After our nail-biting election week here in the U.S. I am taking a bit of time for myself today to breathe, stretch, and feel into the possibilities of the new year that is just around the corner. For the first time in a while my shoulders are a little more relaxed, my belly is a little softer, and my mind is a little more clear. I knew my body was processing a great deal during these complex times but I didn’t fully understand just how much until the election was called and I felt a deep internal settling. Hearing the deeply vulnerable response about the election from news commentator Van Jones addressed what this election meant for so many in this country and abroad.

I hope this letter finds you with your feet on the ground and with your exhale a little more complete this week. I’ve been thinking about those of you who reached out to me after my last letter on grief. I am still feeling gratitude for your vulnerability and willingness to share how grief has been showing up in your life during these last disorienting and emotionally charged months.

While I am still in a grieving process, the waves are beginning to slow. I am beginning to find my sea legs so to speak, feeling slightly more balanced as I make my way through the messiness, heaviness, and vulnerability of this particular season. Solomon, Nic, and I returned to California two weeks ago after staying with my Mom in Atlanta for five weeks because the hazardous smoke from the fire in the Sierra National Forest was blowing right into our bedroom. Nic and I talked about leaving our home for nearly a week when the fire started, but when we looked at the map of our beloved California nearly a million acres of forests were burning across the state and we could not locate a place nearby with smoke-free air.

As you might imagine it wasn’t an easy decision to leave the small town in the foothills of Yosemite that we have come to love so dearly. We moved out here from Oakland a few months prior and were trying to give Solomon as much of a carefree summer as possible in the midst of the pandemic, social justice movement, massive wildfire season, and political uprising. Just writing that brings some big feelings to the surface. What. A. Year.

One morning we heard Solomon coughing from the smoke. Shortly afterwards he asked us to leave the house and I knew in my heart that we had to go. His little lungs couldn’t keep inhaling the smoke and it was time to pivot. We packed the car, arranged for a house sitter, and headed to clearer skies. Exhale. 

Arriving back in the South, in my hometown with our child in tow, felt as uncomplicated as it could and I was grateful for that. It was still unclear when Solomon and I would be able to go back to California (Nic traveled back and forth to check on our house and ship medicine out to customers) so I made sure that we spent as much time outside as possible, soaking in the damp air, walking in the woods by my Mom’s house, feeling connected to the geography that shaped my childhood, that offered me solace, and that taught me how to land in my own body.

There are seasons of life just as there are seasons of practice. This season of practice for me is about remembering to feel my feet, reconnecting to my relationship with gravity, and orienting my awareness and attention to the Earth. This is a season for grounding. In the midst of all of the layers of uncertainty, confusion, grief, transition, and overwhelm that somehow touch some aspect of each day, I am brought back to these essential truths that I learned from spending time with myself in those Southern woods: It is safe for me to land. It is safe for me to feel my feet on the ground. It is safe for me to be in my body.

I wish I had the experience of leading with that wisdom the forests instilled in me as I grew up. I wish that the messages I received from the trees were just as loud as the messages that got passed down through my family. I wish that I could have called on the support of the trees and the ground when I desperately needed to be seen, felt, heard, and saved. Yet somehow, despite the painful experiences, despite the repeated traumas, and despite having so few moments of safe connection with others, the forests gifted me with an internal barometer to choose to keep living, to keep evolving, and to keep feeling my feet on the ground, one small step at a time.

The gifts I received from returning home during this wild time are not lost on me. I can say with certainty this was the first time I returned home in my fully adult, present-time self. There are usually so many aspects of my younger selves that are triggered when I am around my family, especially for that length of time (I actually haven’t been home for that long since I headed west nearly 17 years ago) and this trip was remarkably different. I had the capacity to show up for challenging conversations with clarity, ask for what I needed with gentleness, and stay firmly grounded in the boundaries I set for myself and Solomon. I was able to navigate difficult moments of grief and pain with a level of ease and flexibility that for so long felt out of reach. I was also present for the relief and healing that comes from reconciling a few more layers of my past, metabolizing the wounds, feeling integrated in the here and now.

