Tag: Massage Therapy

Summer Solstice Reflections

Summer Solstice Reflections

Amber_Young

Last night we gathered for our monthly community restorative practice, it felt timely. This potent point in cycle marks this time when the sun has bloomed in it’s fullness before the slow incremental shift as the darkness will once again slowly return.

This cycle of growing lightness and growing darkness beckons every year, the wheel keeps turning, and both are needed.

The days following the summer solstice can sometimes whisper a little louder for contemplation and quiet as the days start to retreat – and after the increased energy the solstice often brings. Honouring the quiet, simmering in the gifts of the light.

At the height of the season – during the solstice, when the sun is at its fullest, we’re invited to connect with the expansive, energizing qualities of summer, and then we get to allow that light and healing to simmer in our bones as we drink it in deeply to help to resource us for the days ahead. This gift of simmering can happen through the spaciousness of time this season brings, opportunities to connect with water, physically resting your body on the earth, feeling the warmth of the sun, and time with the bees, the butterfly’s and the dragonfly’s.

The Summer Solstice, like the winter solstice and our spring and fall equinox, are natural pause points in the wheel of the year —times for clarity, reflection, and quiet transformation – all having their own gifts with where we are in cycle. In my heart, these still points are an opportunity to reconnect with what feels true and meaningful.

It’s been profound this year, amidst everything – witnessing the world responding to this transition into summer; as creatures have returned, communities of birds have made their way back to summertime feedings, the flowers are slowly opening, the grasses have grown, and life in the garden is emerging.

Honouring all the threads of community in the more than human world.

Our lives are informed by what we focus our energy on, I am reminded that this is something I get to choose, and so do you – where we focus our energy. Our rhythms, our thoughts, our practices, our communities come to grow in the gardens we nourish – both within as well as in the ripples that extend outwards.

I wonder

What are we nourishing? Individually and collectively

What seeds are we planting for the unfolding of our own lives, and thinking about the generations to come?

What is asking for care and tending inside of you in this season of your life?

I’m grateful to be here with you, and am sending you so much love for the expanding threshold of light that this time of year has brought us.

With so much love

Amber

bee sipping nectar on flower during daytime

Our next monthly community restorative class will be held Monday, July 20th from 7:00 – 8:30 pm EST. You can register below if you’d like to join us. July’s practice is free for everyone as an offering of support to community.

Restorative Yoga – Monday, July 20th 7:00 pm EST

This summer I’ll be sharing another 30 days of FREE tending your inner garden practices for Brooksong, as part of our annual summer fundraiser.

I hope some of you will join me for a 30 day community commitment to move, sing, breathe and explore creativity. The 30 days of recorded practices are free for everyone, with the option to make a donation to Brooksong.

If you’d like more information you can read my full blog post

Brooksong Summer Fundraiser + 30 Days of Free practices starting July 20th

I’m also sharing a link if you’d like to just sign up for the Free 30 day commitment of self care practices in honour of your personal tending through the summer.

30 days of practices – Tending Your Inner Garden

Inner Guidance

Inner Guidance

Amber_Young

For thousands of years our ancestors have connected with the stars to help presence themselves upon the earth. Looking up at the sky we’re reminded of how we are a small and sacred part of a great wide vast web of life – beyond our conscious knowing.

The wisdom that travels through to us when we quietly connect with our natural world has the possibility of helping to support us through challenging times in our lives, as a way of self care.  An anchor for me has been to go outside on a clear night and simply look up, I did this just last night after a special practice, gazing up at the stars and the moon almost in her fullness.

The stars are always there, shifting in their placement as we move through the seasons, but constant. It feels like they hold us in their loving gaze and presence. 

 In these quiet moments of wonder you may even notice your breath naturally travel a little deeper, and what emerges is often the truth of how you’re actually doing. When we give ourselves time to listen and be fully present to the experience our nervous systems are soothed, and we may even hear  guidance about questions we’ve been pondering in unexpected ways.   

As I look out my window, now in this moment on a cold and sunny Monday morning in Eastern Ontario, the first tides of spring are moving through the land (yes, even on this chilly day). We ready ourselves for the coming equinox and the constellations shift in the sky to where we are in cycle. This time of year our natural world whispers reminders that the warmer days of spring are coming as we find ourselves now past the coldest darkest days of winter.

The times we are living in are confusing, overwhelming, and sometimes it can be hard to maintain a sense of hope.  Some days it may feel difficult to decipher your own truth amidst the chaos in our external world.   I think sometimes the noise and chaos around us can easily throw us off course, and often quiets our guidance so it seems almost imperceptible. I’m writing about the stars because maybe in those quiet moments of reflection they can help to guide you to that place of hope and clarity that is quietly pulsing deep inside – even amidst the chaos.

