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Sandra Butel beautywalk coaching love nature anxiety hip replacement surgery top tips breath work forest bathing dance art therapy live music — *Me in my 3D glasses …* Photo by Sandra Butel

I am Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk.

beautywalk is my attempt to find balance and beauty in a world that never stops trying to knock us off our feet..

Rollercoaster ride

Seated in a corner window in one of my favourite Wellington Street cafés, I pause to note down some of the latest developments in the ongoing saga of “Sandra gets a little more hip”. My purpose here is threefold: first to get some perspective on what is happening to me while it is happening, 2nd to share my vulnerability for anyone else who is feeling the same and 3rd to keep my words flowing from me to you, my readers and back to me again.

As of late I find my life a rapidly moving rollercoaster with ups and downs and teeth rattling turns and gut wrenching sensations of falls without a net. There have been moments of such joy and heart opening, where I can barely contain the love that floods my veins. I look around me at this new place where I now live and the people I have gathered around me and I am filled with such gratitude for all that has brought me here to settle down in Montreal. My feet peddle, my cheeks dimple and I wonder how I ever doubted that all of life was “always working out for me,” as my friends Louise and Alan like to quote.

Crack in my windshield

Then it hits me like a crack along my windshield, the face of a buck on its way to some spring time nookie, his startled eye larger than life and totally surprised to find me smack dab in the middle of his way. Fire burns from the middle of my chest, its embers starting my hair on fire with an itch so loud I simply cannot ignore it. My thoughts and feelings flail about like an air filled brightly coloured stickman that newly opened businesses put outside to draw us in.

Somewhere in my past work life this feeling was a regular one, brought into sharp focus by perimenopause’s hormonal decline and the pages and pages of things I had to get done, my body itching to scratch them off one by one. “Oh, hello anxiety,” I manage to pause long enough to say, “I wonder what makes you come to visit me on this day. Is it because my hyperthyroidism has pulled me off my hard won balance, my upcoming surgery being a mere 3 days away or is it just regular, everyday worry?”

What do I need?

It takes every ounce of my will power to come back to my body now. To remember that the racing thoughts are a) not true and b) will pass if I am able to just let them be. I take some deep breaths and step out of the bedroom towards my partner, Francis, and tell him, “Anxiety has come to visit and I feel like it has won.” He holds me closely and asks me what I need. A walk, a meditation, maybe a drink of water or time in the presence of someone I love just to be reminded to breathe. It all feels so small, such a minuscule set of weapons to fight off the dragon whose fire comes to wreak havoc from time to time inside my body and my mind.

beautywalk Top Tips

I am reminded of my last blog list of beautywalk top tips when things are not going well. I remember all the people who reached out to me with some suggestions of their own. It is time to keep adding to the list; time to remember that this feeling will pass, as they all do eventually, one by one.

First off, I want to express my gratitude for all of you that reached out to me to offer kind support and empathy. Your words, your good humour, your tips and tricks are making my personal burden much lighter. There were so many suggestions that I am going to have to make another blog to contain them all. Here are the top 9 that caught my attention this time round.

I hope you find as much solace in reading these as I found in writing them.

#1 - Spend time with animals

A one eyed cat beckons to me through the window of the local cat cafe, cheekily named Café Chato. Imagining the softness of her fur beneath my fingers, I change my plans for the rainy afternoon and make my way within. I am barely seated with my bag and hat and an ooey gooey Rice Krispie square when my one eyed inspiration lands herself on my lap. No big introduction, no pause to inspect me first, just curling up on my lap, her little tongue reaching out to roughly kiss the tenderness on the inside of my right wrist. The tears come hot and heavy complete with sounds and sighs and lakes and rivers of chagrin as she offers more love with her single eye than most humans do with two. Finding out later her name is Rumi only makes her loving presence that much more real to the poet in me.

This moment reminds me how much joy and love and healing I found in my days of caring for other people’s pets from around the world as I made use of my membership with TrustedHouseSitters. Once I am healed from my surgery I am going to take up some pet sitting gigs in Montreal so I can get a little fill of this unique and powerful type of love as I check out a new part of the city I am falling in love with more each day.

