A Riff on Resonance: A Foundational Principle of Healing

 This riff on resonance is part of the Healing Circle series I am currently leading.  I hope you enjoy it!

Why Resonance?

Resonance practice is about being present with what is in service of healing, relating, and discovering right relationship with our ecosystem and with Nature.  Resonating contributes to informing us about what is aligned for us, so we can make choices towards being in alignment with our deeper wisdom and our integrity.

Resonance is connected with right use of our energy / effort.  When we are operating from our survival strategies (wounds from our childhood environments which were impacted by previous generations and the wider ecosystemic environment), we are often applying our efforts in ways that are not regenerative.  For example, working harder or behaving in specific ways to get needed attention, or to keep the peace, or to prevent unwanted attention, or to make our experience as okay as possible for us as young children.  Resonance practice can help us discern these kinds of patterns, so we can feel (resonate) with the outdated functions operating underneath the pattern, which allows us to outgrow the adaptive behaviors which were once so necessary.

Resonance is connected with our resilience and our belonging.  As we recognize and somatically connect with the traumatized internal structures of our survival strategies, they can dissolve and our internal home-base rests more in the natural flow of life through us, which is innately resilient and creative.  As survival strategies melt, we become more ourselves and feel more connected with our belonging which was here all along, even though it was covered over for some very good reasons.  Resonating practice over time leads to powerful shifts.

Resonance, How?

Resonance is connected to embodying - being non-judgmentally present in our bodies; being with the sensations and inner movements we experience.  Paradoxically, resonance practice includes that we may sometimes experience parts of our bodies as numb or not easy to sense.  A regular meditation practice which focuses on body-sensing can be helpful, as over time we discover that connecting with our bodies is an ever-changing, ever-developing process. Not just because our bodies age, but because our awareness capacities develop and evolve with practice. The more we heal, the more intimately we contact the experience of being alive in our bodies.

Life happens through our bodies.  Our bodies are like an orchestral instrument, with life as the movement which vibrates the instrument.  At the same time, our bodies are the life movement itself.  When we connect somatically, we discover that sensations are moving, and we gradually experience our (inner) bodies more and more as movement.

Earth Sensing and Ancient Time

Intentionally resonating with the Earth and including grounding in our body sensing practice can put us in touch with the consciousness of ancient time.  The Earth is much older than we are, and we are interconnected with our planet. We are an expression of the planet.  As we deepen our sensing of Earth through our bodies, we tap into resilience and accumulated wisdom.  This practice contributes to decolonializing our belief / felt sense of ourselves as separate beings that have to heal and cope and achieve and become all by ourselves.  Expanding the experience of embodiment to be more inclusive of the natural world and our ecosystem is healing and restorative.  We can learn about movement from resonating with Nature, which has a different texture and quality of movement through our bodies than we may usually experience in daily life.

Edge Awareness

Sensing our bodies as a movement, we become more aware of places in our somatic experience that feel separate from our inner movements – that are frozen, numb, or held apart somehow.  We might name this an edge:  where some places in us are moving and flowing, and in another place something feels inaccessible, frozen, numb, or held apart.

Our edges are a fertile ground in many ways.

An interesting contemplation practice is to witness what happens for us when we meet an edge.  What happens in our bodies, our sensations.  What happens emotionally.  What happens mentally. What happens in our sense of spaciousness, and in the relational space between ourselves and another.

Each time we grow our development, or something heals, what was previously an edge becomes restored into a movement flow.

To practice resonance as a resilience practice, I invite you to explore connecting with what is moving -- what is flowing -- in your body as your baseline of somatic meditation.  This creates a habit to replenish and cultivate resourcing even when approaching a current edge.  Through choosing to consciously resonate with what is flowing, we strengthen our agency: our access to conscious choice about when we dive into unpacking what is enfolded in our experience of an edge, and when we don’t dive in in a given moment. Not with an intention to avoid or hide from edges which need our attention, but to dive in when we have the right conditions to do so whenever that’s possible.  Sometimes people on a healing path unconsciously pressure themselves to (try to) resolve every edge immediately, one after another after another, without allowing the space needed to rest, to integrate, and to enjoy.

