Hey there!
I'm Carly and I am here to be your guide through whatever curveball life is currently throwing at you, as life is wont to do. Maybe you're feeling stuck, or burnt out, or numb. Maybe you're going through a major life transition- switching jobs, or careers, or navigating the end of a significant relationship. Maybe you're in the military, and preparing to transition to the civilian world (maybe you already have)- I'm a Navy vet so I see y'all, veterans!
Maybe you're thinking, "there's got to be a better way to this whole being human and life-ing thing," or "how the eff did I get here?" Maybe you're thinking, "what else IS there?," or "what now?"
Whatever you are facing, I've got tools and resources galore as I have been asking those questions and trying new things and figuring out who I was and re-figuring out who I was and establishing practices and adjusting practices and getting training and certification in different modalities and training in teaching others practices for TEN YEARS. So it is time for me to transfer my knowledge, to you- good people of the internet, and especially my fellow veterans!
This is where this newsletter, Rest and Recuperation- R&R for short- comes in. The term R&R was popularized during the Vietnam War to signify the (short) breaks that deployed military personnel would get away from the (harrowing) combat zones to mostly chill beachy places (or back stateside). It could mean "Rest and Recuperation/Relaxation" but I went for "Rest and Recuperation" for this bad boy because I love the definition of recuperation (from Google's Oxford Languages dictionary): the recovery or regaining of something lost or taken. Each week my intention is to share a tool, practice, or other kind of resource that can help you to recover and regain who you are, underneath all the layers of gunk that life throws at us, as previously mentioned, life is wont to do. Step 1: give yourself permission to rest. Step 2: Engage with the practice. Also, let's make our personal R&R a regular practice, and not once-ish a "tour." We deserve better. Our nervous systems deserve better!
These tools and practices will draw heavily on mind-body frameworks (think-yoga, breathwork, working with the nervous system), because according to neuroscientists and my actual lived experience, the mind and body are not separate, so when you work with one the fruits of your labor spill over all over the place. Yay! Lucky for you, I am also a certified yoga and mindfulness meditation teacher, and I hear good things from my students. Also expect contemplative and self-reflective practices to bring in a cognitive aspect as well. Discovering and embodying our most authentic selves is a complex work-in-progress, my fellow human beings- so it requires coming at it from a bunch of different angles. Also also I am psychology and neuroscience nerd so there will be (hopefully) fun explanations of how this all works and there will be proper references and links to sources for additional optional nerding out. Last, as a veteran with a deep heartfelt intention to serve my fellow veterans, I strive to be trauma-informed so I can support people who have had traumatic experiences during their military service, as there are lots of shitty ways that can happen in the military, so I will be sharing with that lens as necessary.
If you are not affiliated with the military, and thinking, oh dang I clicked on the wrong suggested link, do not fret! I may tailor things to certain aspects of military culture, but I want anyone and everyone who's interested to benefit from this project, thus I will explain acronyms and you get to learn something about (at least US) military culture. Neat!
So, if you are still reading and even remotely curious, sign up and let's walk the path of authentic self-discovery and embodiment, together...a step or two every week will make a big difference!
In deep gratitude to you for taking precious minutes out of your day to read this whole post,
Carly
