December 1, 2022 • 31 mins
In today’s episode, we explore one of Devi's personal practices, called recapitulation. This is not for the faint at heart, but for those who are ready to evaluate the totality of their growth and honor the steps, the day-by-day micro wins, and/or your subtle behavior patterns. It’s for documenting the small changes and the truth about where you are in life.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
M from grandmothers who whispered and their baby girl ill.
Two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers
to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you
(00:21):
were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands
of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the
backs of diamond eyed school children who grew into hymnals
recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments
out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots. To keep
the warmth of their blood, be wise, be smart, being black,
(00:46):
opal Brown courts, bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of
jim see king told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife,
wife told her daughter, and daughter told the as this is,
and the inns has told me that you would come
to give wisdom. Thousands they said you would come, Dropping
(01:09):
Dropping Gem. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the
Dropping Gems podcast. I am your host, Stephie Brown. This
is your soft place to land as we explore higher
consciousness and self acceptance and all the tools that make
both of those things true. In each of our lives
are unique journeys today. What I would love to settle
(01:33):
into is really thinking about this next year that we're
embarking on. So a couple episodes back, I released an
episode about getting Ready for three and starting now. So
if you haven't had a chance to listen to that
episode yet, I highly recommended. I included a mini meditation
(01:55):
called who am I Being Called to Become? That I
think could feel really useful. So if you haven't listened
to that, listen and this episode, we're going to be
exploring ways to really settle into a meaningful practice of
tracking your growth. So something I want to be really
committed to doing in this next year is having more
(02:18):
solo episodes sprinkled in where we get to kind of
deep dive into some technique. And I think that this format.
I wasn't sure if I should just be doing that
on video or if that could really have a home
here on a podcast. But the ways that everyone has
been letting me know they're listening to this show, listening
to it UM more so as a companion. You know,
(02:40):
a lot of a lot of UM listeners have been
sharing some really beautiful videos with me being out in
nature in gorgeous places while listening to the show or
listening to a meditation, and it's just felt really inspiring
to me every time I get to see that, every
time you all choose to share that with me on
(03:02):
Instagram at Debbie Brown, and I thought, you know, that
is the perfect backdrop to settle into some embodiment practices,
to settle into some self inquiry, to settle into tools
and practices that feel most useful for us wherever we
(03:22):
happen to be at this particular moment on our journey.
So all of that is in mind, and I was
thinking this week about all of the things that I
begin to get ready for myself as I approached either
a new year or as I approach a personal new year,
which is my birthday. Those are the two times of
(03:44):
years that I really like to settle into a lot
of forecasting for myself, a lot of channeling, a lot
of deep connecting um in my meditative practice and in
the ways that I tracked my growth and I every
year I really get present with myself and I begin
(04:04):
to explore what are the themes that I'm being called
to investigate now? And when I think about investigation, I
really specifically mean what am I meant to know about myself?
This year or what are some new areas of practice
that I can work with. And it's not always the
deeper work, you know. Sometimes sometimes we make it past
(04:26):
a few hurdles and we have many years of being
able to do the work in a way that feels
more fun, uh, in a way that feels more in
service to manifesting higher outcomes and better choices. Um And
some years all the work centers around kind of the
excavation or degree for the reprogramming, the releasing, and so
(04:52):
some of the techniques I'm going to share on this
episode are good for either. So, however, you are greeting
this episode whatever is present for you in your heart
right now, I want you to just notice it for
a second. I'm currently recording this episode and it is
December um or as it is released. It is December,
(05:17):
the week of the beginning of December, and we have
about four weeks until the new year. And that part
doesn't matter so much, but I frame it that way
just to share, you know, this is a time where
we are typically churning a little bit, you know, we
are chewing on what is this year looked like for
me this far? How did it measure next to what
(05:43):
my assumptions or expectations were about this year. You know,
we're churning, we're ruminating a little bit, we're thinking, we're evaluating,
we are observing, resooming out, and then we're cultivating the
creativity of what do I want to see next? What
will call into this new year with the momentum that
(06:03):
feels present of all of us kind of taking a
little bit of a break and hibernating in the cold
and then re emerging. You know, every time we especially
as adults, we get going after the first back into
that work life, after kind of being cocoon, does these
little zombies for a couple of weeks where you're straddling
(06:26):
to worlds, the working worlds, and the world of vacation,
the world of holidays. We all, we all seem to
emerge into this space of almost as if it feels
the way it used to feel when we were doing
the first day of school, right, Like, that's the longest
(06:46):
kind of stretch we get as adults, is that few
weeks in between years that we take off and you know,
use that energy, just like you felt like you could
reinvent every time a new school year kicked off. You
spent the summer kind of growing a little bit literally
and uh figuratively stretching and you know, maturing in different ways,
(07:11):
having different experiences over that couple of months that you
come back into your school year refreshed and kind of
um reimagined a little bit. And I think that's what
so many of us love about this time of the
new year. So with that thought in mind, I wanted
to share practice that I began this week and that
(07:33):
I do every year around this time where I get
to really settle in and track my growth, track my
goals from the past year, track my thoughts from the
past year, and then I create some space and begin
to imagine what's next. So if you have a journal
(07:54):
present that could feel really good, if you have something
to write with that could feel really good, or your
phone and you can type in your notes, this episode
is all about one of my favorite techniques that I
started doing with myself to track my growth. And this
technique kind of just came together in my brain, um
(08:15):
as I was in a season of a lot of churning,
and I was in a season of redesigning the practices
that I wanted to do with myself. And so I'm
sure you know this might be familiar for some listening
it may have been downloaded into you as well, or
you know, some wisdom traditions may feel similar to this.
