Whispering Pines Massage

11/06/2025

Experiences With Multiple Meanings
The refined impression you glean from your experiences after contemplating their significance can add a new richness and texture to your life.

Though we humans are self-aware, we nonetheless cannot distance ourselves from the world around us and have a natural tendency to ascribe meaning to all that we experience. The significance we perceive in our experiences is rooted in our observation of patterns as they relate to ourselves. One situation has the power to teach us about life because it exposes us to something unfamiliar. Another touches our emotions deeply by enabling us to see how fortunate we are. Yet our initial impressions may not wholly reveal the true significance of an event because our full response to an experience is like an onion with many layers that all have disparate meanings. Consider that a sunrise may stun us visually while simultaneously evoking memories of childhood and reminding us that each new day is a rebirth.

If you take the time to examine your experiences closely, you will discover that your original impressions may only be a part of a larger story of significance. Peeling away the layers of an event or incident can be a fun and interesting process if you allow it. To begin, relive your experience in your mind’s eye and from multiple perspectives if possible. Your interpretation of any situation is based not only on facts but also on your feelings, beliefs, and values. As you ruminate upon your experience, spend a few moments contemplating how you felt when it began and how your feelings had changed by its end. Ask yourself what abstractions, if any, awakened in your mind. If an experience stirs up questions within your soul, it may be that in striving to answer them a new layer of meaning may reveal itself to you.

The significance of an experience may remain hidden to you for some time. The meaning of an event can change when viewed from another context or may only become apparent after intense meditation. An incident that seemed superficial at first may unexpectedly touch us deeply later in our lives. If you take a truly open-minded approach to your examination of each new level and do not shy away from revelations that could prove painful, you will learn much about your relationship to the world around you. And the refined impression you glean from your experiences after contemplating their significance can add a new richness and texture to your lif

11/06/2025

How to Spot Commonly Faked Foods 🍯

11/06/2025

What These Sensations Actually Mean 🔥

11/06/2025

Power, Beauty, and Warmth

Keeping the sun inside of you when you are missing it on the outside is a way to let it warm your soul.

Anyone who has endured a long, dark winter can attest to the power the sun has to both invigorate and relax the body, mind, and soul. It can be daunting to begin the months of fall and winter, knowing that we may not see much of the beautiful sun for quite some time. But it is important to remember that even during the darker days of fall and winter, the sun is still shining, as beautiful as ever. Just because it is hidden behind clouds or setting early in our part of the world does not mean that we cannot access its power, beauty, and warmth.

One way to do this is to find a warm spot in our house where we can sit or lie down in peace. Closing our eyes, we allow our breath to come and go easily, progressively lengthening each inhale and exhale until we feel very relaxed, peaceful, and warm. We can imagine that it is a very warm summer day and that the sun is shining on us, warming our body. In particular, we may feel as if a small sun has taken up residence in the area of our solar plexus or our heart. Spend some time experiencing this sensation, allowing the heat to radiate from inside your body.

If you live in a part of the world that loses a lot of light in the winter, you might want to do this exercise each night before retiring. You also could do it at the beginning of each day, giving yourself a chance to plug into that great source of energy. Keeping the sun inside of you when you are missing it on the outside is a way to say hello to the sun and let it warm your soul.

11/05/2025

When carved pumpkins sit out too long, they can grow mold and bacteria harmful to wildlife. Raccoons, squirrels, and opossums may eat them and get sick. 🦝🐿️🐾

To protect them:
• Remove carved pumpkins after a few days
• Compost or safely dispose of moldy ones
• Offer only fresh scraps if feeding wildlife

A little cleanup can prevent suffering. 🎃💛

11/05/2025

Hello Everyone, I'm making a few adjustments to the pilates mat class schedule.

The Beginner's Mat Class will now be on Wednesday at 5:45 pm starting this Wednesday, November 5th. The Pilates Mat: Strong Core class is moving to Monday at 4:45 pm. This change starts on November 10th.

I have availability for private sessions on Monday and Tuesday

View the new schedule and sign up for class here: https://freeflowpilate.as.me/

11/05/2025

Aging With Strength and Grace

When we tend to our well-being now, we’re giving our future selves the gift of freedom, health, and happiness.

It’s only human to notice the subtle shifts in how our body feels and moves as we age. Maybe your joints feel a little stiffer in the morning, brain fog is more common than it used to be, or your energy dips more easily after a long day. These moments can be reminders that our bodies are evolving right alongside us. Yet within these changes lies an invitation to care more deeply, to listen more closely, and to honor the vessel that carries us through every joy, every challenge, every beautifully ordinary day.

Strength and resistance training help preserve lean muscle and protect our bones. Mobility, balance, and functional movement keep our joints supple, prevent injury, and ensure we can continue moving with ease. Short, mindful workouts — like Pilates, yoga flows, or even simple activities like walking or swimming — can be just as effective for cardiovascular health and metabolism as hours spent at the gym. And when woven together with stretching, breathwork, and quality rest, these simple rituals harmonize our hormones, realign our posture, and rekindle the body’s natural vitality.

Because when we tend to our well-being now, we’re not just maintaining what is — we’re building what’s to come. We’re offering a gift to our future selves: the freedom to hike that trail, dance at a wedding, follow our wanderlust to dream destinations, and simply laugh, explore, and enjoy life without limitation.

11/04/2025

11/04/2025

Different Ways of Navigating

We are all on this Earth together, learning and teaching in many different ways.

We’re all in the same boat. We just have different paddles, and perhaps, we find ourselves on different rivers. We all live in human bodies. These are the vehicles in which we move through our world. We are all made of flesh, blood, and bone, with brains, hearts, and lungs to power us. Our paddles — the tools we use to move through the world — vary, as do the bodies of water, the environments in which we find ourselves.

Some of us use our high IQs to get where we want to go. Some use our smiles; others use kindness, a gift with language, or athletic ability. Some of these qualities we were born with, and others are skills we have learned. Considering this can be very enlightening. What tools are you using to get from point A to point B in your life? Chances are, you and the people you know have used many different tools in various combinations throughout your lives to get where you needed to go. Just as with oars or paddles, a balanced approach is best. If you rely too much on one thing, like beauty, to open doors, you fail to be well-rounded, and you may eventually lose your equilibrium. And if you lose that one quality, you have no paddle at all. This is inspiration to develop multiple tools to navigate your world.

Some of us may be moving along paths that are like rushing rivers; others may be on a large, still lake. We have all felt, at one time or another, tossed about on a stormy ocean. Through all this, we are never alone, even though it might seem that way. There is inspiration all around us in the form of other people making their way through the world — in the very same boat. Remember to look around you for role models, companionship, and encouragement.

11/03/2025

11/03/2025

Interesting

11/03/2025