Fall class
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”
― Maya Angelou
“If a person is to live, they must be all alive, body, soul, mind, heart, spirit.” -Thomas Merton
(edited to remove gendered language because we are all people!)
Dear Friends,
Happy September! The season is turning; I’m noticing leaves and rain starting to fall. Both of my children are back in school. Even if you don’t have big transitions in your personal life in the fall, the natural rhythm of our days changes with fewer daylight hours. This year feels especially dark to me as we look forward to the upcoming election. Regardless of individual political views, I sense a growing collective feeling of isolation and fear, a loss of connection to self and others, with the political unrest.
I have no answers to propose for the big questions facing us in the election. But I do have something to offer that I hope could offer us growth, warmth and community, a little respite from the darkness. I will be offering an in-person 6-week holistic health class called SHINE on Wednesday nights, September 25-October 30. I hesitate to call it a class because I’m hoping that as we gather each week it will become a community more than a class.
I have taught most of the physical health information in this class for many years. But this year SHINE will be based more holistically in the 5 aspects of health: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and social. We will explore and begin to embody each of them over the course of the 6 weeks. We will start by learning the basics of mindfulness, mindful self-compassion, and the neuroscience of habit formation and community. This will become the container that holds the information in the following weeks.
SHINE has evolved because I have grown as a person and a doctor; I want to share what I have learned with you because it has been so impactful for me. For example, I am late getting this letter out to all of you. I had a physical injury this summer that impacted my ability to get extra things accomplished. In the past, I would have cancelled the class this fall because it took “too long” to heal and it was “too late” to pull the class together.
But anchoring in the 5 pillars of health and using the tools we will learn together, I shifted my perspective and decided that offering something late during this difficult time is better than offering nothing. My body is healing (physical health), the class is thoughtful and based in my highest personal values of love, rest, slowness, and presence (mental health), my gut response to sending this letter is a yes (emotional health), sharing this information connects to a deep sense of purpose and meaning (spiritual health), and I am looking forward to the connection and collaboration we will build as a group (social health).
If you would like, please join us on Wednesday nights (starting next week!). Sign-up is available at the office or on our website, www.ptchiro.com/events Please feel free to check in with me by email if you have questions. (calahdc@gmail.com)
With care,
Dr. Calah