(08:35):
But this was kind of a design I created all
my own that really served me, and so if it resonates,
I just invite you to practice this as well and
and try it on. So this technique is kind of
an expanded view on the tool that is recapitulation, and
(08:57):
recapitulation is a really powerful tool, especially in meditation, to
use at the end of every day. It's something that
can really bround you in your evening um and allow
you to complete some circles and to release choices, observations,
um different ways that you were relating to things that
(09:18):
happened to you in the day, and also really release
some stress and some charge, because sometimes we end a
day and we have some unfinished business that could be
from an interaction with another person, that could be just
the things on our to do list that there never
seems to be enough time for. But whatever it is
that comes up for each of us uniquely each day,
(09:39):
we all tend to go to bed with stuff. So
recapitulation is a practice where at the end of the day,
you lay in your bed and you do a scan
of your body. You close your eyes, but you stay awake,
and you begin to slowly observe your day from more
of an expanded, zoomed out view, from the start of
(10:02):
the day to the end of the day. And so
you may bring your memory to yourself in the morning
at the top of the day, and you would have
remember all the moments. How did your day start? The
first thing when you woke up, What was the first
feeling that was present, What did you see? What did
you do first? Perhaps it was your practice, or perhaps
(10:24):
you had to rush to get the day going. And
you're just noticing each of these moments and each of
these choices and timelines, and you're releasing it. You don't
have to make any judgments about it. You don't even
have to make promises of a better tomorrow. It's really
just about noticing and trying to release any charge or
overcommitted feeling that's present about what you're observing, and then
(10:49):
moving on to the next thought. And so you'd scan
through your day and you'd, as they shared, start with
the morning and after you got dressed, what came next. Okay,
if you had kids, what was their morning with you like?
And maybe you got them off to school. Maybe you
began to commute to work or you work from home.
Maybe you began your natural rhythm of how that starts
(11:13):
for you? And then after that, you know, what did
you what did you eat? What did you drink? Did
you have coffee, tea? Did you have water? How did
the food fill in your mouth? How did you relate
to what you were eating? And how you made that choice?
Just noticing and releasing, and then you'd move down into
(11:34):
maybe you had a meeting or a project, or took
a dry maybe you ran errands, maybe you were homeschooling.
Maybe you had a lunch meeting, or took yourself to lunch,
had much with a friend, forgot lunch, Just noticing and
continue to move down your day. How did that early
(11:56):
afternoon look? What happened in the late after ye And
you slowly roll through your thoughts at a pace that
feels good, that allows you to fully see and notice
what is there, and then just gently release each thought,
and then you moved down and what did your early
(12:16):
evening look like? How are you feeling in that time?
Maybe for fellow parents, there was the whole bathtime, dinner, bedtime, stories, routine,
and how did that feel? How did you connect with
your little ones or one? How did you connect with yourself? Um?
