ENERGETIC ENZYMES

At the end of each bodytalk day, I am humbled.                   Humble in the observed knowing that all is well.                           In bodytalk, we speak in analogies. The iceberg,           for example. We say that a symptom can be perceived as the tip of the iceberg and often we have to open our awareness to what is allowing that iceberg to float, if you will. For example, signs of stress can be unexpected—fever can be related to stress. Menstrual irregularities. Weight issues. Memory. Loneliness.  Where do we begin?  Well, not necessarily at the beginning because we are not treating symptoms.  We are asking one question:  What is the priority for Sal, Quinn, Madge, today?  During a session we are witnessing a moving, growing, magnificent ecosystem called Steve or Lil or Dina.  We are not  fixing you,  judging you,  changing you,  healing you.  We are observing a country called YOU and your cultural ways, the culture of your DNA, your microbiome, your physiological, psychological and neurological habits. Your emotional flexibility. Your connection to your self. Your ability to thrive or survive. Your state of stress. Your state of health. Your memories. Your tolerances. Your intolerances. Your fears. Your dreams.  But no one part is separate from another.  That is not hokey-pokey. That is science. That is connective tissue, an intrinsic, colossal communication system made up of  molecular complexes known as INTEGRINS that allow extracellular and cellular matrices to transmit energy and information forward and backward between cells and all connective tissue.   We are bodies talking.  And the message I keep receiving through these sessions, working intimately with clients of all ages, genders and cultures is  RELAX  Relax with cancer.  Relax with Lyme. Relax with Epstein Barr. Relax with bankruptcy. Relax with debt. Relax with infidelity.  Relax with pain.  Relax with diagnoses: depression, diabetes, diarrhea. Relax with pregnancy and parenting.  Relax in relationships. Relax in reactions.  And in this natural release of tension, we arrive . . . to new questions.  How could eczema be good?  How could a sore knee be unrelated to wrenching it on the track?  How could those  voices in our heads be coming from microbes in our guts?  How could our impatience with building our businesses, paying off debt, finding a partner be related to belief systems we didn’t even know were running the show? Humble in wholeness. Humble in the questioning: What is the priority for me today? Good/bad same thing.  What is interfering with this magnificent communication system?  Resistance.  We have resistances upon resistances upon resistances upon resistances in our system.  WHY? WE CAN'T EXPERIENCE WHAT IS HAPPENING in the moment that it is happening.  And it is not that simple, either. It is that we are not able to experience what is happening.  Partly because most of our natural instincts and natural responses to life have been socialized out of us. Partly because the body is holding its beliefs in its patterns of breathing, thinking, eating, sleeping. Partly because we have experienced so much trauma in our lives (real or live on TV or FACEBOOK) that the body needs time to digest but we don’t give it time.  We give it impatience. We give it diagnoses. We give it blood tests. We give it more fear.  We give up on ourselves.  Held in a fart or burp lately? Pissed on the floor?  Yelled at the boss?  Shook after an accident? Disgusted by someone who farted?   Mad at stupid people in the world?  Yelled at Trump? Put on twelve outfits before picking one to go to a party? WE IMAGINE WE CAN’T ACTUALLY SAY WHAT IS REAL FOR US. OR WE SAY WHAT IS REAL FOR US AND WE DON’T LIKE THE RESPONSE WE GET.  he he he  Take it all back.  LOVE U MORE.  Here is a powerful exercise that you can do right now.  Sit or lie down or stand in a comfy position so that you can connect with your breath.  Imagine going into the heart. Letting the mind rest.  Letting the heart take over.  Rest in its wise sanctuary.  Its ancestral pools.  Think of people, places, objects that holds energy for you.  An unfinished argument. An unrequited desire. An experience that you can’t quite make sense of.  And hold it there in the heart.  (Do one at a time)  Hold that person or place or conflict or object there.  Pull all the energy off of it like you are pulling up anchors of light. Pull off all meaning from the person, all sensations, all thoughts, all memories.  Place them in your heart until the person, object, place or conflict is clear.  Breathe into your heart.  Let the body clear it.  No mind needed.  No strategies needed.  Just willingness to use energy the way it is designed.  Energy must move.  When we pin it down, we create pain.  Breathe deeply, quietly so you can let the body respond in any way it needs to. Trust the body to do the digestive work. Pay no attention to the pains, the sensations, the changes in temperature, the head throbs, the heart circles, the nausea, the dizziness, doubt, fear, anger etc  This is life.  Live it.  Keep returning to that person, place, conflict or object until it is completely clear.  Move the body gently. Stretch. Shake. Lunge. Whatever feels good in that moment.  Let the body digest. Give up holding on.  Tap it all out.  Drink some water.  You can do this exercise daily.  Think of it like an energetic, digestive enzyme.  You are training the body to show up. To release its undigested bits and pieces so you can feel the wholeness again. So you can thrive again.

