Things have changed, as they always do. I am on a course closer to my heart and path that honors the healing work that naturally moves through my blood and bones; an ancient vessel in a modern world wanting to restore the torn fabrics of our fragmented living, an ancient vessel that humbly listens to the wisdom of all the world’s teachings to help heal and reconnect from the inside out, and the ground up.
At the end of last semester, I admitted my discontent with my current program of study. I admitted that it was feeding my ego, not my heart. I admitted that it took me further away from my healing work and further away from what I feel the people and the world need. We need to ‘see’ differently and we need to evolve differently. We need to connect and heal differently. I struggled immensely with the stagnant and seemingly archaic standards that define principles of ‘wellness’ according to western psychology and medicine. I knew in the beginning it would be difficult, but I had no idea I would resist to such a paralyzing degree. I couldn’t by into ‘it’, the falsity of a socially constructed, not empirically supported, set of practices and ideologies that neglected to address the roots of dis-ease, as well as the millions of beings that didn’t culturally, emotionally, socially or behaviorally ‘fit’ into a category and standardized treatment plan. I discovered that I am already helping and guiding people to better places in their lives in my own unique and holistic and somatic approach, and I don’t need a counseling certificate and years of psychoanalytic talk therapy and neuron-transmitter tracing. Rather, I need an intention, wisdom, experience and an open heart. This is what helps people, not my ability to diagnose. My heart was beginning to close, and I was putting it, and all those attached to it, on hold….for a smaller self that needed reassurance. In this admission, I began to rethink my steps, my ambitions, and my vision for my work in the world. I listened to my heart speak and she said that something was missing from my academic pursuits, something that is at the core of me, my knowing and living:
What was missing is what is needed the most, spirituality and nature.
I had been conducting research for many years on somatic approaches to trauma resolution, and had been seeking to understand the hidden formula behind resilience. I arrived to two equations: 1.) Nature; through our biological and evolutionary response systems the body has an innate capacity to adapt, release and heal, and 2.) Spirit; through our spiritual connectedness we find a channel that invites transformation and transcendence from suffering.
For me, spirit and nature have always been one, and in my own processes of healing and discovery, it has been from spirit and nature that I have sourced my greatest resilience and inspiration.
My heart has appropriately redirected my course of academia to a humanities program in Transpersonal (spiritual psychology, growth and change) and Ecopsychology (our relationship with the environment). I am passionate again about my work and I am dedicated to brining it to the ears and hearts that are hungry for nature and spiritual based healing practices in addition to my previous style of blogging, teaching and energetic healing. Refresh yourself with the changes to my site and stick around because I am back! Through this new direction you will see the connectedness between individual resilience/renewal and collective resilience/renewal. Robin Yoga is a new medicine for Restoring the People, and Restoring the Planet.
Blessings,
Robin Afinowich