This has been one of the most confronting seasons of my life. I have been asked to stretch and expand much further than I would have chosen to if it were left up to me. At the same time, I have been training and practicing for this season for decades. As much as my young self still longs to be rescued by someone outside of herself, in this unbelievably destabilizing season I am able to take care of her, to assure her, to soothe her. I am able to show up and be the person I needed when I was younger. I am able to rescue myself.

I know in my core that my ability to stay with myself in as many moments as possible is keeping me available for connection, healing, and oriented toward a future that I want for all of our children. I know in my core that my willingness to pause, to feel my feet on the Earth, and inhale the regenerative oils coming off of the pine trees brings me back to center, to right here right now. I know that each time I choose to turn towards practices that anchor me like breathing, grounding, and exploring the land with Nic and Solomon I am making an invaluable investment in myself. I am also continuing to break the cycles of pain and trauma that I do not want to pass on. I know that each time I choose vulnerability over judgement, slowing down over hustling, living the work over sharing a highlight reel, I am growing my capacity to embody the teachings and wisdom that are ever present.

These last few days of being home in the foothills have brought with them a significant loss which I am not ready to share right now but will when the time feels right. They have also brought on so much gratitude for the clear air we are breathing and for the safe, smoke-free home we are taking shelter in while our land and home project continue to be built. We have been welcomed back into the community we are building out here with open, loving arms and I am feeling supported and cared for in ways that are deeply restorative.

May we find a moment to inhale and exhale slowly.
May we set aside time to feel our feet on the earth.
May we develop our capacity to be with what is.
May we overcome difficulties, no matter how long it takes.
May we remember the gifts that we carry with us, that we carry on.

The post Finding Ground In Uncertain Times appeared first on Ashley Neese.

The post Gratitude List 100 appeared first on Ashley Neese.

I’m overwhelmed. I’m sad. I’m exhausted. I’m grieving.

These last few months have been radically life changing in many ways. They have also brought me in touch with an ocean of grief, much of which I’ve been holding back for what feels like lifetimes. I know from years of personal work and the sessions I hold with clients that befriending and processing grief is essential for our wellbeing. I also know just how challenging it is to make space for grief and the ways that I personally have been avoiding it.

I’ve been operating in survival mode for much of the last few months. I’ve been reacting from my history, especially in my partnership with Nic, and it has been painful and humbling to say the least. I have such high expectations for myself in general and the compression and constriction of this time we are living in has brought many of those expectations to light. The expectation that I am struggling with the most right now is the belief that despite a laundry list of stressful situations that I am currently living in/with, I should be able to easily access my conscious, adult self at all times.

Exhale.

Sharing that belief with you brings ease to my body. My shoulders begin to lower. My exhale finds itself with a bit more room. My jaw drops slightly. My breath slows and deepens.

I sit. I wait. And then the grief rises and swells from within. A few tears form in the corners of my eyes. I exhale with intention, close my eyes, and let the tears run down my cheeks.

When we’re in survival mode, which many of us are these days in some way or another, it’s really important to take a few moments to connect with the grief that sits just below the surface. There is so much to grieve in the change process many of us are in right now, yet committing to a regular practice of being with ourselves in grief is quite easy to avoid. There is always something or someone outside of ourselves needing our attention.

One way that we can come out of survival mode and into feeling our grief in the present moment is to share what’s really going on inside. This is partly why I started my online journal so many years ago, to have a safe space to share what’s on my heart, what I’m feeling, what’s really going on. Of course all writing that I share publicly is just a piece of the experience that I am choosing to share, but the purpose is to connect through vulnerability in the hopes that something I’m going through or went through can be useful to someone else. Not because I am an expert on anything, but because I am a human trying to navigate the complexities, challenges, and beauty of being alive.

Sharing honestly helps me to get in touch with my grief and work with it relationally. It’s through opening myself up to you that I have the capacity to, in this moment, feel more of my grief and in a deep sense feel more of myself. The Holding It All Together Ashley is exhausted. The Smiling And Pretending I Am Okay Ashley is burnt out. The I Never Get Angry Ashley is angry. The It’s Not Safe To Feel Ashley is learning to feel more. The Peeking From Behind The Curtain To See If Anyone Is Still There Ashley is learning to trust. The Sharing What’s Really Up For Me In This Moment Ashley is grieving.

I’m less overwhelmed.
I’m less exhausted.
I’m still grieving.
I’m still breathing.

