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KAT’S NEWSLETTER
September
Welcome, I’m so excited to be able to share some great new things with you!
With the end of summer, kids going back to school and work-life picking up...our lives move full steam ahead towards autumn, towards changing seasons, towards dying leaves - taunting us to move into survival modes to get everything done. I am always thinking about how to harmonize our nervous system with each other and the world around us. This month - failure, play, and death have caught my attention. And the ways we transform in the in-between!
I was thinking recently…WHAT IF FAILURE IS ONLY A GAP?
I was struck the other day by reading that it takes 400 repetitions to build a new synapse in your brain, but only 15-20 repetitions if it is done in play, joy, pleasure or laughter. Apparently, the dopamine released solidifies the new pathway. It sounded familiar, and I realized I had heard it said before to validate play therapy with children. It made me so curious about what that means for learning new skills as an adult.
How do we as adults learn new things? Change patterns? Change habits we have curated for many years - sometimes the majority of our lives? If we shift in joy or pleasure, can we learn skills quicker or disrupt old patterns with more ease?
Then I got curious about FAILURE as an adult - times when we didn’t achieve an expected outcome or goal someone else set for us… or we set for ourselves. I imagine we all have shame around past failures, some from adulthood and others from childhood. Some obvious and some sneaky… more hidden.
If we thought of failure as A GAP, then would failure simply be unfinished actions or part of a process?
Kind of like is failure an ellipsis (…) instead of a period? Exposing possibility, not an ending. Failure becomes a conversation between destinations, between actions. Are we ever truly arriving anywhere? Or are we just continually moving between points we create or identify, or points society chooses for us?
Then…if you believe you failed or are failing as a parent, or a partner, or a friend…what would it look like to succeed? To not fail? Couldn’t you just be in the IN BETWEEN, between one action and the next? A new pathway between destinations. The gap…
How do we exist within the gaps? We transform… failure allows for space, creation, change, and metamorphosis - and when we play or experience joy within that space we build more new pathways faster. We keep trying, committing and dedicating and it will become something else. We learn to value playing in the gaps, instead of surviving the gaps. We open our eyes. Get Curious. Try something new. Sometimes even take a risk. And keep allowing one action to talk to the next.
Finding joy, play or pleasure between every breath, between every moment.
OFFERINGS
NEW GROUP: Don’t Die with your legacy of love still inside you…
This may seem like a strange name for a group, but death and dying is one of our culture’s biggest blindspots (read more about blindspots here). We struggle to let go and accept death as part of a cycle, and so we struggle to fully receive and live. Don’t know what your legacy of love is? You’ve come to the right place! What is inside of you that you haven’t yet shared with the world…do you know what it is? Maybe, it’s a dream or a business, or a book waiting to be written, or a way of being in the world…maybe, you have no idea what it is but want to discover it. Join the group for support and community to take a step towards your legacy of love - feel what it would be, claim it, speak it and take action.
Join me Fridays in September - starting 9/8 - for a drop-in group 8-9AM PST.
It costs $25 per group, OR write me and tell me your secret…the legacy of love you are holding inside, and GET ONE GROUP FOR FREE!
Reach out to sign up and get the ZOOM link. This is for anyone at any stage. I promise you will get more clarity, support, and action steps!
Curious and Parenting
Let’s get curious together. AND PLAY more! A perfect starting point for getting parents, grandparents, babysitters, aunticles and other caregivers on the same page; it’s like a cheat sheet on how to get curious about supporting your baby and toddlers through developmental changes, with some reference to older kiddos. There are lots of opinions, education tools and apps out there…but this is a quick and simple support for the in-between moments to keep you curious and help you find the approaches that work best for you. It offers ways you can support your child’s physical and social-emotional growth through connection, structure and boundaries - largely through play.
(It’s free this month, so please share it!) Link HERE
 BUSINESS CORNERSoraya Khalje McMahon (check her out) and I are collaborating to provide a nudge for Social Entrepreneurs to take that risk and stretch to the next level. We focus on changing your brain to change your business. Why do you want a physicist and an MSW to support you? Soraya will make everything more efficient and effective (think left brain logistics), and I will support you in the emotional and habitual blindspots holding you back (think right brain intuition). Reach out if you want to learn more about working with us! More to come next month… |  FAMILY CORNERAll kids are unique, and some have a more challenging time navigating what, for others, is easier and more effortless, whether it be in school, with peers, or at home. I specialize in supporting families with kids and adults who could be called neurodivergent - which I see as simply navigating the world in their own, brilliant ways. Together we find the ways to adapt to living in a society and family system that have different demands on our brains and hearts, and we build strategies for adapting instinctual approaches to shift challenging dynamics. Check out the free Curious and Parenting Document! |
