tuscany Archives | The ManifestStation

Guest Posts, Grief, healing, The Aleksander Fund

To My Sweet Baby Girl, After Her Death.

October 31, 2017

By Dannielle Gallagher

CW: This post discusses infant death. To learn more about The Aleksander Fund or to donate please click here.

To my Sweet Baby Girl, Poppy:

The minute I discovered I was pregnant I knew you were girl, just like I knew we would be the best of friends – that is after you outgrew some of that fire you inherited from your Daddy. I knew I loved you more than I ever thought possible, all before you were the size of a pea. I knew that you would grow to be brave and strong and determined. I knew that you would grow to also “know” things in that same deep down way that I sometimes do. I felt that about us, that we belonged to each other, right from the very start.

What I didn’t know, was as you grew inside my belly (and my heart) you were sick. You see as you were growing, your tiny heart didn’t form quite right. There was a little valve inside it that wouldn’t close, so as you grew from a tiny seed into our beautiful little Poppy, your heart became too large to fit into your chest, it expanded to squash the organs that would make it possible for you to ever take a breath. Your official diagnosis took up most of a page, it started with your heart, compounded with a series of devastating complications, and ended with three serious looking specialists in an ultrasound room, telling us that your condition was “not compatible with life.” Those words will haunt me, always. The moment I learned that I wouldn’t get to watch you grow into the extraordinary woman I dreamed of, was excruciating. It was also only just the beginning of my heartache. Your diagnosis also came with a recommendation of medical termination.

I won’t say I didn’t have a choice, because I did, but ultimately every option I was presented with still ended in your death. So I picked the option that sucked the least, the one that I thought I could best live with. I made the decision to love you enough to let you go in peace, surrounded by those who love you most in this world. It wasn’t a choice I wanted to make, but I made it, because sometimes being a Mother means doing what is best for your child, even though it breaks your heart to do it. I want you to know that If I could have chosen to have you live a healthy and full life, I would have given everything to give you that. Its devastating to know that even with all of the medical miracles we have in this day and age, there wasn’t a miracle big enough to save you.

Guest Posts, Manifestation Retreats, Retreats/Workshops, travel

How To Manifest Under The Tuscan Sun With Jen Pastiloff.

October 15, 2016

First, discover Jennifer Pastiloff accidentally. This is after the boyfriend leaves, after the mom gets cancer, and after you start asking Is this all there is? Let her crack you open in a crowded Manhattan yoga studio, show her your broken heart, read to her your list of fears, and let her place a hand on your knee and lean in closer. You will sit like that for awhile, with her hand on your knee and all of your tears puddling on the mat. The woman next to you will place a hand on your back, someone will offer you a box of tissues, you’ll hear a voice nearby say It’s ok, I got you. You’ll find that this is what Jennifer creates: space to be heard, space to listen.

Fallinloveable. She’ll say in her deep and raw voice, That’s what you are. Fuck yeah. Completely Fallinloveable. She says it in a way that makes you believe it too. It happens just like that. Then, you laugh through the tears, something Jennifer calls “letting the snot fly”, and the feeling of connectedness will cocoon itself around you.

Months later, you might forget how fallinloveable you are and you’ll scroll through Jennifer’s Instagram feed searching for a reminder. She will be there telling you not to be an asshole, especially to yourself. She will post pictures of her retreat in Italy and you will sit at your desk every lunch period swiping over images of people laughing, drinking wine, and dancing. The pictures alone ignite something inside of you, you will call it hope. You decide to go despite a full-time job with little vacation time and your lack of money. Listen, because this part is important: start with willingness, even if you don’t know how you will ever get the time off of work or the money in the bank, begin with willingness to believe in possibility, willingness to be transformed. Trust me. The rest will take care of itself.

Then, something like this will happen:

You will arrive in a van filled with strangers. Driving down a narrow, dusty road in the Tuscan countryside, you’ll find yourself equal parts nervous and excited. As you pull up to the sprawling villa, all of you will promptly and unanimously decide that none of the photos do it justice. Jennifer will meet you in the main room outside of the kitchen and insist that you take a tour right that minute. Go. Drop all of your heavy bags and follow her.

