emotional release

When you need to push through and keep going

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

“I’ve got a lot going on.”

“I may not like this process, but I need to push through.”

“I would love to take a break, but there’s too much to take care of.”

These sound familiar? Whether it’s a crisis, a big life change, social action, or relentless responsibilities, sometimes we need to answer the call of necessity–no matter how we’re feeling about it. The question is how to push through with vitality, rather than straining to the point of collapse.

It reminds me of a time when my seventeen-year-old sedan gave up on the hill of a highway frontage road. Cars were speeding by, blaring their horns, but there was no hope of revival. Luckily I was able to coast down to the exit, landing on the side of the road. That car had had enough. It had been pushed too far and too long, without the maintenance it needed to keep going. 

No one wants to be that old car! If we’re going to do more–for our work, for our families, for our communities–we will need to do more to sustain ourselves too. Sure, we’d all prefer a break to a breakdown. But when life is too full to take time off, we might have to take what I’ll call “time in.”

“Time in” might look like purposefully moving a little slower than our regular pace, especially during a busy day. Listening to a bird sing during a rare pause in the action, rather than checking email. It’s like the old Zen teaching on lengthening your meditation when you have less time to sit. Need to do more? Do less too.

“Time in” might also look like an intentional mini-breakdown. In a safe space, a good cry, a wild tantrum, or a full somatic anxiety release can relieve some of the tension that comes from having to keep it together. A little rest afterwards, and it can be just the right medicine for getting back up and keeping on going.

But hey, sometimes self-care can feel like just one more thing, so if that sounds like too much, it’s not necessary. The pressure to stay on top of everything is like the pressure of those passing drivers blaring their horns: it’s not going to solve the problem, it’s only going to stress us out more. Better to give up on being superhuman!

When the long road ahead is worth the trouble, we’ll each find a way through. 

I respect that there are times in life that require more of us. It can even be empowering to know we can step up when needed. Other times, it just doesn’t work to say “C’mon, get up, you can do this! What do you need to push through?” In these situations, maybe there’s a downshift, a “Here I am. Here’s my capacity. Now what will I do with it?”

Wishing you replenishing rest stops wherever you can find them, and a bit of coasting downhill too, 

Julia Aziz

PS- Need some supported time-in? Check out my individual therapy or the Release & Empower Women’s Group Program. And be sure to sign up for my mailing list; you’ll receive some free, easy ways to love yourself through all the ups and downs of life.

Image by Tobias Brunner from Pixabay

On helping others through troubled times that affect you too

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

There’s a question I’m hearing a lot, and it’s not a new one. If you’ve been emotionally supporting other people in some way, this question has been relentless in recent years:

How am I supposed to help people through a collective crisis that I am dealing with myself?

As a therapist, group facilitator, and mother of three, I know many parents, mental health practitioners, healthcare and wellness providers, caregivers, teachers, and managers who are processing double-time. I’m not going to try to answer this question; there’s already plenty of advice coming at you. These are just some thoughts for contemplation.

  • It is not our job to know better, be better, draw a silver lining around a dark cloud, or fix things just because we are in some sort of helping or leadership role. Like everyone else alive today, we’ve also never lived through this particular time in history. Lessening the pressure we put on ourselves gives room to breathe–and think more clearly.
  • It is absolutely our job to truly tend to our ourselves so we can maintain the capacity to show up for others. That may look like receiving more support, but it’s not only about care from the outside. It’s also things like how kindly we talk to ourselves. How we say no and rest. How we let our bodies express the fear or dread or rage or grief, so we don’t have to suppress or project feelings in order to keep going. 
  • Showing up with an open, listening heart in deep curiosity about the individual experience of the people we are serving matters. Collective crises do not affect all of us in the same way. Holding a space open for someone (or a group of someones) to work through their own unique experience is a real service. Especially in a time when their other loved ones may not be emotionally available.

I know many kind caregivers feeling like they have to pretend to have hope or optimism when the truth is, they are feeling the dark night. Could it be okay to orient towards “being with” rather than “doing for” others right now? I look to the trees, the river, the animals, the moon, the ancestors. I know even when we don’t want to be where we are in the cycle, we are here. 

If you need a break from people, I hope you can take one. If that’s not possible, I hope you find a refuge for your own feelings, and know that whatever you can give is enough.