What was present? Did you go out with friends? Did
(12:41):
you get on zoom with someone, take a phone call
with a friend, make yourself dinner, bike ride, did you
go to the gym. You're just looking through your unique day,
observing it, releasing it, and then eventually you make it
all the way down to where you are in the
as a moment, laying in your bed, eyes closed, experiencing yourself,
(13:07):
and at that point you've really taken a bigger acknowledgement
of the totality of the day, and you take some
deep breaths in and you would consciously began to deepen
your release around the day. And depending on how that
day felt, for some, it may also be really beautiful
(13:29):
to invite in a completing statement. You know, if you
felt like you had any unfinished business, just acknowledge I
didn't get to get to those emails. Not in a
defeating way, not in a judgmental way. Thank you to
get this done, but you're acknowledging that it was left
open so that it can feel closed for the because
there's nothing else that can be done about the greatest
(13:51):
gift we can give ourselves at all moments, is the
rest necessary for our health and for our path and
for our emotional or mental, physical, spiritual well being. And
then it may feel good to set an intention. What
could that intention look like? Do you have an intention
to get deep, nourishing, revitalizing sleep. Maybe you want to
(14:17):
set an intention that you will sleep throughout the night soundly,
that you'll wake up with energy. Maybe the intention is
that tomorrow you will do X, Y and Z whatever
that is uniquely for you. But make sure whatever language
you use when you're setting an intention, you're not doing
(14:38):
it from a lack of perspective. You're not doing it
from a don't or not or won't. You're really doing
it from a place of your power, of your intention,
of your higher choice. Making um something that feels aspirational,
something that feels authentic, and something that does it bring
(15:01):
you into your critical voice for yourself, something that will
bring you into your grounded, wise and optimistic voice inside,
so that what I just kind of walked you through
is a beautiful practice that could really support you every
(15:21):
single day. It's also something that you could consider doing
once a week if that feels a little bit better
to start, and you would just go through kind of
the bullet points of each day, and you may start
at Sunday, then move to Monday and walk yourself through
your whole week and give yourself a lot of space
(15:41):
and time to do that, and noticing anything that comes
up or present, or any new thoughts or creativity that emerge, um,
any desires or needs for releasing that may begin to emerge,
you would just kind of drop those down to notice them. Now.
(16:09):
The practice we are going to settle into is away
at the top of the year that I began expanding
what is known as recapitulation into something that encompassed really
my entire year. UM and I'm someone that journals quite
extensively and I personally as as my individual being with
(16:31):
my past, present future. I feel really proud to say
that because Journalanne used to be challenging me. For me
for many decades, I would try to journal, and I
just felt like I didn't know what my authentic observational
voice was. I felt like I kept writing as if
it was a novel or as if someone would discovered
(16:51):
in a hundred years and you know, be learning about me. UM.
But now I'm I'm more prone to doing it in
sentence style UM, a thought dump or bullet points. But
I extensively journal UM. I strive to do it every
few days UM or every time my body and brain
feels really connected to getting something out of it. I
(17:12):
try to really follow that lead and race to get
a pen and kind of honor that UM. And sometimes
I also have patches where all take time off because
I just want to be in the thick of my experience.
But my journal typically consists of it's a notebook that
has some loose paper in it, but I divided off
by the month, and so I put you know, ten
(17:34):
twenty pages each month in between the dividers, and that
way I can really kind of track what I was
thinking and when I was thinking it, and what what
kind of bigger story was being told, what whispers from
God we're coming in. It's a really phenomenal way to
track God in your life, to track your intuition and
(17:56):
the way you're connecting to the signs and to the
prayers and to the meditations. UM. But it also is
really helpful at the end of the year because it
helps you really zoom out and see what do I
want to call in, what do I need to call in?
And it helps you to celebrate yourself, to see in
real time the real work that you've been doing, the
(18:19):
real things that you've accomplished. So when it comes time
at the end of the year for me to recapitulate,
I go through every month the way I just led
you through what you could do at each night, and
I give myself several days for each month. Um, you
figure there's twelve months in the year, and so you
kind of want to start with your January. Um, you'll
(18:42):
move through to December, and you'll spend a few days
on each month. So you'll begin to look at your January.
And what you'll do is you'll just kind of, Um,
if you have a journal that stated you would just
look over the pages related to that month, or you
might want to kind of look through the notes in
your phone the things you were emailing about at that time.
(19:04):
Just see if you see any patterns, see if you
see any reflections. UM. Also for those that are hyper organized,
like myself, you might want to pull up your calendar.
So I usually pull up like my eyeical or my
Google cow and I'll look at that month, and I'll
really take a moment to take it all in, and
(19:25):
I'll say, what was I doing each week? What was
I doing each day? What was I working on in
that month? What were my expectations of that month? How
did I see that month going? How did it really go?
Was I going to the doctor that month? What did
my son and I do that month? What friends did
I connect with that month? Um? What people did I
kind of purposely not connect with that month? And how
(19:48):
did that play out for me? How did that play
out for us? Um? But this level of thought and intention,
it is not for the faint of heart, But it
is for the person that wants to master the life.
