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OCTOBER 16, 2020

Friday Morning, bright and early, I was invited to lead a Self-Care Session at a Virtual Retreat.

The company that invited me works with social justice world-wide. About a hundred people from different global centers joined. I got online to check everything at

6:45 am Mountain Time.  That meant getting up much earlier to have tea, stretch out, and set up the tech details. Checking microphones, lights, and my zoom or matchbox studio, as I have been calling it, we got underway.

The tech director was an upbeat savvy woman who signs her emails, ‘with optimism’. How wonderful during this down trodden time, to find out that things are also moving in an upward direction.  Then everyone came online. They entered with a sentence in the Chat, about the music being played, or some way to say “hi!” to the whole group.

We spent about an hour together. All of the teams who were here, today, work with social justice, and I enjoyed sharing about my work in our non-profit,

The Storydancer Project. We work with people in marginalized areas of the world here at home and across the seas. Trafficked women, battered families, palliative cancer patients, students in the slums of India and the Navajo reservation. Mothers in muslim areas and new mothers struggling in NM Navajo Nation. We train people to work through a transformative Self-Care program which I have created. It works wonders.

After an intro, we started. Stretching, opening the joints, and talking about what happens when one just sits there and eats to take a break.

I made some jokes, we did some simple exercises standing up, and sitting down. I showed everyone how to look over the screen sometimes, and then we touched on a few other short cuts to get some relief for screen eyes and  what some call Zoom fatigue.

Then we moved into the fun part of shaking off the collective doom of the pandemic, with lively music, and as well, feeling what happens when we do this. Learning to pay attention to the signals of the body is not a one-stop shopping trip!

Every little bit helps.

That is how I created TAKE A MINUTE® , my registered – trademarked set of transformative a one minute resiliency reset. Not exercises in the sense of athleticism, but an actual moment to, as I like to say, Reset, Relieve and Refresh, the 3 R’s of TAKE A MINUTE®.

We explored little joint opening exercises which ‘oil the joints with nature’s own WD-40.  And I spoke about living and taking care of ourselves in this Mind-Body-House.

A lively time was had by many. In these times when everyone is sitting on computers, or standing for that matter, we all need this. If you are interested in bringing something like this to your teams, please get in touch with me.

Keep well and keep moving in this Mind-Body-House!

©Zuleikha

Oct. 16, 2020

“You were amazing today! We got such amazing feedback! — HR Management

More for Your Teams —  projectdirector@storydancer.com

FALL 2020

RESTORING WHOLENESS FOR NURSES with Zuleikha and Professor Cynda Rushton, at Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, October 8 2020

Zuleikha leading a CanSupport patient and family members in the “Shanti” exercise, one of several RTHEP© exercises that bring significant relief to palliative cancer care patients.

1.13.20 Delhi, India

Today I worked with CanSupport, one of our TSP partnerships. CanSupport runs India’s largest free home-based palliative care program for cancer patients and their families, caring for thousands.They have offices in all the different sectors of Delhi (population 20 million and growing), and from there they make home visits to help the patients and families, free of charge. It is amazing really. I have had the unusual fortune to work with CanSupport, and to develop RTHEP©, a relaxation therapy of self care that brings stress relief to palliative cancer patients and their families. We also work with nursing colleges in Self Care for the Care Provider. As well, I am training a group of palliative cancer daycare volunteers to be able to use the one-minute self care exercises, TAKE A MINUTE® I have developed.

“When we move together, the stuck places open and joy can arrive.”  —Zuleikha

Zuleikha leading palliative cancer care nurses in Self Care for the Care Provider at CanSupport Foundation Course 2020

1.21.20 Jaypee Hospital, Noida, India

Today I went as a part of the CanSupport Foundation Course to the Jaypee Hospital in Noida, outside of Delhi. It is a two-day certificate program for nurses in Palliative Cancer Care, filled with all different subjects, taught by a team from CanSupport. I am invited to bring the component of Self Care for the Care Provider whenever I am in Delhi during this Course. I have trained Savita Luka, a nurse/counselor/educator, and if I am not here, she leads the TAKE A MINUTE® Self-Care Exercises for the nurses.

If I am here to go with the team, they generally put in a request for me to lead the exercises, and then to do the free-style group movements I have developed for these types of programs in schools, hospitals, health-care centers, etc. Nurses in every country I have been in are generally very surprised to find themselves skipping and jumping and running. We go across the floor as individuals, and then I like to put people in partnerships that grow to groups of four, five or six, whenever possible. This is not only fun, but allows for concentration, awareness, and teamwork.

Since I was given a good amount of time today, about 40 minutes, I finished the session with my Painting Exercise. This is something I have developed over time. It involves feeling, moving, and concentration, and can lead to a kind of meditative awareness. We use hands and feet as “paintbrushes.” The “paint” is made from envisioning colored light that can extend for millions of miles. When moving and “painting” at the same time, a spaciousness can arise, bringing relief and relaxation.

Palliative cancer care nurses practicing one of Zuleikha’s exercises in CanSupport’s Self Care for the Care Provider

As we have been finding, the nurses reported feeling “more energized, and more relaxed” simultaneously. When our team first heard of this awareness, people were confused. Some asked “Isn’t it a contradiction to feel more energy and more relaxed at the same time?” Repetition of the work has proven that this is indeed the case. It makes people smile, relax into themselves, and then they feel ready to go back to work.

TAKE A MINUTE® can do this.

At the end of the session, in India, they do what is called the “Vote of Thanks.” In this case, a Senior Palliative Nursing Professor got up and talked about all of the points that had been touched during the day. It was really impressive. She cited each session leader, and brought to light their gifts to the nurses. She spoke very highly of my work, and said that though she couldn’t attend the whole session, the part she was there to join gave her such a lot of good energy, and that there was a lot to learn from the Painting Exercise about spaciousness and relaxation.

I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if this was inside of all hospitals, so nurses would be able to re-charge regularly in this simple way?

©Zuleikha