Holiday Traditions: Recovery Edition

I know everyone thinks of holiday traditions as something that happens before or during the holidays but I've found TWO new post-holiday traditions:

This is myself and the fam (although Rue isn't in the photo) sledding down my brother and sister in-law's front yard in WI. It was a brief but delightful escape to decompress from what feels like a holiday grind.

And now, after 4 successful years of the Observatory membership program, my second holiday recovery tradition is kicking off the new year with a free 4 Day Healing Reset.

Each day next week, I will guide you through "Snow Globing", one of the four Craniosacral Zones to process and dissipate, reveal and heal the chaos that prevents you from feeling relaxed, calm and focused in everyday life.

1. Mark your calendar to join me next Monday through Thursday. You don't have to be live with me but schedule 15 minutes in your calendar to follow along with these guided self-care exercises that looks like meditation, releases like bodywork and heals like therapy.

2. Click here to sign up for the free program.

3. After you sign up, you can also grab my free 30 minute workshop to get started and feel better now.

Do you have holiday recovery traditions? Post in the comments below and share how - you do you.

Stay awesome,
Aimee

PS - This 4 Day Healing Reset is free next week but will be turned into a paid product the following week. I'd reeeeeeeally like to give you this reset for free so I hope you'll join me!

I really want you to click on this.

Can you do me a favor real quick?

Click here and let me know what you think?

If you don’t have a comment, I’ll take that as a “It’s fine, Aimee. Stop bothering me.”

I promise I’m not bamboozling you. It’s fun.

Until next time, stay awesome.
Aimee

PS. Okay, if you must know…these are CST zone images a graphic designer whipped up so clients can go deeper into the work on the table and in online group sessions. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it - shoot me an email.

Ask me anything (no really!) 👂

Have you ever heard of an Ask Me Anything?

An AMA is a meeting where one person opens the floor to any questions from an audience. These sessions can cover a wide range of topics and don’t have to stay on subject. They’re usually hosted to help people get to know each other and expand their knowledge or view on a topic.

Why am I telling you this?

Well, this weekend, while you're recharging and resetting for the week ahead, I want to host an Inbox Ask Me Anything. 📧

Usually, to get live, personalized feedback and suggestions you have to Zoom in to the Observatory at 9:30AM on the first or third Sunday of the month or pay $157 for an in person session.

But I really want to get to know where you are right now and help you on the self-care journey that I know you're on because here you are on my email list. And I want you to feel connected to me, too...because I can't be really helpful until you feel safe enough to reach out.

So until Monday, feel free to email me (aimee@aimeeorta.com) and Ask Me Anything. I’m here and will answer to the best of my ability.

This can cover where or how you're feeling stuck and how to get unstuck or about Craniosacral Therapy ... or even questions on other holistic modalities that you wonder about.

I really cannot wait to hear from you!

Until next time, stay awesome 💖.
Aimee

PS - If you don't have any specific questions in mind, tell me how you're feeling about your current self-care status or where you'd like to be in your self-care journey by January of next year (it's coming fast!).

How to feel better on every level

Last week, we talked about how your stress wants to get out of your body but that isn't always easy. Despite your best efforts, sometimes it can feel like there's a tension "residue" that you can't quite put your finger on and don't know how to fix. Enter Craniosacral Therapy because that is it's specialty! Craniosacral Therapy treats the elusive, unseen layers. Take this moment to connect inward, as you find out how some Observatory students describe this hard-to-describe process:

"I feel like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz - I keep losing my straw from daily physical and emotional struggles. But Craniosacral self-care enables me to replenish what is lost and to retain more and more each time. I feel less stressed everyday just knowing I this self-care will always come to my rescue." - Sue Y.

"When I had an in person CST treatment with Aimee to help with TMJ issues, I came out with less jaw pain and feeling 20 pounds lighter on an emotional level. She explained the TMJ will always be there or come back if I don't deal with how my body is holding the tension patterns. So I signed up for The Observatory - my first time ever trying meditation. That is when I started to feel like me again! Healing the TMJ became a gateway into layers of relief I didn’t know I needed. I’ve become a different person – a much better version of myself. The shift in my mindset has been life changing for not only me but my family too. They noticed the change in me within a couple months. I am happier, kinder, fun again and it was all due to the self-healing classes and the work I was putting in between classes." - Jo R.

"Your comments in class are often so timely and validating! While I don't always keep up with every aspect of the awareness exercises, just having you acknowledge one thing I’ve been feeling always makes a huge difference in my stress. It helps me to “unlock” where I’m stuck. Thank you for holding the space for me to process." - Deb T.

"Practicing Craniosacral self-healing has helped me be a calmer person. When I start to feel pain/stress in my neck/back I’m more aware that it’s time to mediate - or at least take some time for myself. It’s easier to not get as frustrated over things and am much better at forgiving myself for not “getting everything done” on a daily basis. A big part of that is taking the time in these classes to see the whole picture, learning to make a more reasonable To Do lists and to prioritize things to help achieve long term goals." - Eileen S.

If this sounds like something that could transform your everyday stress too, then you need to sign up for the free 7 Day Beginner's Challenge happening in March - in the new app!

For good health and happiness,

Aimee

My word of the year is REGULATION.