Another way that I am exploring grief these days is somatically, through breathing. Interestingly, in Chinese Medicine, grief is associated with our lungs. I find this so fascinating as my breathing practice has always brought me in touch with different grief states. In the beginning of my breathwork journey I didn’t have a steady container of support for the level of grief that I was experiencing. I felt completely overwhelmed with how much grief I held in my body and my breathing practice often had the opposite effect of what I was hoping for. Because I had years and years of unhealed trauma in my system, it would get completely flooded and overwhelmed with grief during my breathing sessions. I would go right into catharsis which on some level brought a little relief as a good cry can, but it also left me stuck in the very beliefs and feelings that I wanted to change.

These days when I am working with my breath and processing grief in my body I take it really slowly. I make sure that I set up a container for myself in the form of a space to practice in that feels safe and comfortable and I give myself gentle reminders and reassurance that it’s okay if I don’t feel better after my practice. Feeling better is not a requirement for processing grief and isn’t even my intention. My intention is to feel what is calling to be felt and to widen my capacity to be present with grief and to be present with myself.

When I practice, I place one hand on my heart and one hand on my belly. I tell my body that if it wants to grieve I am here for that process and if it doesn’t I am here for that too. I inhale and exhale out of my nose. I allow myself to land. I allow myself to feel. I allow the process to be messy, to be uncomfortable, to be awakening, to be whatever it needs to be in each moment. I allow myself to breathe. I allow myself to be.

There is no life hack for grief.
There is no shortcut through pain.
There is no sustainable way to avoid sorrow.

Inhale.
Exhale.

What we have is our breath.
What we have is our willingness to be present with ourselves.
What we have is each other.

The post Breathwork for Grief appeared first on Ashley Neese.

The post Gratitude List 99 appeared first on Ashley Neese.

Dear friends,

I’ve been struggling with how to show up here and on social media for these last months. I’ve been unsure what to share with you because I am in such deep process work in every aspect of my life. I’ve also been sitting with the uneasiness of knowing that many people have felt that my silence has been compliance during this revolutionary time of unrest. Those of you who have been reading my newsletter for some time know that this isn’t about my struggle to find the “right words” or sharing that I have it all “figured out.” My work has always existed and taken shape on the edge of what feels radically uncomfortable to me, and as I type that I am reminded of the truth it breathes.

My biggest intention for 2020 was to grow my capacity to be with discomfort. Just six week later we were in the throes of a global pandemic and shortly after ordered to shelter in place until further notice. During the same week we were faced with the horror of Breonna Taylor’s murder and not too long after heard the desperate cries of George Floyd begging for his mother just moments before he died at the hands of police officers.

The intention to grow my capacity to be with discomfort has brought on a great deal of sorrow over these last months. Layers and layers of our collective trauma are surfacing. We are all being called to face our personal and collective wounds with open hearts and expanded minds. The calls are fierce, loud, and insistent that all of us white folks take the time to learn what our individual roles are in this necessary and lifelong movement toward justice, wellness, and equality, for our Black sisters, brothers, trans, and non-binary friends.

These past five months I’ve been quietly, offline, making time to begin the journey of examining and unpacking the complex emotional terrain that accompanies acknowledging the ways that I have benefited from the system of white supremacy and the implicit biases in my subconscious that have been handed down through generations.

The intention to grow my capacity to be with discomfort has been my anchor, providing stability as I feel the heaviness of shame, grief, guilt, and pain that come alongside facing the underpinnings of white supremacy, unlearning, one breath at a time, the ways my unconscious mind wants to keep me safe, right, and at the front of the class.

The intention has been my North Star, guiding me to the power of the pause and the beating of my heart when I feel overwhelmed and distraught undertaking this transformational work. The intention has also been my oak tree, breathing strength and vitality into every cell of my body so that I can keep showing up for myself, my family, my friends, and this revolution, in the midst of all of the subtle layers I am working through.

The intention reminds me daily of this incredible opportunity to become a better human.

