you miss, where you miss being or going…

That pretty much sums up the reason for this letter to you, except for also wanting to let you know that I am doing OK. Hanging in there, like I think we all are doing our best to do. There are even some ways in which this odd time has agreed with me. It’s good to notice those things, too: 

• My scrappy, oddball little garden gives me so much joy. I love watching things grow! Also, I think composting is sexy. I love “making dirt” from food waste.
• I’m writing a book. It’s a memoir called “Home(sick)” — it’s all about my journey from homesickness, eating disorder, and suicidal depression and anxiety to health and finding a home right inside my own, now dear-to-me, body. (Does that ring a bell? Yeah. It’s my own personal version of my business’ tagline: “At home in your body, at home in the world.”)
• The online drop-in meditation class that I’ve been teaching/facilitating every weekday since March 17. I offer the class for others, but boy has it been good for me as well. Maybe you’ll pop in one of these days! I guide you in tuning in and cultivating friendliness toward your own dear self (a.k.a. “Focusing”) and then we meditate, and then we have time for questions and reflection. Boom! 45 minutes. Every weekday.
• Good, as well as sometimes quite crappy, TV (Netflix, Prime and Hulu)!  I really liked Dead to Me (irreverent, dark, funny). Last Tango in Halifax (funny, heartfelt, smart, British.) Gentefied (Latinx community in LA). An excellent and moving documentary on PBS, College Behind Bars. And, I’m embarrassed to say, but hey, I’ve had lots of open evenings, okay? Married at First Sight. That’s right. Horribly addictive. (Mr. Heidi’s Table calls it, “OPP: Other People’s Problems.”) And, oh yeah, a much better, masterfully edited show about people getting together called Dating Around. What else? Oh yes! All the cooking and baking shows. All!
• Well my dear, I’m going to sign off for now. I’d love to hear from you, how you are, what you miss, what crappy TV shows you’re addicted to… you get the idea! Write a comment here, drop me an email, and if you are an in-person client of mine, please feel free to book yourself a 15-minute check-in Zoom call. (It’s $1 — only because my booking system requires me to charge more than $0 to register it as a service).*

Be so well, wear your mask when you go out, and stay safe! I send you the warmest hug.

Heidi

*Other remote services –Bodywork & Focusing sessions– are also available. Read more.

The post A letter to my clients… appeared first on Heidi's Table.

On March 18 I closed my office for in-person therapeutic massage work. (This is temporary, my part in minimizing the spread of COVID-19). It’s been an adjustment! (I miss you.) I, like probably you, am physically/socially distancing and going through quite the range of emotions: fear, sadness, lonesomeness, anxiety, anger, contentment (in my garden), joy (the buds. on the trees. have you noticed?), scared again…

Yesterday, when I sat quietly and tuned inward, I sensed a heaviness in my chest area. When I turned toward it in a friendly and wondering kind of way, it seemed like a stone: big, though not as big as a boulder. And smooth, like a river stone whose roughness has been polished by constant water. I wondered: why not just get rid of the stone, wouldn’t that feel good? I was surprised to sense, from my body, that no: not only didn’t the stone want to leave, but my heart and chest area actually liked having it there. I sensed then that this big river stone was somehow related to my massage work and specifically my touch and contact with my clients’ bodies, and to missing that, suddenly quite intensely. I sat there quietly for a few minutes, trusting the process, no matter how odd or strange what appears might seem.

Trusting the process. It wasn’t always like that for me. Practicing has certainly helped. I’ve learned that my body knows so much more than I think it knows. And having practiced now for many, many years, I have built up some pretty darn good awareness “muscles.”

These are challenging times. I haven’t been to a food market in over a week. (For someone who loves to browse the aisles not in malls but in food and farmers markets, that is something.) I haven’t been—

What about you? I imagine that you are washing your hands a whole lot, physically distancing and staying home. Your list of “I haven’ts” might be long, like mine.

But there is also something I HAVE done, something new which I am hoping you might—now that you know about it!—do with me.

Every day at 12 PM Eastern time (9 AM Pacific) I am leading a COVID-safe, drop-in, virtual class: “At Home in Your Body: Focusing-Oriented Meditation.” It’s only 30-45 minutes long. You can come every day, you can come once a week, or just once in a while. No long-term commitment is needed. And I’d LOVE you to join.

The cost of the class is $10. (Though right now it’s on sale for $5, in anticipation of you reading about it and wanting to try it out—you’re very welcome!) I understand, too, that these are financially trying and wobbly times and that some of us have lost our income from one day to the next, so if the cost of the class would keep you from participating (or participating as often as you’d like), PLEASE drop me a line and I will send you the access link so that you can join regardless of how much you can or can’t pay.

Tuning in and turning toward ourselves with friendliness. That’s what I and anyone who joins me in class are learning and practicing doing every day.

You know the big river stone on my heart yesterday? When I sensed how it wanted me to be with it, it showed me it wanted me to oil up my hands and rub it. Yeah. That felt right. I didn’t have to figure it out, change it, or make it go away. And while it didn’t replace me getting to work with my clients and their bodies in my office, much relief came to me from noticing the whole of how it was in a friendly way.

I’m sorry about what our dear human species is experiencing these days. I’m sorry for our dear planet and how thoughtless and mean our species has been to it. I’m so sorry about the loss and death so many people around the world are experiencing. I feel sad and scared and angry all at once.

Connection sure feels good, even if it’s in a different way than we’ve ever connected before. Maybe I’ll see you in class!

Warmly,

Heidi

P.S. Please forward widely. (Thank you! I really appreciate your help.) What if everyone in the world came out of this extraordinarily difficult experience friendlier toward themselves and each other?

Learn more/Register for “At Home in Your Body: Focusing-Oriented Meditation“

The post You are warmly invited! “At Home in Your Body: Focusing-Oriented Meditation” Classes (COVID-safe, virtual, drop-in) appeared first on Heidi's Table.