The macrocosm of our world is changing, and the future is filled with so many unknowns.  If we’re being honest the future has and will always be filled with unknowns, we have no idea what our next steps hold, however we do get to choose how we move in those steps.  

Our self care requires us to begin by checking in with how we’re actually doing and showing ourselves compassion by feeling the sadness and overwhelm, the joy and excitement, the anger and the grief.  It’s incredibly important to give ourselves space to honour what we’re truthfully holding in our hearts and allowing these emotions to move through us in a way that will help us to process these feelings.   

From there, the ways we care for ourselves matter immensely.  We start with smaller things; offering ourselves rest when we’re tired, hydrating our bodies, eating nourishing foods within what’s accessible for each of us, becoming curious about the wisdom of the seasons, and being gentle and kind with the messages we send ourselves. 

I realize for so much of my life as a mom, and in my career as a massage therapist and yoga teacher, I focused on how I could best care for others. Over the past few years, since my own cancer diagnosis,  I have come to realize that if I want to continue  on this path that the answer is actually found in how I care for myself, in the small simple ways of ensuring I’m okay first unapologetically, and only then offering care and support outside of myself.  

Sometimes our bodies and our minds struggle, this I deeply understand, which to me is a reminder of why the ways we tend to ourselves are incredibly important.   Self care also asks us to  to remember that we are part of a wider web of life – bigger and more expansive than the small perceived singular self, and that we heal in community, especially when the struggles feel to big to carry alone.  

Through our acts of care, we get to know the parts that sometimes we didn’t even realize we contained, the parts that may have been numb or were kept very small out of fear of judgement, offering compassion to all these aspects of ourselves and to one another.   

Many things have become non-negotiable for me over the past few years; unrolling my mat daily for my body and my spirit – not just for when I’m teaching, picking up a paintbrush with no expectations or judgement of what comes through on the canvas – just engaging in this activity as soul care, dancing and singing, sitting in the forest – literally doing nothing else except sitting there, resting when I need, giving my thoughts an outlet of expression in my journal, receiving bodywork, playing my drum or spending time with crystal bowls.  These are all forms of therapy for me, part of the tapestry of my own wholeness which I know extends beyond just me.   

I wonder what’s one small thing you can do today to offer yourself gentle care? 

I also wonder what are the things that distract you from tending to your needs?
 
I sincerely hope that amidst the responsibilities of your life, and the external pulse with it’s ebb and flow, that you’re able to listen to what feels true for you, spiraling inwards to the internal pulse. What would feed your soul today even and especially in the smallest most subtle ways.  

Our ancestors have much to teach us – in so many ways. The stars have provided constancy and guidance for thousands of years, I turn to them often, as part of my personal care. 

Sending you lots of love

Amber

gray and black galaxy wallpaper

Consider upgrading to a paid subscription and enjoy a weekly reflection with some short practices found on my new substack page. This extra support is also included with all of my Willow and Oak movement memberships.

Recent Poem: Golden Wings and Red Peonies

Most recent seasonal newsletter: Winter Musings

Our next tending your inner garden circle will be held this coming April, stay tuned for more details.

Upcoming monthly Restorative Practice – Tuesday, March 24th from 7 – 8:30 pm EST held through zoom.

You are welcome to join us by donation, or if you have a monthly paid membership our monthly restorative class is free!

Re – Emerging

Re – Emerging

Amber_Young

I have taken the last while off from all distractions to focus on my family and my own inner need for rest, it has been bliss.

I didn’t realize how depleted and exhausted I was from this past year, it has held a lot ~ personally and as you, dear reader know, for the collective as well.

I feel grateful as I sit down to write these words, slowly re-emerging, to have this time with you. I haven’t been writing as much this past year, honouring the spaces in between and giving myself more time to just sit, usually at the trunk of my favorite tree. I have been experiencing more freedom to just be, not needing to produce or share my personal musings but instead honouring what’s alive in my own tender heart and holding this as sacred.

I wonder how you’re doing, underneath all the layers.

If you’re having a hard time, you’re not alone. It helps me sometimes to remember that we are constantly in flux – learning, growing and evolving and it’s not always going to feel easeful, I don’t think it’s meant to. The wheel, remember, continues to turn.

If you’re doing amazing, you’re also not alone, please don’t dim yourself. Your wholeness is felt, as are the ways you may have been broken over the years, it’s all part of this human experience. We feel eachother in our ebb and flow.

Before I was diagnosed with cancer I realize I didn’t actually give myself complete permission to stop periodically, to put everything I’m carrying down and take a real break.

I also didn’t honour all my cracks.

The past few weeks have reminded me that this is non negotiable for me now, time to deeply rest. Without it I’m not able to process the joys, the ups, the downs, the cracks, the necessary mending and the holy mess.

