empowerment

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

Orienting in uncertainty

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

This past summer I got to have another face-to-face encounter with a black bear. I was going down the winding mountain trail, she was going up, and we both stopped short upon meeting each other. I took a small step back to give her more space, trying not to fall off the mountainside. She quickly sussed me out, then turned and headed into the forest. I stood there watching her go, wistful and graced.

Every time I see a bear, I’m struck by the relaxed, easeful way they move. When they encounter something unexpected, they’re immediately alert and responsive. Then they go back to being relaxed again. Wouldn’t this be a powerful way to approach the uncertainty of our times? Relaxed and responsive, calm and available to act when needed. I like it!

I think about bears more often than most, but I still get the shock of “Oh! This is really happening now!” when I actually see one. Most of life is not so compelling. This kind of wake up call to aliveness is harder to come by when paying bills or brushing teeth. Though those mundane tasks may be exactly where more presence could help!

It makes me think of my dear friend Svenja, who died this past spring on the precipice of becoming an empty-nester. Sven was a master of savoring the moment, someone I could always count on to both dive deep and find humor in all things. On hospice care in her final weeks, one of the last texts she sent me said:

“I don’t feel like talking, It’s all a bunch of Hoo Ha. I just want to see stuff and taste stuff…”

It is all a bunch of Hoo Ha, isn’t it? We only get the moments we get. It’s a gift when we fully experience the small, everyday sensory experiences while they’re here. After all, this is really happening right now!

The point isn’t to be commanding “Be grateful!” at ourselves or each other in the little moments. Like Sven, who didn’t like to be too precious about things, we can take the pressure off. Savoring is not clinging–it fiercely appreciates then lets go. Savor and release. Relax and respond. Here and now, here and now.

I used to build forts in the woods with the neighbor kids when I was young. Storms would come, we would forget about these refuges for a while, then we’d go back and have to refortify. I think we’re in a time of inner fortification right now. We’re remembering what matters, replenishing the strength and courage we’ll need as our collective human story continues. My question is, what is this time of change asking of you?

Wishing you time to reflect, savor, and fortify—not just now, but any time you need to,

Julia Aziz

PS–If you’d like more support navigating these challenging times, we have spots available in the next season of Release & Empower: A Group Program for Women Moving Through Change. Or if you’d prefer individual counseling, please check out my psychotherapy page.

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When you’re asking “Why is this happening?”

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

I was walking along a forest trail a few months ago when a scrambling sound came from high up above. Then suddenly a turtle came rolling down the hillside, landing shell-side-up in front of my feet! Many of you know how much I love a good nature metaphor, but I’ve been contemplating this falling turtle for a while, and I haven’t been able to make much sense of it. (Don’t worry about the turtle though, he was stunned but OK!)

One of the most common questions I hear is “Why?” Why do I feel this way? Why is so-and-so behaving like this? Why is this issue coming up again when I thought I already dealt with it? A lot of people come to therapy with these kinds of why questions. It’s often a genuine wish for understanding, a hope that by seeking answers, clarity and resolution will arrive. Yet all sorts of dynamics are at play in any given situation. Our human perspective isn’t wide or nuanced enough; we can only analyze so far until we’re going in circles. Living on this earth planet in this vast galaxy, there’s a lot more to life than we can possibly get a grip on.

When I was a young person entering the professional fields of mental health and spirituality, I was seeking answers to many “why’s”. Now when I catch myself asking “why,” I turn towards the “how”. How do I live this? Sometimes that “how” might include deep somatic or expressive processing; sometimes it might involve simply accepting what is and turning towards the next small step. Without answers to seek, we can take our time, slowly living our way through.

Turtle

When we dig deeper, sometimes what’s hard isn’t so much the lack of understanding, but the wish for the past, or the present, to be different. Maybe we’re looking for someone or something to blame–or maybe we feel guilty and ashamed because we blame ourselves. You know what I say to that? F-it. Don’t let the spiritual bully get you. Stumble, fall down, sit still, keep going, whatever you need to do. Like that adventurous turtle that didn’t know what was coming, we adapt as we go. While we may not arrive at complete answers, we’ll have a new story to tell.

Wishing you some ease and kindness towards yourself,

Julia Aziz

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Photo by Bogdan Costin on Unsplash. Photo is of a different turtle than the one I saw hurtle down the hill, but I can assure you, my turtle friend survived and went on his merry way.