And of course, sometimes life thrusts us into our edges, and in that case, we can claim our agency by discovering how we can relate with our experience.  We can resonate with what is happening through the 3 sync meditation so we can attune with sensing, feeling, and witnessing our thinking.  We can open to discovering what we need and want.  We can intend and open to learning about how to organize ourselves to meet life ife in a compassionate and empowered way, whatever comes.  

I invite you to explore and play with resonance, learning about your present capacity to resonate, noticing your edges, and widening your capacity to resonate in more of more of the experiences in your life and ecosystems.  

Blessings!

Steadiness and Ease, Yoga Sutras style

The yoga sutras encourage us to cultivate two qualities in order to master yoga. The sanskrit is sthiram and sukham, which is often translated to steadiness and ease.  Cultivating these qualities applies to the physical and internal practice of yoga poses, and can be explored in meditation, and in our lives.  It's interesting to me that some discoveries in neuroscience and psychology about attachment, human development, trauma healing and the nervous system guide us in a similar direction.  

On the physical level, steadiness refers to grounding, to finding a good foundation in the pose from the ground up. Steadiness allows us to sustain, with a quality of strength free of rigidity or force: not going against ourselves in any way.  On a more subtle level steadiness implies self connection - attentive to our minds, and connecting with our hearts, and even deeper with our values, purpose, or soul.  When we are connected with what is essential we may draw upon an innate quality of steadiness, an inner ground of being.  

Ease implies a quality of spaciousness with a kind or compassionate orientation towards our experience.  In this context, ease is about cultivating right effort in our practice - neither forceful nor lackadaisical, either of which will disengage us. Ease isn’t about avoiding;  it’s about a way of being with.  Ease also implies openness to trust our process, or trust life.  Our individual paths of trusting can be quite diverse.  Balancing and savoring the breath supports us with both steadiness and ease.  Cultivating steadiness and ease creates a physical and internal environment where joy and discovery can emerge.  

Info about my weekly online Yoga & Meditation classes

What if

What if...

we were here to regulate our nervous systems and expand our nervous system capacity?
   self regulation
   relational regulation
   we-regulation

we were here to heal?
   self healing
   relational healing
   ancestral healing
   collective healing

we were here to restore wholeness and connection
with ourselves,
in our families and communities,
in the natural world with humans and non-humans alike?

what if...

we were allies in learning, relating, restoring and co-creating
   even with those of us who don't believe we are, and
   even with those who are actively promoting division?

what if...

we can breathe together,
be together in curiosity and compassion?

we can move together,
shake together,
cry together,
laugh together,
feel together,
take action together?

what if...

we knew the state of our nervous systems structure our experience and perspective from moment to moment?

we learned that we can take care of our own nervous systems?

we contribute to the well-being of others' nervous systems?

we actively built nervous system coherence in the groups we already are a part of?

I wonder how that would be, and what would become possible.

Belonging and Relational Structure

In my studies with Thomas Huebl, I am learning about space, energy and structure.  I've studied these qualities through other lenses such as Yoga in the Himalayan tradition and the work of the Hendricks, and always find it interesting to bring in new perspectives.  

Space correlates with being-ness, the root chakra, and the right and space to be here in life. It also connects us with stillness, consciousness and the capacity to witness.  Energy correlates with becoming, learning and evolving, movement up the spine, and movement generally.  There are many aspects of structure such as things that make up the material world and most intimately, our physical body, which is a complex, evolutionary structure.  Structure correlates with the manifestation of life into form, with the horizontal field of connecting with others, and our belonging in life.    

In this post, I want to focus on the structure of belonging, which is the aspect of our relational networks and the ways we are connected with other people, animals, our environment, our planet, and the systems that are part of our lives today.  Examples of systems include governments, voting processes, medical care, money and banking systems, etc. So often when we think of these larger structures which began long before we were born, we feel disconnected from them and see them as something other than ourselves which we cannot impact.  From an energetic point of view, these structures are actually part of us, and we are part of them.  We are always contributing something to the structures of our lives, and they are contributing something to our lives.  (Part of the study of systemic oppression is how the systems we live in impact different groups of people differently, as well as the history and purpose of such differences.)  When we believe we are disconnected, nonessential or helpless related to our relational structures and systems, what we contribute is our absence.  

Absence is a symptom of trauma, and we all carry some trauma.  In other words, we all carry many or fewer symptoms of separation or absence within and around us.  This is not bad, per se, as absence serves a function.  When we or our ancestors were unable to face and deal with something in an integrated way, separation occurred.  When it was too much to process, the human nervous system wisely numbed what was overwhelming and could put our survival or functioning at risk.  Today we can call this absence (or trauma).  

