2016 - Breathing Time: Necessity or Optional

I overdid it.
I really overdid it!!

How else do I explain my body shutting down?

I was working at a pace that just wasn’t healthy for me, and I knew it.

Over a month ago in clinical supervision I was told that if I kept this up, I would get sick.  His exact words were, “Chani you need to take a break from work. You need to schedule some time for yourself, away from Footsteps, away from your private practice, away from family... Just you! Your body will give up, no one can maintain this pace of pressure and responsibilities.”

I used to be great at taking time off. As a single mom, I would make time to go away for a weekend every three months. Now however, I am in a relationship with kids in the house. We have found a way to create time for us as a couple and nurture our relationship.  But time for me—alone time—is something I struggle with.

I am the queen of helping others set aside time to get away from their life, to rejuvenate and create space. Afterwards, my clients thank me for encouraging them to do it. Together we look at their schedule and create pockets of time that is just for them.

I know that I all have to do it carve time out, create it, block it off in my calendar and most of all give myself permission to do this.

 I didn’t do it.  And my body reacted.

I am lucky like that. After years of teaching myself to take time when I need it, my body now protests if I don’t.  And if I keep going it stops working.  It forces me to stop. I was in bed with fever for 4 days!

My life had to stop –

My emails and texts had to go unanswered.

Client sessions cancelled.

House and home not cleaned.

I simply stopped.

I look at myself with shame and guilt.

I knew what I needed to do, but didn’t do it.

I knew that I was working too hard, taking on too much, and not making time for me.

Had I done what I knew I needed to do, had I set aside time to stop, to breathe, to recuperate; I have a very strong suspicion that I would not be laid up in bed for 4 days with a fever cursing through my veins.

So I am taking that time now.  I am going away for the weekend—just me.

I am going to spend time with nature. Hiking through trees and stones, and stopping to admire the sea. Nature is the beauty of creation that is here for all of us to enjoy.  The energy that makes me forget the everyday grunge of life, and connects me with the source of life.

What revitalizes you?

What invigorates your soul?

What does it take for you to stop?

How can you give yourself breathing room before it is forced upon you?

SAVE THE DATES:

6/24/16- Tehom: Deepening our Prayers:
A Renewal Friday night service at the Fair Lawn Jewish Center

Fair Lawn, NJ

1/15/17—Coming  of Age – How to create rituals for Coming of Age  - One Spirit Learning Alliance, NYC

2/17/17—President’s Weekend –

Nehirim Women’s Retreat, An LGBTQ Spiritual Shabbaton – Forgiveness, What’s in it for me?

Pearlstone Retreat Center: Maryland

2016 - Fishing for Contentment

This is a story I grew  up with:

A rich man was enjoying the sunrise when he noticed a pauper whose clothes were threadbare throwing his old fishing line into the water. The rod jerked and the pauper fought with it as he reeled in the fish.  He caught a big one. His face broke into a huge smile as he placed the fish on the rocks and waited for it to take its last breath.   He threw in his rod again, caught another fish.  Took the two fish swung them over his shoulder and started walking into town.

The rich man was mesmerized, what was this pauper doing, he just caught 2 fish in the span of less than half an hour.… he ran after him.

“Excuse me sir,” he said in his obnoxious and authoritative voice.

“Yes, How can I help you?” the pauper responded

“Ha” laughed the rich man, “My name is Josh, You can’t help me, I am actually trying to help you, I just noticed you sitting and enjoying the water and then saw you throw in your rod and go fishing and within minutes you caught two fish.”

“Yes, I am known around here as the fish whisperer, they seem to come to me whenever I throw my fishing rod into the Lake.”

“You just fish for two fish and go home for the day? It is barely daybreak. Why don’t you stay for a while and get more fish.”

“Why would I need more than two fish, I am but one person, and one fish, especially one as big as this one” he patted his shoulder where the fish lay across his back, “will feed me for more then one day and the other one I will sell.”

“But, you can get more fish.”

“What will I do with more fish?”

“You can sell it. With the money you can buy a boat.”

“And what will I do with a boat?”

“You can go into the middle of the ocean and get more fish.”

“Even more then I get here at the shore – what do I need that for?”

“You can sell more and more and more fish..”

