A New Attitude

This seems like a fitting focus as we approach the new year.  This is a fun and unique year for me in that I'll have had the opportunity  to lead two New Year's retreats at Kripalu, one for the Jewish New Year this past September and now for (I'm not sure what its called) but the other new year which is right around the corner.

A new year can be a time of reflection and renewed sense of purpose.  So I'd like to focus this column on cultivating a new attitude that involves our whole being and body for this new year.

Having just finished leading my SomaSoul 5-day training at Kripalu this past Friday I got so excited about a transformational piece that really coalesced over the week and yes, it has something to do with a new attitude.

As part of the whole being that we all are, in that we contain a physical, emotional, mental and spiritual process as part of what it means to be human, we will work with these 4 levels to create our new attitudes!

Our "attitudes" towards ourselves and our worlds seems to primarily live in the mental aspect of our being. Yet, even though our attitudes or beliefs we may first think of as being purely mental processes, they are not!   You'll get the picture in just a moment.

For almost all of us, our beliefs run in the background and yet profoundly shape each moment of our life.  I kind of think of our beliefs as the software that we use to create our lives with.  And there are a couple "viruses" within this software based on the beliefs we have unconsciously adopted.

Since discovering our beliefs can be so difficult to do, I have a couple great hints to sleuth them out and then work with them as we create a new attitude for our new year.

Here are the steps to cultivating a new attitude, supportive beliefs that can shape your life: 

First you need to recognize constricting or limiting beliefs. These are the beliefs that create body tension or collapses. So we will uncover the beliefs that are actually held inside our body.

Remember a belief is not just a mental phenomena.  It lives within our physical body, involves our emotions and spiritual energy!  When we find our beliefs from this wholistic perspective, it is quite grounding, liberating and profound!

Find a physical tension or place of collapse in your body or an emotional feeling like anger, sadness etc that is present for you. Feel it. Draw it, yea just get out some crayons and create an image that matches to some degree the sensations you feel in your body.

Now write down some words that describe what you see physically in your image like red, tight, stuck, frozen etc.  Then write down one or two words that somehow capture the emotion you sense is present like frustration.

Great, two down now two to go.  Let's jump to the spiritual or energetic level now.  Write words down that capture what you sense is happening here energetically (on the level of our life force, our spirit, our prana or chi)--words could be even similar to the physical words you wrote before like stuck, frozen etc.  Remember the quantum reality that we all are--we are energy and matter in a constant back and forth dance.

Wow!  You have already put a large amount of this puzzle together in that you have unearthed 3 of the 4 levels so far--the physical, emotional and spiritual.  Notice how all three are related in some way to each other, they inform each other.

Let's now discover the belief in your body and mind! Informed by what you've already learned from these 3 levels ask inside, what is my belief here? What conclusions, judgments, beliefs live here about myself and my world?


One that came up for me this morning and it happens to be one of my core limiting beliefs that I work with is that I'm not enough, I haven't done enough or I haven't done it good enough or right.  The one I hold about the world is that the world wants more from me and the world will reject what I do offer. I know, when we get to our core limiting beliefs it doesn't look pretty!

So, feel into the truth of your body and within this mirror reflection of your physical/emotional/spiritual truths that live within your image and ask what beliefs about self and the world are held here.

Let it percolate, allow the belief to bubble up from the foundations of what you have already explored and felt within the physical, emotional and spiritual levels.

Once a belief has emerged, try it on.  Does it fit with your tension or collapse, with the emotional tone or spiritual energy?  The litmus test for the truth of your belief is that if your body tensions or collapses increase.  Yes, a congruent limiting belief will often intensify our discomfort or touch a place of sadness.

I know our constricting and limiting beliefs are not going to sound or feel good or helpful.  They aren't.  Yet they are an old construct developed by the mind around a constricting scar, that surrounds an emotional wound.

Let the healing begin! Now let's do some scar tissue release and wound healing as we turn the belief upside down, a bit of a headstand for the belief.  You have two ways of finding a  new healing belief that feels believable and can truly give you a new mind-body attitude!

1.  The body approach--here's how to find the belief directly from your body.  Since our beliefs are stances we take, try on the stance of your limiting belief. 