Turning toward our own absence related to the structures around us is the first step toward healing and restoration. What we can (begin to) witness can begin to move, heal, and gradually be reconnected into wholeness.  

Even when we cannot see the results of our participation with the systems around us, our contribution always matters regardless of how small or insignificant it may seem.  Since we are in effect an individual manifestation of life, nature, and of the divine, it is up to us to discover what is our appropriate relation, participation and contribution to the structures in and around us.   

When we discover and enact our unique participation with our relational structures and systems, we contribute to healing our belonging.  Since each being alive in this moment belongs to life, restoring our belonging through right relationship ripples out and contributes to restoring belonging for all of us.  I believe our individual movements to participate and restore right relation with our structures and systems is fundamentally our purpose, each in our own unique way.  

May this year be a year when we all fine-tune our presence so that our unique participation contributes a healing, restorative flow into the structures in our beautiful world. 

Solstice & New Year's Contemplations

 TO KNOW THE DARK BY WENDELL BERRY 

​

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.

To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,

and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,

and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

Feel free to explore what comes up for you, whether or not it seems to be a direct answer to the question.  Take what resonates for you, and leave the rest…

Wonder Question:  

How can I connect with and embody the sacred life moving through me and us, which is ever emerging, structuring and re-structuring, and available for to me to express as creativity?

Related to the Solstice / Season of Long Nights here in the Northern Hemisphere:   
​

• What healing aspects of light and darkness can you connect with as a resource in your life?

• What supports and sustains you (on a physical, emotional, mental and/or spiritual level)  when you experience times of darkness?
• How are you supported by your past experiences?  What aspects of the past (personal, ancestral or collective) are you presently available and supported to turn toward, for purposes of healing and restoration?  Can you connect to a felt sense of resilience of those who have come before you / us?

The great conjunction, Jupiter & Saturn, occurs in the sign of Aquarius on January 21.  Jupiter will be in this sign for nearly a year, and Saturn will remain here for around 2 1/2 years, so these qualities will remain and ripen for some time...  How do you relate with these qualities in your life:
 
Jupiter – healing, magnification, expansion
Saturn – pruning, grounding, structuring
Aquarius – air, breath, fixed nature, communication justice, balance, the collective

• What part of your life is emerging a whole new way of being for you, going forward? 
• How can you befriend the qualities of Jupiter, Saturn and Aquarius?
• What support, practices, rituals, connections, etc. are important, alive structures for you?  What habits / rituals support you and what need to be pruned or changed?
• How do you integrate to stabilize your expansion?
• What aspects of your life feel resonant personally and with the collective?   Another way to wonder about this is, what are you doing / how are you being collectively that also feels good and replenishing to you personally?

Related to the Gregorian Calendar New Year...
 

• What did you learn in 2020?  What was lovely about it?  Is there anything you will miss?  What awarenesses awakened in you?  What did you learn?  What did you let go of?   What do you appreciate about yourself and your life?  
  
• What qualities do you want to embody, or begin to embody in 2021?  Are there simple steps, practices, or rituals you want to create to support your evolution?

Wise Body: Nature's Expression through Us

Sometimes we ask someone, how old are you?  We tend to think of how old our particular body is, and how many years since we were born.  I am 56 years old or 20 years old or 80, etc.  

Another perspective involves taking a longer view.  Our ancestors have been around for about six million years, and the modern form of humans for about 200,000 years.* Each person that is born comes into life at a particular moment in history, and carries the benefits and wisdom developed up to that point.  Our bodies carry the impacts of whatever historical and collective trauma experiences were not yet able to be fully integrated.   We also carry resilience and wisdom and a healing impulse.  Our bodies are an expression of nature through us as individuals. 

What's it like to contemplate nature and the environment not as out there, but also as in here, and right here as my body and yours?  I find it interesting to note how and when I do feel interconnected and a part of nature, and also when I don't, and to wonder about that seeming gap.  In those moments, am I simply numb to the connection between me, my body, my emotions, and nature?  Are you?  Are we all numb, to some extent?  