In fact, that’s pretty much good life advice: Drop the heavy shit weighing you down and let Jennifer Pastiloff show you how to stand in awe and wonder.

You’ll find one perfect-for-napping-writing-and-manifesting-nook after another, a large, dimly lit wine cellar, a gym, and several uniquely beautiful bedrooms with wooden windows that open to postcard-worthy views. You can even see the rolling Tuscan hills from the bathrooms. Take a minute to really see all of the beauty and notice how even the air smells different, fresher, full of hope. Consider this practice because Jennifer will ask you to hunt for beauty all week. She won’t ask you to take yourself too seriously or even yoga for that matter. Actually, least of all yoga. But. She will ask you to listen, to say yes, to sit in your discomfort, and to sit in the discomfort of others. This is the work, she’ll say, not turning away from someone’s pain, from their vulnerability.

You will remember the box of tissues at your feet in the crowded Manhattan yoga studio, the warmth of a stranger’s hand on your heaving back. You will watch Jennifer untie knots in your new friends and you know what you will do? Put a hand on their back, hand them tissues, and tell them I got you. I got you.

This is what Jennifer creates: space. Safe, open space. She asks you only to bring your willingness and a journal. Then, she listens. She listens with no agenda and no judgement. This is why it all works. Because we all begin listening to one another simply to hear, to understand, to say I got you, I got you. Don’t get me wrong, there is as much laughter as there is crying, as many heartfelt secrets being shared as there are dirty jokes, for every long, beautiful hour of quiet, there is another of loud, magical conversation around the dinner table, there is as much dancing as there is … well, there is a lot of dancing.

So, if you are wondering if you should go, just go. You don’t need to go looking for transformation, you don’t need to be sad or lost or grieving to go. You, right now where you are, can be delighted with your life, you may be filled to the brink with gratitude. Go. Share it. Show up with what you have wherever you are and let Jennifer greet you at the door, take you by the hand, and say How unbelievable is this? You won’t know whether she is talking about the view or her hand in yours or this moment in your life and it won’t really matter anyway.

Go. I got you. We all do.

Lexi Weber is a writer, certified health coach, and newbie World traveler. Currently, she is writing at home in Annapolis, Maryland, but she always has her suitcase packed and ready to go. You can find pictures of her latest travels and smoothie bowls on her Instagram account @_lexiweber_ and read more of her writing at lexiweber.com.

Join Jen Pastiloff in Tuscany June 17-24, 2016 by clicking the photo above. Please send an email to retreats@jenniferpastiloff.com letting us know why you would like to attend.

Join Jen Pastiloff in Tuscany June 17-24, 2016 by clicking the photo above and putting down a non-refundable deposit. Please send an email to retreats@jenniferpastiloff.com letting us know why you would like to attend.

Join Jen Pastiloff in Tuscany Sep 9-16, 2016. Please send an email to retreats@jenniferpastiloff.com letting us know why you want to attend. Click the photo above to put down your non-refundable deposit.

Guest Posts, Manifestation Retreats

A Testament to All Things Italian.

September 3, 2012

The following is a gorgeous post by my dear friend Sara Lieberman of the upcoming The Handbags Tale. I met Sara last year when I taught my Manifestation workshop in NYC (where I am heading next weekend again) and she joined me on my Italy retreat this past July. This post is a testament as to what goes down at one of my retreats. I could not have written it better myself! It’s such an honor that she wrote this. Thank you Sara. Thank you. See you all in Italy!

Awe & Wonder 2012 by Sara Lieberman

It’s just about two months since I returned from Jen’s Manifestation retreat in Tuscany, and as summer 2012 officially comes to a close, I find myself more frequently reflecting on the sweet, sweltering days of the past season. Among the other activities I participated in and experienced during these always-long-awaited dog days, the week I spent in Tuscany is among my most treasured. When I see Chianti Classico on a wine list back here in the West Village, I am instantly transplanted to our first day of wine tasting at the rolling vineyards of Chianti. When the sky turns pink and orange and the sun is going down, I am reminded of the nightly sunset at Ebbio, when all of us would hoist ourselves up to the roof and watch as the sun slinked behind the cypress trees. But mostly, these days my memory is triggered in yoga.