“Whatever for?”

“You can buy another boat with the money that you make.”

“What do I need another boat for?”

“So you can hire someone to fish more fish for you?”

“We keep coming back to this – Why would I need even more fish to sell?”

“You can hire people to run your business as you become more and more successful.”

“What will I do when I am that successful that I have people running my business, fishing for me, and selling my fish?!”

“Then you can come here, like me and sit on the pier and enjoy the water.”

“I am already doing that! Don’t you see – I woke up early and came to relax at the water, I went and fished a fish that will feed me for a few days, I fished another fish that I will sell and it will take care of my expenses, I am content.”

What do you need in order to be content?

What will allow you sit at the pier and surrender to the beauty that is around us?

Life is a balance. We need fish to eat and fish to sell to cover expenses, both personal and familial. But, that is really all. Do we need to spend all day fishing for fish we don’t need? Even if currently we do need to spend all day fishing, the question becomes how do we look up and notice the sun reflecting on the water around us???

Come and explore how to make contentment a part of your everyday life?

Two Events:

March 9th: 7pm-9pm Nyack NY (Women's Health and Wealth Network Event)

March 25th-27th: Retreat at Pearlstone Center in Maryland (LGBTQ Women)

To Register please click on this link

To Register please click on this link.

2016 - Happiness: Affect or Effect?

How often have you said I will be happy when…?  When I lose weight.  When I get a new job. When my financial situation changes. When I move.  When I meet the right person. When I divorce. When I have a baby.  When my kids grow up. When I retire. When I travel. When….

We often perceive happiness as a destination rather than a mode of travel. We view it as a product of our life rather than a process. We experience is as an external force rather than an internal one.

Studies have shown that happy people are more likely to be creative and have a lower rate of heart disease. So how do we get there?

Come explore together:

Two events – 

March 9th 7pm to 9pm Nyack NY (Women's Event)

March 25th -27th Retreat at Pearlstone in Maryland (LGBTQ Women)

Women’s Health and Wealth Networking Event

March 9th 7-9pm

Happiness: Affect or Effect?
Plentiful Retirement: Affect or Effect?

Hosted & Presentation by Julie Wendholt, Financial Advisor, Morgan Stanley 
Presentation by Chani Getter, Certified Professional Coach

Is happiness your destination or mode of travel?
 Is Plentiful Retirement your destination or mode of travel?

Come explore healthful ways to make happiness your conscious choice during your journey through life.

Wednesday, March 9th , 7-9pm

Where:   The Hudson House, 

  134 Main St. 2nd Floor

  Nyack, NY  10960

RSVP:  

Attendance is complimentary but space is limited.

Please RSVP for you and any guests to Julie Wendholt 845.731.2518 or julie.wendholt@morganstanley.com

LGBTQ Nehirim Women's Retreat

Click here to register

2015 - 60 Second Miracle

http://yiddish.forward.com/articles/193502/people-of-interest-chani-getter-spiritual-counsel/

Gretchin Rubin writes in her book Happier at Home: I remind myself, “Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”(Cribbed from Voltaire.) A twenty-minute walk that I do is better than the four-mile run that I don’t do.  The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer. The dinner party of take-out Chinese food is better than the elegant dinner that I never host.

I will add, the 1-minute of conscious breathing is better then the 30 minute meditation that I never sit for.

A healthy adult takes 12 – 20 breaths per minute. We breathe every day, every hour, every minute, every second.  Whether consciously or not, our bodies bring air into our lungs that sustains us and gives us life.

In this crazy busy and hectic life society has created, we often think that the only way to find our center is to meditate or run or do something for half an hour or more.  Since we don’t have that much time, we often spend our days, running from one thing to the other. We are as the hamster on its wheel, in constant motion but never moving forward.

However, all we need to do is to take one minute, wherever we may be, 60 seconds of conscious breathing to shift that feeling. Take a minute, use the timer on your phone, and breathe.  Notice your breath, notice your body, and without needing to change anything… breathe. You will see that simply from your connecting to what you are already doing (breathing), everything changes, ever so slightly in just one minute.

Click on this link to a Yiddish interview (with Englishsubtitles), where I discuss this phenomenon in a little more detail.