With care and courage,

Julia Aziz

SUPPORTS FOR THE HELPERS

–A reminder about this Clearly Clinical podcast interview for professionals struggling with their own heavy times while still helping others. 

–If you could use a place to be yourself amongst other helpers, and you identify as a woman, save a spot in the next season of Release & Empower: A Group Program for Women Moving Through Change. In troubled times, it feels like such a nourishing, fortifying gift to be with women feeling, releasing, and re-centering side-by-side in nonverbal and expressive ways.

–If you’re a mental health professional wanting more clinical and professional development support, you can set up an individual consultation session or join my consultation group.

Sign up for my mailing list and some simple self-support practices here.

For the Mamas

/ Julia Aziz / 1 Comment

If you’ve been raising kids through the craziness of this world, you are a hero whether you feel like one or not. To be a mom is to risk your heart, forever unprepared and courageous as you follow a winding path you’ve never navigated before. I don’t want to create more martyrdom in the mother role by waving the hero flag too high though. The standards we expect moms to live up to are inflated enough already! 

I love my children fiercely, and I am already feeling all the feels of my oldest leaving home this summer. It doesn’t mean that every day I’m basking in the glow of family though. Like you, I am my own person with my own emotional bandwidth, daily multi-tasking the mundane. Instead of heroism, I’d like to celebrate and elevate our humanity this year. Here are a couple Mother’s Day gifts in this spirit:

FREE TALK FOR MOMS HAVING A HARD TIME STAYING CENTERED

Taking Charge of Your Inner Well-Being No Matter What's Going On Around You

Originally presented at an online summit last summer, this twenty minute audio is straight talk for moms about releasing pent up emotions. Particularly useful if you’ve been struggling with keeping your cool and not finding the time for self-care (especially if you have kids still living at home with you).

FREE MOTHER’S BOOK GUIDE FOR LESSONS OF LABOR

Lessons of Labor: One Woman's Self-Discovery Through Birth & Motherhood by Julia Aziz

This self-help memoir came out when I still had little ones, and it’s relevant not only to moms, but to anyone who struggles with letting go of control. I was recently asked by my publisher to write an article on The Story Behind the Book, if you’d like to hear more of the backstory. And if you’re currently reading or have read the book already, here’s a link to a Free Reader’s Guide with contemplative journaling, discussion, and meditation practices to use on your own or with a book club. If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can find Lessons of Labor at the MSI Press Bookstore, Barnes & Noble, or on Amazon, with a discounted Kindle promotion going on all week.

In celebration of the Mothers, the Grandmothers, and the Spirit of Unwavering Nurturing Love,

Julia Aziz

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On getting triggered: Anger, guilt, blame, and the feelings we don’t want to feel

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I’m curious, who showed you how to feel and process anger in a healthy way?

(Just kidding, that’s not a fair question!)

Depending on our background, we may have learned to numb or suppress negative emotions, beat ourselves up, or lash out, but it’s pretty rare for an adult reading this today to have grown up in an environment that modeled well how to work with feelings like anger, guilt, shame, or fear. It’s something we as a species are still learning. We continue to trigger negative emotions in each other all the time though–that’s just being human and living in society with other humans. Part of growing into adulthood is learning how to respect what we feel while also respecting other people’s experience, and while that may sound extremely basic, it’s often extremely missing.

You may have heard the term “shadow work” before, and it may mean something different to you than it does to me. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll define it here as finding a way to work with the thoughts, feelings, and parts of ourselves we’d prefer to banish to the basement of our consciousness. Let’s say you read, hear, or see something that gets your ire up. You begin to look for fault, but rather than inwardly or outwardly blaming (or avoiding), you pause. You say to yourself, “Hey, let’s not focus on who’s wrong right now. I’m more curious about what’s happening inside you?” Maybe you notice a little voice that’s feeling scared or lost, along with some tension in the body. And you don’t try to do anything; you just be kind about it. You offer empathy and compassion to yourself the way you would if a dear friend was sharing something similar. Giving attention to thoughts, feelings, and sensations with care in the heart, you may find yourself breathing more deeply and noticing more nuance. Maybe there is something to say or do now or maybe not. At some point, you’ll know what the next step is for you.

This is just one of many different ways we can work with triggers. Shadow work helps us to be less controlled by our conditioning and inner demons, so we can return to our truest essence. The big triggers need big patience and support. And if we’re often holding space for other people’s triggered feelings, making room for our own is doubly important.