When I close my eyes in pigeon pose, I take an inhale and there I am, hot and sweaty, roaming the streets in Siena with Elyse and Regan, where we eventually stumbled upon a mysterious-looking delicatessen.Two hours later, we left having indulged in prosciutto, porchetta, salumi, formaggios I can’t pronounce, and two bottles of house red wine. We were hungry and thirsty for new friendships and left hooked on each other.

When I close my eyes in a seated spinal twist, I take an inhale and there I am at this wacky medieval festival in Montereggioni across the street from Ebbio, where all the girls purchased flower headdresses and the men silly jester hats so we could fit in with the costumed locals as we drank sweet (and cheap!) red wine out of ceramic goblets.

In supported bridge pose, my favorite, I inhale and I am happily cooling off in the Tyrrhenian sea with Jen, getting to know each other as we wade in the clear waters just before a big jellyfish kisses my arm causing us to swim a shore in a nervous frenzy.

As I inhale and expand my breastbone to the sky in upward dog, I am in San Gimignano waiting online at the World Champion gelato shop, salivating from an orange creme cup of goodness and laughing hysterically with Stef over something neither of us probably remember.

In forward fold, I inhale and there I am on a bike, huffing and puffing up yet another Tuscan hill, the glaring sun at my front, back and side, with Rich encouraging me to “keep going; it’s not that much farther, really!”

I close my eyes in tree pose, trying to keep balance at the silly thought of playing Connect Four with Andrew late at night in the common room at Ebbio. “OK, just one more game,” we’d each say after one of us beat the other, and then we’d continue to drop the red and black pieces while going through my iTunes library, playing favorite songs.

In Warrior two, my eyes open and gaze forward, I sink deeper into my hips and smile as I remember belting out “We Are Young” during Kylee’s class; The joy was infectious as I caught a glimpse of relief on her face and the pure giddiness in her movement after realizing she had created a real “moment” during one of her first group classes.

And as I lie in savasana, and my breath slows, I see us all navigating the sunflower fields, trying to avoid the bumblebees, wiggling in between the tall, sturdy yellow flowers to stand still with them, a smile growing from our faces for the click of the cameras.

The common theme in all these memories is people. Wonderful characters and personalities that I feel so lucky and blessed to have met. When I signed up, as an independent single gal from NYC, I anticipated the week being a more solitary journey where I’d read and write and practice yoga and read and write some more. While I did enjoy some time alone, and the group was such that if you wanted to go off and do your own thing, it was always respected, I continued to feel a pull toward being an “us” as opposed to a “me.” It was an unexpected “adjustment” from what I know and live, and will forever be thankful for the friendships I made, and the manifestations I set forth with Jen in Tuscany. #Awe&Wonder2012

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People have already started signing up for Italy next summer. Please click here to sign up or to learn more.

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Thanks Simplereminders.com for this poster!

Delight, Inspiration, Manifestation Retreats, Travels

Re-Entry into Awe and Wonder.

July 17, 2012

Confession: I am having the blahs.

I am back from my the retreat I led in Tuscany and my post-retreat vacation in Paris, with an empty feeling like I came back a shell, having left the meat of me somewhere in Monteriggioni, inside the walled city, perhaps eating gelatto or maybe in a field of sunflowers as the light splays down on them in such a way that my eyes burn, not so much with pain, but with an overwhelming sense of wonder.

One of the things I asked my retreat attendees (a fantastic group that I am still pinching myself over) was to carry their journals around them with during the day, whether they were in Siena eating a slice of pizza or in Florence with the ghosts of Ponte Vecchio, long dead but still floating around with their gold and jewels somewhere just above the ether. I asked them to carry their Awe and Wonder Journals and jot down every singe thing that cause them to feel awe or wonder. Whether it was a conversation with someone who didn’t speak a word of English or the way the Tuscan hills looked at 9:30 at night as the sun was going to bed or a piece of Pecorino cheese and the way it lingered in the mouth waiting for the perfect splash of chianti to join it before descending.

