February Rx: self-regard
Dear Ones,
I think of you most often just before I fall asleep. It is there when the fears and the editor falls away and I whisper to you all the things I’ve gathered and found and my wonder for what’s been in your day. You are thought of with high regard and with loving curiosity. From there, on we go…
Here is February.
Midwinter arrives. If you are in Maryland or the eastern seaboard you may be under frozen snow, caught in cold temperatures. No parking spaces, just piles of snow chunks. The regular schedule of going out to walk, regular schedules, or the chance to tend friends is interrupted. I feel myself hunkered down and there’s some friction to being in my own company like this.
I feel worn down. The fatigue of the winter is here. The window open at night we burrow under 3 down duvets like hamsters in cedar shavings and the dreams are deep and thick. This is a time of restoration, of looking back, stepping back. The question that has ridden the first week of February for me is “What is done?”
I currently assist with a program called Choose Nurture where we learn end of life care. People from 22 countries gather online to learn how to care for ourselves and for our loves. At the onset we name the stalwart souls in our circles of care for who could step in an feed the cat if we were unable, who could refresh the groceries, who would come and bring laughter and attention to the kids if we were bedridden - temporarily or longer term? It is such an important task, to name and invite and offer these circles of care for each other before they are needed.
Recently we refined how to care for ourselves in the slower moments - be they illness or simply the depressive nature of midwinter. And by self-care I don’t mean a bath or massage. These are good and kind, to be sure. However, here are three redefinitions or additions to self-care that can go unspoken, and this time of year I am hungry for them more than ever:
1/ Elevated self-regard is key. The cold, the dark, we can get caught curled into ourselves, making our way with our heads instead of leading the way with our hearts. To shift my posture, to raise my heart an inch, I meet myself in my inner talk differently. Dropping the keys on the way out the door turns from “Damn! Look what you did,” to “You’ve got it. Yup. There they are. And on we go.” The quiet glance of someone leaving a class early that I could interpret as “They really didn’t like that, or you, or your instruction. You think this is working, but it isn’t,” can instead be just seeing what is, the facts I can see directly, “How tired they were when they arrived. How wise of them to get what they need and give themselves extra time to get to the next place in their day. I wish them well.”
These are small shifts of mind, and it is up to each of us to tune them to any given circumstance, but they add up to an overall mood within us. Committed to the choice to speak to ourselves kindly, “[h]ot winds cannot harm me,” writes Valerie Kaur in See No Stranger. When we are caring for our inner conversation, when we are holding ourselves in loving self-regard moment by moment, the outer context can be seen and felt differently. This is deep self-care to me. Lift the chest. Lift the inner language.
2/ Set up my world for less drama. Maybe fewer demands in the midwinter. Maybe permission to sit at the table with paints or stationery. Maybe permission to go out and to see friends, to chat and laugh and put some ease in these busy days. Less drama means more calm. More calm means I can have more awareness when I’m knocked off balance or that I have a bit to call on when extra effort is needed. If I’m already tapped out, that one last email can be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, so to speak.
For me, I was at the end of a long week, with more asks of me than I had expected. It was Friday afternoon. I thought I could fit just oonnnnnnnne more call in. And did. And towards the end of the call a very good idea, a very necessary and relevant idea that was important to consider for the weeks ahead was raised. And I lost it. I started sobbing. Everything flooded in, all the unprocessed nervousness and delivery and success that was just a bundle of emotion and energy came out in a noisy, snotty crying jag in my car, on the phone.
This is not self-care. Nor is it beneficial to the wonderful and creative soul who was on the other end of the line raising a good point. She felt responsible for my breakdown. I felt embarrassed. And the embarrassment lingered after getting off the call and instead of resting easy through Saturday to get my feet back under me, I cycled through the mess I’d made.
Less drama is possible if I make space to feel - to feel it all. The news, the family, the larger family, the work, the question of my work, my own limits and fatigues and growth and pleasure. This is crucial and midwinter is an ideal moment that will point it out in sharp relief as flu or depression this time of year.
This means that if I can provide myself a bit of time to process, to cook long and slow, to sit at a table in the library or cafe and slide through glossy pages of gardens or art - if I can be wildly and wholly unproductive for a while, often - a suppleness can arise. I am more adaptable. Particularly if I set my head to it.
3/ Adaptability is an active choice. I can put all the systems in place that I like, but then, in the midst of the best laid plans, there is a flat tire, a broken drier, or even just the leak in the chicken package so that it thawed overnight and pooled all through the fridge and took the morning to mend (thank you thank you, Adam). Adaptability requires that I’ve got a little slack in the line to take care of what comes up on the daily. And then it requires a little letting go, a little mundane time with a sponge or on the phone or taking soup to a friend. It is so critical to be able to stop my life and show up in another when needed.
These are aspects of our circles of care that we can provide for ourselves. We can see them now, in the slow, cold of midwinter when our schedules are out of whack and noses are runny. Pick one. Give it a go. It has to be on my calendar and protected or it slips away.
Take good care of you and let me know what you find.
All love, Martha
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ONLINE
This is where you are met regularly with a consistent practice that refines a particular energy that matches the season. AND each day we meet is always different. We evolve through these 40 days. We change and so the warm ups vary, the readings change, the amount of teaching or silence varies. Overall, you are accountable, you are guided, the content is built for this moment in time. Try it out.
I am currently teaching the 40 days for Winter 2 with a focus on Muladhara, our roots, what we root into as a means of preparing for the spring ahead. Not to rush forward, but to settle in. It is a strong, warming sequence that lands me in a bright quiet.
Live online Monday, Wednesday, Friday 8-9am EST with replays for the days between.
Spring 1 will focus on themes of emergence. Slow and steady we rise from the roots of the legs into the pelvis, we clean house, we set the stage. Practice begins Monday February 23 8am EST with a new price of $80 for the 40 days. Bring a friend. Join in. It changes everything. Details here.
At TRIBE my studio hours are
Sunday Kundalini 9am, Vinyasa 10:30am //
Monday Kundalini noon //
Tuesday + Thursday Vinyasa 5-6:15pm Kundalini 6:15-7:30pm //
Friday noon vinyasa + sauna / cold plunge 1:15pm
JUNE 2026 RETREAT
I will be in Mexico for the summer solstice. Rooms are open for June 20 -25 2026
You can see the details on my website here. I would love to have you join.
Please email to set up a time if you are interested and have questions.
I remember a student at the end of the last retreat, “This was paradise. This is just crazy paradise. Why doesn’t everyone come? I feel so new!!” - Alice Hellawell
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CURRENTLY
I am reading Good Things by Samin Nosrat. Such a pleasure. The tone, the information, the recipes. I'm better for it, every page.
I am listening to Carbon by Paul Hawkin. A remarkable combination of science, indigenous awareness of plants and place, business, and policy making. Big recommendation.
I am learning from Abbie Galvin and the teachers of The Studio in NYC on the topic of Restoration - a 12 week online series.
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A final prompt if you are a journal or just good to ruminate as you drive or walk to work:
What feels unshakably true in my body, even if no one else sees it?
This will be our guide into the spring. But start now. Tune in.
What feels unshakably true in my body, even if no one else sees it?