Anger is part of a guidance system–it points us toward boundaries that need setting and power that needs rebalancing. Once we’ve moved through its fire, we can use it as fuel for change. Rather than asking who is to blame or getting stuck ruminating over what other people are doing, we might look at questions such as: How can I accept my whole self, with all my feelings and history, and take courageous action from a place of centered clarity? What is my unique role here to play in the bigger context? As social beings, we have the power to regulate and disregulate each other. In tending to ourselves and showing up again to the complexities of living in society, we make a difference. 

The quieter voices in the room, just like the quieter voices in ourselves, have some important things to say. Listening and learning, we evolve together.

In the school of life with you, in gratitude for our connection,

Julia Aziz

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PS-If you need at-home support with the kind of shadow work we’re talking about, try the simple practice outlined in this little book. It’s an affordable, accessible resource for anyone feeling challenged by negative emotions and looking for a new way.

PPS-Here’s a song by the Middle East Peace Orchestra for more support to feel.

We each have our own role to play in the emergence of a new way. May those who are struggling for their lives, traumatized, and grieving be protected, supported, and loved. May the wisdom and power of our hearts prevail.

When you need a real refresh to keep going

/ Julia Aziz / 2 Comments

The summer intensity has been calling me back toward waterfalls again. This year, I’ve been playing with shifting my listening from one spot to the next, noticing how water bouncing off small rocks makes a tinkling sound under the noisy rush from heights above. The cascade’s separate sprays are like a crowd of different voices all talking at once, reminding me of the input overload so many of us feel these days. I try to hear one stream or another until I give up, listen to the whole chorus of voices together, and let it become one current, one being, one song. 

Sounds lovely, right, but how on earth do we let the current of our modern times sing us a song rather than slip us off the edge and take us down with it? “Go with the flow” won’t cut it. If we go with the flow of the collective, we are going down a dark vortex of strife and fear. So let’s pause for a moment from the many streams of deep grief, trauma, injustice, and tyranny and see if we can shift how we’re listening.

One of the aspects of waterfalls that strikes me this year is that the water only makes sound because of the rock. The flow is not separate from the hard places. I, like many, would usually prefer things progress forward in a direct line. But that’s not the way water, or life, moves. It curves over, under, and around the hard places, finding any way it can to keep flowing. We, too, must make contact with the rocky edges in ourselves and meander the curves to follow the course. The music is in keeping on.

I recently visited the waterfall I fell down a few years ago, and it, like many things, has changed. Time and weather has rearranged it. I’m a bit rearranged too, and maybe so are you. The way I see it, my Number One Job right now is to release negative thoughts and emotional tension as frequently as possible, so the waters don’t get muddied and stagnant, stuck in a puddle of doom. Letting go makes way for the flow to continue, showing the next right move at the next right time. We may want to get ahead of ourselves and hurry a plan, but like the water, the nature of life here on earth is that we move through what’s current before knowing what’s next. 

Releasing and renewing sounds easier than it is to remember and do. But I believe in you because if you can take a moment out of your busy day to read this, it means you can take a moment to refresh your mind, body, and precious heart too. If that sounds improbable or impossible, it’s time for more support. Support from people, the water, the birds, the ground, the breath, the body–much is available when we ask and open to it.

May the chorus of the world sound to you like perennial permission to pause and re-source yourself, so you can get back up stronger again and again and again.

With kindness,
Julia Aziz

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A Free Workshop to Relax, Renew, Release, and Empower in the New Year

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

“This is an amazing experience. I don’t think anyone could come away from this unchanged.” -past workshop participant
 


We’re moving into 2021 folks, and if there was ever a time to take responsibility for loving ourselves, releasing the past, and stepping forward with courage, this is it. You may have already heard me talking about the Release & Empower Online Community, and if you’ve been curious, here’s a chance to try it out! With therapeutic writing, movement, music, and guided meditation, this FREE and ONLINE workshop is a mini-retreat to:

  • Start this year by honoring your own rhythms
  • Hear what’s really going on inside your being
  • Move and vocalize in ways that unleash what’s been held too tightly
  • Relax into a loving wholeness and receive the guidance you need

Curious to learn more?
Sign up here to receive a free link to the workshop.