Many of you who know me, know that I work very intimately with people, and ride the waves of not only my own experience but also navigate the waves of everyone in my circle of care. Breaks and boundaries are NEEDED, this allows for the deep composting and integration to actually ever happen, which is necessary for our constant unfurling, tending and evolution.

No matter what you do in the world, I think sometimes we all get stuck riding the waves of our shared existence that never stops, unless we consciously decide to jump off for a while and return to our own unique holdfast and move from this place.

A while ago in one of my classes, we talked about this concept of our holdfast, looking at what holds us steady as the waves of life keep moving. Taking time everyday to feel where your roots are grounded, looking at how you show yourself compassion and softness. Maybe take a moment to reflect on how your boundaries are around your own self care time?

Alternatively, if we don’t take this time, we can unconsciously get pulled under or thrown against a rock – forcing us to stop in often very uncomfortable ways. This I understand.

Many humans have a tendency to keep going, no matter what, and we put a strong emphasis on the ways we’re resilient, and the ways we’re strong, the ways we can handle so much. I too have put a lot of emphasis on these qualities, but I find I’m moving differently through the world now. I wonder if we can continue to build our inner resources, celebrate our strength, but maybe make space to experience our strength through a different lens – one that honours the pause, the fragility, the breaking and the stopping that’s necessary to grow and heal.

I wonder if we can learn to be comfortable in mess, because let’s face it there is a whole lot of mess going on at the moment. Accepting and being realistic about mess doesn’t make us less, I think it actually helps us to fill in some gaps and gives us space to not always have to have the answers or to make sense of everything.

I grew up in a home where people didn’t expect a lot of me, which translated to me expecting ALOT from me, trying to prove my worth. A year and a half ago I put that story down, I offered it to the chemo as it burned through me. In the spaces that were created, I decided to invite something different, to instead show up exactly as I am without unrealistic expectations or being so worried about others opinions. I decided for the first time in my life to be truthful in who I ACTUALLY am, with honesty and compassion – mess and all.

As we transition into the new year, can we collectively consider a slow return, offering us discernment and renewed purpose.

What is your holdfast and can you find ways to return to it daily.

Have you taken some time to reflect on the pivotal moments of this past year, perhaps letting go of what doesn’t need to travel with you into the year ahead, honouring necessary endings.

Can you acknowledge any areas of your life that might feel a little messy right now? Maybe considering out of the chaos comes lessons, clarity, an awareness of what’s actually important to you. Mess also has the potential to lead us to true beauty.

As I look ahead, I find myself curious about how the days will unfold in all of their mystery and wonder.

Thanks for reading, I appreciate you being here.

Much love,

Amber

You may want to consider upgrading to a paid subscription and enjoy a weekly email with some short practices and reflections. My Birch memberships starts at $6 CAN, created for folks who believe in what I’m offering, intended to offer inspiration and gentle guidance in the spirit of supporting eachother.

Birch Paid Membership

Memberships range from $6 – $55 with varied access.

I also teach weekly virtual gentle yoga classes, and monthly tending your inner garden sessions. Send me an email if you’d like more information

amber@suryadaya.ca

You can find out more information about additional support on my website

Gentle Spaces For Self Exploration

Gentle Spaces For Self Exploration

Amber_Young

I love this sacred window of time, as I close my eyes and imagine all of us, sitting together in circle, honouring the evolution and unfurling of who you are, who we are – moment to moment.  

Thank you for inviting me into your inbox, you give me inspiration to keep doing this work, and I am grateful.  

Earlier this month I celebrated 20 years as a Registered Massage Therapist, I can’t believe it’s been over 20 years since I started doing this work. My first experience was a training at the Mueller College of Holistic Studies in San Diego in 1999, later becoming Registered in British Colombia in 2004. That feels like a lifetime ago. I guess in many ways it was, thinking about how much I’ve changed over the years, and also how much we are continually learning about how we heal.

As I reflect on all of the care, the trust and the stories I’ve been honoured to hold for people, I am in awe. It is an honour and a privilege to do this work in the world, spiraling deeper and exploring different ways to hold healing space for folks.

We are a complex interconnection woven from our anatomy, the DNA we carry, our families history, our ancestral lineage lines, the experiences we carry in our hearts, our energetic bodies, the health of the Earth and the elements, spirit, the ways we are affected by the collective, our individual beliefs – and so much more. I’m curious how people are able to focus their attention on a presenting lesion or pathology, becoming trapped within a diagnosis and forgetting to consider all the factors that contribute to our wholeness.

In my heart I feel how much we need gentle and accepting places to explore ourselves, now more than ever.

