As we move into the colder months, it’s important to nurture your mind, body, and spirit. Seasonal changes can affect our health, and now is the time to embrace community, creativity, and wellness. Our Healing Arts Studio offers a nurturing space to restore energy, connect with others, and find balance. Join us for workshops, movement classes, and gatherings to support your well-being. Register now for our event on 11/30/24 in The Bronx!

Have you heard about the Shirleys in Wuhan, China? Probably not. They are a family of four sharing strategies that are helping them thrive during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Here are their tips:

1. They limit their travel, staying home all day everyday. When they do go out they practice social distancing and wear a surgical mask.

2. They beefed up their immune system. Remembering a recipe from Jamaica they make a brew with nutrient-dense ingredients including: ginger, honey, garlic, apple cider vinegar, and sour oranges. Sounds familiar right? Yes, Fire Cider!

3. They practice good hygiene. They each wash their hands frequently throughout the day, and they avoid touching their faces as much as possible.

4. They play tons of games! Dominos is their favorite and it brings them a lot of joy during this time of uncertainty.

5. They laugh together all day long! The Shirleys are laughing a lot because laughter is free, fun, easy to use, strong medicine. It draws people together in ways that trigger healthy physical and emotional changes in the body. Laughter strengthens your immune system, boosts mood, diminishes pain, and protects you from the damaging effects of stress. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor lightens your burdens, inspires hope, and keeps you grounded, focused, and alert. With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is an abundant resource for surmounting problems.

Our first travel experience was when our son, Cuba, was 3 months old. We flew from NYC to ATL, a 2.5 hr trip. The rest of our vacation consisted of us traveling on a plane from ATL to Fort Myers, FL and then another plane from Fort Myers back to NYC. So altogether within 1 trip we had an adventure of 3 plane rides with our infant.

When I gave birth to my son, I not only became a mother, but a mother without a mother. At the age of 55 my mother died of breast cancer. It was an aggressive strain, and after living cancer-free for more than 20 years, it returned spreading aggressively to her lungs and then her brain. After the double mastectomy we thought for sure it was the end of the cancer. Only for the cancer to return a year later taking her life and mine too soon. Losing your mother when you are becoming a mother can feel like your compass is gone; lost. Grief can be a constant trigger. I had to learn to redirect my mind.

I have my moments where I am mourning all what might have been with her. Watching my child grow I am suddenly in the role of who I need the most but who is no longer around. Grief has a way of reminding me of all the questions I didn’t get to ask. Questions about the symptoms I’m feeling or how she felt at __ weeks pregnant. Or what her delivery experience was like in comparison to mine.  I’ll never get to have those conversations but despite the unknowing, pain has a way of leading to transformation. 

Through motherhood I transformed from a wounded daughter into a healing mother. I made the choice to be a happy mother and I wanted to be greater than my grief. I tapped into all the great mother energy around me – those with children and those without. From my mother in law, great-grandma, my sister, even ChiChi – my female bulldog, some friends and co-workers and my doula, I had all this great maternal energy to tap into. I absorbed it all. I honored their wisdom, while at the same time I created a space for my own mothering to grow. Some people do certain things in their family because their mom did it. Well when it comes to mothering without a mother, I didn’t have that so instead I chose to see the beauty in creating new family traditions.