This technique is for the person that is willing to
give themselves the time that they deserve, for the person
that is willing to invest with the same gusto and
(20:11):
eagerness and heart into their personal lives, the same amount
of time they invest in all of the research and
the knowing and the reading that they do in their
professional life. So for those that are ready to have
a shifting year, for those that are ready to really
(20:35):
see all the work you've been doing on yourself reflected
to come into a piece and a surrender around all
the work you've been doing. This technique will be incredibly
powerful for you. So you'll go through each month, You'll
take stock on a separate sheet of paper. You'll just
start writing things down. What those things are will come
to you. For me, it's usually just kind of bullet
(20:58):
pointing a common dam I saw, or you know, taking
a note of like, oh my gosh, yeah, I worked
on that in January and February. I thought this was
going to happen, or I thought, you know, maybe this
was going to turn into this and this way, but
then it went like this. Then, you know, noticing those
differences and what they meant to you. And something I
(21:19):
really love that I get a chance to notice is
how so often God comes in with so much more
than I could even fathom, especially when I look back
at the ways I wrote down things that I wanted
to happen or that I was working towards. At the
top of the year, you know, I usually write a
(21:40):
forecast of what I feel is going to happen that year.
Um and being able to see that so often different
paths emerged that maybe looked nothing like what I initially
thought and very often served purpose were either better or
(22:01):
led me to something far more meaningful, and then also
noticing the times that, wow, I was really spot on.
I'm so glad I trusted myself to make that choice. Oh,
I'm so glad I listened to my intuition and that's
the way that I wanted to work on that or
repair that or switch this. So it's pretty cool you
(22:25):
get you get a really zoomed out view of what
your personal life look like, your professional life look like.
What art were you making, How are you feeding your creativity?
Were you nourishing yourself? Are you making time for yourself?
Did you book anything just for you? Um, it's a
beautiful way to see the truth of your life, because
(22:46):
sometimes we get a little caught up in the intention
or the assumptions or what other people are doing or
what we're presenting on social media that we neglect the
real truth of what our day to day life looks like.
And we are the totality of the small details. We
(23:08):
are the totality of our day to day, moment by
moment choices. And so when you kind of get a
look at it in this way, with this practice, this
is my new year's practice. Um, it can be really powerful,
and I will say that if you commit to doing this,
you're gonna notice some beautiful things. I really believe you're
(23:33):
going to connect to some deeper pride in yourself and
or connect to some new intentions. That made me feel
a lot more authentic for this next year. But either way,
no matter what, you some up everything as it does
(23:55):
connect you to that deeper ability to see yourself, the
deeper ability to be with your internal compass. So I
hope you will take the time to do that. And
before we get out of here, because this was an
entire episode of soul work, before um we part ways
until the next episode, let's just sit in this. Let's
(24:19):
take a couple of deep breaths together and if it's comfortable,
if you are somewhere where this is safe to do,
you can consider sitting cross lags. You could consider standing,
but maybe leaning yourself against something or making sure that
your legs are spread me slightly bent to really hold you. Um,
(24:40):
you can lay down, you can sit whatever feels good.
I woanta invite you to gently close your eyes again,
relax you're body, so maybe wiggling those shoulders moving your
(25:05):
necks side to side, gently letting your jaw hang a bit,
releasing any attention that may be present in your spine
and your hips, and your legs and your knees and
(25:26):
your feet, your hands, noticing your hands and allowing them
to rest with palms up in a state of receiving.
(25:48):
And now noticing your breath, So taking a deep and
ham in and out and doing that a few more
(26:09):
times here together, big deep inhale in and out, and
another self guided breath in out, connecting with the present moment,
(26:53):
noticing what's present in the silence. M hm yeah, And
being in a space now where you're settling into your heart,
(27:19):
You're settling into your solar plexus right underneath your ribcake
and above your knee, settling into your sacred right beneath
your navel womb space center of creativity. Noticing the energy
(27:47):
that's present in your entire torso your wound up to
your chest. And this can be a space here to
really guide you as you do this practice, so as
(28:08):
you get ready to think about where you've been, what
you've done, the choices that have been made, the responses
to those choices, the creations have come because of those choices,
(28:29):
and you think about what is intended for your life
and what is intended as next and just hold that
open space here. There's no questions to be answered. That's
(28:55):
notice for you. What's present in this moment. Yeah mm hmm.
(29:16):
And now back in your body, give yourself a little
sway light gent to wiggle, inner vibration, move your toes,
move your fingers, last big breath in and out together,
(29:44):
bringing poems together at Hearts Center. Taking a bow for
yourself and all others who are listening in the same
moment as you. The light in me recognizes and honors
the light in you. Gain a deep bow mm hmm.
(30:13):
This is a good practice for you, no mistake. Hey,
find me on social let's connect at Debbie Brown. That's
Twitter and Instagram, or go to my website Debbie Brown
(30:37):
dot com. And if you're listening to the show on
Apple podcasts, please please please don't forget to rate, review
and subscribe and send this episode to a friend. Dropping
Jims is the production of My Heart Radio and The
Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jack Please and me
Debbie Brown. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
(31:00):
i Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows h m hm
M from grandmothers who whispered and their baby girl ill.
