REGAIN YOUR RHYTHM
Let's celebrate together
It’s been a results kind of year for me.
And while I don’t know what 2023 will bring, I do know I’ll get further transforming life stress into opportunities for growth if I reflect on some accomplishments I’ve had this year.
So what do you say? Will you play along with me? I’ll go first. Here are my biggest accomplishments for 2022:
🎉 This is a big one for me - I have been able to get both my kids the appropriate dyslexia interventions and supports they need in a education system (the state of IL) that hasn't begun to understand the nuanced complexities of language related learning disabilities. 😮💨
🎉🎉 I bounced around a bit but have found the perfect app to host my online treatments and programs ... and it launches NOW! 👏
🎉🎉🎉 The strong-minded, intuitive Observatory community has expanded from recently liberated, empty nesters and others Gen Xers to also include grounded, practical Millennials who are also looking for calm confident clarity despite life challenges and changes. It's such a dynamic group of autonomous humans, I don't even know how to explain it. 🧡
Okay, your turn.
What is your biggest accomplishment of 2022? Or maybe your most favorite thing that you got done?
Post in the comments below to share with the community.
Or if nothing else, I invite you to think about it for a few moments before the day gets away from you. Reflecting on what you’ve gotten done is important.
Until next time, stay awesome.
Aimee
PS - If you feel like you really need some dedicated time and guided support to reflect and get present, sign up for my 4 Day Healing Reset that runs from January 2-5 for FREE. If you don't want to join us that week, no worries. The program will become a paid product you can access in my app by the end of January. Hope to see you there!
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!).
Can I share some gratitude today? ✨
Congratulations! You made it to the end of September. I don't know exactly what your month has looked like, but I do know the shift into fall can be rough and that the transition should be celebrated. So I want to send a little congrats your way in case you don't have somebody in your life supporting you like that. ✨
Speaking of coming this far…I started this holistic self-care business over 20 years ago and while that feels like a lifetime ago, I still feel grateful for the many things that have helped me and the business evolve along the way...
#1–YOU! Of course! My customers, email subscribers and holistic minded readers always come first. That means you. Thank you so much for showing up to take care of yourself while also supporting me from multiple Chicago area locations to now, the online group sessions.
#2- Stress (mine, not yours). Thanks to my "dog with a bone" personality and some very talented practitioners, I learned how to transform physical tension and stress into personal insights and opportunities for growth. Stress reveals what we need to shift in our life and it has helped me create a life that feels more authentically - me. The best part is that now I can teach clients how to do the same so they need me less and I can help more people. Win ♾️!
#3- Social distancing and not (just) because as a empath I enjoyed the personal space. To be honest, Balance Healing Center was on it's way out the door in 2019. When I fell in love with the empowering results clients were getting from guided biodynamic CST sessions that year, I knew I wanted to shift from running a studio to being a practitioner again. Then, not being able to touch people, made the switch easy. While the pandemic wasn't all roses and sunshine, I am grateful for this piece of the experience.
#4– Coming to the 5 year anniversary of the Observatory! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I’d have held 100 biodynamic CST group sessions, let alone online. This feels like a miracle. ✨
Anyway, thanks again for supporting the biz. If you're looking for an in-person session locally, I'm in Northfield on Tuesdays and some Friday mornings. If you’re not local to Chicago but still want to get the same nervous system reset, reply to this email and I'll send you the link to join us on October 2nd at 9:30am for free. If you’re not sure if online sessions would work for you, grab a free 10-minute fitting call with me.
Until next time, stay awesome.
Aimee
PS - What are you feeling grateful for right now? Post ✨ in the comments below.
How To Prevent A Post-Summer Slump
July is a fantastic month of formlessness and fun. It’s the essence of summer. It’s the time for being out and about doing unique activities like vacation adventures, camping, festivals and much more. The excitement and joy of summer is wonderful, but it is also highly stimulating.
Just like in December, July’s festivities can skew your perception of inner balance. What I want for you, is when the summer dust settles for you to be settled and balanced too. If you’ve been skipping your stillness practice because you’re busy having fun this month, you may find yourself in a post-summer slump. Or worse, you may feel like a hot mess even though the temperature outside is cooling off.
So, be sure to get your summer dose of TEA and I don’t mean iced tea. I’m talking about therapeutic self-care:
Time – Create the safe space to stop receiving stimuli (including cocktails, crosswords and keyboarding), which allows your mind and body to go into restorative recovery.
Energy –Redirect your energy, from unconsciously juggling and coping with experiences to consciously dissipating them and resetting to your natural rhythms, so you’re not just relaxed but also regulated and motivated.