Getting Back to Basics

Bodytalk Access http://bodytalkvictoria.com/bodytalk-access/

Last Saturday, I taught this Access class to 10 people in my living room. We spent six hours together learning key bodytalk techniques which I learned back in 2003. At lunch time, I asked one participant if she'd like a brief bodytalk session since she'd never experienced bodytalk before but had signed up for the course on a recommendation from a friend after reading my website and watching some BT videos. 

One item that came up was scars on the abdomen. I asked if any scars were present. No, but there are stretch marks. Okay, rub them in all directions while we tap it out. 

A few days later, the participant came in for a BT session. She said, You won't believe this. 

What's that? 

My stretch marks are gone. They've completely changed. I can't believe it, she said. 

Believe it. 

Getting back to basics is tapping out what comes up. 

Energy can be blocked by scars, adhesions, stretch marks or tattoos, any markings on the body. When these blocks are addressed, healing can then occur at all levels. 

In this case, these marks were part of a session dealing with allergies and dietary congestion. 

We are such complex ecosystems that working holistically is the best way to go. Analogous to a symphony, you may have the best string section nation-wide but if the other sections are impaired, the music will always be out of harmony. 

Acknowledging that the body balances itself and checks in on itself constantly to provide that harmony suggests that fewer interventions have the best effects. 

Bodytalk works with the body's innate wisdom to synchronize, communicate and balance. 

After teaching this class and seeing this woman's immediate response to the work, I am pulling out the old texts, reviewing technique, renewing my personal commitment to daily BT practice and sharing this experience here. 

For more Access stories, visit my website: Bodytalk Victoria

Fixing the little things . . .

Here's a great article on the psoas muscles and how to retrain them to support the low back and pelvis alignment.

Settling the Psoas Muscles


Often it is important not to take stress personally. Look at the small picture before the big picture.
I am tired and hungry can be satisfied with a little food and some rest rather than quitting the job, divorcing the partner, and moving to Montana.

Fix the little things first. 

Once they are consistently cared for, the big things take care of themselves. 

Sometimes when we are stressed, we imagine that we've done something wrong. We've made a mistake. We internalize the chaos of the day or the conflict and we identify with the symptoms. I'm tired becomes I am weak or I'm useless. I've worked hard today becomes I don't do enough.

However, the symptoms we are calling stress are most often physical not psychological. The body needs care and will act out when ignored.

Next time you are stressed, check

• Have I had enough to eat? Particularly vegetables? Fibre. Protein.
• Have I slept well?
• Am I hydrated?
• Am I breathing? Breathe now to check. 
• Am I holding on to tension in my body unknowingly? 

If you are consistently aware of the following symptoms, irritability, can't make decisions, tense and tight muscles, digestive issues, can't make sense of what you are reading, you are not 

SICK. You are simply experiencing a key mechanism in the body that saves the brain. 

It's called SWITCHING. The brain switches off under stress. No brain, no gain. 

With no brain, the organs are not getting the nutrition or the water you are feeding it. Everything is shut down. 

This mechanism is designed to be flexible, adapting to stress indicators within the body, but also within the environment. 

But it is a catch 22. When the body is switched off, it cannot interpret the environment with ease or clarity so the body is switched off and fear becomes the main interpreter of reality. 