Two fathers on dimly lit street corners, instructing young soldiers
to always keep their eyes open. You be queen, you
(00:21):
were fired. You will pass through centuries on the hands
of your daughters. They called you wisdom. Proverbs on the
backs of diamond eyed school children who grew into hymnals
recited by amethyst holding urban philosophers who recited neighborhood commandments
out of the windows of restored Alchemedo chariots. To keep
the warmth of their blood, be wise, be smart, being black,
(00:46):
opal Brown courts, bloodstone and prayer. Be every form of
jim see king told, scribe, scribe, told son, son, told wife,
wife told her daughter, and daughter told the as this is,
and the inns has told me that you would come
to give wisdom. Thousands they said you would come, Dropping
(01:09):
Dropping Gem. Hey, welcome back to another episode of the
Dropping Gems podcast. I am your host, Stephie Brown. This
is your soft place to land as we explore higher
consciousness and self acceptance and all the tools that make
both of those things true. In each of our lives
are unique journeys today. What I would love to settle
(01:33):
into is really thinking about this next year that we're
embarking on. So a couple episodes back, I released an
episode about getting Ready for three and starting now. So
if you haven't had a chance to listen to that
episode yet, I highly recommended. I included a mini meditation
(01:55):
called who am I Being Called to Become? That I
think could feel really useful. So if you haven't listened
to that, listen and this episode, we're going to be
exploring ways to really settle into a meaningful practice of
tracking your growth. So something I want to be really
committed to doing in this next year is having more
(02:18):
solo episodes sprinkled in where we get to kind of
deep dive into some technique. And I think that this format.
I wasn't sure if I should just be doing that
on video or if that could really have a home
here on a podcast. But the ways that everyone has
been letting me know they're listening to this show, listening
to it UM more so as a companion. You know,
(02:40):
a lot of a lot of UM listeners have been
sharing some really beautiful videos with me being out in
nature in gorgeous places while listening to the show or
listening to a meditation, and it's just felt really inspiring
to me every time I get to see that, every
time you all choose to share that with me on
(03:02):
Instagram at Debbie Brown, and I thought, you know, that
is the perfect backdrop to settle into some embodiment practices,
to settle into some self inquiry, to settle into tools
and practices that feel most useful for us wherever we
(03:22):
happen to be at this particular moment on our journey.
So all of that is in mind, and I was
thinking this week about all of the things that I
begin to get ready for myself as I approached either
a new year or as I approach a personal new year,
which is my birthday. Those are the two times of
(03:44):
years that I really like to settle into a lot
of forecasting for myself, a lot of channeling, a lot
of deep connecting um in my meditative practice and in
the ways that I tracked my growth and I every
year I really get present with myself and I begin
(04:04):
to explore what are the themes that I'm being called
to investigate now? And when I think about investigation, I
really specifically mean what am I meant to know about myself?
This year or what are some new areas of practice
that I can work with. And it's not always the
deeper work, you know. Sometimes sometimes we make it past
(04:26):
a few hurdles and we have many years of being
able to do the work in a way that feels
more fun, uh, in a way that feels more in
service to manifesting higher outcomes and better choices. Um And
some years all the work centers around kind of the
excavation or degree for the reprogramming, the releasing, and so
(04:52):
some of the techniques I'm going to share on this
episode are good for either. So, however, you are greeting
this episode whatever is present for you in your heart
right now, I want you to just notice it for
a second. I'm currently recording this episode and it is
December um or as it is released. It is December,
(05:17):
the week of the beginning of December, and we have
about four weeks until the new year. And that part
doesn't matter so much, but I frame it that way
just to share, you know, this is a time where
we are typically churning a little bit, you know, we
are chewing on what is this year looked like for
me this far? How did it measure next to what
(05:43):
my assumptions or expectations were about this year. You know,
we're churning, we're ruminating a little bit, we're thinking, we're evaluating,
we are observing, resooming out, and then we're cultivating the
creativity of what do I want to see next? What
will call into this new year with the momentum that
(06:03):
feels present of all of us kind of taking a
little bit of a break and hibernating in the cold
and then re emerging. You know, every time we especially
as adults, we get going after the first back into
that work life, after kind of being cocoon, does these
little zombies for a couple of weeks where you're straddling
(06:26):
to worlds, the working worlds, and the world of vacation,
the world of holidays. We all, we all seem to
emerge into this space of almost as if it feels
the way it used to feel when we were doing
the first day of school, right, Like, that's the longest
(06:46):
kind of stretch we get as adults, is that few
weeks in between years that we take off and you know,
use that energy, just like you felt like you could
reinvent every time a new school year kicked off. You
spent the summer kind of growing a little bit literally
and uh figuratively stretching and you know, maturing in different ways,
(07:11):
having different experiences over that couple of months that you
come back into your school year refreshed and kind of
um reimagined a little bit. And I think that's what
so many of us love about this time of the
new year. So with that thought in mind, I wanted
to share practice that I began this week and that
(07:33):
I do every year around this time where I get
to really settle in and track my growth, track my
goals from the past year, track my thoughts from the
past year, and then I create some space and begin
to imagine what's next. So if you have a journal
(07:54):
present that could feel really good, if you have something
to write with that could feel really good, or your
phone and you can type in your notes, this episode
is all about one of my favorite techniques that I
started doing with myself to track my growth. And this
technique kind of just came together in my brain, um
(08:15):
as I was in a season of a lot of churning,
and I was in a season of redesigning the practices
that I wanted to do with myself. And so I'm
sure you know this might be familiar for some listening
it may have been downloaded into you as well, or
you know, some wisdom traditions may feel similar to this.