New Podcast Interview on Self-Healing, Spirituality, and Therapy

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“I just gave and gave and gave. And now you’re telling me I’m the one inside, I have to heal myself?!?”

If you spend time helping or caring for other people, you may resonate with this question Sindee posed to me in our recent conversation about self-healing. It’s a valid point! How do we show up for others as well as ourselves when we’re depleted or going through our own struggles? I hope you give this interview a listen. I so enjoyed discussing shifting perspective in how we approach service and the importance of nourishing our own spiritual lives. 

Though this interview is part of a therapist podcast, its underlying message is truly for any individual who is often supporting others. I hope you know how much you matter–not just because of what you are to other people, but because you exist here too! 

With love,
Julia Aziz

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How this new year might be different

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

As I was leaving the farmer’s market this weekend, a young man called out, “2023 is going to be the best year ever!!!” I turned and said curiously, “Really?” We laughed together about how “best ever” may be too heavy an expectation to lay on 2023. Instead we agreed on wishing each other fresh new beginnings and an excellent new year.

There definitely seems to be a general sense of possibility in the air. I’m hearing people ready for something new and wanting lasting change, though also still struggling through plenty of chaos and grief. Like many of you, I’m over it when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, but the collective desire for transformation is definitely fuel for whatever we’re hoping to do right now. It’s a great time to welcome new beginnings while integrating the wisdom of what we’ve learned about power and limitations.

The pretense of what I’ll call the “marketing of manifestation” is falling by the wayside. Change doesn’t always pan out so well when we’re muscling through life, shouting, “I want this, and I’m going to make it happen!” If we haven’t learned by now we’re not in control here, I don’t know how we will. On the other hand, we certainly have a major role to play in what happens next. We can start down the road of our choosing with vision, courage, and flexibility–or not. We can be creative with the obstacles that impede our best laid plans–or we can resist them with all our might. We have choices, often and always.

Integrating both intentionality and receptivity might look a little different from the usual new year goal-setting process. Instead of “what do I want?” we might ask:

What will help me to open and meet life this year?

What do I feel called towards?

What changes are in right timing?

Intentions are only the beginning, just like this week is only week one. Purposeful change begins with clarity and continues with the unglamorous-but-necessary quality of perseverance–that slow, persistent willingness to keep taking the next small step on the winding path each day. More than an online quiz with a formula for what to do, then trying hard and giving up when willpower runs out, I invite you to find supports that will help you chart your own course, grow from failure, and re-open to life again and again.

Where is support showing up that I can receive more fully?

If you’re a woman who is often supporting other people in *their* changes, do check out the new year Release & Empower Women’s Circles. This program was created specifically to support *you* in maintaining the changes you want to make and in moving through those changes you didn’t count on. If this group isn’t resonant for you, I know there are plenty of ways a person can find accountability for keeping on the heart’s path. We know we will fall off again and again this year. We’re mere humans, and we are lovable when we dream big and when we fall short too. We are enough, and we keep going, together.

Wishing you less pressure and more ease in all that you create and all that unfolds this year, 

Julia Aziz

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When you’re getting weary and burning out

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

A few weeks ago, I presented a continuing education workshop for mental health professionals on burnout and compassion fatigue. I didn’t share it with y’all because those particular words feel so stale and overused these days. What are we really talking about here?

  • Feeling inwardly irritable or cranky towards clients, children, elderly parents, or other people you serve, though you keep showing up for them
  • Getting scattered and flitting from thought to thought as you respond to multiple demands
  • Intellectually knowing you care about people or issues but not *feeling* that care in your body
  • Trying to do too much and feeling drained and tired hours before it’s time to sleep
  • Being unable to do much beyond what is expected, with every day feeling like more of the same
  • Ruminating on other people’s trauma and trying to fix things out of your control
  • Frequent contemplation of changing careers or what life would be like without your current caregiving role(s)

If you’ve experienced one or more of these symptoms, it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person or an impostor. You’re a person who is trying to meet a lot of outer expectations and doing the best you can. The balance of what’s coming in and out just isn’t working. 

Moving from burnout to reigniting the flame within

I often think of burnout as the passionate and loving heart burning down to a low flame, maybe even just the hot coals, with no one feeding or tending the fire. If it extinguishes itself, you’re left out in the cold. If the right wind blows, you might flare up again, but the heat and energy will likely be scattered, maybe even perilous with no one there to support or contain it.