It didn’t matter how big or small the things were that they were jotting down. What mattered is that they were paying attention. To the things that made them feel alive, to the things that made them stop and say Wow.

I wonder how many things we miss because we feel we have seen it before or simply because we are looking at the wrong things to wake us up. I want more things to stop me in my tracks. I want more things to make me ask questions. I want more things to make me feel connected to something bigger than myself, longer standing than myself, and way beyond what I can ever understand. Those type of things.

Whether it is a a piece of pizza in Rome or a moody sky in Paris. Whether it is the high ceilings at the Ebbio and how they have been there for 800 years or the way the olive oil tasted and how time seems slower there as if it has nowhere to be.

So I asked them to be filled with awe and wonder and to bring their journals around so they wouldn’t forget.

It’s easy to forget. Or to not look in the first place.

One of my favorite Mary Oliver poems (you know my obsession with her) in The Mockingbirds.

It is my favorite story–

how the old couple

had almost nothing to give

but their willingness

to be attentive–

Their willingness to be attentive!

That’s it, right there. Are you willing to be attentive? To allow yourself more moments of awe and wonder and inspiration and grace?

I came back and feel empty because in some way I believe that is only possible when I am away. That when I am back here, in my normal life, in the real world, I must go back to feeling like the same old me.

Sure, my retreat was a cocoon of love and safety. I got terribly ill, sicker than I can remember being, and despite that, I felt safe and free and happy. I want that back, yes. Sure, the food tasted different and the sky lingered longer than it does here and I didn’t have to deal with emails and bills and traffic and making breakfast and Facebook.

But what I realized there in Tuscany and Paris, and now in hindsight, sitting here with my too strong coffee and feeling nostalgia, as I am prone to feel (is it any wonder I love Facebook?) is that: I can be Italy anywhere. I can be Paris anywhere.

What I mean is: I do not have to escape to feel alive. I do not have to get away to remember the beauty around me or inside of me, to pick up small tokens of beauty wherever I am, on the sidewalk or in a conversation. I simply have to allow it.

I simply have to take out and Awe and Wonder Journal and pay attention.

No I won’t have the same treasures here. I won’t be able to duck into a Parisian cafe in the rain and snap photos of the macarons or take the train and watch buildings speak their stories of defense and heartbreak and disintegration from centuries or eat Brie and actually enjoy it because it does taste different in France and the wine in Italy. The wine in Italy is it’s own treasure.

But, I brought 25 people with me to Italy. I got sicker than I have ever been and they stood by me and not for one moment let me feel as if I was letting them down, or they were disappointed or this was anything other than exactly what they dreamed of.

I did that. I attracted 25 people who got along perfectly as if they chose each other, who laughed together in Italian cities, who stayed up late and painted fingernails and drank Limoncello and wrote in their journals what they would do if they weren’t afraid, who swam in the Mediterranean and then had a picnic with tomatoes and cheese and hard boiled eggs and ate it happily with their hands. There were no cliques, there was no negativity, there was no complaining. I brought these people with me. From here.

So, if that is the case, it would make sense to say that I could bring them anywhere. I could have the same experience here in Santa Monica or in New York City or Mexico or my sofa. It wouldn’t matter.

All I have to do is keep being who I am and the right people will show up.

And then pay attention.

And then be awe.

Be wonder.

**Click here to see some amazing shots on my site of my amazing retreat.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9vgIA5HVK9g]

Manifestation Retreats

Tuscany Retreat With Jen Pastiloff.

September 26, 2011

Please send email to info@jenniferpastiloff.com letting us know why you want to attend. This is an intimate retreat. We can’t wait to have you! This is Jen’s 5th year doing Manifesting Under The Tuscan Sun! Please specify if you want to attend summer (June 27-July 3rd) or fall 2015 (Sep 26-Oct 3rd.)

Please read this so you understand what Jen’s retreat is like.

And this. Continue Reading…