For the better part of 2019 I've been cooking up two new creations: my second human baby; a little boy that joined us in August, and a new business, one that has been a culmination of years of brainstorming and training.
To make a 72-hour long story very short, my son is a happy and healthy baby, and we are surfing the postpartum period with relative grace and ease (I'm sure there will be more on that later).
I want to take a moment to talk a bit about the new business, Heartwork Wellness Collaborative. The name came to me while reading one of my yoga textbooks, which referenced doing "work of the heart," and it occurred to me that whether one is practicing yoga, addressing their physical health concerns, or doing the deep insight work of psychotherapy, they all involve matters of the heart: opening up, softening, connecting, and healing. And it is a lot of work to embark on these various journeys.
I wanted to create a space where people can come together to do this work in communion. We are, by and large, experiencing a crisis of isolation, both physically and spiritually. In a world that is overpopulated, rates of loneliness have never been higher. Research overwhelmingly shows those who have strong social support networks across the lifespan tend to fare better, and enjoy both longevity and quality of life compared to those who report feeling alone. Our society has cultivated and rewarded individualism, and we are now paying the price.
With this non-profit organization, my idea is to reach as many people as possible with messages about how to foster mental and physical wellness by being the architects of our own health while receiving the collective support that is needed to make these sometimes sweeping individual changes. I will be shaping services around the core mission to decrease mental health stigma, increase knowledge about preventive lifestyle measures one can take toward wellness, and assist people in creating meaningful change.
I'm not sure exactly what this will look like yet, but I know we will be offering therapy, yoga, support groups, educational workshops, and community groups, as well as doing as much outreach toward de-stigmatizing mental health and wellness as possible, because mental health is an area of health that applies to us all, and we need to stop acting like it is only reserved for those in crisis.
I hope you'll follow our journey and find a way to connect, or make a suggestion about what you'd like to see us offer. Find updates here on this website, on instagram @heartworkrva, and on our Facebook page. Stay tuned!