For instance in my case as I try on "I'm not enough, I'm not doing enough", I let my body hunch over, my heart heavy and collapsed and my belly distended (this posturing also magnifies the original shoulder tension I was working with). 

As I try on a posture that feels like its polarity or opposite, my chest lifts, my shoulders open up, my belly muscles feel more toned. 

So go ahead and try this! First your limiting stance and then the polarity. From this new stance, this new body attitude, ask your body for the words that express a new mental attitude. Fish for the one that feels true to your body's stance! 

Repeat this new belief (if you'd like with your new posture) for at least 30 seconds and experience an embodied cognition that supports your well-being!

2.  The mind approach--this is a pretty direct approach that doesn't have to involve movement.  Just ask your body and spirit, for a believable belief that is the healing opposite to the one you discovered held in your body-mind.  For me, it was "I am enough and I'm doing enough and its good enough!"

Here's your new attitude to take with you through the day! As you try on the mantra of your new attitude, check to see if your body feels better with this belief!  Notice a mood change.  Feel your spirit lighter, your body more at ease and your emotional buoyancy.   This is a key support for creating health and healing for your your body, mind and life.
 
May we all be happy in this new year!

Dan  

Be More, Do Less

Whatever the "doing" is that we do, what if we could "be" first? Whether the doing is a mental doinglike problem solving, an emotional doinglike resolving a conflict, a physical doinglike so many of our errands in life and even our spiritual doingslike meditation, yoga etc.--can we make room to attune to our being first?

How can we cultivate astate of beingthat can precede the many doings and activities we perform? This can enhance our presence in the activity we are doing along with increased depth and efficiency within our "doings". 

For those of you familiar with my core message I am expanding or refining my REST formula (recognize, embody, support and transform) with this principle of be more, do less.

Here's a personal example of what I mean:
While I was leading a Shake Your Soul teacher training in Devon Pennsylvania this past weekend I noted a low level hum of insecurity and disconnection inside myself along with a pressure to "push through the material to be taught".  A fundamental state of unrest was present along with pressure to just press on or push through. 

I could point to a number of external factors that touched this place inside me, yet the key isn't in the externals but in tuning into the internal responses. 

So, I could feel my need to "do", to teach, to finish teaching the training.  Even before going to teach on one morning I felt in my impulse to "do yoga" how I wanted to move away or quickly change this inner state of disconnection and insecurity.

I wanted to do something about thisstate of unrest in my experience verses "be with it".  This exemplifies a fundamental rejection of experience even as I was reaching for my yoga practice or meditation practice.

 As I recognized this feeling of unrest while journaling before going to teach, I identified feelings and energy states of unrest, insecurity and disconnection.  

Here's a journaling/reflection "practice" that helps me be identify my feeling states.  I hope it can help you as well.

Title your journal page:  "What's on my mind and what's in my body..." 

I find when prefacing one's journaling with this mantra, we  can arrive at what is most central to acknowledge. We can start with "what's on top"--in our minds and then "drop down" into our body experience.

 We start by recognizing and naming all those things that are on our mind and are grabbing or pulling at our attention. 

When unacknowledged and unnamed they often create a blur or scattering of our mental focus along with a pressure to just "get on with our lives and check off all those things we feel compelled or responsible to do".

Now, as you write down all those things on your mind, begin to feel "what's in your body"--every mind state has a parallel body state.  There are also deep currents of feeling states that are seemingly unrelated to our thoughts as well, so be open to whatever you feel in your body.  Meet your emotional body that lives in your viscera!

Write down in your journal, what you feel in your body as you acknowledge what's on your mind. 

To come back to my story briefly: As I was being with my mind-body experience of insecurity, disconnection and unrest,  I gave up trying to change the discomfort and instead brought acceptance towards it. 

I temporarily suspended my urge to "yoga my way through it or meditate beyond it"--the urge to transcend.  Instead, it becomes about descending into the body experience of feeling just as we feel, and instead of being "stuck in the feeling" we cultivate  acceptance towards the feeling, support towards the feeling.