#2 - Make art (not war)

From visual artist Michèle Touchette (check out her art here), came the offer of very specific details of making art to get our minds off of the fire within. See my end notes for the whole process.

For me, making or looking at art is a way to remember that even when times are dark, as Vincent Van Gogh famously said, “Still, a great deal of light falls on everything.”

#3 - Bathe yourself in the beauty of the forest

I am reading a new book about secular spirituality by Anne Bokma, “My Year of Living Spiritually". Her chapter for May entitled: Into the Woods, helped transform my recent trip to the in-laws cabin in the Eastern Townships into one filled with outside moments that resonated more deeply than ever before. The one practice that has stuck with me since then (even in the city) is a very simple one offered by Ben Porchuk, forest therapist called “Notice of Motion”.

My walk in the freshness of a mixed forest after the cleansing of a spring rain seems as good a time as any to test out this new practice. A flicker here, a sway there and I find that when I pause to look around me for evidence of nature’s movements; the breeze that blows the strands of my every lengthening hair that have escaped the confines of my ponytail, the fluttering of last year’s leaves where they’ve fallen to their death, the soft waving of the new buds at the very tips of the branches, - a peace comes over me that brings the anxious energy softly to a stop.

It occurs to me as I am watching that it is not really the wind that we see but rather its passing and the effect it has on the world around us. How joyous I feel to be part of the wind’s seamless transition from one part of the forest to another, its cooling caress bringing me back into the fold as one of its own. I am transformed in this moment, the true place I and my fellow humans inhabit on this planet of wonders revealed. We are not just observers, we are part of it all, the wind taking its time to bring its presence to us just like it does to the feathery fronds of the new spring's carpet of ferns. It is all stillness and awe within me and I wonder if love is like this too. It has no colour and no ‘seen with our own eyes’ presence and yet I can feel the traces that it leaves as it passes between myself and others.

I sniff the air now remembering that the trees give off a sort of serotonin, designed to protect them from danger that fills the world around with a burst of positive energy. A series of deep gulps now as I take it all in, sure as I am that this time is a gift and its my turn to rip through the shiny paper and ribbons to get to its sweet center, my own private Easter egg hunt, just me and the wind with the non stop flow of the river, full and fierce with the earth’s annual awakening from winter’s sleep and frost.

#4 - Garden

This is especially poignant now that spring is starting to show signs of life, with the purple and the green of a neighbour’s tulips and Irises leaving me with a grin. There is nothing quite like the sensation of getting my hands and nails dirty and the smell of promise in soil is sure to bring new growth both for whatever I plant and for the sense of hope inside me waiting to shuck off my winter layers once again. If you are someone who lives in a place that does not yet know that it is time for winter to be done, you can take time to visit a green house or conservatory to get your fill of things to come.

#5 - Make noise

This one comes to me as a celebration of the group led meditation by Francoise at Le Centre de femmes de Verdun who starts us off each Thursday at 10 am with a free for all cacophony of wails and cries and shouts and grunts that often leads to deep healing laughter as we watch one another in the circle we are within. I find such relief in this process and am noticing that my volume is building a little more each and every time.

#6 - Breathe

This is one that was suggested by quite a few of my friends. A focus on the breath comes up in meditation and yoga and in the everyday life of being a live human in a body. We can’t get away from the breath as it is always with us. In this case I am talking about more specific breath work practices, which in yogic practice is known as pranayama.

Box breathing is one of my favourites and involves taking a breath for the count of 4, holding it for 4 at the top, releasing it for 4 and holding yourself without a new breath for 4 before breathing in and starting it all over again. I find it very calming for my body and my mind.

I have included a link in the end notes for a great course with my friend and teacher Fiji McAlpine if you are interested in learning more.

#7 - Dance

A colourful friend reminds me of the potential of kitchen grooving or even post surgery chair dancing to lift my spirits when the walls are closing in. I am pulled back to the memory of our time in Rishikesh and to meditative practices of shaking our bodies and then moving on to dancing with our eyes closed. This has been experienced as a solo experience as I dance like nobody is watching (cause no one is) or as part of a group game as I bounce creative movement ideas off the other humans gathered around me.