I was having a conversation the other day about pain cycles, specifically the cycles of anxiety and stress many are presently living with. These states bring our body into a sympathetic state – which is indicative of energy expenditure; rapid breathing, increased heart rate, muscular contraction – often referred to as the “fight or flight” response. We can become overwhelmed by our thoughts which can manifest as physical tension and disharmony in our bodies and our minds. Thanks to the work of Stephen Porges, Deb Dana and many others, we are also learning more about our nervous system’s survival response of freeze, a dorsal vagal response, where we can feel stopped and shut down out of a visceral reaction where our bodies are in actuality trying to keep us safe – our bodies are always trying to keep us safe. This response is like pushing a pause button and is our nervous system’s attempt to conserve energy. These reactions, both a result of stress, live in our bodies and require somatic explorations to support our unique pathways to healing, releasing, and integrating. We need to cultivate and nourish our bodies and our minds with experiences and practices that help us to feel safe, daily.

It’s important to take time to move the heaviness we’re carrying through us, not needing to cognitively understand or be required to explain ourselves, but rather to have the space to feel – to be quietly witnessed.

May we all have places and people where we can put down our defenses, allow tears to flow, honour our cracks, and explore who we are under all the layers we often carry.

In service to the sacred threads of life

Love Amber

As I celebrate my 20 year massage anniversary, I have welcomed in some supportive spaces to offer care:

Monday’s: at the Centre For Health Innovation located in the city of Ottawa at 429 MacLaren Street. To see me at this location you can book directly through the Centre.

Tuesdays, Thursday and Friday’s I practice massage therapy and sound therapy in my private forest studio, nestled amongst the white pines, cedar and birch trees.

Send me an email if you’d like to book in my private forest location. Booking is directly through me. amber@suryadaya.ca

I teach weekly online zoom yoga classes Thursday mornings from 11:00 – 12:00 am EST, you can join from anywhere (live or with the recording).

Consider upgrading to a paid membership, created with the intention to offer guidance whenever you need a little extra support. Enjoy a weekly email, free access to my monthly bedtime yoga class and special practice recordings. Memberships range from $6 to $38.

Let me know if you’d like more information amber@suryadaya.ca

The Ways We Care For Ourselves

The Ways We Care For Ourselves

Amber_Young

During my chemotherapy, the book Between Two Kingdoms written by Suleika Jaoud was recommended to me (by Lisa Patterson during one of her healing yoga classes). This was the first time I truly felt like someone understood.  Reading her words was like reading my own thoughts in a way I couldn’t articulate. I find myself now living between two kingdoms, inhabiting my body and the space I exist in the world in a very different way. Through this process I was introduced to the 100 day project, a creative dive for 100 days, which has been and continues to be, paramount in my healing and my daily life.  

The ways we care for ourselves matter immensely, starting with the small things; offering ourselves rest when we’re tired, hydrating our bodies, eating nourishing foods, being gentle with the messages we send ourselves.  

 I realize for so much of my career as a massage therapist and yoga teacher,  I have focused on how I can best care for others. Over the past few years I have grown into a more truthful realization of what that actually means.   The answer is found in how I care for myself, in the small simple ways of ensuring I’m okay first, only then can I start to look outside of myself. 

Last week I was privileged to sit in circle with a group of incredible women, it was my first in person Tending Your Inner Garden session.  9 of us gathered to hold space for eachother exploring what the act of tending to ourselves feels like, being held quietly in community as we moved through gentle practices.

In my own personal tending, I started painting bees and flowers to tap into that well of energy and joy that lives inside of me, with the intention to support my healing.  Through this process I have become connected with all the parts of me, parts of me that I didn’t even realize I contained, parts of me that have been numb for most of my life – or that I kept very small out of fear of judgement.


These are created from my heart, for my heart.

I had never painted before and now it’s a non-negotiable part of my life.  Many things have become non-negotiable for me; unrolling my mat for my body and my spirit, picking up a paintbrush with no expectations or judgement of what comes through on the canvas, dancing and singing, picking up my guitar or playing my drum as my boys play piano and their guitars.  This is therapy for me, part of the tapestry of my wholeness.  

I wonder what’s one small thing you can do today to offer yourself gentle care, tending to your own inner garden?

 
I offer you this with deep respect and gratitude.

Love, Amber

If you’d like to practice yoga and movement classes with me I teach weekly online zoom classes Thursday mornings from 11:00 – 12:00 am EST, you can join from anywhere (live or with the recording).

Once a month I also hold yoga and sound therapy at the Cedar Hill School House, Pakenham. These classes will run through to October.

If you’d like extra support you can find different video membership options , created with the intention to help you whenever you need a little extra guided support through a diverse collection of offerings ranging from 5 minute wellness capsule, mindful minutes practices, to 60 minute yoga and movement practices. Memberships range from $6 to $38.