To find enthusiasm for life and the service we do, we must tend the inner fires of compassion and inspiration. But what does that mean?

Here’s my three cents: 

(1) Regularly clearing out what doesn’t burn to make more space for the good wood. In addition to good “emotional hygiene”, this means paying honest attention to what is wearing you out and being willing to make courageous choices about what you give and don’t give your precious life energy towards.

(2) Creating a good container to protect the fire. No one else is going to track what you’re doing all day long and insist you prioritize your own needs in real, tangible ways. Only you can carve out and protect the space you need.

(3) Feeding the fire with new experiences, authentic expression of what you really feel, and creativity that nourishes the inner wild one. When you feel like you’ve lost your mojo, it may be time to mix things up.

Gathering around the collective fire

Changes like this can be hard work, especially when you’re already weary! Sometimes the burnout has gone on too long and to truly warm up and burn bright again, we first need deep quiet and rest. Then it’s time to rebuild with some dedicated time, support, and a much bigger blaze. That’s why I’m so passionate about community healing work (and what the Release & Empower Women’s Circle* is all about). When individually, you have only a little light left to share, you can offer it up to a larger fire. In surrendering over and over again, you may find yourself slowly rising from the ashes, finding passion and compassion bit by bit, energized by the fuel of being amongst fellow humans doing the same.

I hope one way or another, you always find a little light nearby and know there is one within you too. You are doing good work out there! May all that you give come back to you tenfold, even in unexpected ways.

With kindness,

Julia Aziz

*In the past few years of facilitating the Release & Empower Women’s Circle, I’ve witnessed women making brave changes in their work, relationships, health, and lives, not to mention those inner changes in freedom, confidence, and authenticity. These changes are theirs to claim, not mine. This is just what happens when women come together to re-ignite their inner fire. Check out the group page for more details and to sign up for our next season.

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Image by Leandro De Carvalho from Pixabay 

Podcast Interview for Therapists and Other Helping Professionals

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How are you supposed to help other people when you’re struggling yourself? 

I hear this question all the time in my work with helping professionals and moms. You’re not immune to personal and collective stress, yet somehow you need to keep showing up with a clear mind and full heart for the people you serve. You may have days when you feel overwhelmed by the world, unsure about everything, and barely making it through, but you can’t just phone it in. So when you have a big life stressor or three to deal with, what’s a caring person to do? 

Well, let’s first look at the assumptions we’re starting with in asking this question. Many individuals in helping roles learned early on that their value depended on what they could do for other people. When a sense of self-worth gets attached to other people’s needs, a belief begins to develop that may remain subconscious for years, namely: “Other people can struggle, but I’m supposed to be strong.” I call this the hidden ego of helpers, this idea that we somehow should be Zen masters in all areas of life and above the pain and suffering that affects everyone else.

It’s a nice thought, aside from being an impossible ideal not fit for a complex and genuine human being. So let’s chuck that one in the recycling bin for a moment, and release any pretense about who and what you are supposed to be. When it comes to supporting other people, rather than be a not-good-enough expert, how about showing up instead as a curious student of life? If we get out of trying to be the all-knowing, we can get into being the all-learning.

There’s a lot more nuance to discuss here, which is why I did this recent podcast interview on The Integrity Challenge of Being A Person & Being A Therapist. If you’re a helping professional of any kind or an empathic person often tending to other people’s needs, it was created for you.

Thank you for all the care you offer and for just being here and human,

Julia Aziz


***This podcast interview can be listened to for free on Spotify and all the usual podcast platforms. Mental health professionals can also earn CEU credit if they take the post-test through Clearly Clinical.***

It takes a special kind of persistence to keep showing up when we’re knocked down so often by a world falling to pieces. We need the practice of getting re-centered more than ever, and we need each other to keep us honest in it. That’s why I believe so strongly in the model of self-healing in community and the Release & Empower Women’s Group Program. Find more details on the group page, or sign up on an interest list here.

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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What it means to heal yourself, and how “self-healing” is misnamed, incomplete, and so needed

/ Julia Aziz / Leave a comment

Have you ever sat by a waterfall in the forest, relaxed in a hammock on the beach, or watched an impressively colorful sunset and felt… nothing? Beauty and peace surround you, yet you’re lost in your own troubles. Maybe you’ve even had that experience with helping professionals, going to therapists and bodyworkers and life coaches and doctors and still, you remain caught in the same struggle that brought you there. It’s an awful feeling, like being handed a beautiful gift made just for you, only you can’t reach out your hands to accept it. You might decide the gift is not right for you and continue your search for more and new and better gifts. But what will help you to receive them?