Alignment – Stay mindful of what matters most to you so you stay on track with your life path as well as being present and focused in the daily details.
In this month’s Observatory, YOUcation, we practiced TEA with Craniosacral Therapy’s universal rhythm. You can access these and other past healing sessions, as well as join us for next month’s live sessions for by joining the Observatory membership here.
If you don't have time for an hour healing session, you can simply grab the 5-Minute Snow Globe Settling I emailed about earlier this month by clicking here to get started with your TEA.
🎉 4 Great Ways To Celebrate You 🎊
Outside of summer school’s Friday Minecrafting, my kids will typically choose a very different kind of reward for everything else in life - ice cream. So since this Sunday is National Ice Cream day, it feels like the perfect week to talk about how you can celebrate you!
Yes, this might seem cheesy BUT here’s the thing –
As we get older we can sometimes rely on others to celebrate us with a birthday gift or a raise at work. But just like unconditional love, respect and worth, celebration also needs to primarily come from within us. SO, here are five simple (no calorie) ideas that you can easily do right now or this week:
Write down one thing you love about yourself on a large post it and leave it up in your bathroom or by your morning coffee. Leave plenty of room so you can add to it over time!
Invest in yourself. Put a little extra into your retirement savings or indulge in an expensive health food. Whatever investing in yourself looks like to you - do it!
Get dressed up for no reason. Even if “I’d rather be in sweats pants” is your bumper sticker, take a day to doll yourself up a little more than the norm.
Say no, guilt free, and give yourself a break. Reassure yourself that you’ve done enough, that it’s ok to kick your feet up right now and leave well enough alone….even if it means someone else around you might now get what they want. They’ll survive. I’m sure of it.
Don’t dismiss this as a silly little exercise or something that can wait or be done another time. Any one of these are so easy, dismissing it is just another avoidance of celebrating you. What’s up with that?!? So, go ahead and do it! Then shoot me a quick email and let me know which one you picked or if you did something different.
Until next time, stay awesome.
Aimee
I didn't see that one coming!
I won the award for worst mom ever last month when I signed both my 6 and 8 year old up for summer school. 🏆
On Fridays, to celebrate the completion of a week without complaints, the kids get to Minecraft during the 45-minute school commute. Meanwhile, I get to indulge in my favorite media - podcasts. While I feel like I’m always listening to podcasts, it’s limited to two topics. Either I'm learning how to help my children find success despite dyslexia struggles or listening to discussions on evidence-based healing and mindfulness. What I never saw coming was a podcast that talked about both.
It was an episode from The Personal Brain Trainer. One of the hosts, Darius Namdaran, who is my favorite dyslexia podcaster, was talking about a study he participated in during college. Three groups were taught to juggle in three different ways:
Group 1: Watch tutorial. Watch tutorial again. Practice.
Group 2: Watch tutorial. Practice. Practice again.
Group 3: Watch tutorial. Visualize successfully juggling, step-by-step. Practice.
Only 2 out of 10 succeeded in the first two groups however 8 out of 10 of the visualizers succeeded!
I practice visualization in treatments to help people release the subtle layers of tension and also teach it in the online self-healing classes but I’ve never thought to look for other evidence of neuromuscular results like this. Between the benefits I’ve experienced myself and the continued results from the Observatory members, I never needed any other evidence…but here it is. Cool, right?!
However, what really surprised me is that these same techniques should be a staple in my kid’s school toolbox, especially because of their learning disability. I guess if it helps me as an adult with dyslexia, why not them? 🍎 🍎 🌳
But you don’t need to be neurodivergent to gain benefits from visualization. While some of us NEED a variety of learning strategies for information to “stick” in our “slippery” brain, every brain can benefit from the technique. Want to give it a try?
Instead of writing down a task on your to-do for the 800th time or reading another book about what you’re looking to achieve, visualize yourself succeeding at it in detail. Why not pick something you love to procrastinate?
Start small and repeat. If you need to clear your mind a little bit before you start visualizing, you can grab my guided Snow Globe settling here. Then after you settle, spend another 2-3 minutes visualizing yourself doing whatever it is that you’re looking to achieve or shift. You can either visualize the end result or the steps you’ll need to take to get there. I’ll check back in with you at the end of the month to see how it went!
Until next time, stay awesome.
Aimee
PS – If you liked the end of week celebration idea, check out next week’s post where I have a few simple celebration ideas for you!
How to unleash the healer within.
Let’s get straight to the point today so you can get my formula for self-healing. I’m here to tell you EXACTLY what clients do to become their own healer and unleash the innate healing that already exists within. This is the step-by-step TEA framework that creates successful healing experiences in group sessions and individual treatments: (I’ll breakdown the T, E and A themselves, next week.)