Note: The release & empower workshop is designed for helping professionals and other emotional caregivers. It’s powerful work and requires a certain level of social support and self-care grounding to integrate. If you’re really struggling with mental health right now and feel at the verge of a breakdown, this workshop will not be sufficient nor appropriate. If you don’t know where to turn, try a 24/7 free crisis hotline that can connect you with good and local support, or you can use this textline for help with coronavirus-related anxiety and grief.

May it be a truly new year for us all,

Julia

Enough already, and already it’s enough.

/ Julia Aziz / 1 Comment

I’ve been living in the same neighborhood for ten years now, and given that I take a walk at least once a day, I’m pretty familiar with my surroundings. There’s the blue house with the big cactus out front, the little library around the corner, the “for sale by owner” sign two blocks away… you get the picture. Seeing the same things every day can, as you may well know, get a little monotonous. Yesterday though, it occurred to me that I could walk in a different direction. That sounds obvious, I know, but taking a left from my front door means crossing a busy street, so I never go that way. Yesterday however, I turned left, waited to cross the street, and found myself in a neighborhood I had never seen before.

Listen, it wasn’t as if I discovered Shangri-la. It’s just another neighborhood, right? But yesterday it felt like grace, getting happily lost on unfamiliar streets with new sights to see. Of course this mini-adventure only came about because I decided to quit walking around in the same circles and instead notice what was already there. I tell you this simple story that’s barely a story at all because it’s reminiscent of a message that keeps coming to me these days: enough already, and already it’s enough. 

What have you had enough of already? I don’t just mean walking around in circles, covid, politics, zoom calls, etc. I mean what are you tiring of inside your own experience? Maybe it’s regretting the past, the “shoulda coulda woulda” internal conversation that never seems to resolve itself. Or maybe it’s complaining, comparing, blaming, guilting, or some other heavy pattern that has become so entrenched it’s easy to forget there is any other way to respond. What I’ve noticed in my own life, as well as in my experience supporting others through shadow work, is that if we get to know these patterns well, we can learn to recognize when they’ve taken hold, say “Enough already!” and experience a real shift. I’m not talking about some grand and fabulous transformation where you’re demanding a brand new you. Pushing yourself (or anyone else) into new awareness just does not work. What I’m talking about is, in your own time, finding the “no” that shows the way to your “yes”.

Take disappointment for example. If you’ve ever felt disappointed for a long stretch of time, whether that be by relationships, jobs, circumstances–you name it–you know that people and situations don’t always change and relieve you of feeling disappointed. If at some point, however, you say “enough already” and claim your needs as worthy of your own attention and love, no matter if the outside world fills them or not, you may feel a profound sense of power returning. When we acknowledge what didn’t happen and love who we are and what we have anyway… now that’s something new.

December is all about more, not less, in our modern culture. Yet here we are at the end of the fall season, a time when the trees lose the last of their leaves, and the sun sets into the darkening sky earlier each day. All is quieting, simplifying down only to what is most essential. This year we face limitations on our choices, and we grieve losses big and small. So I ask you, what still remains? What in your life is already enough?

I hope there is laughter in your tears and tears in your laughter in these changing times. We all could use some of both, I think. And thank you for reading these messages this year. May you find the courage and gentleness you need to keep going, no matter what.

Julia Aziz

PS- If you know you need more practice with setting boundaries on old patterns and recognizing you are enough, this little book is super affordable and available to all: When You’re Having A Hard Time: The Little Book That Listens. If you want to take it a step further, the Women’s Release & Empower Group continues to enroll wonderful, caring souls. Very little staring at screens, lots of space to be you.

PPS- Want to receive these monthly musings directly? Just subscribe here. It’s the best way for us to stay connected.

* Image by Mabel Amber from Pixabay

On falling apart and getting back up again

/ Julia Aziz / 2 Comments

We are moving through the Days of Awe in the Jewish tradition this week, a deeply reflective time that starts with an autumnal new year and ends with a holy day of fasting, accountability, and forgiveness. In this ten day period, each member of the community is asked to own up to the ways in which they have become out of alignment with what is true and loving. No one is exempt from this process, for it is understood that being a human being means wanting to do better and failing often. Throughout the High Holy Days, we speak aloud the many ways we have fallen off track, from being greedy and inconsiderate to talking unkindly behind someone’s back to not speaking up against injustice. Now, you might be thinking this is a big “oh, how guilty am I” vortex. But it’s really not. It’s not about self-hate; it’s about acknowledging human frailty, taking corrective action, and recovering our true essence again. 

