You don't have to bloom yet sensitive heart, you just have to begin.

If you, like me, are here in the US Northeast, we are braving frigid temperatures and literal walls of snow. Both physically and metaphorically it seems as though this season is surrounding us with walls of cold and chaos.

I have to be honest, the news from across the country and around the world has been making my heart every heavy. As I said in class recently, I have often felt at a loss of words. You might be feeling that despair, too. If you identify as a highly sensitive person or an empath, you know how difficult it is to maintain a boundary and not allow everything we see and feel to consume us.

I have had to remind myself multiple times: "This is happening all around me, and still, this is not all I am". This isn’t "Positive Psychology 101," where we just reach for "love and light." I couldn’t disagree more with the kind of spiritual bypassing that invalidates our feelings or suggests we should always be able to keep it together.

The truth is, some seasons require us not to keep it together. We don't always have to stay positive. I recently read a quote that touched me deeply:

"True resilience comes from allowing the full spectrum of emotions to move thru the body, not forcing gratitude and optimism in unsafe moments"

Dr. Keean Menard

That is why, over these past few weeks, I began a series of classes called "Elemental Wisdom." We are turning to nature to find qualities we can connect with, a way to reconnect to ourselves and each others while submerged in a world of division.

The feedback from this series has been so enthusiastic that I plan to expand it in my live classes and share more practices through the next few issues of this newsletter.

As I write this on February 2nd, the Celtic festival of Imbolc has just passed, marking the exact midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. This is the first year I have felt such a deep connection to the "Wheel of the Year."

Across many cultures, this is the time when the deep darkness of winter begins to subside, and the earth prepares for spring. In Celtic tradition, winter is loosening its hold. The Cailleach, the Lady of Winter, steps down from her throne of frost, passing her sacred flame to Brigid, the Lady of Imbolc. Brigid represents the hearth, healing, poetry, and the forge. Beneath the soil, the first stirrings of new life are beginning. You can see a beautiful illustration of this passage of flame at the bottom of this section (image from @magicpaintings).

As my personal gift to you, I just shared a special Mini Yoga Nidra practice to connect to your inner flame and rebirth: "The rising phoenix" with my Inner Bloom Circle newsletter.

This practice is designed to help you start feeling again those stirring of life in your heart, finding the promise that light and warmth is coming back and honoring this season of preparation for emergence and rebirth within. You don't have to bloom yet, you just have to begin.

To access this practice Join the Inner Bloom Circle here!

To become part of the community of sensitive and caring hearts I am gathering on Facebook, join my Facebook group "Inner Bloom for Sensitive Hearts here.

Wherever you are, I’ve got you. You are held with love.

Love from the heart of hearts,

Federica