Fall 2024: Resources We Love

Fall is a season of change — one that can spark both excitement and a touch of anxiety. As we look ahead to the busy winter months and a new year, we’re inviting you to slow down, embrace the present, and savor the unique moments autumn brings. To help ground you during this transitional time, our therapists have shared the readings and resources that are inspiring and supporting them right now.

Stephanie Brown

Resources I've been loving this fall have been The Happiness Lab with Dr. Laurie Santos and Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender by Dr. David Hawkins.

The Happiness Lab is based on the psychology course that Dr. Santos teaches at Yale — the most popular class in the university’s 300-year history! Dr. Santos uses the latest scientific research to help us restructure the way we think about happiness. I particularly appreciated the How To Fail at Work episode, as it reframes how to handle failures and learn from our mistakes — a very human experience.

Letting Go is a powerful read for when things seem more challenging than usual or you're just looking for a mental reset. Dr. Hawkins offers guidance on how to let go of negative emotions and beliefs that might be keeping you from your greatest potential. I highly recommend it if you're looking to learn more about how to let go. 

Aryn Davis

For the past five years, a daily practice of mine has been getting up early to sit in silence before the day begins, and these fall mornings have given us the most impeccable sunrises! Along with a hot cup of tea, one of my favorite texts to grab on these chilly mornings is Steven Charleston's Spirit Wheel: Meditations from an Indigenous Elder. He draws from the wisdom of his ancestors and the earth's wisdom, calling us to a place of universal belonging and oneness. 

Election season can be such a divisive time in our culture, but his words reignite my hope for our country, and for the world: 

[Before] I did not appreciate how the spiritual path of my ancestors had something wonderful, something powerful, to share with people of all walks of life. But it did. And it does: the mystery of how we can all speak the same language, even if we use different words. In my tradition we call that universal vision the Four Directions...The four hallmarks of Native American spirituality are Tradition, Kinship, Vision, Balance. We honor the wisdom of our ancestors: Tradition. We recognize the interrelatedness with all living things: Kinship. We seek the eternal spirit here now: Vision. We walk in faith and spiritual mindfulness: Balance. 

One of his sacred readings that I most cherish is called, How Well We Love:

Bend your heart toward love, 

As a flower bends to face the sun. 

When all is said and done, 

The only true measure of our lives 

Is how well we loved. 

How well we gave love, received love, shared love, 

Protected love, created love. 

Nothing else will matter when our turn comes 

To make the final journey—

Only the love we were will linger. 

Only love will still speak our name

In the hearts of those we embraced. 

We were made to love, you and I,

Made so by the author of love 

Made in the image of love, to be the love we are. 

Elizabeth Ebaugh

Reverence and ritual help us become more present. To create more space for this in your life, I recommend Reverence: Creating Ritual in Modern Life by Christine Marie Mason. 

The practices in this book can ground us in meaning, creating a more magical, enchanted, and vibrant experience — whether we're celebrating or healing. Reverence invites us to walk with greater awareness of all that life brings: the tender, fierce, resilient, calm, despairing, and joyous moments. It opens our eyes to the precious connections we share with each other and with the planet we are part of.

Living with more ritual and ceremony offers personal benefits, too. When we are fully present in an experience, we can feel it deeply and then release it — we don’t hold on to so much. As a result, we move through life with less baggage and more presence in the moment. When we practice with others, the space between us comes alive, and we feel less alone.

Join us in reverence. Sink into the wonder of being alive. Our love for life can inspire us to take better care of ourselves, each other, and the world. Ritual, ceremony, and devotional practices help us live with more enchantment and magic, and to embody a cosmology of care and interdependence every day.

Liz Hagerman 

During a recent staff retreat, our colleague and Ayurvedic practitioner Belinda Baer told us this: "Our nervous systems have to 'digest' all sensory input. Everything we see, hear, smell, touch, taste needs to be digested."

The firehose of information and news about world events and our election can be difficult to digest — and some of it feels completely indigestible. However, this fall is giving us a spectacular opportunity to use being in nature as a way to soothe and nourish our senses and, thus, our nervous system. A walk in Rock Creek Park or even just around the neighborhood is like a nourishing meal for our brains and bodies. Take a break from screens, phone calls, and news to step outside — even if it's just to stand for a while listening and observing. Take in the colors and smells, notice the birds, squirrels, and rustling of the leaves… it's a home-cooked, warm meal for your nervous system!

