Elevating My Practices

Doing Less to Offer More

Merry Christmas and Happy Hannukah ~ & soon-to-be a Happy New Year as well!

My holiday gift to you is a free Write to Heal event ~ Wake Up & Write ~ on Friday, Jan 3 from 9-945am EST.

We'll begin with intentional breathing and a body scan before writing with multiple powerful prompts to start the new year with eyes wide open. We'll end with a community share circle for those willing to be vulnerable. Head to My Shop to save your spot. It's my gift to you - all you need to do is gift yourself the time!

Do Less

During this dark season, I’ve been trying my best to do less and sharing many of the ways I’ve been focusing on rest in my most recent posts and notes.

Do Less

With that intention, here are a few game-changers from this past month:

• I made a virtual Christmas Card. No printing, no postage, and no hand cramps addressing envelopes. This triple threat saved me money, time, and stress. Instead, I texted the card individually to friends and family with a message. It led to many text convos which was more engagement than I'd get when someone received a card in the mail. Going paperless is better for the environment too ~ I’m doing this again next year.

• We moved Christmas. My extended family gathering moved years ago to be the Saturday before or after Christmas to ensure everyone can attend. So this year, my husband and I held our Christmas morning a day early! We opened our family’s gifts before the holiday to allow time to savor the spirit of Christmas morning. He had his coffee, I had my tea, and we joyfully opened our gifts without rushing while a light snow fell outside. To me, that snow signaled that we were meant to be taking it slow and enjoying the morning. This allowed us to wake up slower on Christmas Day since we didn’t have to squeeze in our morning celebration before heading to my mom’s house for brunch and then his family’s house for dinner. It allowed us to enjoy both days with more intention.

• I didn’t make everything homemade. Maybe this one feels like a bit too far for my traditionalists, but I still made my mom’s world-famous macaroni and cheese for family parties (3x over the past week)! I just made sure to not overdo it and bought some treats instead of making them all myself. People love the caramel apples from a local woman who makes them at home and sells them out of a temperature-controlled shed in her driveway so I supported local and bought a bunch of her treats to serve at the family gatherings. While I made one cheesecake for a party (gluten-free and dairy-free for me), I bought 2 regular ones for everyone else, and we all enjoyed the sweet treat.

• I moved slower at yoga. I often take vinyasa classes at my home studio enjoying the sweat that comes from the vigorous flow. But during this dark season, I found myself moving a bit slower in class and intentionally moving with my breath. Sometimes I was a few poses behind the rest of the class, but I didn’t let that speed me up. Honoring my body and my needs was empowering. I also showed up to more yin classes, which is more of a mental challenge than a physical one, holding each pose in silence and stillness for up to 5 minutes.

These are just some examples of how I focused my attention on taking it easy on myself and not allowing the stress of the season to take over.

How are you using this season of rest to do less?

Word of the Year

Intentionality has been a critical part of my healing journey. By setting aside time to sit and write and focusing my energy around what I want, like doing less this time of year, I am making real strides in my overall wellness - including my mental, physical, spiritual, and social health as well as financial and intellectual wellness.

Last week, I shared about the power of having a Word of the Year practice, including a few of the prompts I use each year. You can read the full post below:

Word of the Year Practice Prompts

Leading up to my practice this year, I was giddy and eager to discover my word. The last 6 word choices have been transformative and guided my life in unexpected ways - including here to create this Write to Heal community. Since I never know what’s coming and don’t plan for it, I’m always surprised by what bubbles to the surface.

I found my Word of 2025 during a roughly 3-hour writing practice that included reflecting on 2024 and writing about how I wanted to feel and experience 2025.

One of the prompts I used was to write out my ideal day in 2025 being very specific from waking up to bedtime. After that ideal day was identified, I added additional weekly or monthly activities I wanted to experience, as well as how to celebrate special occasions in my ideal year. What surprised me was how much I wrote about the life I’m currently living!

I am living the life I’ve dreamt about and always imagined!

Me, John, and Charlie hiking at the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon

What kept coming up was how to maintain the mindset that keeps me focused on the joy of everyday life and to keep up with the practices that keep my mind, body, and spirit strong. I want to keep writing but also offer more writing opportunities for others since I know how powerful it can be.