Cultivating acceptance or support for how we feel is not giving a "lip service" level of acceptance to our feelings--a quick "I accept you, insecurity", but it is an intent to dwell in feelings of acceptance, support and love for whatever it is we feel.  And to be able to sustain or continue to come back to the feeling of holding our unrest, anxiety pain etc in the cradle of acceptance.

I know it sure sounds like a lot of work--to recognize what we are feeling underneath the busy-ness of our minds, make room for our feelings, bring acceptance to them and continue to come back to feelings of acceptance surrounding or embracing our difficult or challenging feelings.

Yes, this is a lot of work in deepening our consciousness--the work of attuning and nurturing verses the disciplines of transcending that many of us use to move beyond our discomforts. Don't get me wrong, I employ many of these transcendental/transformational practices.

Yet, I'm suggesting an option: which is about landing before we take off compulsively and routinely into an action so that our actions are rooted in one's acceptance of one's experience first.

So back to my story one more time: once I recognized and brought acceptance and support to my unrest, insecurity and feelings of disconnection I found myself relaxing, feeling more secure or grounded with my experience and oddly more connected. 

Consciousness infused with acceptance is healing and transformative!  In this cultivation of presence and heart one has to surrender the agenda that the discomfort goes away. In fact the agenda is just the opposite, "I'm here with you (insecurity or whatever)--I'm not leaving or going away--in fact I bring my acceptance and love for you". 

That's an act of couer--of heart--the courage of a spiritual warrior that lives within all of us!   Try taking off the armor of the "doer" and discover the spiritual warrior of the "be-er". 

May we all discover our beings as being enough!

Dan   

The Heart that Purrs

My wife and I have one of the most independent, "I don't need anyone" cats.  She is a mix of Siamese and Flame from what I understand so independence and supreme non-attachment are one of their traits. 

Every once in awhile when I'm meditating or doing yoga she will sit next to me and bless me with her presence, even at times finding a way to be cradled by my front folded leg as I do the pigeon, or she burrows underneath me as I'm in the child pose.

A few days ago, as I was doing one of the practices from my SomaSoul work which begins with a body scan and is followed by creating a "sensory image" on paper of what is felt in the body, I drew an image of my heart, a dense mix of black, grey and red. 

As I wrote the words down that captured what I saw and felt in the image, words like hard, heavy and constricted emerged. For me these are sensations I sometimes feel in and around my heart.

In the Body-Centered Gestalt Psychotherapy work that I do, we see these patterns as part of our character armor that point to earlier trauma which is in the process of being healed as we "be with it" and "work with it".

The next step in the process is to add the words, "I am" in front of the singular words so heart statements that day were, "I am hard", "I am heavy", "I am constricted".  We could say this is not such a pretty picture and for most of us (myself included) these are the feeling states we have an instinctive response to get rid of or avoid instead of make room for and create opening around! 

At this point in the process you imagine your heart saying these phrases as a way to express your body's truth.

In describing my process, my deepest intention to invite you to try this as well as a way to befriend your body just as it is. In past enews I've shared elements of this process but I'd like to offer it to you again with a couple of twists.

So far what I've described is:

1. scan through your body
2. draw a body area or areas that speaks to you, where you sense strong feelings or even areas you feel disconnected from
3. write words down by an area that capture what you see in the image or feel in your body
4. write the words "I am" in front of each of your words on your image
5. say these phrases quietly or internally as if that part of your body were speaking to you
6. Experience a "you" that can simply listen to your body

 As I've gone through all these steps in my own self-care practice, my cat is comfortable in her chair in the other room.

The body needs to speak its truth, even when the truth doesn't feel all that great.  There is something profoundly centering when we allow our body experience to be recognized and embraced.

When we can listen to our body without judgment, and with curiosity and openness then transformation and healing happens.  I'll share in a moment about my transformation in doing this practice.

In a way we are allowing our body experience to occur as we do our body scan, feel what we feel, draw it, let our body speak its mind, as another part of us sees and listens to our experiencing body.

Bessel van der Kolk, a psychiatrist and pioneer in the world of trauma treatment describes this as cultivating an "experiencing you" and an "observing you".  Balancing these two "you's" is a key, foundational element in healing any trauma or stress response. 