During these last months I’ve spent time getting clear on what my roles are in this collective uprising. I’ve been in deep inquiry and the following questions have shown up consistently throughout:

• How do I use my voice in moments when it really matters? Where and when do I speak up?
• How do I show up and parent my cis white son?
• How do I prioritize taking the time to educate myself on anti-racist policies so that I can align my beliefs with my voting power?
• How do I share the breathwork and trauma-informed practices and tools I am cultivating through an anti-racist and social justice lens?
• How do I create more equity in the whitewashed, privileged space of wellness?
• How do I take care of my nervous system so that it has enough tone to sustainably support all of the work I am here to do on the micro and macro levels?

An essential part of this work for each of us with white body privilege is to take the time to learn what our individual responsibilities are in helping to dismantle the systems of oppression that our stolen country was founded on.

This is very uncomfortable work. Very uncomfortable.

And this work can no longer be postponed. It is our responsibility to step up, to be accountable for learning how to be not just conscious people, but critically conscious anti-racists. The privilege of taking our time has ended. Black people have waited far too long for those of us with white body privilege to show up and do our part.

This work is heartbreaking. It will make us want to run from ourselves, check out, numb, slip into shame spirals, and feel completely hopeless. This work will make our bodies ache with grief from the inside out. This work will bring us to our knees. This work will bring us into states of stress, anxiety, anger, and overwhelm.

This work will demand that we amplify how we take care of our mental health and our bodies. This work will demand that those of us who have assimilated into the white body culture take a long and uncomfortable look at what assimilation meant for our ancestors and how its cries echo in our bodies today. This work will also demand that we seek extra support so that we can really be in this for the long haul. And I’m talking about the rest of our lives.

This work will be thankless. Nobody will pat us on the back and give us gold stars for starting and continuing the journey of anti-racism work. In fact, this work is likely to make waves in our current relationships and continue to feel uncomfortable as we grow and expand in our capacity to dismantle a system that was created to benefit us white folks in every way.

And this work will open our hearts to deeper levels of what it means to be human. And this work will create more space in our bodies to exhale.

There will be no long-term change in our world unless we do our personal work.

And it is absolutely essential that we get started. Right now.

The road will be long and twisty and painful.

And if each of us does our part, collectively we have the power to create real, tangible change.

And I am here for that.

I am here doing this work with myself, my family, and our son so that he can be part of the movement toward an anti-racist world that I will not live to see.

Black lives matter.
Black joy matters.
Black safety matters.
Black bodies matter.
Black healing matters.
Black breath matters.

We are in a critical moment in history. We have the power to shift the paradigm if we are willing to stretch and expand our capacities to be with discomfort. If we are willing to slow down and question why it has taken us so long to answer the call of our Black sisters, brothers, trans, and non-binary friends. If we are willing to face our defensiveness head on and with support. If we are willing to unpack our white body privilege and  critically look at the ways in which white supremacy has served us. If we are willing to decolonize our belief system and deeply examine our implicit biases. And if we are willing to get clear on our individual roles in this revolution and educate ourselves, and most importantly our children, on what it means to embody anti-racism.

You are needed in this transformation.

The world we long for has yet to come. We are building it together. Day by day. Breath by breath.

And I am here, alongside you, every step of the way. I don’t have it all figured out. Like many of you I’ve been embarking on a deep, profound, and long overdue journey in these last months. It’s challenging for me to articulate all the ways I have been changed by opening myself up to this work and I know this is just the beginning.

With so much love, gratitude, and admiration.

Onward,
Ashley

The post Action Required appeared first on Ashley Neese.

The post Gratitude List 98 appeared first on Ashley Neese.

Below is a copy of my newsletter that I sent out on April 8, 2020.

I hope this finds you safe and well. I took a break from writing you last week to give myself some space to feel into into the massive shifts that are taking place during this unprecedented time.

So much has changed over these last weeks with the spread of COVID-19. While I have spent some time following the virus via the CDC, what I’m choosing to pay more attention to are all of the ways us humans, across the globe, are showing up for each other right now. There are countless stories and videos of connection and hope making their way through cyberspace of us humans rallying for the greater good, for the health of individuals and communities across the globe. It is magnificent to be apart of this much needed shift.

Tuning into the collective generosity of over 1 billion people sheltering in place brings tears to my eyes. Watching videos of New Yorker’s in their apartments cheering for hospital workers coming and going from the front lines of this pandemic reminds me that there are countless ways to offer support and to be part of the healing journey that we are all on together.

