Stretching. My secret tool to stay sane as an anti-war war reporter.
Going in to look out
Following years of reporting from some of the dimmest depths of the globe, the one resounding question that crops up in almost every interview or conversation around the dinner table:
How do you process it all?
It is a multifaceted question, and there is no one-size-fits-all approach. But the one constant, a love ignited through my former life as a dancer that never left, is stretching. The kind of deep, meditative bodywork that gets into every nook and cranny of your body and unravels the tightness while working its magic on your mind, too. As a ballerina turned war reporter, stretching has long been the vessel between those two worlds. It's the one daily practice that brings me back to the center, no matter how stressful the situation.
The beauty? You can do it anywhere in the world. Nothing is needed but you. In recent years, I have refined my approach and taught it privately to friends and connections as a side love.
I am expanding this side love a little more with my writing and other creative endeavors. (A new book is coming out in June; more on that later!) Stretching truly is the ying to the yang. I believe everyone can get to a split and beyond. In the age of "anti-aging," the body keeps the score, and "The Split System" is another labor of love, a return to passion and turning to the light when the world can feel so dark.
Flexibility in all its physical and psychological forms isn't just a practice; it's a way of life. It's about loving and nurturing your body, fostering long and lithe limbs, overcoming challenges with a deep breath, and taking your fitness routine and muscle recovery to new heights.
Yet, only some know how to stretch safely and effectively. Enter The Split System—a gentle, personalized program crafted to propel your body, whether you're a beginner or advanced, into a beautifully bendable state from the comfort of your home or on the go. Its is the work of three decades dancing. My mission? Guide you into a split and beyond.
Rooted in the philosophy of static stretching for muscle elongation, improved digestion, and enhanced breathing, The Split System cultivates a profound mind/body connection. And, of course, being flexible is a heck of a lot of fun… 😊
I am taking on a few more one-on-one virtual slots, so please do reach out if of interest at hollie@holliemckay.com … Follow on IG @thesplitsystem and the website thesplitsystem.com
With that, I will endeavor to broaden this substack to include some “lighter” dispatches with a little more of a personal touch. Please consider a paid subscription! The substack does not allow for advertising so the only way I can keep it going is through that valuable support… In the meantime, I am doing my best to continue to work even as a full-time mother on defense and policy analysis and starting to travel (Raven is going to get good at this!) again for my writing and dedication to shedding light on important and often forgotten humanitarian issues. Nonetheless, life isn't the chessboard of vagabonding with the gypsy soul that it once was. One must change the dial and make strategic choices. That is the reality.
Life is different. It is wiser. It is more grounded. It is craving a lightness among the darkness I immersed myself in for so long. My priority for the next chapter of my life is being a mother to my baby girl, Raven, and trusting that life will unravel how it should. Flexible is my keyword for 2024 – ready to bend wherever which way when the opportunity arises.
I feel everything all at once and then steadily much less – a simplifying of the deeds that do and do not matter. I'm walking the path of the very things that scare me the most – whether I can live without recklessness, whether I have seen too much to believe in beautiful things, and whether I can take care of a tiny soul when I had struggled for so much of my life to take care of myself.
And right now, as the new section – not merely a new chapter – of my life book flutters open, I am just an ordinary girl stepping into my extraordinary situation. It is much more petrifying than the familiar cosmos of conflict that I can lose myself inside of and run from battle and battle. Just as we do not always know where the missile will land, life compels us to loosen the reigns of our pre-constructed plans, and off we ride into the sundown armed with the stories, the tales of life, that knowledge to this point that nothing can erase from our history.
I stroll through Washington DC, dotted in and around the carved stone memorial for President Franklin D. Roosevelt. One quote catches my eye:
"I have seen war. I have seen war on land and sea. I have seen blood running from the wounded...I have seen the dead in the mud. I have seen cities destroyed...I have seen children starving. I have seen the agony of mothers and wives. I hate war."
August 14, 1936
I, too, hate war.
We are all touched and hurt by war, however far away we think the battle zone may be. Battles rise and fade, but their ramifications never die out. Every single war is a tragedy that cannot be undone. I think a lot about the frustration of all this writing, whether it even made a mild dent in bettering a single life. Perhaps only the history books will tell. Even if I never go to another war zone again, I will always be a war reporter or maybe more of an anti-war reporter. Wars live within us, first in experience and second in memory. I never want to forget what war does to people, to innocent people.
Whether inside or out, all we can do is play a small part in compressing the wounds of bleeding countries and people, look forward in our lives, but not be afraid to look back.
We must be the somebody there: for ourselves, those we love, strangers, and those special people who will leave a mark on our lives, but we are yet to meet.
For speaking queries that expand upon this topic, which I will be speaking and writing about more in 2024 please contact meta@metaspeakers.org
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HOLLIE’S BOOKS (please leave a review)
** Short read of meaningful lessons gleaned from the ordinary forced to become extraordinary
Order your copy of “Afghanistan: The End of the US Footprint and the Rise of the Taliban Rule” due out this fall.
For those interested in learning more about the aftermath of war, please pick up a copy of my book “Only Cry for the Living: Memos from Inside the ISIS Battlefield.”
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