Let me know if you’d like more information amber@suryadaya.ca

I’m dreaming about our next Tending Your Inner Garden offering, starting in the fall of 2024, stay tuned for dates and more information.

Practice Updates

Practice Updates

Amber_Young

Hello Dear Ones, this is a practical piece, just updating folks in the area about my massage therapy practice as I’ve had quite a few people reaching out.

After my personal healing sabbatical, I’m so excited to be moving forward in my work. It’s been wild returning to hands on work, after receiving so much care myself. I definitly feel a new appreciation for the healing potential when we’re held with compassionate care and clear healing intentions.

The last few weeks I have noticed an expanded capacity and renewed strength inside, feeling into the shift into summer. I am still taking it slowly, and sense this is the way forward for me, a pace I much prefer.

I can’t believe this August I’ll be celebrating my 20 year anniversary as a Registered Massage Therapist, and yet I feel like this is just a beginning, I think in many ways it is.

I’m excited to be welcoming in some supportive spaces for me to offer my care, and I feel so lucky to practice alongside some incredible and gifted humans. This July I’ll be joining The Centre for Health Innovation (formerly Ottawa Integrative Cancer Centre), located in the city of Ottawa. For 20 years I have focused much of my care (and training) on individuals through their cancer journey; diagnosis, treatment and beyond. Life handed me my own personal education in the school of real world cancer, which has better equipped me to understand the effects of treatment, the emotional effects, the toll on one’s energy and how the experience changes you.

I’m looking forward to holding this space once again, but with a new perspective, an empathic heart and a deeper understanding.

The outstanding care I received at the CHI, during my own cancer treatment, is a big inspiration for me joining their team. I will be practicing there on Mondays, starting July 15th. Please reach out to them directly to find out more details and to find a space in my schedule, as they handle all bookings within their centre directly.

CHI booking page

I’m also so excited to be joining another space in the fall, which you’ll receive more details as things are clearer.

For those of you who see me in my private space, I will continue to offer healing sessions out here in my forest studio, on this sacred land, nestled amongst the trees. I offer Massage Therapy as well as sessions infused with Sound Therapy and Energy Modalities. If you’d like to see me in my private space, located near Almonte, Ontario, please send me an email directly to book. amber@suryadaya.ca

Honouring the chapter I’m in now, and feeling how important it is to continue my work, in service to life.

If you’re new to me, and are curious about my work and experience, you can explore my website, or check out my bio on the CHI site.

It is a privilege and an honour to do this work in such a supported way. Holding the vision of a world where we all have the support we need to thrive in my heart.

Much love,

Amber

If you’d like to practice yoga and movement classes with me I teach weekly online zoom classes Thursday mornings, and a new monthly in person offering of yoga and sound therapy at the Cedar Hill School House, Pakenham, On (this next offering is scheduled for July 18th)

I also have several different membership options with an ever expanding on demand video library offering you supportive practices whenever you need them through a diverse collection of offerings. Depending on the support you need, memberships range from $6 to $38.

On another note, I’m so excited and dreaming about our next Tending Your Inner Garden offering, starting in the fall of 2024, stay tuned for dates.

Solstice Blessings

Solstice Blessings

Amber_Young

A time we celebrate the light, our inner fire, the obstacles we’ve overcome, our community, our power, our gardens as they grow, all the animals emerging, and we commit to nourishing ourselves and one another. 

Summer Solstice is a time we also honour the tilting of the earth wrapping us in the longest day of sunlight.  We move through the cycles of seasons and witness our own rhythms as they ebb and flow. 

I hope you’re able to take some time to move your body, and to also sit in stillness – honouring the dance. This little reprieve of movement and breath, even for a few minutes, brings you more deeply into the presence and reality of your life in this moment and an awareness of what’s actually important to YOU. We need to commit to our self care to have the space to hear that guidance. 

I invite you to light a candle today, and honour your connection to the light.  Move your beautiful body, and breathe a little deeper. Get your hands and feet in the dirt, and honour your connection to the earth. Honour YOUR strength. Honour the goodness inside of you, and the impact you bring forward with your actions – especially the seemingly small acts of kindness. 

Happy Solstice, from my heart to yours,

Love Amber

selective focus photo of white petaled flowers
Photo by PhotoMIX Company on Pexels.com
Integration and Alignment

Integration and Alignment

Amber_Young

This past month in my tending your inner garden classes we’ve been exploring the energy and practices to support us in our process of Integration and Alignment. I love the picture of the fern in this phase, in a cocoon of growth before it’s emergence with new life – every year going through this life cycle, mirroring back to us what’s necessary during periods of integration.