Here’s what has become very clear to me over these last weeks: we must release the world that we knew and move toward the new world that is emerging before us. Each and every choice we make during this time shapes what comes next for us all. Never has it been more apparent that we are truly interconnected on all levels from the energetic to the economic.

The world as we knew it is gone and there is grief to be felt in that reality. We have all lost someone or something during this pandemic. The way of life that we thought would carry on as it always had in years before is no longer present.

We must feel our grief however inconvenient, however unwelcome it is. We must allow ourselves to touch into the well of sadness that swims just below the surface in each and every one of us. On a somatic level, there is no way to avoid this collective grief.

A huge part of what is being illuminated for us all are the ways that we live in disharmony with ourselves, each other, with all other life on this planet and with the earth itself. There is grief to be explored in the ways our systems are failing us. From our dependence on un-renewable resources, to our polluted agricultural systems and water ways, to our class and social systems that are failing to care for the people who are in the deepest need, to our broken political systems and corporations that value profit and power over all sentient beings. This virus is our wake up call.

The earth has been speaking to us.
The plants have been speaking to us.
The animals have been speaking to us.
Our bodies have been speaking to us.

Nearly one year ago in May of 2019 the World Health Organization officially named burnout as a medical diagnosis. Now here we are in the midst of a pandemic with an opportunity to take a deeper look at the ways that we are avoiding and ignoring what we know to be true in our heart of hearts: we cannot go back to the world that we knew. It wasn’t healthy, it wasn’t sustainable and it definitely didn’t have our collective well-being near the top of the list.

This virus is our wake up call.

It’s up to us to listen. To do the radical work of feeling our grief, processing our trauma and the heavy and uncomfortable emotions that are surfacing to remind us of just how incredible and resilient we really are.

We were made for these times.
We were made to adapt.
We were made to heal.
We were made to rise.

It’s up to us to ask the really tough questions of ourselves, of each other, and of those in positions of power:

• What kind of world do I want to pass on to future generations?
• What changes am I wiling to make today to support the well-being of the collective and the planet?
• What support do I need to heal the inter-generational and collective trauma I inherited?
• How can I become more self-sufficient and less reliant on products and systems that don’t value it’s workers or our planet?
• In what ways can I be part of a hyper local economy, a closer-to-home way of living that supports sustainability?
• How can I take really good care of my physical and emotional body so that I can show up and be a leader in my community?
• What sacrifices am I willing to make today to help shift consciousness forward?
• Where can I spend my energy and dollars that is in alignment with my deepest values?

It is essential that we take time to really think about what kind of world we want to live in. It is essential that we do whatever inner work we need to do to be able to stay present, in gratitude, and in alignment with our greater purpose.

We can’t just sit around complacent any longer and think that someone else is going to save us, the plants, the animals, or our first mother, this live giving planet we all inhabit. In the words of my dear friend and spiritual teacher Lalah Delia, we have to take our power back.

Inhale.
Exhale.

This letter is how I’m showing up today. This letter is how I’m rallying for us all during these strangely bittersweet times. This letter is how I’m tapping into the collective kindness that is overflowing across the globe streaming from the hearts and minds of you and people like you. We are in a powerful portal, on the threshold of a new paradigm that can shift the direction of where we are all headed if we can commit to getting out of our own way and showing up for something bigger than our individual needs and wants.

There is so much aliveness to be felt right now. And there is a deeper shift available to each of us if we are willing to feel, to stretch, to continue showing up and offering our hearts in the spirit of curiosity, generosity, and receptivity.

Our bodies know what they need to heal.
Our planet knows what it needs to heal.

I hope you will join me on this journey of returning to what each of us already knows within: we are not separate. Every action, every thought, every feeling we have is broadcast out into the world at large. It’s up to us individually to choose the frequency that we want to transmit for the greater good.

We were made for these times.

We’ve got this.
Even when we’re grieving,
even when it hurts,
even when we’re afraid,
even when we’re stuck,
even when the world feels dark,
We’ve got this.

We are the light.
We are the love.
We are the medicine.

Onward my friends.

photo x @lanitrock

The post We Were Made For These Times appeared first on Ashley Neese.

The post Gratitude List 97 appeared first on Ashley Neese.