#8 - Experience live music

For me, personally, my move from being a member of the industry to being a regular bum in a seat has brought me ever closer to the magic that live music has to offer. I have no more need to measure or grade to see if an artist will be a good fit for my future programming. Now, more often than not, I am on the edge of my seat, tears running down my smile dimpled cheeks, my body moving to the music with no thought or plan required. The latest live shows I have enjoyed with others were with Fransaskois artist, Ponteix au Place des Arts and Haley Heynderickx and Max García Conover at Le Gesù. One of the beauties of living in Montreal is that there are always opportunities to see my old or new favourite artists live and in person.

#9 - Track my wins

There are so many ways I have found to build on my small successes that dhelp me to stay strong when things are not the way I would like them to be. A group of my friends gets together every few weeks or so to work on their bullet journals to track the things that mean the most. Whether it might be sleep, or exercise, or meditation, or time working on a project that brings me joy, I have adopted my own version and have started tracking this daily in a notebook. It reminds me of Peter Drucker’s adage from my coach business development training that, “What’s measured gets managed,” put to better use for me in a bettering of my mental health. I am finding that noting my progress in these things that I know make me feel more stable and less liable to shift in any wind, makes me much more hopeful that I will be able to withstand whatever comes.

Blue skies above

I find myself in the same seat as before, looking up from my time of reflection to see that the sun has burned off all the mid morning clouds to reveal the bluest of blue skies above. A glance overhead lands my eyes on the gentle waving branches with new buds tight and round; so full of promise for what is yet to come. I see people pass by on the sidewalk, proudly displaying their “right to bare arms” in the warmth of plus 20, some in pants, some in shorts and some even without socks. At the pale mint green outdoor table in front I watch two strangers leaning in, the wind playing in their hair and soft smiles forming and staying upon their lips. A sniffing dog steps into the entranceway, its curly reddish hair matching exactly to that of the woman who tugs back on his leash. There is a smell of soft sweetness in the air and Café Noctis’s soundtrack of songs tells my body that it’s time for my chair dancing to begin.

This is Sandra Butel and this is my beautywalk. What’s yours?

What kind of practices help you rebalance yourself when things get tough?

What insights and truths about the human experience have brought you up when you are feeling down?

What did I miss that deserves to be added for Part 3?

Resources for Further Study and Personal Growth

Here’s more on the specific art therapy practice that Michele had in mind. “Have any water based paint and something to paint on, try adding very watery paint to already wet paper (tape the paper edges to a piece of cardboard first) and then wet the paper. (a wide brush and get it sloppy wet). Then start adding watercolor and watch the colours move on the paper .. how they mix and interact, which colors move quickly and which are slower. Notice the opacity vs the transparency. Have a piece of plastic wrap (like Saran etc) ready, and place it over the wet colours.(cover the whole sheet and then gently push the plastic wrap to create some air pockets. It’s fun and very very stress relieving.”
Anne Bokma’s book, ”My Year of Living Spiritually: From Woo-Woo to Wonderful--One Woman's Secular Quest for a More Soulful Life,” is a welcome venture into ways of adding more sacredness into your daily life and is a joy to read.
For more on Pranayama check out Fiji McAlpine’s course Living Limbs: Exploring the 8 Limbs of Yoga where she offers a whole toolbox of breathing techniques that we can use to shift our energy in the way it's most needed.
I am here with my never-ending search for truth, my human heart and my Professional Coach Certification (PCC) from the International Coaching Federation to be of assistance to you in your own journey of finding your own place of equilibrium. I have over 500 hours of experience working with clients and am sure that the time we spend together will bring immense value to us both.

For a free consultation with me all you have to do is book yourself into my calendar. We will spend some time getting to know one another and by the end of the 75 minutes it will be clear if a coaching relationship with me is what is needed in your life right now. There is no pressure here to buy, simply an offer from someone who has been through a whole lot of challenges and come out the other side. A little stronger, a little more humble, a little more ready to lend an ear.
If you are interested in trying out petsitting yourself you can use this link to get 25% of your membership.

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