Through our life journey, we not only gather in all the pivotal moments of our life experience, but we also need to practice discernment and surrender into healthy support to release trauma, doubt, entanglements with others that we’ve accumulated through our experiences that take us away from our sense of wholeness. This is all part of the process.

In our tending sessions we’ve been exploring a tree of life meditation and related practices, these offerings have the potential to give us a grounded place to integrate from, and to welcome in supportive energy. If we choose to make the time there are so many things we can do to support this ongoing process; journaling, dancing, guided imagery and free movement, closing your eyes and honouring the movement that wants to unfurl from inside of you, breathing in intention and seeing how this moves you.  We can also turn to the wisdom of wild animals, who shake and shudder after traumatic events – releasing the imprint of stress so they can move forward.

We had a very small and intimate circle these past two weeks, allowing the opportunity for some deep work. This was a special class, creating gratitude bundles and dropping into the practices. Our Monday group met under the solar eclipse, it was so powerful as we moved through this portal together.

I think the world needs more moments of intentional silence, I find often folks feel the need to fill the spaces of silence but I think this is where the healing and the deeper understanding of eachother happens. I find as the noise in our world gets louder I need more time in quiet just to survive.

I’m really feeling the ebb and the flow of fluctuating energy levels this year, honouring the balance of rest and movement, emergence and introspection, it is definitly a dance.  

After our tending gathers these past 2 weeks,  I felt filled with this remembrance of the sacredness of the earth and the interconnectedness of all life. Sometimes when I come to my drum and open myself, I feel the pain of our greater collective, the sorrows of the earth and of all of life, allowing this the space to move through.

 This time of year – in the early days of Spring, and again in the turn of the wheel to Autumn,  I often find myself reflecting on the eternal cycle of life, death, and rebirth that binds us all together in the intricate web of existence, none of us are immune to these cycles.

Our time here in these bodies is limited, I wonder, are you living in alignment with your core values, is your outer reality reflecting your inner reality?  It’s important to surround yourself with people who can support you to step into the truth of who you are, and slowly you won’t care who you’re with – you will simply be living your truth if you’re not already – it is my wish we could all get to this place in ourselves.

Are you able to take some time to integrate the experiences of your life in ways that will support you to grow from the experiences on your path, and to learn from what you have moved through.  

While we’re here, How we choose to live our lives matters, I know this can feel hard for some people but we do always have a choice – even simply the choice of where we put our attention and our energy. 

Before I close for today I’m feeling called to share with you a ritual of gratitude we moved through during our tending sessions, I am honoured to offer you this here, it is inspired by Richard Wagamese from his book, One Drum. The wisdom of this book is such a sacred gift he left for us, and incredibly important for these times we find ourselves in. It is with deep respect and love I share this with you.

This ceremony reminds us of our place within the web of life; offering gratitude to the elements, to the 4 directions, to our ancestors, to the spirits of place, and to all of our supports and spiritual allies, gratitude to the earth and to the sky, and to the portal within our hearts. 

Supplies needed:  string / yarn   , cloth – cut into 9 – 12 (or more) small circles or squares, an open heart.

You willl also need to collect an offering for inside each bundle.  Notice what you’re called to collect – dried leaves, rose petals, pine cones, pine needles, dried herbs, sand, soil, small crystals or stones, dried legumes, etc……

Once you’ve gathered your supplies, you may want to find a place in nature to create, or light a candle to honour this time. I encourage you to take some deep breaths to center yourself into the space around your heart.

Once you feel ready, taking a length of string about the length of both of your arms and cutting it from the ball of yarn/twine. 

Placing one of your pieces of cloth in front of you, tuning into your heart and seeing what arises – what are you grateful for, as this comes into your awareness gathering your offering for inside the bundle and perhaps breathing into the herbs (or contents), sending what you’re grateful for into your offering and placing it in the centre of your cloth.  Gathering the edges together and  leaving enough string at the one end to connect the two ends, tie your first bundle. Continue this process, tying each bundle alongside the one before it, along the length of the string. Once nothing is coming to mind and / or you feel like you’re at a place of completion (this may be based on the number of cloth pieces you have), tying the ends together (cutting off any excess string), creating a circle with your bundles, like a wreath. A circle with no beginning and never ending – a circle of gratitude.

Sitting with your offering, perhaps laying it on your belly or over your heart, breathing this into yourself.

Over the next week finding a place in nature, ideally somewhere you visit often, and hanging your wreath on a tree, or a rock, or you may feel called to bury it.  Bringing intention, as a gift for the earth, honouring our reciprocal relationship.  You may want to whisper a prayer from your heart.  Your gratitude bundles can be a reminder for you when things feel off kilter.  They may blow away or fall at some point, when this happens, we honour the release, burying , making a new wreath, or burning the bundles as an offering, feeling into what would be the most resonant thing for you to do. 

