We need both
My daughters were teasing me the other day because one of them had a physical ailment and joked that I would probably suggest an herbal remedy. They weren’t far from the truth.
FWIW while I cannot claim expertise as I have only been using herbal tinctures to support my body over the last four or five years, I have noticed that a lot of medicines and supplements that are branded and packaged as “brand new ideas” are actually minerals, enzymes, amino acids and herbs we would have gotten as part of a regular diet (or would have known to reach for as needed) back when we ate more real food; particularly if we were living in an indigenous culture. But I digress …
As the daughter of an OBGYN, raised in a conservative evangelical church in the 1970s and 80s, I was taught to distrust alternative modalities of healing (e.g., chiropractors, meditation, and yoga among others). I feel the irony as I write about those modalities being considered “fringe”; in part because of how mainstream they are now and in part because I have benefited so much from each of them over the last ten years.
I count the months I spent in an intensive yoga teacher training program in 2017-2018 and the last few years working with somatic nervous system repatterning as some of the most powerful and formative experiences in my healing journey. In fact, it is precisely because of my descent to illness and my journey back to well-being, that I have become more “woo” as I age. Much as my mother did before me (though I didn’t “get it” then).
Because I spent decades over-indexing on the logical, rational, the things I could see (and therefore, theoretically, control) while channeling relentless persistence and the capacity to do in an hour what some people do in a day. And I ended up deeply ill and shattered in every way.
Because it is clear to me that the “way we have always done things” is making all of us sick in a variety of ways and the human race is destroying itself, each other and the planet.
Because we humans return to universal ideas again and again and again (even if the latest shiny marketing approach tells us its brand new) especially when facing personal crisis or death.
Because I cannot deny the golden thread of energy that binds us all. The miracle of creation, invention and innovation. The exquisite miracle of the human body and all of nature for that matter.
Because working with my body, working with my nervous system, working with energy and the universe, has allowed me to heal in ways that western medicine and talk therapy couldn’t and didn’t. And yet, there are things I would (and do) still seek traditional medical interventions for, even if I might also add potentially helpful alternative therapies to the toolkit.
I have spent the last decade learning a new* way of being that exists outside of the mainstream. A new way to discern what is for me and what isn’t. A new root system anchored in my own well-being and capacity for wholeness. And a new way of moving through the world through both choice and action; not from my own protective nervous systems patterns that I don’t need anymore or to satisfy someone else’s definition of success.
*More irony here that what is so new for me–and might seem fringe to you depending on your own origin story–is not actually new at all but is old wisdom that we have lost (or that was deliberately stamped out) along the way.
The truth is, you need both.
You need to trust that there is something out there bigger than you, without abdicating your entire life to the promise that something or someone is coming to save you or to the whims of people who do dare to dream and amass fortunes, power and control during the process.
You need to hold vision and take aligned action while releasing your grip on what happens next. In fact, taking the action is part of what helps close the nervous system loop and expands your capacity to act again in the future.
You need to honor your grief, pain, suffering and trauma without allowing it to write the story of the rest of your life.
You need to (gently) expand the edges of your comfort zone and your perceived capacitywithout throwing yourself off a cliff. Yes, growth happens at the edge of your comfort zone but if your nervous system thinks you are going to die, you aren’t going to get very far.
You cannot spend all of your time in the ethereal and expect change in the material world.
And you cannot spend all of your energy blindly chasing performance, perfection and belonging, hustling to finish the never ending list of “to dos” or grinding to reach the elusive inbox zero without regard to your own humanity and the humanity of other people and expect to stay well or even to feel satisfaction, contentment, pleasure, joy or love.
Maybe you are saving all of the good things for what happens after this life. But the truth is we don’t know what happens after this life. And unless you have the resources to cryogenically preserve your body and hope someone figures out how to bring back your body and your essence and your consciousness back into that body … we only have on shot at this.
I have gotten more woo because doing life in all the ways I was taught didn’t work for me. And as far as I can see, it isn’t working out for millions (if not billions) of the rest of us.
And yet, I take real, strategic, purposeful, soul-led action every day from a deep desire to claim my own capacity for wholeness, to remind you of yours, and to leave this material world better than I found it.
We need both. Vision and action. Strategic and ethereal. Working with our bodies and the unseen while transmuting idea into form.
VisionSeekers (details below) is about both. The things you can see and the things you cannot see. Soul-led, purposeful, intentional action rooted in your expansive capacity to discern and hold vision and to create from there.
The doors to the inaugural cohort of VisionSeekers close on Monday, June 9. Will you join us?
Love,
Booth
VisionSeekers: A three-month group program supporting you to source, claim, embody and expand your capacity to hold vision.
When: June-August 2025 (see Monthly Rhythm for dates)
Monthly Rhythm:
Week 1: Group Nervous System Expansion (June 10, July 8, Aug 5)
Week 2: Asynchronous (receive frameworks, resources, reflection questions and/or audio meditations to work with) (released June 17, July 15, Aug 12)
Week 3: Group Coaching (June 24, July 22, Aug 19)
Week 4: Integration and/or *1:1 Nervous System Healing and Expansion Session
*Upgrade and receive a monthly personalized 1:1 nervous system healing and expansion session during Week 4, to be scheduled separately.
Program Capacity: 5 people 2 spots left in the inaugural cohort
Cost: $999 paid in full or $333/month OR$1,665 paid in full or $555/month with 1:1 upgrade
Register: To register click on the payment amount above for the option that works best for you.
If you are ready for this work, but would prefer an exclusively 1:1 option, please reach out for pricing.
If you have any questions that are not answered here, please do not hesitate to reply to this email.