Scenes of nurses and patients in makeshift hospitals have flooded my imagination, based on the headlines or snippets of reality I’ve seen on the news. Despite the despair the reality of our worldly troubles brings, I am not defeated by these images that float around my head. Instead my brain goes in this direction: how happy it is to be of service! How beautiful it is to be a helper.
As I saw these white hatted nurses in my minds' eye, I could nearly hear them saying to me, “We're always here for each other, in some form or another. And our actions will create ripples that will change our world.”
“Look for the helpers, they are always there.” - Fred Rogers
We have all heard the quote from Fred Rogers, “Look for the helpers, they are always there.” When you start to seek the helpers that surround you, they begin to become more obvious. Then, you realize that you yourself may be a helper. And that your actions have a lasting impact on others.
Just before the world shut down I was teaching group movement classes and appreciating how readily help can be available in these spaces. Granted, no one was bleeding out in the movement studio, and there are plenty of times when we fall short in helping. Unlike a hospital, the closest thing to a pain killer in that space is pranayama, a mindful gap and a deep forward fold. But in that yoga room I, and the class participants often get a glimpse of suffering: the cause of it, how it manifests, and how we can train our body and mind to deal with it. We get in touch with what’s helpful for us and for one another. It's in this way that suffering of any kind puts us in touch with the release from it. How help manifests and is experienced is unique to each person and their intersections of culture, place, history, how they share their insights and healing is just as unique.
At Consultorio, we do something similar. Meet the suffering, understand how it came to be, and find the right tools to train our mind and body to handle what it has been given. We dignify what's here by allowing it to be, breath and shift without force, but with clarity, power and peace.
Helping others is what I'm best at. Not shockingly, this is in part because of my own struggles. My life and it's challenges have made me a good and genuine helper. Codependency, disorganized attachment, people pleasing - I’ve found a sundry of so-called unsavory parts inside myself just waiting for a turn in the light of awareness. When I welcomed these parts of myself is when I really transitioned into the helper I am today.
Carl Jung wrote, “Until you make the unconscious, conscious it will rule your life and you will call it fate.” Within myself, I have found selfishness masquerading as selflessness. In turning myself around, my heart grew like the Grinch's heart on Christmas morning. I now had more capacity to meet others and be of service.
We're human beings and we're facing a crisis of healing and faith. It seems like we've become more willing to turn towards unsavory aspects of ourselves: shadow, unconscious assumptions and meet what we find. With the trying times that have surrounded us, we have brought ourselves to the point of being ready to come face to face with our struggles.
Spaces like Consultório Cycles are where people come to tell the truth and be themselves. We're here to learn who we are fundamentally, and we're hungry for new ways to sit with whatever arises. We discover how we can highlight our best parts of ourselves and allow what’s not the best to be put to rest.
If I had a sideshow act I might call it - “Ripples Believe it or Not.” Because it is my goal to show how meeting yourself and your own outlook can create a positive ripple effect for our entire universe.
I help whoever really wants to know themselves at the most intimate level.
I help the ones who hate to be told what to do, but need direction.
I help those who want to be a better light for their relationships, their communities, and their world.
I help those who are lost, meet themselves right where they are.
I help students who are ready to discover their own path be filled with power and purpose.
I help artists who know that a better world is possible that their work matters- and most importantly that they do, too.
I help any individuals who are navigating their own specific conundrums, crises and projects. Their dreams are supported and allowed to flourish, then move out into their spheres of influence and touch the lives of others.
I help people become future helpers.
Believe it or not, it is all a ripple.
Where there is no pebble tossed, no ripple is created.
