When I asked Alexa for the morning weather, she responded — with what felt like a huge grin — “62 degrees” (in January)! She then threw in that this week celebrates women-owned small businesses — did I want a list of products I could browse through? No Alexa, but thanks.
She did get me thinking: I am a woman-owned small business and if I adhere to the Oxford Language definition of products as “a thing or person that is a result of an action or process”…well then my products, to include myself, involve the constant alchemy of our humanity.
My craft is the practice of HUMAN INTIMACY — with the SELF and with OTHERS — and my products are the alchemical processes themselves. This entire holiday season, I finally worked on my alchemical project — like that photo organization project or that family lineage project or that cleaning out the email project.
I placed headphones over my ears, found my yummy spot, and I curated all of my meditations dating back to 2010, when I first launched Dynamic Meditation. I found ones that literally crackled like a late night AM radio station, the sound marking the passage of time, but the message remained tried and true, in the way that all classical human wisdom does. I made love to them by adding gentle, soulful music as a backdrop to my voice, and I’m hoping you’ll feel my care and tenderness as I lead you to nooks and crannies that may feel challenging at best, painful at worst, and revitalizing all around.
Frankly, the project was super meta, as I applied the concepts and tools to my end-of- the-year interactions, reflections, and decisions. I strolled the memories and the turning points where I anchored all these years of my own OTTÉ approach: I observed, transmuted, transformed, and evolved in my very skin alongside my students. I understood at a new level that my “products” are woven together with human development, human intimacy, human care, and human connection.
The loop of learning together and from each other is eternal. We are the true beautiful, amazing, passionate, alive human products and my work — our work together — is to curate our life experiences towards the pinnacle where we finally say, like Alexa in the mornings,
“I accept me, I love me”.
I separated the meditations into three stages that follow a journey. I intentionally designed — with a secure attachment vision — the first stage to be a foundational ToolKit, wherein you receive instructions, teachings, principles, and exercises. It is here that you also learn to really feel your feelings. The second stage is the Tunnel, where we deep dive together into the gallery of the more difficult human topics and experiences, but not without the guidelines — the handbook per se — the tools, and my familiar voice. And lastly, the third stage, the Treasure, where you feel more practiced and more ready for the higher version (and favorite) version of yourself. Here, choices are more pronounced and are based on your preferences. Ah yes, the chosen you and the chosen life is the ultimate treasure.
Mostly, know that everything I endeavor is an attempt to make you — and me — feel more lovingly swaddled as we self-explore, self-heal, and self-love.
