hi friends,

i only open inner oasis workshop to new folks about twice a year, and when i do, i get really loud about it because frankly, this is my favorite thing i’ve ever been apart of.  it’s a community built around gentleness, respect, and honoring the sacred within each of us.  it’s designed to help us heal emotionally, connect to our inner power, and become forces of creative love in our lives and communities.  at the end of everyyy session, i leave feeling a full heart, lightness, happiness, and this deep reminder that life is worthwhile & meaningful just because we can show up for each other in the simplest ways. 

so much of our lives can feel like just scrambling to keep our heads above water.  inner oasis is a space to exhale, to hold each other, and to practice showing up as we are inside without all the external pressures and standards we’re used to.

it’s a place to heal - emotionally, spiritually, relationally, communally.  a place to expand our own creativity through small steps that nurture safety within ourselves and between each other.  and a place to reclaim our power by collectively honoring the beauty within us each. 

the purpose of inner oasis is deep community building.  all workshops are low-cost, with extremely low-cost options for anyone who needs them.  you are welcome to participate whatever your situation/means. 

two forms of the intro workshop 
that you can hop into this Spring:

condensed one-day workshop
online & downtown los angeles
sign up by April 5

3-month workshop
online & downtown los angeles
apply by April 16

sign up at hannahrooth.com/inner-oasis

sending love,
hannah rooth
inner oasis workshop | oasis house show | grief songs | highly sensitive gays

 

Extension of a blog post I shared last year:

In my experience, the key to avoiding writer’s block is deep listening.  It’s the same as opening yourself to another person to let them unburden.  In this case, the person you are opening to is yourself.  The trick is to set aside your expectations, your worries, and your business for a while, and to find yourself in your own body.  

When you sit down to create, first, tap in to what your intentions are.  Did you come with a goal?  Did you come with an expectation?  Let it go, and give yourself the space to just be there in whatever way you need.  If your body needs rest, meditation, dance, care, affection, or silence and you come in trying to extract some creative work out of it, you’re working against yourself.  Let ~being there with yourself~ be your priority.  And if you stay for a while, whatever needs to emerge and be shared from you will do so naturally.

Tune into your sensations, your perception of your own energy, your pure existence in space and time.  Set ‘yourself’ aside and make room for whatever is emerging around and within you. Notice your body in space, notice its connection to what you are creating with (pen, brush, instrument, clay, ground, air). Allow body and instrument to begin morphing into each other, to begin dancing, becoming a joint instrument to whatever inside of you or around you wants to be unearthed, created, felt, heard, witnessed, discovered.  (Does this instruction feel too abstract? Let me try again: If you notice thoughts in your head (goals, judgements, ideas, etc.), internally “look” at them and then change your focus to “look” at your body, at your instrument, and “allow” whatever feels like it’s about to come out without filtering. You’re used to filtering yourself, so it’s a practice of going back and forth between thought (wanting to filter) and allowing (bypassing the filter and letting a natural expression out).)

What makes the simple difficult is that being with ourselves can sometimes feel impossible.  If we’re unable to feel well in our bodies, everything in us pushes to get away.  Creating an internal experience of safety is relieving and magical. It strengthens our ability to exist deeply within our own bodies. It helps us get into the state of flow described in the previous paragraph. 

How do we create safety?  By relational modeling of safety, both with others (in community) and within our selves (imaginal healing work).

A wonderful tool for creating safety is using a guided “safe place visualization” practice. Here’s one that I like.  There are so many; you can search the internet (or my favorite free app, Insight Timer!!) to find one that sits well with you.

For supported safety creating practice, consider joining our workshop “inner oasis.”  You can also follow along for resources here on the inner oasis blog or on instagram.

Until next time, and with love,
hannah 

Part of the “inner oasis” workshop is approaching the performance of art from a vulnerability framework rather than a skills-based one. 

We intentionally frame the experience of “performing” as a means of connecting with our audience - with no other goal.