Again, through your drawing and creating words you invite the "experiencing you" of your body to emerge, and then there is a mindful you that listens to the body expressing and experiencing it's truth--that is the "observing you".

In neuroscience research this mindfulness of the body strengthens a key aspect of the brain found to be highly developed in meditators called the insula. This is critical in cultivating a sense of self and enhanced intra-personal intelligence--knowing yourself.  

Up to now in this process we have 6 steps as described above in my column.  Here's the 7th step which is so very important (which we focus on in my upcoming module at Kripalu--Moving Your Body's Story).

The next piece of this process is to write a body story in which each paragraph begins with one of your phrases.  In my example, my Heart's Story, will emerge through each of my three paragraphs, each beginning with the following sentences. "I am hard", "I am heavy", "I am constricted".

Each paragraph expands upon each phrase and the body part writes the story. So in my case I said to my heart, "Heart, tell me about your hardness" as my first paragrah and "Heart, tell me about  your heaviness" for the second and so on.   

So with curiosity and openness you invite your body to tell you its story, why this feeling is here, how long it has been a part of you, what it needs in life and may not be getting, what it needs from youetc"

In my case, my heart's autobiography was very rich, moving, revealing and as I read it to myself and then went back to my mantras- "I am heavy etc" and repeated them internally.  With the gem of each mantra and the depth of each paragraph lingering in my awareness, my heart naturally began to soften, become lighter and more open.  In fact it was flowing with energy!

Here's where my cat comes in--just as my heart transforms, Juliette, my cat, jumps on the back of the couch-like chair I'm sitting on and manages to nestle her body on top of one of the cushions just behind my heart and begins to purr as my heart opens through my practice.  

Her timing was amazing as she attuned to just the right moment to resonate from her place of cat contentment to my heart's energy of contentment. 

I invite you to try this practice this month and be with the parts of your body that are asking for attention.  

Also explore the parts you feel disconnected from and don't seem to be asking for attention because of very little sensation being present.  These are the places in our body where we have severed our awareness of sensation and very much need attention and healing. 

May you find blessed moments of deeper body and soul connection!

Dan   

Inner Guidance

Wow!

I just finished leading the Shake Your Soul: YogaDance Teacher Training at Kripalu.  A fantastic week with 43 new graduates!  They may be coming to a town near you so check out my website's teacher listing to see about Shaking Your Soul in your community!

In this blog I will be focusing on our body and the soul's capacity to guide us.  I think of Sting's wonderful song, Let Your Soul Be Your Pilot as a soulful musical reminder for this important theme.   

We want our body & soul, our inner visceral knowing and soulful depths to awaken and guide us in our lives!

Before I talk about tapping your inner guidance and the challenge in following it, I want to mention it is much easier to tap into our inner fears and follow those.

Think about it, most of us don't have to work hard at all to feel the stirrings of fear in our bodies and minds.  And then to follow the suggestions that fear offers like, "don't do that" or "quit this job or relationship" where we avoid and pull away from the situations and people we fear.  The other options many of us experience is to freeze, feeling paralyzed or we fog over and move into confusion.

I had that experience this morning. After this incredible 7-day training I had a triggering event that sent me far away from the sense of satisfaction, pride and joy to an old "friend" called fear.  So, what I'm sharing with you below is borrowed from my practice.

So the key question is,  what if our guidance system could actually utilize our fear or any difficult emotion as an ally or resource?

Also a BIG warning here!  When we experience our anxieties or fears and make immediate conclusions or decisions, reacting from our gut reactions--this is not the same as following our inner guidance. It is having an important gut reaction but as you read below there are some additional steps that are necessary to take this raw information and engage our guidance system.

We engage our guidance systems as we cultivate our capacity be with and work with our visceral reactions including our fears or any difficult emotion, before we take ANY action or form solid conclusions!   

So here are the steps to utilizing any uncomfortable feeling like fear, worry, frustration, dislike, hatred and conflict as a stepping stone towards inner guidance.

1.  Make sure you are doing something daily that is relaxing, energizing or joyful in life as a "practice".  What works for me is teaching Shake Your Soul as well as my yoga/meditation practice.  