It’s pretty easy to fall into burnout these days, to feel worn down and hopeless by the devastation and strife. Instead of resisting the call of grief, rage, and unresolved pain, these holidays remind us of the importance of safe spaces to feel. In a lovingly held container, we can be honest with ourselves about the hurt we have caused and the hurt we have incurred; we can shed the tears that have been held back day after day; we can give voice to how we participate in our own destruction. And then we look around and see how it’s not just us; everyone else is in this struggle too. So we dry our tears, stand on our own two feet again, and say, “Ok, this isn’t good. What can I do to make it better?”

Making amends is a centerpiece, the call to action during the Days of Awe. Sometimes there isn’t anything you can do to directly make things better, but when there is, you are asked to do that hard thing. When there’s no way to make amends directly, there’s almost always a way to pay it forward or to do some good in counterbalance. Most importantly, whatever action is called for, forgiveness is the way forward. After feeling the pain, owning what’s not working, and doing what can be done, the community together claims a fresh start. All old promises, broken vows, and missed chances are made null and void in one fell swoop. Clearing the past makes room for new intentions. We know we will fall down again, but this does not excuse us from getting back up. Perhaps what is most brave about humans is the way we start over after feeling like all hope was lost. We say, “I am going to do my best, again.”

It will always be enough. 

If you don’t yet have a place you regularly go to safely unravel, I highly recommend finding one soon. We must build emotional and spiritual strength to face these next few months and whatever they bring. We absolutely can’t wait on the world to get better so we can feel better. Things are likely to become even more strained in this country, and we need the ones who care to be as powerfully connected and emboldened for the good as possible. That inner strength is very hard to find without a safe place to feel how it’s all affecting our own sensitive nervous systems. If you haven’t checked it out yet, our women’s group still has openings. This is a place women grieve, rage, fear, feel… and then we dust off, re-center, and re-align with what we know to be true, a wholeness that no one can take from us. A weekly mini-retreat like this may not change the world, but the people who are replenishing their spirits in this and other ways are the only ones who can, together.

Together, we grieve. Together, we work towards the best we can imagine, each bringing our own gifts to the table, at our own pace. I want to hear your best ideas and what you’re willing to let go of to know more peace. It’s OK to mess up, and it’s OK to hurt. When we feel it and own it, we can make changes, accept, and move forward. You are good enough, my friend. You’re here, and the people before you who had to survive many hardships for you to be here tell me: your existence is a miracle. How will you live it?

Wishing you kindness towards the struggle, and a new beginning each and every day, 

Julia Aziz

PS–If you’re giving a lot of energy and attention to other people or to the world in general, I’d love to support you in making space for your own emotional release and spiritual renewal. Here’s a recent comment about Release & Empower from FB: “It’s absolutely phenomenal! I highly recommend it to anyone who is considering. You will find yourself saying, “This is exactly what I needed!” If you can’t join the group, but you know you need help making space to feel, here’s a little book to support you: When You’re Having A Hard Time: The Little Book That Listens.

Would you like to connect more? You can sign up for my newsletter and receive monthly reflections as well as information about upcoming offerings.

How we are with each other

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

Sixteen years ago, I worked as a counselor for a nonprofit that was run by the consensus process. When I first started there, I was so excited. I envisioned a place where everyone’s voice was heard and counted equally, a highly evolved and cooperative utopia. The reality, however, was more challenging. Everyone’s voice was certainly heard, but often for long, drawn out meetings. Minor decisions had to be debated and postponed week after week until an agreement could be reached. As we know, opinions don’t change easily. Sharing new ideas doesn’t mean other people will be receptive to them. And if everybody’s talking, who is there to listen? 

I learned a lot from participating in the consensus process, and while I still deeply respect the model, I realized I don’t have the inner patience for it. Hearing too many opinions drains my compassion. My favorite way of being in community is more nonverbal. Some years before that nonprofit job, during a work exchange at a yoga retreat center, I had my first experience of group sharing without cross-talk. Being together in silence, owning our experiences, and sharing without the interference of others’ judgments was a relief and a revelation. Not only did we leave those meetings more centered and connected, making clear choices came easier too.  