As many of you know, I am a huge proponent of what I call “self-healing.” This phrase wasn’t super popular long ago, but much like “mindfulness” and “energy work,” it’s becoming so commonplace, it’s losing all meaning. So let me clarify the essence and the hype, as I see it.

What self-healing is not

When we are suffering, the darkness feels more real than the light. Finding solutions to problems in that dark place can seem pointless and burdensome. Self-healing, contrary to its name, is not about pulling yourself up by your bootstraps and applying that independent, self-reliant, cowboy attitude to recovering from burnout and trauma. It’s not about undergoing a multitude of different therapeutic modalities or taking every nutritional supplement or psychedelic medicine available on this earth, though your own self-healing process may certainly include some of these wonderful tools and teachers. Self-healing is also not about manifesting everything you desire or replacing social needs with spiritual pursuits. And just like an outside person can’t make a change happen in you, no “self” can force you to think and feel differently either. 

What self-healing is

Self-healing is an opening. It is being able to see and acknowledge whatever kind of angsty mess we might find ourselves in for the moment. It is surrendering from the struggle to make it all better, a giving up on the attempt to figure it out. Self-healing, in the way I practice and understand it, is being willing to accept life on its own terms and to follow the step that shows up next like one would follow a flashlight through a dark cave. The actual steps are unique to each of us and the timing is as important as what actions we take. In essence, though, self-healing includes both some stepping up and some stepping back:

Stepping Up

We accept we can’t delegate our ability to feel better about ourselves and our lives to outward circumstances or to someone else. We don’t wait on what is outside our control to change. We give up the quest for the final answer being out there somewhere someone else has hidden, and take loving responsibility for our own internal experience of this life. We tell the truth to ourselves about how we’re doing and use our will to be willing.

Stepping Back

We slow down and let in the support that is already available. Maybe there’s a passerby that makes eye contact and smiles, a cardinal that lands on a nearby tree branch, a cooling tea with just the right herbal blend, a song, a movement, or a powerful ally or ancestor unseen by others. The form the support takes is irrelevant–what matters is we’ve let down our guard and allowed the spirit of what is present to touch us. The natural flow of life is healing itself when we stop blocking it. We learn how to receive, which, most simply put, is how to relax around what is. 

We think we need to feel better; often what we really need is to release resistance to what we actually feel and allow the everyday magic to do its thing. Healing as a noun is still a verb—it’s a process unfolding all the time. Shit happens and you can befriend yourself through it or abandon yourself. Self-healing is about learning to be your own champion, your own rescuer, your own beloved. Not because you have a big ego and can do all those things, but because you know you can’t. It’s like the little fuzzy caterpillars I’ve been seeing on my morning walks these days. I was looking at them and thinking about how they will become butterflies. Then I saw one being eaten by a chipmunk. All is not light and wonder. Healing is transcendence but not always through outer transformation. 

The caveat

The individual’s decision to accept rather than resist is a turning point, not the whole story. We are each unique beings, but we are also part of a much larger organism, beyond our own families and loved ones. We are not separate from the earth we walk on nor the child on the other side of the globe. We affect each other. We can trigger each other like crazy, but we can also heal together in depths we can’t reach alone. There is quite a lot of stepping up and stepping back that needs to be done in community as well. Self-healing is essential: only you can choose to be willing and open. Self-healing is incomplete: like trees in the forest, we may seem separate above ground, but our roots are interconnected.

I hope whatever you’ve got going on now, you’re connecting in a way that is nourishing for you. For the empaths and the sensitives, that way may look quieter and more intentionally slowed down, and that’s absolutely OK. For some of us, being in public spaces is harder than turning in to the introvert’s cave. We’re all working things out somehow though. Thank goodness we’ve got ourselves and each other for company on this wild ride. 

Julia Aziz

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PRACTICE NEWS

I am beyond excited about the next cycle of the Release & Empower Women’s Circle, where self-healing in community moves beyond theory to practice. Women who give much of their time and attention to others are coming together in a sacred space for their own self-healing. We are upleveling the energetic container of the online experience, syncing up with the rhythms of nature, and amplifying the creativity and power of women. Read more about the women’s circle here to see if it would be a good fit for you or to apply.
 

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