These types of healing practices help re-fuel our tanks as we enhance our energy reserves, giving us the resources for deeper inner work. 

2. Make sure you regularly REST with your difficult emotions which means you do these 4 activities.

a.  Recognize the sensations underneath the emotions

b.  Embody those inner sensations--you can actually use your body, especially your hands to sculpt in space what is happening inside your emotional body.  This helps you to move onto the next step. As you do your movement, mine this morning was clenching my hands and then the statement from the fear in my guts joined in and my guts spoke, "I'm scared" 

c. Support your emotional body. Actually say to your body's movement, "I see you and I hear you".  This level of heartfelt acknowledgement and support to your body feelings is key in taking you to the next step...

d. Transform--there are 3 steps to transformation and healing here.

• First, a natural transformation occurs once we have recognized, embodied and supported our inner feelings. For instance the tightness of fear can transform and soften into the tenderness of tears.  

• The second step of transformation is more active--once you have softened or opened a bit, ask into your soulful body "what does my being need?"  This question is the basis for awakening your intuition. The response you hear or sense from within can address our core emotional needs like "I need love" or "I need acceptance" or something on the more practical side like "I need to cancel this trip" or "I need time with friends" etc.  

• The third step is to envision your need being met NOW!  This is such a crucial healing step as we empower ourselves around our needs, as we bring support and not judgment to our needs.   

This strengthens the potency of our needs so that when we interact with the world from this place of supported need, we can negotiate and hold our ground in deeply satisfying, self-nurturing ways. Supporting our needs is just the opposite of feeling "needy". 

I know for some of you who have been reading my enews, RESTing is old news, but I find that core practices just need to be reiterated in slightly different ways to help us come back to what is central and keep it alive.

It's like mantras or prayers--you don't need to change the mantra or prayer to keep it alive or relevant.  You just have to bring the aliveness of your intention to your practice!

May your practice of self-love bring you towards a genuine love for others in all of who they are.

Warmly,

Dan  

Funky Qi Kung

In the spirit of holiday weekend festive feelings, I will share a fun and rejuvenating movement experience I call funky qi gong. 

I'm a fusion sort of guy.  I love synthesizing things together. I've studied yoga, dance and qi gong/tai chi for 40 years and I created this fun fusion experience that I often include in my Shake Your Soul: YogaDance class.

Funky qi gongis a simple, enjoyable and completely natural way  to move the chi or prana in your body. Besides calling it funky qi gong I often introduce this movement exploration as riding the waveor sprouting seed into blossoming flower (sounds like a haiku).   

Let's work with the analogy of riding the wave since my Shake Your Soul dance work is largely based on the reality that our outer expression of movement and dance naturally echoes the inner movement expression of our body's fluids.  

Our fluidbodies (we are 70% by weight, water), are in a constant state of inner dance 24/7, whether its the movement of our blood, cerebral spinal fluid, synovial, intercellular, or lymph fluids.  

So, riding the wave...think of the different expressions of "intensity" within moving bodies of water.  Let's start with a very quiet brook or even more subtle, a little bubble of air and water rising up from the base of a pond.   

Our dance can begin in this quiet and gentle way, authentic and alive- a bubble of a movement in our hips.   

This is deeply satisfying to find the origins of movement within us as we play a piece of music that moves us! So as you approach this exercise, experiment with choosing music you love and are used to moving to and then stretch out a bit and try music that you enjoy but wouldn't think of dancing to.

Riding the wave can expand from this bubble stateinto more intensity as we explore the image of a river with a stronger current; from bubble or gentle streaming into strong currents of movement.

Just massaging a movement from bubble/quiet brook state to river level is a powerful way to build energy or chi in your body and you can then conserve the energy as you bring it back to the bubble state. 

Then there are times where your spirit wants to soar or your soul wants to get down! From moderate intensity river currents to the whitewater rushes of a river or large ocean waves crashing into the beach.  We cut loose!  We let go!  

So we have 3 levels of movement expression:

1.  The bubble

2.  The flowing river

3.  The whitewater river or ocean waves 

Why do I call this funky qi gong?  Qi gong expands the movement and storage of qi in the body.  We are attuning to the ever-present flow of qi from the earth and heavens, consciously inviting this nourishing energy to support and feed us--for energy to feed the matter of our bodies! 

