Life is the Practice.

Healing is in the mundane.

In the last decade, spirituality, wellness, and healing went mainstream, becoming really profitable.

Everyone spoke of a healing modality that changed their life. A NYT bestselling self-help author/guru whose wisdom they gobbled up. A favorite acupuncturist and oolong tea. They rocked a crystal collection. They owned at least one tarot deck. They had a go-to astrologer and introduced themselves with their big three. Seemingly, everyone had been blasted awake by ayahuasca, and were microdosing in-between macrodose journeys.

Our scarcity and unworthiness suddenly got a makeover and mantra, a new version of our not-enoughness…

…I’m not HEALED enough.

People were saving up to attend their next healing retreat in Costa Rica, throwing money at therapists and life coaches and psychic readers who were all too ready to receive that swell of attention and cash with open arms.

The word “manifestation” buzzed around us in the air and every media platform we frequented. This financial windfall surge of these proselytizers was the proof we needed in the spiritual pudding – healing equates wealth. And the more I heal, the more the Universe will reward me for all this effort.

If I just keep throwing money towards my healing, if I just become magnetic enough, I’m going to attract all the wealth and abundance and good fortune that I want!

Spirituality and healing became branded objects to consume insatiably and be identified by.

Let me stop right here and also caveat what I’m saying. We need therapy. We need healing spaces. They are absolutely expanding the consciousness here on Earth. They are helping us better embody true compassion to make choices from love and energetic capacity rather than fear and nervous system collapse.

Healing is what is allowing Minnesotans to show up and take action in this moment by throwing up their collective middle finger to the fascist authority figures wreaking havoc in their communities.

AND…

…what they are doing, how they are modeling fiercely loving action, is healing ALL of us. It’s delivered in what they are embodying.

This kind of healing doesn’t happen in a ceremonial space, a meditation or yoga studio, a Costa Rican retreat center, a sound bath or breathwork circle.

It’s happening in the streets in realtime. It’s happening through demonstrations that show us all another way to make choices that actively questions and brazenly condemns the abuse of authority.

It’s permissive rather than forced. It invites us all to be present, to observe, and to choose how we want to respond in kind. It asks us –

What kind of human being do you want to be?

Since the end of 2025, I haven’t felt like offering new breathwork circles. Not because I stopped believing breathwork to be supportive, but because I’m now sitting with these questions –

Is that the best use of my energy right now? Is that the kind of healing we need in this moment? Is that the kind of practice that I personally need and want to engage in for myself?

And so far, the answer has been “no, not right now.”

Instead, where I have found healing is in my practice of mundane life –

Cooking nutritious and delicious meals.

Washing and folding clothes.

Caring for my skin.

Strength-training.

Becoming financially literate.

Walking the dogs.

Steeping and pouring tea.

Making lattes with the perfect balance of sweetened foam.

Caring for my family.

Vacuuming and mopping the floors.

Reading.

Consciously discovering and listening to music.

Tending to my altar.

Watering the plants.

I recently took an online course on gongfu tea, a meditative practice that is about having a slow conversation with tea through scent and taste. Though this practice has a learning curve involving some skill and knowledge (i.e. how to hold a gaiwan and pour without burning yourself), in essence, all you are doing is pouring hot water in and out of vessels, drinking, smelling, tasting and observing.

One could argue that steeping tea is pretty simple and straight-forward. Pour hot water into tea leaves. Wait. Drink. But when consciousness, awareness, and care are all brought into this simple act, it becomes so much more.

I began to really notice how my red oolong tea evolved with every steeping. How the taste changed, as well as the scent of the leaves. When I slowed down to feel the temperature of the boiling hot water against my wrist while smelling the damp tea leaves, I began to intuit the temperature that the tea leaves wanted to be steeped in.

There were so many things to notice once I slowed down and poured care into each step. There was a rhythm. There was feedback. I could respond better with action when I listened more closely and paid attention to what was shared.

It was CARE that was the practice. So I began to ask myself –

What would happen if I washed my face with this level of conscious care, and really listened to how my skin responded?

What would happen if I made my meals with this intent curiosity?

What if I took this approach to my daily walks with my pups, carefully observing them in our environment? What would I learn from them?

And what would happen if I focused my attention and care on my direct environment – my neighborhood and communities, my family and circle of friends? What would I learn? How would I respond then?

This is the kind of healing that our communities are needing so badly right now – our care, presence, curiosity, and most importantly, responsive action. It’s not just more yoga, more breathwork, more TCM advice, more ayahuasca ceremonies.

To heal means “to be made whole.” Our communities are needing to be made whole by our connecting, defending and protecting against the destructive forces that are ripping families apart.

What healing looks like for me personally right now –

1. ICE training for community self-defense. These training are happening all over and constantly now. Find one close by. Learn what to do to support your neighbors when (not if) ICE shows up. Get clear on the plans of action that save and support.

2. Staying grounded by focusing on my three F’s: food, fitness, finance. There is so much being shaken and upheaved right now. Fear is at an all-time high. Nothing is certain or familiar anymore. So we have to do what we can to make sure our cores and inner worlds are grounded and stable. I’m doing that by going back to basics and making sure that I am eating well, strengthening my body, and understanding how to make my dollar stretch in this economy.

3. Getting back to wellness basics – more care in the mundane. I’ve spent many years receiving somatic therapy, breathwork, energy healing, and medicine work. Those spaces provided an eject button from my daily life where I could safely own my survival patterns. But we aren’t meant to stay in those spaces permanently. Those spaces don’t replace the lives that we are here to participate in. Chasing the high from those experiences becomes a form of spiritual bypassing. It’s tempting because it feels validating, like we’re doing something that really matters because we feel so intensely in those spaces. But focusing our energy solely on these kinds of experiences ultimately moves us away from healing, from wholeness, from connection with what is here now. So tuning into mundane practices keeps me engaged, focused, and connected to what is here around me. It keeps me in the material realm.

4. Making space for creative joy. In learning how to dj and also developing my podcast Third Space, I have been losing myself in music discovery. And that fills my soul like nothing else. I realized at the end of 2025 in my burnout that while I was so focused on creating healing spaces for grief, I had not done a good job balancing that effort with creating spaces for joy and creative expression. We need to make space for lightness, especially when everything feels so bleak and dystopian. So stoke your inner flame and curiosity by learning something new and expressing yourself in ways that inspire you.

This last month of the shedding Snake before the Fire Horse arrives feels to me like a record-scratch moment that begs us to look more closely at our energetic expenditure – what is siphoning energy away from us, what truly heals and helps in this moment on earth, and how will we choose to respond?

I feel us collectively floating (or crashing) back down to earth from the tornado that swept us up in the spiritual healing and wellness vortex of the last decade. We’re waking up to the ways we fell under the capitalistic spells of new age gurus and wellness industries that fed off our scarcity and not-enoughness with their confident self-assured charm, expensive multi-tiered programs, and too-good-to-be-true silver bullets.

For me, I’m choosing to get rid of any distractions and get back to basics –

Hydrate.

Cook and prep 90% of my meals.

Eat well.

Strengthen my body.

Grow awareness through repeating mundane rituals with presence.

Invest money wisely to liberate my time and energy.

Grow more of my food.

Spend time around my neighborhood and get to know my neighbors.

Call and check up on family and friends regularly.

Perhaps in our scarcity, we over-complicated what should have been so simple. I’ve been learning from the elderly immigrants in my neighborhood what care looks like.

Offerings of a kind acknowledgement, a piece of fruit picked from a tree in their yard, a call to check in on their well-being.

Presence that says – I see you. I care about your existence. I’m watching out for you. You matter.