Numbing is not wrong.  It's a protective function which is one of the symptoms of trauma.  When something is too overwhelming for our nervous systems to process or was too overwhelming at some point in the recent or distant past, numbing allows a portion of the nervous system to be put aside in a sense, so that functioning can continue.  Discovering how we experience numbing and disconnection from our bodies and from nature is a healing movement, and a foundational step to heal the disconnection and move toward wholeness and integration.   

Integrating and deepening our connection to our bodies is easier together.  You're invited to join me for a yoga class, or an embodiment session, if that resonates for you.  Visit my website for details and information. 

* From an article on University Today.

Bridging Past to Future: Facing Racism and Reconnecting with our Hearts

One of the callings of our times is to become a bridge between our past and the future we want.  We become a bridge by cultivating an ongoing connection with what is even as we align our actions with what wants to be born through us.    

Photo by Martin Damboldt from Pexels

Facing 'what is' includes facing how 'what was' still radiates through our current experience.  Unfinished, unprocessed experience is sometimes called karma.  Another name for it is trauma.  Trauma exists in individuals, in families, in the collective, and in the systems of our society.  

One collective trauma that I am facing into every day is racism.  

Racism isn't just a word.  It's a code (as all words are) which carries the energetic legacy of trauma which is woven into the very foundations of our systems for hundreds of years.* 

I've been actively learning about whiteness for only about a year, and I'm not an expert.  Writing about my current perception of whiteness and racism (even as I'm still learning) is part of my response to the collective trauma of whiteness, or what the author, Resmaa Menakem calls white body supremacy.  

One of the things that keeps racism going is for people who are systemically in the oppressor role (that's me, with skin known in our world today as white) to not see, feel or take action related to the dehumanizing violence that was perpetrated and became embedded in our systems and the world around us. We told cultural stories that racial violence was over or mostly over, but it isn't.    

I'm turning towards it every day.  

Lifting a veil of unconsciousness and facing systemic oppression and violence is painful. The seduction of continuing to not know, not feel, and not respond to the cultural domination system we were born into is strong.  We are all woven into racist systems and for many of us, our participation and enabling remains unconscious.  Even as we wake up to face, the tendency for us to become overwhelmed, shut down, or otherwise disconnect is powerful.  

My experience is becoming conscious of the water we are swimming in is an ongoing process.  We may see it but not feel it.  Face part of it but not all of it.  Bame others.  Feel but remain unable to respond and take action.  Get overwhelmed.  And so on.      

When abuse of power is occurring, it's healthy to see, feel, and respond to what's actually happening.  Even though facing it is painful and often confusing, the waking up process reconnects us to our natural grounding, to the beauty of our own hearts, and to the natural resources of life.  We re- align with our inner compass, and with the best of our humanity.  We become both the bridge to what is possible, as well as the people who walk over the bridge into an equitable future, one step at a time.  

*"400 Years of Inequality is a diverse coalition of organizations and individuals calling on everyone - families, friends, communities, institutions - to plan their own solemn observance of 1619, learn about their own stories and local places, and organize for a more just and equal future." They are "dedicated to dismantling structural inequality and building strong, healthy communities."  - 400 Years of Inequality website 

  

Life is a Dance

Trauma is life energy that freezes, holds, or stops moving when faced with a situation that our autonomic nervous system (an automatic physiological response) classifies as life threatening.  This action protects -- or attempts to protect -- us.

While life exists, the possibility of healing exists too. 

Like springtime after a long, cold winter, the buds of life bloom again, and for those who are willing, the possibility of healing exists.

Just like the seasons, life is always moving. 

When we feel emotional pain that has a disproportionate intensity to it, we are contacting the energy that once couldn't move through.

Life wants to connect.

Emotional pain is a funny thing.  So often it's not about what we think it's about, although that doesn't make the experience of hurting any less real.  The emotional energies within long to be presenced, held in compassionate awareness.  We humans are wired to connect with ourselves and each other.

We are made of compassionate awareness.

However entrenched or stuck we may be, with compassionate, connected support, gradually the trauma re-emerges to be felt through, allowing the energy to move again.

Movements of Healing -- Choose Your Verb(s):
meeting how you are,
listening,
connecting,
participating with,
breathing,
feel-thinking,
loving,
creating,
collaborating,
expressing in a non-linear way through art, vocal expression
and dancing.  I saved the best for last.

The next class is October 10, 2019.

Schedule for upcoming Transformation Playground Dance Classes