I believe natural dance, when we naturally move as we listen to music that touches our soul is unmapped qi gong.  It is a surrender to the different areas of the body that music can invite qi to move into and through.

As many of us so often feel disconnected from our bodies and from our primary energy, this super simple exercise of funky qi gong or riding the wave can be a blessing, a gift to our body and soul!

Let's discover how to attune to and move from this primary source of energy.   

Most of us are moving from our secondary sources of energy, from our adrenal glands pumping out cortisol in response to stress. Many of us habitually react to life from our fight/flight/freeze response verses discovering and working from our primary source as our partner in our life's dance.    

In fact the yogic definition of prana actually translates as "first unit of energy"--pra is first and na is unit of energy.   I believe the yogis were aware of the first and second units of energy.   

Primarysources like this renewing and restorative life force that lives within us and surrounds us needs a regular attunement practice to help us identify this primary source of energy and move from it!

Stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline have become what we identify as the energy we need to engage in order to dance through our days. It's a pretty quick activation process and easily programmed in our nervous system and glandular system.

It's a necessary energy for battling the tigers, but not navigating through our day.  

So, put on some great music and ride the wave-let your qi get funky, from little bubbles, to gentle streamings, to whitewater rockin out! 

May we all discover and dance from the wellspring of energy within us that renews and revitalizes our lives.

Warmly, funkily and qi-fully 

Dan

Loving Your Body

Happy Spring!  

In my last enews, I mentioned that in this issue I would address the art of Body Surrender Yoga.  Last month I introduced the Body Surrender Meditation work.

I had the chance to practice this process I call body surrender yoga this morning, a practice dedicated towards loving your body.   

I was prompted towards this practice since I've been struggling over the past week with work stress and feel my body-mind's flight & freeze response.   

In my journaling and self-reflection this morning, I felt the freeze reaction in my tight guts along with the racing feeling in my heart like I was ready to take flight.   

I mention this to you because I find the Body Surrender Yoga to be hugely valuable as we experience the bumps and bruises in our emotional body's journey through this life.   It is a process where we learn the skills of self-care, self-soothing and emotional self-regulation.

Many of us were not given effective or helpful emotional connection and support in our "training to be humans" throughout our childhood development.  In this way the connection to our body and the capacity to self-care, self-soothe and emotionally self-regulate is compromised and we seek tools that help us love ourselves more directly and effectively.  

Our emotions live in our body as well as our brains, so when we are given emotional connection and support from our caregivers, our body is nourished by this nutrient called love which scientists have found live in a neuropeptide called oxytocin, also known as the cuddle hormone!  

I know this quest for self-love is what unconsciously drew me to the path of yoga 40 years ago! Wow, I've been doing yoga for 40 years! 

So, if you are feeling an emotional bump or bruise or in need of self-love keep reading and if you are in a place of abundant well-being and ample self-love maybe file this away for the future when your body & mind need a dose of oxytocin.

The Steps to Body Surrender Yoga 

1. In some ways the first steps are just like the Body Surrender Meditation where you take time to recognize the feeling--simply feel what you feel in your body.   In this first step youlocate the emotion or feeling, and name the the sensations within the feeling or emotion.

As I mentioned earlier, I discovered my fear as a tight and frozen feeling in my guts and a feeling of a racing heart.  Maybe you will discover something like this or maybe its sadness as heaviness or collapse in your lungs and heart.   

2.  After you recognizethe feeling in your body, then the next step is to welcome the feeling with curiosity by simply asking, "Fear (or whatever the feeling is) are you stuck inside or are you free?"   

10 times out of 10 the emotion is stuck since we hold against our emotional bodies that are needing simple and natural expression--remember emotion comes from the latin roots "e" "movere" which means to move outwards!  So its not about holding onto our emotions, its about finding safe ways to let them flow or move.  

3.  After you've recognized and welcomed the emotional body its time begin your yoga practice to support the movement of body, emotion and energy!  Here are 2 approaches to body surrender yoga.     

