Take 10 minutes or so to notice your body, breath, thoughts, and emotions - whether you are sitting still or on the move. Connect with your wise observer self, which is helpful when navigating unblessed and troubled waters. You are in your body, but you are not your body. You rely on thinking to navigate your commitments, but you are not your thoughts. Your feelings give you important information about the world around you, but you are not your emotions.

Get curious about noticing these aspects of yourself without needing anything to be different, creating the habit of allowing all you observe to be what it is. 

Forgiveness and the way we approach it is deeply influenced by religious contexts, but in this episode, I propose an approach to forgiveness that begins with stress management and regulating the nervous system to give you reactions other than sorrow, despair, anger, and rage in response to being wronged. I provide a medicine story about seeing a psychiatrist at 17 for depression that had plagued me since childhood, and answer a listener question about what to do when meditation feels frustrating, not fruitful. 

Please note: This episode addresses suicidality in children and adolescents

"Forgiveness is a black-belt level emotional choice to bless and calm your own waters, and to stop drowning in hurt, pain, anger and despair. "

Visit http://www.jukoholiday.com to read about Dr. Holiday's trainings, workshops, and her upcoming retreat for women of color at 1440 Multiveristy.

Please visit redwoodlove.org to read about The Care Forest Project, a micro-conservation + human connection movement that allows you to offset your environmental impact for as little as $7 a month & go from climate crisis overwhelm to action.

Music Credits:

Chillhop: https://chillhop.com/listen

J’San - Farewell, My Love - You’re So Cute - I feel Serene: https://soundcloud.com/iamjsan

Ward Willis - Meadows (feat. Guillaume Muschalle):  https://soundcloud.com/ward-willis

Listen on Spotify: https://bit.ly/ChillhopSpotify

Dexter Britain - Lifted - Creative Commons Volume 7: https://soundcloud.com/dexterbritain

Blue Dot Sessions: Skittle - Walking Shoes /Cloud Clover - Denzel Sprak / Cicle Kadde - Circle Vascule & Circle Ariel/ Crab Shack - A Calendar Spread/ Nursery - Maisie Lee/ Cauldron - Valantis & Valantis Vespers - https://www.sessions.blue 

In this episode, I’ll talk about how setting limits is essential to being a loving person, the specific yogic and Buddhist principle that help us balance compassion for others with respect for ourselves, and answer a question about making our compassion visible to others when we're coping with anxiety.  I'll place it all in the context of my own personal story about learning boundaries while growing up with a parent who lived with severe mental illness.  You can leave a Just ask Juko question here by clicking the "message" button and talking away: https://anchor.fm/dr-juko-holiday, and you can read all about my yoga teacher and yoga therapist trainings, workshops, my upcoming retreat for women of color and much more at my web site: http://www.jukoholiday.com/ 

Compassion is a resolve to be present with suffering in a skillful way, which is essential to getting comfortable being human. In this episode, I’ll tell you about Buddhist near enemies and apparent friends, a most unexpected deathbed confession about the first time I was on TV, and how action is what defines compassion. You can read all about my work and blessing your own waters up at my website: JukoHoliday.Com

In this episode, I’m going to tell you where the title for my podcast came from, how the contents of an envelope reset my psyche and my socio-cultural world view in a matter of minutes, what it means to bless our own waters, and why it’s a potent starting place for getting comfortable being human.

I do a lot of things - go to jukoholiday.com to find out about yoga teacher and yoga therapist trainings at Ease Mountain Yoga, a studio I founded and currently direct in the Santa Cruz Mountains. I'm a conservationist and a research scholar working in the fields of ecology and psychology, and you can check out my work in that area of my life, including an opportunity to offset your environmental impact by helping me preserve some old-growth forest at redwoodlove.org.  I'd love to get a voice message with a question or reflection on your thoughts about getting comfortable being human at my Anchor.FM profile page.