(08:35):
But this was kind of a design I created all
my own that really served me, and so if it resonates,
I just invite you to practice this as well and
and try it on. So this technique is kind of
an expanded view on the tool that is recapitulation, and
(08:57):
recapitulation is a really powerful tool, especially in meditation, to
use at the end of every day. It's something that
can really bround you in your evening um and allow
you to complete some circles and to release choices, observations,
um different ways that you were relating to things that
(09:18):
happened to you in the day, and also really release
some stress and some charge, because sometimes we end a
day and we have some unfinished business that could be
from an interaction with another person, that could be just
the things on our to do list that there never
seems to be enough time for. But whatever it is
that comes up for each of us uniquely each day,
(09:39):
we all tend to go to bed with stuff. So
recapitulation is a practice where at the end of the day,
you lay in your bed and you do a scan
of your body. You close your eyes, but you stay awake,
and you begin to slowly observe your day from more
of an expanded, zoomed out view, from the start of
(10:02):
the day to the end of the day. And so
you may bring your memory to yourself in the morning
at the top of the day, and you would have
remember all the moments. How did your day start? The
first thing when you woke up, What was the first
feeling that was present, What did you see? What did
you do first? Perhaps it was your practice, or perhaps
(10:24):
you had to rush to get the day going. And
you're just noticing each of these moments and each of
these choices and timelines, and you're releasing it. You don't
have to make any judgments about it. You don't even
have to make promises of a better tomorrow. It's really
just about noticing and trying to release any charge or
overcommitted feeling that's present about what you're observing, and then
(10:49):
moving on to the next thought. And so you'd scan
through your day and you'd, as they shared, start with
the morning and after you got dressed, what came next. Okay,
if you had kids, what was their morning with you like?
And maybe you got them off to school. Maybe you
began to commute to work or you work from home.
Maybe you began your natural rhythm of how that starts
(11:13):
for you? And then after that, you know, what did
you what did you eat? What did you drink? Did
you have coffee, tea? Did you have water? How did
the food fill in your mouth? How did you relate
to what you were eating? And how you made that choice?
Just noticing and releasing, and then you'd move down into
(11:34):
maybe you had a meeting or a project, or took
a dry maybe you ran errands, maybe you were homeschooling.
Maybe you had a lunch meeting, or took yourself to lunch,
had much with a friend, forgot lunch, Just noticing and
continue to move down your day. How did that early
(11:56):
afternoon look? What happened in the late after ye And
you slowly roll through your thoughts at a pace that
feels good, that allows you to fully see and notice
what is there, and then just gently release each thought,
and then you moved down and what did your early
(12:16):
evening look like? How are you feeling in that time?
Maybe for fellow parents, there was the whole bathtime, dinner, bedtime, stories, routine,
and how did that feel? How did you connect with
your little ones or one? How did you connect with yourself? Um?