It’s wild to think that in 2021 my word of the year was Healing as I needed to find strength, hope, and love within myself. Now I have all that and more! And it’s because of the practices, like the weekly journal writing and the Word of the Year writing practice, that I can say that I have this abundant life now.

Towards the end of the practice, I wrote that I wanted:

• To keep living my abundant life with gratitude, finding joy in all things and balancing with deep rest as I’ve been, and continuing to keep contentment a daily focus

• Maintain but deepen my meditation practice

• To double down on therapy

• Keep and enhance my daily routines of movement like long walks with the dog, hiking, and yoga but adding dance back to my life

• to purchase a vacation home - which has been on our agenda for a few years, just waiting for the right house but I think this is the year!

• to level up my Substack offerings in the Write to Heal community

All these ideas merged in my mind to create the word ELEVATE.

Writing has been a healing force and that led to peace of mind and freedom from diminishing myself. Through consistent effort in writing - first my book and later writing here on Substack to play around by writing with and for others, I am now ready to level up and turn my self-care into community care ~ the true goal of all spiritual work.

• 2019: Presence

• 2020: Peace

• 2021: Healing

• 2022: Freedom

• 2023: Consistency

• 2024: Playfulness

• 2025: Elevate

I typically choose a word that is a feeling, so I googled "elevate feeling words" and it said euphoric or giddy. There it is - I came full circle. I was giddy about the practice and I’m giddy about the outcome.

That’s the power of writing - finding yourself right where you are and helping guide the way forward.

Elevated Offerings

Combining my plans of doing less and finding deep rest - along with elevating what I can offer the world - I am no longer running the monthly Learning Circle. I’ve been running the book club with a self-study twist for 3 full years and it’s been a beautiful journey. I’ve met amazing people and discovered much more than good books. That life-changing experience, and everyone who joined over the years, will remain within my heart.

Moving forward, I’ll be using that time to offer a free Write to Heal community circle so mark your calendar for the last Tuesday of each month! The first circle will be on January 28 from 745pm-9pm EST on Zoom. Save your spot and get the zoom link in My Shop.

At each meeting, we’ll get into our bodies with breathwork or simple stretches before journaling together. We’ll have a few different prompts and at the end, anyone is welcome to share anything that came up for them, or not. I’m offering something similar next Friday as my holiday gift to the world ~ Wake Up and Write: January 3 at 9am. Check that out too!

I’m also working on an exciting new opportunity: A Writer’s Yoga Retreat held at a book-themed hotel here in Pennsylvania! We’ll have quiet time to read or write in the beautiful library, walk the grounds together with a senses-inspired scavenger hunt, and share our words around a firepit. With yoga asana optional in the morning and a yin class before bed, I’m creating my dream retreat to share with you all!

More info coming very soon ~ so stay tuned!

Journal Prompts:

1. Write out your ideal daily life for 2025 being as specific as you can be while also being realistic (You are not magically able to shirk your responsibilities but live within your means). Include what time you wake up, how you spend your morning, what you do with your days, what dinner time looks like, how you spend your evenings, and your bedtime routine. Once done, review it and compare it to your current life. What are small ways you can make parts of that ideal life a reality? How can you bring more gratitude into your life for what you already have?

2. In my Word of the Year practice, I often think about my life within the 6 dimensions of wellness: mental health, physical health, spiritual health, financial health, social health, and intellectual health (like job/skills/hobbies). Write out a few goals for each of the categories by asking this question: How do I want to feel about my X health in 2025? What can I do to ensure I feel that way?

3. How can you elevate your current writing practices? Through new writing prompts, more time spent writing, enhancing your writing space, sharing within the Write to Heal or other communities? Maybe by attending a Writer’s Yoga Retreat in Pennsylvania this spring?!

Join me for my next FREE Workshop - Wake Up & Write - on Friday, January 3 from 9am-945am EST. We'll begin with an activating body scan, then write with powerful prompts for starting the new year with eyes wide open, and end with a community share circle. No writing experience is necessary!

Wake Up & Write Workshop

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Fragile Thoughts: A Healing Memoir is available anywhere books are sold. My book was published in 2023 by New Degree Press and now the audiobook is live!

Thank you for reading Write to Heal. Please hit that heart button❤️if you made it this far. Please join me in the comments or chat to share your thoughts. I’d love to know about your Word of the Year practice ~