You see fear, not the trees. You see fear, not your children. 

This switching mechanism can get stuck. If at work or school, we are run by an external clock: the bell, the boss, set times for breaks etc, we are not following our unique body rhythms. 

The brain's switching mechanism (a matrix of meridian and cortical connections) gets stuck. 

Ignoring the need for food, water, sleep, puts the brain on OFF. If the switching mechanism is set too high, you hit the wall but you keep going. 

There is an apocalypse outside and you think, is that the door bell? 

If the switching mechanism is set too low, someone rings the doorbell and your body thinks, Is that the apocalypse? 

You want the most natural reaction to what is presented to you. 

You want the brain switched on and you want to know when it switches off and take steps to switch it back on. 

You can do so in a number of ways. Eat a little, rest, drink water, breathe. 

You can tap out your cortices. 

You can take the bodytalk Access class (next one I'm teaching is May 28th, 2016) to learn to reset this mechanism yourself. 

The important thing is to know that these symptoms listed above are not YOUR PERSONALITY. These irritable traits are not something you wish to covet as the more the brain is turned off, the more time your essential energies and vital organs struggle. If you hit a wall, stop. You are hurting yourself at the cellular level. The essential level for renewal. 

SELF CARE

SELF CARE

BUILDING RESILIENCE

Learning to respond to stress resourcefully means

 

MAINTAINING SOCIAL SUPPORT, CONFIDENCE IN LIFE AND SELF, AND A POSITIVE WORLD VIEW. “Perspectives from Clinical Neuroscience” 

(This is my light reading these days. LOL)

THESE EMERGENT HUMAN CAPACITIES MUST BE CULTIVATED. 

I like to think about that. 

Cultivating confidence. 

Emergent human capacities!

If we do not actively engage in befriending stress, the body chooses how to cope. 

The body copes well. 

But coping is not living. 

Coping for a body could look like a human being strapped into a chair taking shallow breaths, drooling into a bib. 

(I have a few bibs around the house) 

The body is happy. The body is breathing. 

BUT 

The body does not evaluate quality of life. 

NO!

The coping mechanisms only devolve into primitive fight/flight/freeze behaviours that, while periodically useful, become destructive when habitual or chronic. 

Imagine CULTIVATING confidence

ONE OF THE BEST WAYS TO PSYCHOLOGICAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH IS 

PHYSICAL HEALTH.  

We can actively calm the vagus nerve. We can work with our microbiome that impacts how we feel. We can mindfully relax and play. We can practice bodytalk access daily. Have forest baths. Create community. Sit on your stoop. Bake extra and share. Turn up the music. Dance. 

Because trauma is somatic (within the body), somatic practices are ideal. Use the breath while writing. Use the breath on the bodytalk table, while dancing, while typing, while speaking, while eating. 

Re-train the body that even when stress is present, a calm state offers myriad possibilities; whereas, a stressed state contracts, deflates, destroys. 

START TO NOTICE: 

Remember our microbiome (the healthy microbes that help us digest, create vitamins, protect us) thrives on fibre, diverse foods, prebiotics (keffir, kimchi, sauerkraut) and probiotics (more friends for the party). 

Support the microbiome. Support yourself. 

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/01/07/how-gut-microbiome-influences-health.aspx

Notice how you feel/think after you eat. 

Our thoughts can get away on us but a fun exercise is to eat an unhealthy snack and notice our thoughts. Eat a healthy snack and notice our thoughts. 

Exercise, notice the thoughts. 

Do not exercise, notice the thoughts. 

FEED THE CREATURE. 

Eating well can be simple. 

How much of your day could you devote to calm? 

There is a website that helps: 

https://www.calm.com

I love that: calm.com 

Take a breath right now. What is going on around you? 

I’m in my office. I can hear the chimes. It is early in the day, blue sky, large shadows, more chimes, light wind, neighbour’s tree moving shadows on his roof, husband moving in the kitchen, a door opening. 

Take another breath. 

Tap out your cortices: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYk7V4BxP-U

Notice your thoughts. 

Let them move on by. 

Breathe. 

Roast some veggies. 