What was present? Did you go out with friends? Did
(12:41):
you get on zoom with someone, take a phone call
with a friend, make yourself dinner, bike ride, did you
go to the gym. You're just looking through your unique day,
observing it, releasing it, and then eventually you make it
all the way down to where you are in the
as a moment, laying in your bed, eyes closed, experiencing yourself,
(13:07):
and at that point you've really taken a bigger acknowledgement
of the totality of the day, and you take some
deep breaths in and you would consciously began to deepen
your release around the day. And depending on how that
day felt, for some, it may also be really beautiful
(13:29):
to invite in a completing statement. You know, if you
felt like you had any unfinished business, just acknowledge I
didn't get to get to those emails. Not in a
defeating way, not in a judgmental way. Thank you to
get this done, but you're acknowledging that it was left
open so that it can feel closed for the because
there's nothing else that can be done about the greatest
(13:51):
gift we can give ourselves at all moments, is the
rest necessary for our health and for our path and
for our emotional or mental, physical, spiritual well being. And
then it may feel good to set an intention. What
could that intention look like? Do you have an intention
to get deep, nourishing, revitalizing sleep. Maybe you want to
(14:17):
set an intention that you will sleep throughout the night soundly,
that you'll wake up with energy. Maybe the intention is
that tomorrow you will do X, Y and Z whatever
that is uniquely for you. But make sure whatever language
you use when you're setting an intention, you're not doing
(14:38):
it from a lack of perspective. You're not doing it
from a don't or not or won't. You're really doing
it from a place of your power, of your intention,
of your higher choice. Making um something that feels aspirational,
something that feels authentic, and something that does it bring
(15:01):
you into your critical voice for yourself, something that will
bring you into your grounded, wise and optimistic voice inside,
so that what I just kind of walked you through
is a beautiful practice that could really support you every
(15:21):
single day. It's also something that you could consider doing
once a week if that feels a little bit better
to start, and you would just go through kind of
the bullet points of each day, and you may start
at Sunday, then move to Monday and walk yourself through
your whole week and give yourself a lot of space
(15:41):
and time to do that, and noticing anything that comes
up or present, or any new thoughts or creativity that emerge, um,
any desires or needs for releasing that may begin to emerge,
you would just kind of drop those down to notice them. Now.
(16:09):
The practice we are going to settle into is away
at the top of the year that I began expanding
what is known as recapitulation into something that encompassed really
my entire year. UM and I'm someone that journals quite
extensively and I personally as as my individual being with
(16:31):
my past, present future. I feel really proud to say
that because Journalanne used to be challenging me. For me
for many decades, I would try to journal, and I
just felt like I didn't know what my authentic observational
voice was. I felt like I kept writing as if
it was a novel or as if someone would discovered
(16:51):
in a hundred years and you know, be learning about me. UM.
But now I'm I'm more prone to doing it in
sentence style UM, a thought dump or bullet points. But
I extensively journal UM. I strive to do it every
few days UM or every time my body and brain
feels really connected to getting something out of it. I
(17:12):
try to really follow that lead and race to get
a pen and kind of honor that UM. And sometimes
I also have patches where all take time off because
I just want to be in the thick of my experience.
But my journal typically consists of it's a notebook that
has some loose paper in it, but I divided off
by the month, and so I put you know, ten
(17:34):
twenty pages each month in between the dividers, and that
way I can really kind of track what I was
thinking and when I was thinking it, and what what
kind of bigger story was being told, what whispers from
God we're coming in. It's a really phenomenal way to
track God in your life, to track your intuition and
(17:56):
the way you're connecting to the signs and to the
prayers and to the meditations. UM. But it also is
really helpful at the end of the year because it
helps you really zoom out and see what do I
want to call in, what do I need to call in?
And it helps you to celebrate yourself, to see in
real time the real work that you've been doing, the
(18:19):
real things that you've accomplished. So when it comes time
at the end of the year for me to recapitulate,
I go through every month the way I just led
you through what you could do at each night, and
I give myself several days for each month. Um, you
figure there's twelve months in the year, and so you
kind of want to start with your January. Um, you'll
(18:42):
move through to December, and you'll spend a few days
on each month. So you'll begin to look at your January.
And what you'll do is you'll just kind of, Um,
if you have a journal that stated you would just
look over the pages related to that month, or you
might want to kind of look through the notes in
your phone the things you were emailing about at that time.
(19:04):
Just see if you see any patterns, see if you
see any reflections. UM. Also for those that are hyper organized,
like myself, you might want to pull up your calendar.
So I usually pull up like my eyeical or my
Google cow and I'll look at that month, and I'll
really take a moment to take it all in, and
(19:25):
I'll say, what was I doing each week? What was
I doing each day? What was I working on in
that month? What were my expectations of that month? How
did I see that month going? How did it really go?
Was I going to the doctor that month? What did
my son and I do that month? What friends did
I connect with that month? Um? What people did I
kind of purposely not connect with that month? And how
(19:48):
did that play out for me? How did that play
out for us? Um? But this level of thought and intention,
it is not for the faint of heart, But it
is for the person that wants to master the life.