It’s tricky, interacting with other people these days. It’s hard not to get pulled into a downward spiral of how terrible everything is and what should or shouldn’t be happening. Sure, it can be interesting to hear what you think about it all, but what I really want to know is, what is giving you strength each day? How are you keeping your heart open? In today’s world, where so little is actually known or understood, opinions feel even less compelling to me. I wonder more what changes are growing in you.

As a dear friend said to me yesterday, it’s compost time. If triggering information and opinions are going to keep coming in, all that heavy mental-emotional energy needs to be regularly let out. I’ve been hearing people say that everyone is going to need therapy when this is all over, as if mental health is something we can put on hold to deal with on some future, easier day. Mental health is not a matter of keeping it all together until the outside world improves. Let’s please not hold our breaths like that. There’s another way, one that has been around much longer than modern psychology or colonialist times. We can ritually call in, feel, and release the strong and messy feelings on purpose. When we do this letting go together in a protected and loving container, the relief is exponential. We can find both our own hearts and each other again. 

No matter what is lost, no matter what comes next, I am grateful to be moving through change with you.

With care,

Julia Aziz

PS- I’ve been studying different holistic helping modalities for many years now, and I still find profound worth in the most simple practice of being quiet together in community, listening to each other and witnessing without offering opinions. As many of you know, we do this type of sharing at the end of the Release & Empower Women’s Group Program. The experience is not passively receiving information staring at yet another screen in a webinar; it’s being together in privacy at home, actively letting stuck energies move through the mind, body, and heart without advice or judgments getting in the way. It’s designed for helping professionals, moms, and other emotional caregivers who often hold themselves together in service to others. Check it out if that sounds nourishing to you!

Note: If you’re really struggling with mental health right now and feel at the verge of a breakdown, the group program will not be sufficient nor appropriate. If you don’t know where to turn, try a 24/7 free crisis call and text hotline that can connect you with good and local support. Help is available, and I encourage you to receive it when you need it! 

PPS- To receive reflections like this one in your inbox, just sign up here.

Who do you want to be in the chaos?

/ Julia Aziz / 1 Comment

Lately, I’ve been sitting with this question. I started contemplating it when a series of events involving structures crumbling, health breakdowns, and fallen leadership occurred in my personal life within the span of a few days. There’s nothing particularly unusual about this kind of chaos right now. The disruptive energy of change is here. There is no avoiding it. When everything starts falling apart at once, my automatic response is usually multi-tasking, over-helping, and overdrive. But that sort of high-speed crisis management is not really the best I have to offer, and I’ve been learning how to consciously shift out of that pattern more quickly. It’s actually not who I want to be in the chaos. 

I was sitting in the silence of Community Wellness Hour a few Wednesdays ago when the answer to my question came.

It was a tree.

A huge redwood tree, rooted in the mountains for more than a hundred years, reaching into the sky with branches that dance in even the strongest wind. 

But that’s not it!

Also a bird in that tree.

A bird like an eagle, or perhaps a phoenix. A bird who soars above, seeing what only one with such freedom and perspective can see.

And…

A nest for that bird in that tree, made out of what is available. Holding what is most precious.

A safe place for the vulnerable growing strong.
 

There’s a whole lot going on out there, and in here. Change, especially big change, is messy. And change at a large scale is kind of terrifying. When the structures, the leadership, and the systems fall apart, as far as I can see, there is only one way to turn: inside and to each other.

This is exactly why I started the women’s release and empower group. If we don’t give ourselves permission and space to release the stress that builds up, no one will. We have to move through the chaos we’re absorbing so we can be strong, clear, and wise when we need to be. No one–no therapist, no doctor, no teacher, no guru–can do this for you. They can guide you on the path, but only you can walk it. We need to do our own self-healing work, and we do it best when we’re together. Only then can we show up with the kind of loving presence and courage that is needed in this crazy world.

One thing I know for sure: everything can fall apart, and you can still have your heart. There are a thousand examples of this. Take Victor Frankl of Man’s Search for Meaning or Anita Moorjani of Dying To Be Me. Take every brave person who keeps their compassion at a job in the hospital, the prison, the social service agency, the shelter, or the walk-in clinic. A holy mess is happening, and it may become the norm for periods of time. So I ask you, who do you want to be in the chaos? We are all needed here.

With so much faith in you,

Julia Aziz

PS– If you’re curious about the women’s group program, check it out at this link: Release & Empower. Or, if you’d just like to stay a little more connected, sign up for my mailing list here.