• Option 1: Try these mantras to move you:  Ask the area of your body where the emotion is stuck, "What movement or yoga posture would free me?" or "relax me?" or "open me?" or "energize me?"--take a moment and listen, your body-mind may guide you into a favorite posture or stretch or something quite new.   
  • For those of you who have a rich background in yoga and healing movements, let your body memory of what nurtures you take the lead here.   
  • And for those of you relatively new to yoga and movement, trust that your body can guide you with a couple simple movements.   
  • The way you know if you have listened to your body is that you will either feel the emotion soften and sooth or you may have an emotional release--in other words, you release the holding against the emotion and the emotion moves--you cry, you shake, you shout.  This is good!!     

• Option 2: More than anything our emotional body needs a nurturing connection so try postures that form some kind of embrace, gentle compression or condensing into the area of discomfort
  • for instance in my journey this morning with my tight guts, I simply laid on my stomach and did windshield wiper gestures with my lower legs as my knees were bent so that my belly gently rocked from side to side against the earth to soothe and soften the tension, as if mother earths hands were rocking me!
  • the child pose, hero, sphinx, spinal twist are all good poses that offer a gentle compression/connection into the guts or heart where most of our emotional body is felt
  • in this journey of healing your emotional body, you may find that your breathing wants to be more dynamic. Studies have shown how deeper or more dynamic breathing engages our limbic brain into expression. Try kapalabhati breathing which also mobilizes the energy in the guts.  If you don't know the kapalabhati breath here is a link that takes you to the University of Wisconsin Integrative Medicine Program where they teach it.

For me in my journey this morning after a few prone windshield wiper movements along with the sphinx and hero poses and a dose of  kapalabhati breathing my tight belly released, my heart softened and I cleansed my soul with tears.  Surrender to the body and allow the body to process, just like a child! 

Warmly and buddhafully,
Dan



Releasing the Fight and Finding Our Freedom

I'd like to share with you a "new" body-centered meditation that emerged when working with a client a few months ago.  I call it the Body Surrender Meditation.   

It helps train us in releasing an ongoing, sometimes quiet, sometimes loud fight we have with our bodies and promises a way to experience freedom!  It helps train our parasympathetic nervous system which governs our body & mind's capacity for rest, rejuvenation and relaxation! 

I put quotes around "new" because the day after I excitedly presented this "new" meditation at one of my workshops I led at Psychotherapy Networker Symposium two weeks ago, I attended a workshop by Rick Hanson, the author of Buddha's Brain, and he led a meditation that felt similar.

I considered this as a confirmation of "I'm on the right path" with this meditation approach in that I have tremendous respect for Rick who as a neuropsychologist and meditator has linked the best of neuroscience research with meditation, mind-body health and consciousness.   

By the way, I encourage you to read his book I mentioned above--very readable, enlightening and practical.  You can also sign up to receive his weekly simple "buddha-development" (my term) practices at Rick's website

Also as I little aside, Rick and I co-presented a keynote presentation event called The Dancing Brain where movement meets neuroscience.  It was a pure joy sharing this collaborative event with him--we had just met each other moments before we co-presented and the dance of co-teaching was a joy--our mirror neurons danced well together.  

Now onto my "new" Body Surrender Meditation which encompasses two basic steps:  

1.  Be aware of body feelings 

2.  "Surrender" into the feelings

Here's the first step:

• sit comfortably and lengthen through your body as your sit bones sit firmly upon your chair or cushion 
• open your mind's awareness to body sensations and feelings (consider your body like a movie with many characters on the screen and speaking--notice which part of your body, which character gets your attention)

Here's the second step:

• with your observing mind surrender into your body experience.  
  • the way to do this is by intimately sensing the area of your body you have been called to visit--feel the texture and quality of the feeling and sensations (whether its tight, rigid, heavy, thick, open, free, light, spacious etc.)
  • surrender by giving up whatever fighting against, resisting or desire to change your body experience you discover
  • instead try on the idea or intention of "being with this body feeling for an hour"--really say to your body--"Hello tightness in my belly, I'm just going to be with you for an hour".  
    • trying this mental framework "of an hour" sets a tone of patience and tolerance.  Using time as a tool is very powerful here.  even if you truly only have 5 minutes for this meditation, hold in your mind that those 5 minutes with your "tight gut" could be imagined as a full hour so you can luxuriate in time.    
• here are some key "anchors" to help you release the fight to your body and open to freedom within
  • notice if the energy in the part of your body you are surrendering to is "stuck" or "free"--to the degree its stuck, give up the fight to make it "be free" or the tendency to criticize it or reject it in any way--instead surrender into the stuckness "for now"
  • notice the breath quality inherent within this sensation--is it shallow or deep and simply be with the breath rhythm and feeling
  • notice any images that may emerge out of this release into your body experience
  • notice any emotions that may emerge and release into the emotion; let tears flow or the heat of anger to rise 
  • notice the "felt" messages that may emerge from your body like "I'm so sad", "I'm angry" etc 
  • lastly, notice any shifts in this part of your body as a result of anchoring into the diverse flow of experiences connected to this body area.  

In doing this practice you are allowing your body to process what it needs to digest and process.  You are also training your mind or awareness to follow the lead of your body!  You are transforming the habit of living from the head and instead you are befriending your body.

Stay tuned for next issue where I will present Body Surrender Yoga flow.

Enjoy the practice of being, being you!

Warmly and buddhafully,
Dan



Knowings of Being Alive

I recently returned from my first Shake Your Soul Teacher Training on the beaches of Mexico at Present Moment Retreat. 

Wow, leading this training which is based on moving from our fluid body--our synovial joint fluid, our cerebral spinal fluid, our intercellular fluid, our blood and our lymph, with the ocean as our dance partner was transformative. 

Dancing 100 yards away from the crashing waves of the Pacific ocean was the most powerful generator for our body's fluid movement I've ever experienced! 

It's hard to "stay stuck" or rigid when the crashing ocean waves literally vibrate your body fluids.  When I was teaching at the Gestalt Training program at Hartford Family Institute last week, I jokingly shared with my colleagues that I found the cure for "impasse"--which in Gestalt terminology is a place of psycho-physical-energetic stuckness. 

Now, given that a fair amount of my life process has been about working with impasse within myself, I have tremendous compassion for those of us who might get caught in these ruts in our mind, body and life. 

So, I take great joy in the body psychotherapy process work, as I make friends with, bring support, understanding and options to our stuck places. 

On the other hand, I'm already planning my next February teacher training program on the beaches of Mexico!!  In fact, I'm thinking about adding a SomaSoul workshop there called Finding Freedom!

Now for a distillation of an ocean experience you can do at home:
Imagine for a moment that the force and flow of the ocean and rivers lives inside your body with the surging and pulsing gushes of blood through the rivers of your blood vessels and the waves of fluids ripple between all the cells of your muscles and organs. 

Also, with each full breath you take the change in pressure between your abdominal and thoracic cavity helps circulate all the fluids in your body.

We are walking oceans on land.  To return to our fluid nature is one of the most recuperative activities we can engage in. That's why even swaying or pulsing to the rhythmic beats of music resonates with our intrinsic heart-rhythm and our fluid-nature!  So sway, pulse, flow!!

Here's a couple of my favorite "new songs" to find your ocean flow and funk to.  OK...I'm a glee fan aka gleek and this past week Gwenyth Paltrow was on the show and did a fantastic rendition of Landslide (originally a Stevie Nicks song).  You can find it on Season 5 of Glee.  The other great song, one of my recent grads shared with me (thanks Ron) by Broadway star Brian Stokes Mitchell is called Grateful.

Remember: movement or dance is recuperative. When you are tired mentally, physically or energetically you may need to move and not "rest" per se. 

We recuperate from the stagnation of our "dry land" lives and reconnect with our own aquatic origins of life reminiscent of living within our mother's amniotic fluid. Our first knowings of being alive were within our mother's ocean.

So, try for 5 minutes each day to let yourself sway, pulse, undulate and flow with music that speaks to your soul!  Notice how you feel before the 5 minutes of movement and then do a body scan and notice how you feel after.  Come back home to your inner fluid nature and feel your cells in your body come alive with joy and vitality!   

The other option is to book a flight to some place in the South--east or west coast and play in the ocean.