This technique is for the person that is willing to
give themselves the time that they deserve, for the person
that is willing to invest with the same gusto and
(20:11):
eagerness and heart into their personal lives, the same amount
of time they invest in all of the research and
the knowing and the reading that they do in their
professional life. So for those that are ready to have
a shifting year, for those that are ready to really
(20:35):
see all the work you've been doing on yourself reflected
to come into a piece and a surrender around all
the work you've been doing. This technique will be incredibly
powerful for you. So you'll go through each month, You'll
take stock on a separate sheet of paper. You'll just
start writing things down. What those things are will come
to you. For me, it's usually just kind of bullet
(20:58):
pointing a common dam I saw, or you know, taking
a note of like, oh my gosh, yeah, I worked
on that in January and February. I thought this was
going to happen, or I thought, you know, maybe this
was going to turn into this and this way, but
then it went like this. Then, you know, noticing those
differences and what they meant to you. And something I
(21:19):
really love that I get a chance to notice is
how so often God comes in with so much more
than I could even fathom, especially when I look back
at the ways I wrote down things that I wanted
to happen or that I was working towards. At the
top of the year, you know, I usually write a
(21:40):
forecast of what I feel is going to happen that year.
Um and being able to see that so often different
paths emerged that maybe looked nothing like what I initially
thought and very often served purpose were either better or
(22:01):
led me to something far more meaningful, and then also
noticing the times that, wow, I was really spot on.
I'm so glad I trusted myself to make that choice. Oh,
I'm so glad I listened to my intuition and that's
the way that I wanted to work on that or
repair that or switch this. So it's pretty cool you
(22:25):
get you get a really zoomed out view of what
your personal life look like, your professional life look like.
What art were you making, How are you feeding your creativity?
Were you nourishing yourself? Are you making time for yourself?
Did you book anything just for you? Um, it's a
beautiful way to see the truth of your life, because
(22:46):
sometimes we get a little caught up in the intention
or the assumptions or what other people are doing or
what we're presenting on social media that we neglect the
real truth of what our day to day life looks like.
And we are the totality of the small details. We
(23:08):
are the totality of our day to day, moment by
moment choices. And so when you kind of get a
look at it in this way, with this practice, this
is my new year's practice. Um, it can be really powerful,
and I will say that if you commit to doing this,
you're gonna notice some beautiful things. I really believe you're
(23:33):
going to connect to some deeper pride in yourself and
or connect to some new intentions. That made me feel
a lot more authentic for this next year. But either way,
no matter what, you some up everything as it does
(23:55):
connect you to that deeper ability to see yourself, the
deeper ability to be with your internal compass. So I
hope you will take the time to do that. And
before we get out of here, because this was an
entire episode of soul work, before um we part ways
until the next episode, let's just sit in this. Let's
(24:19):
take a couple of deep breaths together and if it's comfortable,
if you are somewhere where this is safe to do,
you can consider sitting cross lags. You could consider standing,
but maybe leaning yourself against something or making sure that
your legs are spread me slightly bent to really hold you. Um,
(24:40):
you can lay down, you can sit whatever feels good.
I woanta invite you to gently close your eyes again,
relax you're body, so maybe wiggling those shoulders moving your
(25:05):
necks side to side, gently letting your jaw hang a bit,
releasing any attention that may be present in your spine
and your hips, and your legs and your knees and
(25:26):
your feet, your hands, noticing your hands and allowing them
to rest with palms up in a state of receiving.
(25:48):
And now noticing your breath, So taking a deep and
ham in and out and doing that a few more
(26:09):
times here together, big deep inhale in and out, and
another self guided breath in out, connecting with the present moment,
(26:53):
noticing what's present in the silence. M hm yeah, And
being in a space now where you're settling into your heart,
(27:19):
You're settling into your solar plexus right underneath your ribcake
and above your knee, settling into your sacred right beneath
your navel womb space center of creativity. Noticing the energy
(27:47):
that's present in your entire torso your wound up to
your chest. And this can be a space here to
really guide you as you do this practice, so as
(28:08):
you get ready to think about where you've been, what
you've done, the choices that have been made, the responses
to those choices, the creations have come because of those choices,
(28:29):
and you think about what is intended for your life
and what is intended as next and just hold that
open space here. There's no questions to be answered. That's
(28:55):
notice for you. What's present in this moment. Yeah mm hmm.
(29:16):
And now back in your body, give yourself a little
sway light gent to wiggle, inner vibration, move your toes,
move your fingers, last big breath in and out together,
(29:44):
bringing poems together at Hearts Center. Taking a bow for
yourself and all others who are listening in the same
moment as you. The light in me recognizes and honors
the light in you. Gain a deep bow mm hmm.
(30:13):
This is a good practice for you, no mistake. Hey,
find me on social let's connect at Debbie Brown. That's
Twitter and Instagram, or go to my website Debbie Brown
(30:37):
dot com. And if you're listening to the show on
Apple podcasts, please please please don't forget to rate, review
and subscribe and send this episode to a friend. Dropping
Jims is the production of My Heart Radio and The
Black Effect Network. It's produced by Jack Please and me
Debbie Brown. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit
(31:00):
i Heart Radio app Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows h m hm
Host
Devi Brown
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