RELEASING: 2/27/2023
AUTHOR: DANIELLE GERTNER
I am an Ownership Coach and my mission is to help you #ownyourshit. A hashtag my brother knew well. It wasn’t until after his passing, though, that I realized how deeply he felt connected to my work and my little tagline. In his journal, he had a list of 19 affirmations that were written, in order, many times.
From a spiritual perspective, some tools we gather throughout our lifetime are simply tools - allowing us to navigate, transcend or rewrite a moment in time, quickly.
Other tools serve a much greater purpose.
Other tools serve as bridges, re-connecting us with the most authentic and free parts of ourselves that we were really meant to live, love and see the world through.
I believe each person’s toolbox is unique to them and it is often the most simple and unlikely of tools that bring us home to our truest selves.
My brother, Zachary Scott Gertner, had his own unique tools in his toolbox (all that served him differently)
and I will never forget the day the rope became one of them.
It was the weekend of my Grandma’s funeral. She passed away August 28, 2020, just 8 months before he would join her in heaven.
We were invited to the park to meet some friends to take our mind off the heartache of losing our sassy angel.
He had never touched a rope before and I had just started learning so I taught him the only thing I really knew - a simple “infinity” where you swivel the rope side to side.
I saw it in his eyes and felt it in his Spirit the moment he found “flow” for the first time.
He was spinning it around, smiling, laughing to himself and, in one of the only times I ever witnessed it in his lifetime, he looked truly free.
Free from his anxieties, his depression, his self doubts and insecurities. Free from the pressures of where he thought he should be and how he should be as a man of almost 30.
Free from the constricts of his own mind.
In the 27 years we spent together on this Earth, I don’t have any other memory of him expressing himself this freely before.
And there he was with a rope in hand.
8 months later when he passed away from an accidental drug overdose, the rope became a connection point between the two of us.
When I flow, he is there.
Laughing, dancing and completely free.
When I flow, I am reminded that all of us have darkness but when we allow ourselves to flow through it and celebrate it, we have the power to transcend that darkness into light and that light into magic.
The rope became a symbol of a catalyst strong enough to help us break free from our limiting beliefs, fears, doubts and worries.
It was a catalyst for presence, play, joy and love - something everyone deserves to feel and experience consistently in their lifetime.
Since Zachary passed away on April 28, 2021, the rope has become one of my main tools for owning my shit.
Maybe your tool will also be this rope. Maybe it’s playing the piano. Maybe it’s painting.
Whatever your tool is, may you find it, may you recognize its importance and may you allow it to serve you the way I know the rope served my brother and has served me.
I am so grateful to SLUSHROPES for her openness to honor my brother’s legacy with me as we introduce the limited edition… "OWN YOUR SH*T" SLURP!
The Colors:
The colors in each rope are powerful representations of all of us.
The Light: The white thread represents our innate inner light and the power within all of us to reconnect to that light even when it’s weaved within something else.
The Dark: The black thread represents our darkness - the fears and limiting beliefs that, when approached with love, curiosity and compassion, can teach us beautiful things about who we are really meant to be.
The Magic: The teal represents the feeling of unity, ease, peace and magic created when we embrace both the light and the dark within ourselves. It is only through the unconditional acceptance and appreciation for both dualities can we experience the vibrance they both bring.
This limited-edition rope was created to honor Zachary’s life and legacy to remind you to:
Stay Humble, Stay Emotional, Stay YOU!
When you flow with it, may you remember these words and celebrate the deep, thoughtful, emotional, expansive, intricate human you are.
To honor what would have been his 32nd birthday, 32% of the proceeds from each rope will be donated to the Stay Humble, Stay Emotional, Stay YOU Foundation that supports men who are struggling with addiction and mental health.
Buy one for you, buy it for someone in need.
And please, go flow your heart out.
-Danielle Gertner