Speaking of nourishing food for our nervous systems, I want to recommend my latest favorite book: Nourished by Deborah MacNamara. (Deborah also wrote Rest Play Grow: Making Sense of Preschoolers, another book I've recommended!) I found her latest read especially timely with the food-oriented season ahead, and I think you will, too. Here’s her description: Nourished reframes our approach to providing for our kids and helps us hit the reset button on our relationship with food. After reading this seminal work, it will be impossible to ever view food as just plain food again.

Kate Kelly

Did you know that your heart has 40,000 neurons? Or that your heart has its own independent nervous system and sends more messages to the brain than vice versa? 

In The Hidden Power of the Five Hearts: Empower Your Thoughts, Balance Your Emotions, and Unlock Vibrant Health and Abundance, Kimberly Snyder integrates Western science and Eastern yogic philosophy, making a compelling case that we can tap deeply into our hearts' intelligence and align it with the intelligence of our minds. When we do, we cultivate greater emotional resilience, joy, health, and well-being. Accessing this dynamic connection between our heart, brain, and nervous system shifts us out of negative self-talk, fear, and the wildness of our often unbridled minds. Snyder articulates five distinct stages of heart awakening, and helps us recognize what stage we're in and start where we are on our own heart-mind journey.   

For those who want to delve deeper into the research from the Western science side, here are a couple of studies to check out: 

• Rollin McCraty, Science of the Heart: Exploring the Role of the Heart in Human Performance, vol 2 (Boulder Creek, CA: Heart Math Institute 2015).

• Doc Childre et al., Heart Intelligence: Connecting with the Heart's Intuitive Guidance for Effective Choices and Solutions (Dundee Scotland: Waterfront Digital Press, 2016. 

And from the Eastern yogic philosophy side, see the works of  Paramahansa Yogananda and Swami Yukteswar Giri. 

Liz Liptak

The issue of social media use and teen mental health continues to be a hot topic that draws my attention. If it’s something you’d like to learn more about, here are a few resources that I’ve found helpful and informative: 

• Last year, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy issued a report linking social media use to the crisis in teen mental health. In a recent article for The New York Times, he even called for a warning label on social media platforms about their harms.

• In The Anxious Generation, social psychologist Jonathan Haidt links the rise in adolescent mental health issues to a “phone-based childhood” that restricts play. His book addresses the need for school and home-based reforms as well as the value of spiritual practices, including experiencing the awe of nature and stillness or meditation — which, as a holistic psychotherapist, is music to my ears!

• For a look at how teens are faring and feeling through all of this, documentarian Lauren Greenfield interviewed teens in the Los Angeles area for a new series, Social Studies, which looks at the challenges of growing up in the era of social media.

• Finally, this balanced article from the Kids Health website offers practical advice and tips for parents navigating our digital reality.

Amy Murphy 

In this busy and unsettled time, I have found comfort revisiting some of Anne Lamott's writing. A novelist and non-fiction writer, Lamott is a favorite of mine for her essay collections. I had the pleasure of attending an event last spring where I was able to hear her do a reading, and respond to all kinds of audience questions. Now, as I read, I can hear her voice — which only adds to the experience. The themes of presence and acceptance are prominent throughout her non-fiction. Introduced with her signature self-effacing humor, they are approachable and offered as an aspiration. I always feel a little more grounded and restored after spending time reading Lamott's essays. 

Lisa Oakley

As a group practice, the Center therapists recently had the pleasure of learning from our revered Ayurvedic Medicine teacher and specialist Belinda Baer. She shared strategies and go-to tips to help with sleep and combat insomnia. 

We sometimes forget how important sleep is in maintaining our physical and mental well-being. Fall can be a time of year when stressors loom large: summer vacations are a fading memory, students are immersed in the demands of school and busy after-school schedules, and parents are trying to juggle all the various needs and expectations. This year in particular following a critical election, there is no shortage of things to keep us tossing and turning at night.

Ayurveda offers a comprehensive approach to addressing insomnia and anxiety by emphasizing balancing the mind, body, and spirit. It focuses on using essential oils, dietary adjustments, lifestyle changes, and calming rituals, all of which can naturally provide long-lasting relief from both anxiety and insomnia. 

To learn more about how Ayurvedic practices can help with sleep and stress reduction, visit Belinda's website:  https://www.wisewomanayurveda.com/