I make one of these every year, and my old ones I either bury in the ground or burn in a fire. 

Thank you for your openness of creating these with me, and for sharing my thoughts.

Sending you love for the days ahead,

till next time

Amber

Click here if you’d like to find out more about upgrading to a paid supporter for $6/month, helping me to continue to do this work. This will also give you access to weekly recordings of wellness capsules and mindful minutes.

If you’d like to practice with me I teach weekly online zoom classes , plus I have several different membership options with an ever expanding video library offering you supportive practices whenever you need them through a diverse collection of offerings.

I’m so excited to be back offering Healing Massage Therapy sessions and sound therapy. If you’d like more information I would love to hear from you, send me an email at amber@suryadaya.ca.

Our next Tending Your Inner Garden offering will be starting in the fall of 2024, stay tuned for dates.

Moment To Moment

Moment To Moment

Amber_Young

Hello Beautiful souls, I’ve been quiet for a while, spending more time on an inner journey than an outward exploration. 

When you’ve been through a big moment in your life, it changes you. I know we all know this, but do we remember this for others. People remember you as you were before, and there’s a popular perception that once the event, trauma, birth, illness, death, etc…..is over, it’s business as usual. You look strong, your hair grows back, your back in the community albeit in small ways – so you must be back to how you were before. 

The thing is, you never go back to how you were before. 

Life changes us, in small and big ways – daily. I’m feeling like we need to give eachother more space to grow and evolve, and relate to one another with this understanding. Try not to put people in a box that fits so tightly there’s no room for growth.

I find there’s often a tendency to compare life to how it was before an event, wanting things to go back to “normal”. What is normal anyways? I’ve always wondered that, what is normal, the term doesn’t even fit in my vocabulary anymore. 

I have needed to be on here less, as chemo and the surgery I had on my spine over a year ago has left me with some invisible physical and mental challenges. I’m not going to dive into explaining what those are, but I wanted to acknowledge that they exist. Yes, I survived this bout of cancer and the treatments cancer gave me the opportunity to experience to help me to heal – AND I find myself now learning to live with the ongoing effects of those treatments, a new awareness of my mortality, heightened gratitude, a very different experience of changing energy levels and the reality that I am now navigating life with a blood cancer. 

Honouring it all.

I am living a life of truth, satya – the truth of who and where I am. I wonder what your truth is. I know I’m not alone, and neither are you. 

I choose life, everyday, and somedays it’s really difficult. 

There is a poem I’m reminded of as I write these words. It came to me in the hospital from a dear friend when I was first diagnosed with cancer, and I proceeded to send it out to a circle of support in the hopes of shedding some light on how I was. Now, a year and a half later, I think I actually only now understand the words. I’m going to share this with you (I may have already), as it feels pretty resonant.

For When People Ask

I want a word that means

   okay and not okay,

     a word that means

devastated and stunned with joy.

   I want the word that says

     I feel it all, all at once.

The heart is not like a songbird

   singing only one note at a time,

     more like a Tuvan throat singer

able to sing both a drone

   and simultaneously

     two or three harmonics high above it—

a sound, the Tuvans say,

   that gives the impression

     of wind swirling among rocks.

The heart understands the swirl,

   how the churning of opposite feelings

     weaves through us like an insistent breeze,

leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,

   blesses us with paradox

     so we might walk more openly

into this world so rife with devastation,

   this world so ripe with joy.

Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

This humaning journey definitly blesses us with paradox, everyday, and I think it’s not about making sense of it all, but instead taking care of yourself in the midst of it – regardless of anyone else’s idea of who they think you are or what you need. I encourage you to try different things to help you find your way to be able to step more deeply into yourself in whatever way that needs to be for you..

For almost 20 years I dedicated my massage and hands on healing practice to working with folks with cancer, trauma, and chronic illness. Maybe this was a crucial step in my training – moving through this experience so that I could truly understand, and honouring a new pace to open my life to a more meaningful moment to moment experience. I look forward to engaging in this work with a new perspective. 

I’m writing this piece as I’ve been blocked in my writing. I needed to acknowledge the truth of where I am before I could actually take steps forward for myself, this is part of my process. It’s not “business as usual”, but rather a new way forward. I’m taking my time easing back into my life’s work, AND continuing the dance with my own healing journey – a dance that will be joining me for as long as I am. 

Our community has been incredible, and I would not have survived this past year without all of you. I just needed to honour this gratitude again, and again and again! I’m so excited to see where this life takes me, and where we can go together.