I sat in my car with a blank gaze. I must have looked like a nut, sitting there motionless with messy hair and wrinkle lines across most of my face. But you know what I’m talking about – the post massage buzz.

I just had a wonderful 90 minute treatment that squeezed away the back pain, the results of breaking up the sidewalk ice last week. Because I was having trouble forming a thought, I knew I wasn’t present enough to drive the car. So I grabbed for my planner (yes, I still use a written one) to pull myself back to earth. As I read through my very aspirational to-do list for the week, I could feel my chest get heavy and panic resettle into my jaw. I’m happy to say that my back remained loose but as I chased away the mental fog of the treatment, I also chased away the false inner peace of my massage.

You see, massage is wonderful at squeezing tight muscles into submission, which can allow you the space to catch your breath. However, your mental and emotional discomfort hasn’t changed. How you feel about life circumstances remains the same. How you view, or can’t see, your next best step hasn’t changed.

This is why my word of the year is regulation. Relaxation is nice but regulation opens the door for lasting change. While the two concepts are indeed related, they are not the same. Basically, regulation is being able to relax your mind-body (nervous) system while functioning, carrying on in life. There is co-regulation and self-regulation. Co-regulation is why people love practicing meditation in groups. It is also what your children need from you in order to learn and master their own self-regulation. And of course, self-regulation is where you need to be in order to offer co-regulation to friends, family, co-workers and everyone around you.

Here’s the thing…

You must first master relaxation to be equipped for any kind of regulation. Most meditations out there can help you build your relaxation skills, just like a good massage. In our Craniosacral self-care program, we call this level of meditation - settling. At the beginning of every class we settle before moving into revealing, healing and regulating. More on those other three another time, but if you are ready to give the first step a try - click here for this month’s free mini-reset. This three-minute guided awareness exercise features our Space Decompression Settling.

For and with you in healthy and happiness,

Aimee

PS – Next week you’ll have limited time access to one of my regulating resets. So be sure to practice this settling reset a few times this week. It will prime your nervous system to get the most out of the next one.

Still looking for your 2021 groove?

I was originally going to write about creating your consciousness community and finding calm collaborators but after Sunday’s small group practice it seems many people still need help finding thier 2021 groove. I think self-care secret #18 will help you get there. Let’s dig in! ⤵️

While I’m not a fan of resolutions per say, it seems most people are not even setting a soft intention for their 2021. And I get it, when you’ve come off a year where goals and expectations change every 30 minutes, there’s little motivation to try again. Or maybe we can’t pick just one thing we want to be better this year? There are too many choices. BUT I suspect the real reason is something else entirely…

Are you still trying to survive? Perhaps you’re just trying to stay well until you can get the vaccine. Maybe you’re merely trying to keep up with work until the kids are out from underfoot and back into a classroom or dorm? 🙋 Or are you trying to survive isolation, because you don't have the regular dinner and movies with friends to help you cope with the more mundane parts of life?

Here's the thing - just because you are largely in survival mode, it doesn't mean that a VERY small part of you can't be flourishing. I invite you to consider how it might feel to dedicate 5 minutes a week to thriving.

I have two easy ways for you to do it and they both employ self-care secret #18: To achieve a self-care practice that effortlessly fits into your life, you must find something you love to do OR that creates results you love. And the key to finding this love is dabbling. Let me give you an example...

In massage school they said there are two kinds of practitioners: one who learns a little about lots of techniques or one that trains deeply in one specialty. For the first 10 years, I took courses in infant, pregnancy, Thai, shiatsu, Reiki, reflexology and so on. I thought I was a dabbler. That was until I experienced Craniosacral Therapy, my one true love. Then, I dabbled with different instructors until I found one that never got mystical but rather stayed focused on evidence-based principles. This deepened my connection to the work and practicing got even easier.

This made me wonder about what they said in massage school. Is it really about two different styles of practicing? Or is it really the difference between a practitioner who found their fit, their LOVE, versus one who is still dabbling? And likewise with self-care.

If you don’t have a self-care routine that you love so much you can’t help but practice 5 minutes a week - even when you're in survival mode, perhaps you haven’t dabbled enough?

Because you’ve dabbled and found the perfect fit before, right? Maybe it was for a spouse, authentic friends, a job, spirituality or simply your wardrobe style.

My point is you must keep dabbling until you’ve found your self-care love so a part of you can always be thriving, even when times are tough.

If you aren’t sure how to even start with 5 minutes of thriving, I have two suggestions for you:

1. Let researching self-care be your 5 minutes of thriving. Google what interests you or better yet asking around. What do other’s love so much that it’s easy to do no matter what? Post it on social media to source the crowd. Or text someone you feel particularly aligned with and find out what works for them.

   BECAUSE other people have found it for themselves!

   In class this week, I had one student say doing small group sessions felt like they were coming back home. Another student is practicing so regularly that for the 3rd class in a row she just didn’t have a struggle that needed addressing.

2. If you just need to start doing something now, I’ve got you covered with this month’s 5 minute Biodynamic reset. You can get it by joining the mailing list here or finding it in the Feel Better On Every Level Facebook group (along with a bunch of other resources). If you’re already on the mailing list, check your inbox because I provide the current reset in every weekly email.

Don't write yourself off as a self-care failure. Please know that you just might not have dabbled enough yet. Happy dabbling!

Aimee