The post Gratitude List 96 appeared first on Ashley Neese.

I have some very exciting news to share here with you: we bought 17 acres of rolling hills outside of Yosemite and will be building our dream home (and eventual retreat space) this year!

We just closed escrow a couple of weeks ago and I am over the moon. Building a home with my little family has been a long time dream of mine yet for much of my life felt out of reach. I’m having so many feelings of deep gratitude surface right now because I didn’t give up on my dreams. I kept showing up and doing the work of learning to be present with and value myself. It’s impossible to shed light on all of the complexities that led me to this moment, but I am grateful I stayed the course. I am grateful that I trusted my inner knowing, especially when it challenged (and in many cases pushed me) me to expand and transform though layers of doubt, unworthiness, shame, fear, and worry. I am grateful I leaned into it all one breath at a time.

Nic and I have been talking about leaving the city for ages but we couldn’t settle on a location. We were really clear with what we wanted in terms of acreage but everywhere we looked was either way too expensive (hello, California!) or way too remote. We considered many places even Kaua’i but nothing gave us that feeling we knew we would have when we set foot on the site of our next home.

For those of you who know Nic and I, you know that we take manifesting seriously. Over the last two years of travels we got really clear that the land would find us. We knew that if we just kept showing up with an open mind (me especially because I was pretty focused on living in a town with specific amenities) we would keep visiting places and find our next home. Also, with Solomon in the mix now we felt strongly that all three of us needed to feel the resonance of the place.

Looking back I realize what a huge ask that was from the universe. It was a big to say hey Universe, our family of three wants to live in a small town on an expansive property and it’s essential that we all feel the vibes of YES, this is our place. Thankfully my trust muscle is very strong in this department and there was a part of my subconscious that believed it was possible.

Once we got super clear, like 100% on that piece we were invited last May by our dear friend Lacy to stay at her epic forest retreat house in the sweet gold rush town of Mariposa, right next to Yosemite. Nic immediately got a hit that we would all be happy there and started looking at homes and properties. By the time we set foot in Lacy’s retreat house we already had a realtor and were looking at places.

Fast forward nine months (to right now!) and we just closed escrow, are getting the well tested, having the mobile home and unusable cabin demoed, talking to an architect that we cannot afford (but who is willing to work with us, more on that in the coming months!), and dreaming up our live and work spaces on the land. It’s really wild and to be honest hasn’t completely sunk in yet. Sharing this with all of you is helping me feel into it more, giving it some space to anchor in to my body.

Inhale.
Exhale.

One of the big reasons that we want to move out of the city and be in the Oak trees is that we’re craving deeper connections as a family and as individuals. Our family is yearning for the space to rest, connection to the natural world, to drop into presence with each other, and the opportunity to exchange with nature in a bigger way. I am also longing for the space to dive deeper into my healing practice both as a student and teacher, to write, to experience even more presence with Nic and Solomon, and to live in an environment that is flowing at a pace that is in more alignment with how I want to live each day.

I’ve been listening to many people on podcasts as of late say that you don’t need to leave the city to heal, that it’s possible to do your inner work in the midst of all of the energy that cities hold. While I do believe that healing isn’t solely determined by our location, our environment does have an impact on how deep we can go. There is reason that spiritual teachers have been traveling to remote places for centuries to tune in. In our ever fast paced world, choosing slowness, choosing the wilderness is radical. There is a way that we have to face parts of ourselves out in nature and that is one of the reasons I am excited for this next chapter. There is much to be gained from stepping outside of the hustle and into a place that can nourish you on a cellular level. In fact, as my good friend Kelly reflected to me over the weekend, what our little family is doing is radical.

It’s going to be a full year over here. A very full year. As much as my intention is to rest and simply be present this year, I’m realizing that we took on a pretty massive project of building a home and tending to the incredible land that we have the honor of being in relationship with. Just writing this I can feel into the strength and vitality of the Oaks and allow their medicine to carry me. I am reminded in this breath that we’re not alone, that we have so much support and that in the midst of this next adventure there is space for me to rest.

Wishing you all a nourishing season. May you find a few moments to breathe, to practice gratitude and to remember you are loved and supported.

x

The post We’re Leaving The City! appeared first on Ashley Neese.