Formless settling: This is where you stop taking in sensory information and allow your nervous system to simply process what is currently lighting up your neurological circuit boards.
CST settling: This is a Craniosacral Therapy inspired guided awareness exercise to reveal additional sensory stimuli that is ready to process and dissipate on its own, by simply being observed.
CST awareness exercise: In this step, you work specifically in one of your four zones of perception or one of the three CST rhythms to reveal the unseen restrictions and discomforts that are keeping you stuck.
Synchronize: This step creates a tangible alignment and flow, the most noticeable differentiator from other mindfulness, healing and meditation strategies. Here you restore flow to the original rhythms of health, the same rhythms that created you “from scratch” during embryological development.
Reorganize: As should be after any meditation or treatment where you drift off into formlessness, the final step brings you back after releases and shifts to a clear intention. It’s more than being grounded. It’s feeling present in what is now, aligned to and focused on what really matters to you.
Want to give it a try? You can get started RIGHT NOW by downloading my 5 minute Snow Globe Settling by clicking here. It is step #2 from above: a structured settling. It may feel very similar to meditation but it leads to more than just relaxation. It’s the beginning of processing and healing your layers so you can regain your rhythm (even if you aren’t quite sure you had it in the first place).
Excited to help you unleash the healer within,
Aimee
How to get to the next level of letting go.
As you read last week, one simple trigger point struggle taught me how to let go and surrender so I could better help clients release difficult tension patterns. In the same way, I later learned how to overcome an even more stubborn tension by getting clients mindfully involved in their own healing process.
I had been using Craniosacral Therapy (CST) to release muscle tension for quite some time when it happened. I was confidently zipping through tension releases in a CST treatment until we got stuck. Very stuck. I engaged into the holding pattern with slight pressure – nothing. I changed how I observed it with my zones – nothing. I asked the client to take some deep breathes into the tension – nothing. Ugh.
As I scrolled through CST techniques in my brain looking for the key to this release, I could feel there was nothing I could do. This one had to come from the client. But how do I get my client to do the release? How do I get the client to do the “heavy lifting” here? Uhhhhh (blank stare), then 💡, oh! (Which is a perk of being neurodivergent…while I suck at grammar and putting away laundry, I excel at problem solving and formless thinking.) If I need them to do the work, I’ll teach them to do their zones.
I walked the client through the CST zones just as my instructor did for students as a class warm up and eureka, it worked! From that point on, I was no longer the only practitioner in the room during 1-on-1 treatments. Session after session, I guided clients through their zones or CST rhythms, whatever was indicated for the situation. Clients released more quickly and also learned how they could become their own healer.
Soon clients came in saying, “My back gave out last week and I did that thing we do in sessions. It helped a lot!” Some said that practicing the zones was the first time they ever felt like they could successfully meditate even though they didn’t think they could be still. Others would say that they used the zones to calm and reframe an emotionally triggering situation which allowed them to respond in a way they felt really good about.
So if you find your practitioner isn’t able to get releases to the level that you want, it might be time to unleash the healer within and bring 2 practitioners to your next treatment. You’d be amazed at the results. I’ll break down, step-by-step, how we do it in our Observatory sessions in the next email. Stay tuned!
Here to unleash the healer in all of us,
Aimee
The First Time I Learned How To Let Go
Over a decade ago, I was working on a client with particularly stubborn muscles. I found my way into a trigger point and held steady, firm pressure. When it wouldn’t release, I got distracted (ok - yes, I was bored). So I began practicing the CST zones I had just learned in a training. It’s a CST strategy based on the Observer Effect from quantum physics which states that “the observer affects the observed reality”. Using my zone awareness exercise, I changed how I was observing the trigger point and like magic the tension pattern under my finger released.
I was like, WHHHAAAAAAATTTTTT??? This $#!* really works!
When I started to do less work (and less analyzing) AND more surrendering, my clients got deeper, faster releases. It worked on client, after client, after client. AND when clients came back for their next appointment, either we were not doing the same thing or the issue wasn’t to the same degree. There had been a transformation in how the body held (or didn’t hold) tension. Progress, sweet progress!
Now, as you may have noticed in the subject line, I said the FIRST day I learned how to let go. That’s because as you already know, when you think you’ve figured something out life loves to up the ante. There were many more experiences in the years that followed where I had to surrender and let go for myself and with clients in bigger and bigger … and bigger ways. Learning how to let go isn’t a one-time lesson. However, when you can learn how to do it on something small, you can build the skill over time as needed. Never underestimate the importance of starting small and next week I’ll explain how to take it to the next level.
Until next time,
Aimee