Pass them around. 

When calm, make decisions. Speak. Create. Problem solve. 

When stressed? Breathe. Feed the microbiome. Tap out your cortices. Breathe some more. Re-frame the stress. 

My brother doesn’t respect my opinions. 

I don’t need my brother’s approval. 

My staff continue to disregard the training. 

Talk to them. What is going on? It is their burden, not your burden. 

My life’s purpose is elsewhere. I can’t work here for thirty years. Look around the work place. Where might you find your purpose here right now, for now. Job changes can happen gradually or spontaneously. 

Calm cultivates detachment. 

Detachment is natural. 

Natural is optimal. 

Natural offers possibility. 

What is possible for you when you cultivate calm? 

If you’d like more bodytalk in your life, 

I am teaching a bodytalk access class, Saturday, May 28th, 10 a.m to 5 p.m. 

Six hours of instruction for a lifetime of calm. The fee is $150.00. 

You receive a day of bodytalk and 6 techniques to practice at home, with your children, clients, friends, pets and plants. 

You take home a gorgeous, colour manual with all the steps laid out clearly. 

Registration is limited. If you would like to register, click on this link: 

https://www.bodytalksystem.com/seminars/details.cfm?id=26079

I’ve got a new website up, thanks to a gift from my daughter and I’ve started a blog. 

Have a look when you have time. 

Thanks. 

http://www.bodytalkvictoria.com

Rest in the bareness of thoughts, feelings and perceptions as they occur. 

Act only from calm. 

You are not alone . . .

I often remind myself that I live in Canada. If I fall down on the street, someone will come along, call an ambulance, take me to the hospital and give me all the care I need. That is a freedom rare in the world. Imagine walking through the neighbourhood, the parks, downtown after dark, with this certainty. I am taken care of. If I am taken care of, where else might I put my energy -- to my job? Family? Education? Relaxation? Volunteering? Forgiving?

Here is a blog by Dr. Rankin that one of my clients sent me today. Enjoy:

The Space Between Stories

Expectations . . .

I had a client on my bodytalk table last week who works as a principal for an elementary school. She remarked that her staff and the kids at school are all grumpy in April.

In Victoria, April can be difficult. Many of the blossoms (cherry, daffodil, forsythia) have come and gone, but it is still cold out. It is not warm enough to sit outside under the stars. It is not warm enough to slough off the cardigan, the jacket, the socks. The house could use a good cleaning but it's not warm enough to keep the doors open, wash the rugs, or enjoy hanging the laundry on the line. Grumpy. We want it to be summer but it is April.

We want to be in a relationship but we are single.
We want to go off on an adventure but we are married with kids.
We want to be the boss but we are bus person.

The key to health may be wanting what we have. 

I am single, for example. I love being single and I want a relationship is more full of choice than grudgingly accepting our marital status and letting that opinion make us weak.

I remember reading that the sage, Krisnamurtri, offered his secret to enlightenment. He said, I don't let things bother me.

We laugh. We guffaw. We quip, yeah, right! It can't be that easy.

Maybe it could.

If it is July and I want it to snow, I probably am not going to achieve that desire unless I get on a plane and travel to a country that has snow in July, right?

That makes sense.

Yet so often what we WANT is not here. Yet, we WANT it here. Not going to happen.

When we consistently deny reality, it is hard on the body. OUR IMMUNE SYSTEMS RELY ON CLEAR INFORMATION.

When we are born, our immune systems know THIS IS ME. THIS IS A PATHOGEN.

When we consistently doubt who we are, the immune system can begin to doubt itself too.
Is this me? Is this a pathogen? I'm not sure. Zap, flu virus proliferates. We get sick.

The body heals itself. Always. If you take a pill, the body must communicate effectively with that pill to use the information and apply it wisely.

What bodytalk consistently reveals is where the doubts arise. How the doubts are revealing themselves as symptoms, habits of mind, habits of physiology.

Not letting things bother you does not mean, have no desires, check out from pain.

On the contrary, show up fully. Experience what is happening here. The body is designed that way.
Why corrupt an awesome design?