To connect deeply, we practice performing in an emotionally vulnerable state of being - in other words, while maintaining a felt sense of connection with ourselves (minds and bodies) throughout the process of sharing. 

We recognize that our felt sense of ‘safety’ (in other words, comfort, connection, and appropriate nervous system arousal) is directly tied to our capacity to express vulnerably.  Knowing this, we practice minding the state of our bodies while sharing (and in the process of preparing to share) so that we can effectively remain connected to ourselves and others throughout the performance.  

Too little vulnerability, or honest self disclosure, cheapens the experience, while being more vulnerable than we are ready for can cause us to disconnect from our bodies, losing trust with ourselves and stunting our capacity for vulnerability and satisfaction in the long-term. 

Being both mind and body based, these skills take time, practice, support and devotion to truly integrate - to know throughout our whole beings. 

inner oasis takes place within a small peer-support group over the course of three months, giving us a container to begin to understand these topics and skills in a deep way.  

Visit hannahrooth.com/inner-oasis to learn more and apply for our next “season” / cohort. 

self love used to be a concept that felt weird to me.  how are you supposed to love yourself when you just…. don’t?  it can come off as an almost “elite” concept ~ something for those people out there who are cool and balanced and supported and just have their shit together.  who have something in themselves that’s worth loving.

i’m not going to say there’s a simple answer to how i came into the sincere experience of self-love.  it’s been a long road.  it’s been complex.  it’s included hours of study, seeking, searching, jumping into the deep end, leaning into the edge that churns your stomach.  it’s included vast measures of grace from the universe, people, resources, support coming into my life in the right places and at the right times. 

but one thing about self-love is quite simple, and it’s something that i return to in many aspects of personal development + satisfaction attainment throughout my life.  at the core of self-love is a willingness - a dare - to open up to myself, to meet myself where i am.  to believe in the validity of my unmet desires, my secret yearning, that mysterious force within. 

the lyricism of ‘make you feel my love’ by bob dylan paints such a potent, visceral recipe for this type of self-love

“when the evening shadows and the stars appear, and there is no one there to dry your tears, i could hold you for a million years”

“i’d go crawling down the avenue, no there’s nothing that i wouldn’t do, to make you feel my love”

“the winds of change are blowing wild and free, you ain’t seen nothin like me yet”

“i could make you happy, make your dreams come true... to make you feel my love”

here’s the live, self-produced cover of “make you feel my love” i released this week. hope you feel the comfort.

to build pragmatic emotional intelligence, intuitive creativity, and community development skills, apply for our next evce season via the form below

love + power
hannah 

A dear friend told me she’s been experiencing writer’s block recently and asked if I had any advice to work through it. 

In my experience, the key to avoiding writer’s block is deep listening.  It’s the same as opening yourself to another person to let them unburden.  In this case, the person you are opening to is yourself.  The trick is to set aside your expectations, your worries, and your business for a while, and to find yourself in your own body.  Tune into your sensations, your perception of your own energy, your pure existence in space and time.  Set ‘yourself’ aside and make room for whatever is emerging around and within you. 

What makes the simple difficult is that being with ourselves can sometimes feel impossible.  If we’re unable to feel well in our bodies, everything in us pushes to get away.  Creating an internal experience of safety is relieving and magical. It strengthens our ability to exist deeply within our own bodies.  How do we create safety?  By relational modeling of safety, both with others (in community) and within our selves (imaginal healing work). 

For experiential safety creating practice, consider joining my workgroup “emotional vulnerability through creative expression (evce).”  You can also follow along for resources here on the evce blog or on instagram.

When you sit down to create, first, tap in to what your intentions are.  Did you come with a goal?  Did you come with an expectation?  Let it go, and give yourself the space to just be there in whatever way you need.  If your body needs rest, meditation, dance, care, affection, or silence and you come in trying to extract some creative work out of it, you’re working against yourself.  Let ~being there with yourself~ be your priority.  And if you stay for a while, whatever needs to emerge and be shared from you will do so naturally.

Until next time, and with love,
hannah