Today I had an unexpected moment during a bodywork session. A memory surfaced of being held by my mother, and emotion came up with it. What caught my attention wasn’t the emotion itself. It was how quickly shame appeared alongside it. Not shame about anything I had done. Shame about being seen feeling something. I sat with it instead of shutting it down. And after a few minutes, the shame faded while the emotion remained. It made me wonder how often the feeling isn’t actually the hard part. Maybe the hard part is the story we learned about having feelings in the first place. Today was a reminder that emotions tend to move when we let them. Shame is often what keeps them stuck. This is what we’ve been working on in the first wave and places I’m still navigating.

The more I think about Leigh Ankrum’s lecture, the more I find myself curious about one idea in particular. Birth may be the first way the body learns stress. Long before we have words, beliefs, or stories about ourselves, we have an experience. Pressure.Change.Uncertainty.Movement. For the first time, the environment we’ve known begins to shift. Something is ending, and something new is beginning. Leigh invited us to consider the possibility that birth is more than a physical event. It may also be our first experience of navigating challenge and transition. What caught my attention is how closely this mirrors something I’ve been exploring in emotional surfing. We spend so much of our lives trying to understand our experiences. We analyze them, explain them, and create stories about them. Understanding has value, but it often comes later. Experience comes first. Before we understand stress, we experience it. Before we understand fear, we experience it. Before we understand change, uncertainty, loss, or pressure, we experience them. The body experiences long before the mind understands. It made me wonder. When pressure shows up in my life today, am I experiencing it or am I immediately trying to understand it? Am I feeling what is actually happening, or am I racing ahead to explain it? I’m not suggesting that birth determines our future. Life is far more complex than that. But I am fascinated by the possibility that the body may learn something in those earliest moments that echoes throughout a lifetime. Maybe some of our responses to stress aren’t decisions at all. Maybe they’re patterns. And maybe awareness gives us the opportunity to notice those patterns and respond differently. This was only one small piece of a much larger lecture, and I’ll be sharing a few more ideas that caught my attention over the coming days. Because shining was never about having all the answers. Maybe it begins when we become willing to experience life before rushing to understand it.

I love the guided meditaion at the end of the module…very helpful, and soul soothing…helps to incorporate all the new bits of ah ha and releases. To me; it’s like a bowl of yummy soup on a cold day.

For years, I looked for something that wouldn't try to fix me. Wouldn't hand me a tidy 12-step plan to heal before lunch. Wouldn't rush me past the part where I was actually falling apart. When my life started dissolving, and it did, in that messy, raw, nothing-on-the-highlight-reel way, I didn't need another guru. I didn't need another app congratulating me for logging my mood. I needed something that would sit with me in the wave. So I made it. Emotional Surfing is twenty interactive modules across four series. Small, honest spaces where you get to actually bewith what's moving through you instead of performing okay. No wellness-algorithm journal prompts. No "just breathe and trust the universe." Real questions. Real pauses. Real room for the mess. Here's what's inside. Series 1, Foundations (Modules 1 through 5) How to Use the Wheel. Feeding vs Feeling. The Moment Sensation Becomes Story. Wait, What, Watch. Emotions as Messengers. Learning the wheel. Learning your weather. The basics of not drowning in your own feelings. Series 2, Going Deeper (Modules 6 through 10) The Seduction of Emotions. The Body Before the Story. The 5 C's. Understanding vs Experiencing. Hierarchy of Change. Under the surface stuff. The patterns. The stories. What's actually running the show. Series 3, Working With It (Modules 11 through 15) The Drama Triangle. States. The Canvas Beneath the Waves. Living With Intention. Meaning Making: How Emotions Get Built. Practice. Real-life application. What to do when it's 2am and the wave is here. Series 4, Living It (Modules 16 through 20) The Inner Production: Who's Running the Story. The Bridge. Chaos. Repair and Toolbox. The Art of Letting a Feeling Move. Integration. The shift from surviving your emotions to surfing them. Twenty modules. Four movements. One invitation. To stop performing okay and start being real. I just about have the first section ready. If you haven’t already and you want, let me know. This is a first wave beta. A small group walking through it with me, telling me what lands and what doesn't. Your honesty shapes what this becomes. You're not a test subject. You're a co-conspirator.

I want to share a quick update on how this first wave will work. Instead of meeting live, the sessions will be prerecorded so you can move through them in your own time. I am also giving you just the interactive slide deck. I want to see which version lands best. You’ll start with Module 1. After you’ve gone through it, there will be a short feedback form. Once you complete and send it back to me, I’ll send you Module 2. We’ll move through the rest the same way. This is a beta, so your feedback is part of the process. It helps me see what’s landing, what needs adjusting, and what wants more space before the next piece opens up. I’ll be working on getting these recorded over the next few weeks and am aiming to begin no later than June 1 but hopefully sooner. I’m tying up a few loose ends and honoring my capacity while also sticking to the plan!! As soon as Module 1 is ready, I’ll let you know and share it in the classroom. If you want to be part of this first wave, comment “wave” and I’ll add you.