I’m slowly starting back to work as you may have noticed in recent updates; classes I’m facilitating and sessions I’m slowly offering. It’s been amazing doing hands on massage therapy and sound healing work with folks again (with limited bookings), especially in this healing forest that has been holding me too. There’s a reason me and my family have landed here on this sacred land – not only to care for the earth, but to heal, and also help people to deepen that connection. 

I’m also excited to mention that I was approved for a scholarship (thank you universe) for an accessible yoga training, with Jivana Heyman and an amazing collective, which starts January 25th. It’s a 6 week online program that has serendipitously come to me at the perfect time as I navigate yoga and movement in a new way in my own body. This important work is where I’ll be focusing alot of my attention through to March. I’m excited to see where this takes me.

Thanks for sharing my thoughts,

With so much love

Amber

Introducing my new monthly memberships – these give you instant access with various different tiers to virtual classes, an ever expanding video library, as well as some special bonuses throughout the year. Let me know if you have any questions! 

Oak Membership

$38 / month click here to find out more

Willow  membership

$23 / month click here to find out more

Cedar Membership

$10/month  click here to learn more

Birch Membership (Supporter)

Thank you for supporting me to continue to do this work!

$6/month  click here to learn more

Membership rates include HST

I continue to teach online, and I also practice online, this got me through this past year during my cancer journey, when I couldn’t walk and couldn’t drive. Having the option of practicing online (thank you Lisa and Anne) both with live classes and recordings, was the only way that yoga was accessible for me. It has deepened my healing process in ways I can’t articulate.

As I slowly reemerge and hold intentional space once again for folks – I sit with creative ways in which I can best do that. 

All monthly memberships automatically renew every 30 days, with the option to cancel at any time.  Let me know if you have any questions or would like to find out more!

Stay tuned for my seasonal newsletter coming soon!

The Wisdom Within

The Wisdom Within

Amber_Young

Sometimes we come to yoga simply for the physical benefits, let’s be honest the physical potential within our practice is amazing. We flush our organs, stretch our muscles, lubricate our joints, increase our thoracic capacity, support our full body oxygenation, we strengthen and lengthen, support our hormone health and our lymphatic system – this is only a small list of the potentiality of your practice.

Over time we may get to know our bodies better, by listening to the sensations our bodies send us as we move through our practice. When we really tune in, we realize our practice also has the potential to positively affect our mental and emotional health. We may start to feel more at home inside of ourselves, and more responsive to life rather than reactionary. Yoga, and mindful movement, can offer us another way to experience ourselves in the context of our lives.

As we come to our mats, part of what we may begin to seek is this beautiful invitation for transformation, as we notice the limiting memories and stories we often tend to carry and the ability to learn from them, honour them, perhaps put some down, and create new imprints that instead serve our inner growth.

Our lives consist of a constant series of integrating, taking in, letting go, learning and evolution – well, if we give ourselves permission.

With greater awareness and practice, we are able to begin to recognize and discern past associations that we hold in our bodies as constriction, but we also begin to notice the stories our bodies hold that are in fact expansive and empowering. When we feel safe and supported, our bodies hold such potential as we learn to follow our inherent wisdom and the guidance we’re offered through our physical knowing.

This reflection brings to mind the work of; Candace Pert and her pivotal work in Molecules of Emotion, Peter Levine and his groundbreaking work with Trauma and the Body, Jon Kabat-Zin who changed my life with his work with mindfulness and the body, and Bessel Van Der Kolk in his incredible gift to us The Body Keeps The Score. I am grateful for these works, and countless others, the list is endless.

In yoga, mindful movement, and hands on therapy, we understand that memory isn’t only in the mind. Our bodies, like our minds, hold the imprints of past physical, emotional and psychological experiences – both positive and negative, joyful and traumatic.

The body, when guided with compassion and kindness, also has the intelligence and wisdom to free us from the stories and the experiences we don’t need to carry anymore. Through gentle asana, movement, and compassionate hands on healing work, we have the potential to create space inside of ourselves and welcome in new imprints that support us, rather than hold us back.

Take some time this week to come to your mat, or find a quiet place outside. Perhaps move a little slower, breathe a little deeper, and listen a little more closely to what the wisdom of your body has to offer you. You may want to take some time to write in your journal.

I offer you this reflection with the hopes that you will become more aware of the parts of you that perhaps need some extra compassion and love. I also hope you’re able to become more aware of those places inside of you where you do feel expansive, where your breath flows easefully unobstructed, and where you carry the sacred seeds of potentiality within.

May you move with a gentle heart, and kindness, not only on your mat – but also as you travel through your days.

Love Amber

xo

Do you want to practice together? You can see my schedule (and find our more details) here.

Learn more about Because You Matter, a beautiful 6 week journey into your breast health and whole body wellness. Click here for more information. My next offering starts in October, 2022.

Soul Wisdom Self Reflection cards, a little extra support on your journey.