Portals to Possibility

In a difficult moment, sometimes something opens unexpectedly.  What a blessing this can be.  Not that the difficult experience is necessarily a blessing.  It may or may not be.  However, the opening – the discovery of a portal to possibility – can be a blessing.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

In hurt moments we often feel compressed.  Maybe we have hurt feelings or experience a disconnection in one way or another. Whatever the situation, we might feel sadness, fear, anger, shame, or some combination.   If we have an embodiment practice, we might notice stress arising somatically – a tightening somewhere such as the chest, belly, or back. Perhaps we become numb to our emotions or sensations.  We might notice stress in our thinking: either the pace of thinking might pick up, seem internally louder, or the content of our thoughts might feel distressing.  

A powerful contemplation to try on, is:  How do I treat myself when I feel stressed or hurt? 

These internal experiences are a part of the human experience.  Recognizing when we’re stressed is an important step towards discovering how to become responsive to our experience.  Being responsive to our stress does not imply figuring it out alone:  sometimes responsiveness means realizing we need support.   

It feels important to me to acknowledge that the situations I am writing about are within a context of privilege.  For those who are in dangerous situations right now, whether that’s interpersonal, systemically oppressive, in a collective situation like a war or other ongoing emergency, the space to reflect may be much more limited or not possible at all.  

This awareness of our state of stress itself can create an opening.  We often have habitual ways of coping with stress or feelings we find difficult.  These strategies may have been around a long time; perhaps since childhood, or they might even be ancestral patterns.  Stress responses tend to operate under our conscious awareness.  This is not necessarily a bad thing.  Whatever our coping strategies are, they are part of how we made it to this moment.  And what worked for us in the past may not necessarily be how we’d like to consciously choose to respond to stress going forward.  

Pausing to consciously acknowledge our stressful state may help us shift gears and make more contact with our felt experience.  When we have the capacity to compassionately and curiously turn towards how we are in our bodies, breathing, and emotions, we deepen self-contact.  We can potentially learn something about how the sacred life force is moving / not moving through us in that moment.  Shifting our orientation towards our experience can create the possibility of discovery and inner restoration.   What was stuck can move.  What was hidden can come into the light of presence.  What was hurt can be tended to.  What was too much can gradually be included and integrated.  What we've held alone can begin to be shared.  When more of us is included in our wholeness, more becomes possible for us.  

Changing Perspective - A Story of an Ant & the Sky

When I was about 12, in the summertime I liked to bring my Barbie dolls into the large backyard where my family lived in Oklahoma, and play pretend.  One day, after some time, I got tired of the dolls and became fascinated with an ant crawling in the grass.  I put the dolls down and laid down on my belly to get a closer look at the ant.  The ant and the blade of grass the ant was crawling up and down looked very small.  But when I got closer, it was as if a whole other world opened up around me. 

What must the world look like from the ant's perspective, I wondered.

The very same small blade of grass and mound of dirt seemed much bigger.  I imagined what it might feel like to be an ant, to walk like an ant walks vertically up and down a blade of grass, among many other blades of grass, each many times bigger than I was. I could feel the cool blade of grass beneath my feet, and the warm sun on my back. The air around me moving gently.  It all seemed quite natural and secure to the ant, who continued to move steadily in the direction it was going.  The mound of ground which included all those blades of grass seemed huge.  The distance from where we were to the fenceline, to the house, seemed very far away.  If I were an ant, it would be a lot of work to travel that far.  And the sky...

I rolled over to look at the sky.  The sky, and the vista of space all around us -- me, and the ant, and the blade of grass -- seemed incredibly vast.  I lost track of time, and began to wonder what it would be like to be a cloud.  

What a blissful day it was.  What a feeling of belonging and connection in my environment.  

This experience I had imagining I was an ant opened something in me - a felt sense of interconnection with access to feel the ant and the blade of grass and the cloud and the sky as a part of me, and that I am also a part of.  That was a gift - that was grace.  

Opening our perspective to new vistas that we can experience in our bodies can feel that way - like opening to a whole new world.  

These days, one of the ways I work with people is helping them shift their consciousness.  While there can be complexity to creating conscious shifts mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually, and relationally, there can also be a kind of simplicity to it with attuned presence.  

I'm grateful for the privilege I had to be free from danger, safe, and with a yard just beyond my back door surrounded by a quiet neighborhood where I could imagine and wonder and just be.  I'm aware not everyone grows up with that kind of access.  

And wherever we are, whatever state of consciousness we currently inhabit, and whatever our background, shifts are possible.  Like the ant, we start where we are. 

Identity as a Verb

I've long been interested in various systems to explore identity, such as yoga, the enneagram, astrology, archetypes, defensive character structures, Myers & Briggs, personas, and ego / essence.  I've found each of these useful.  And, my experience is that each system can become an obstacle if I fixate on a identify definition which I perceive as 'me' or 'not me.'

The ancient tradition of yoga suggests that we may not be who we think we are.  For example, a quote by Ramana Maharshi is: “The question, ‘who am I?’ is not really meant to get an answer, the question ‘who am I?’ is meant to dissolve the questioner.”

What is particularly interesting to me is shifting identity from a noun to a verb.  Verbing identity is a process of exploring how we organize ourselves in a given moment.  Habitual ways of organizing were originally developed in response to something from the past (our past difficulties, early environments, or even ancestral or cultural difficulties).  Habitual, repetitive ways of organizing identity can unconsciously continue to frame our perceptions and eliminate our conscious choice as long as it is invisible to us.  

Inquiry about how we are verbing identity can be through any system, such as the ones I mentioned above in my first sentence, with the intention to use the system as a gateway to understanding how we are relating.  Inquiry in service of what we want for ourselves, connected with somatic presencing, allows an unfolding self-intimacy resulting in new possibilities we can gently move toward as we become aware of them.

How cool is that?!

Recognizing, Witnessing & Healing Trauma

One of the ways we can understand how trauma is manifesting in our world today is to look at ways we separate from one another.  Consider the many conversations that are polarized, on topics such as: politics, COVID-19, religion.  We here in the U.S. +hold many different perspectives and beliefs about our current situations.  Even when we can agree on the current situation, we often polarize on ways to create change. In addition, we tend to believe that we have the right perspective, which leads us to lose curiosity and believe that others are wrong. Among us, we seem to hold quite different ideas of what is in integrity, what is true, and what is just.  

My understanding is that aligning with truth, with justice and with care is an ongoing whole-bodied experience.  We can begin by noticing our experience of body sensations, the state of our nervous system, our emotions and heart openness or closure, our thinking, connection with essence, the divine, and what we hold most dear.  We can witness:  Is our awareness holistic and inclusive of these various aspects of ourselves?  The polarizations in the world tend to exist inside us as well in some form, in the ways we include or exclude aspects of ourselves as well as levels of development.  An additional level of complexity is presence with our whole selves even as we relate with others, and with the systems of our culture.

With all the complexity of relating inside and with others, it’s easy to blame someone else or even ourselves for how we participate or don’t participate in life.  Blame may offer a temporary reprieve from the discomfort of whatever is not working, however since blame does not address the source of an issue, blaming tends to keep issues recycling.  Through witnessing ourselves and the world around us, new possibilities and choices gradually emerge.  Witnessing is a whole-body activity of seeing, feeling, and sensing what is happening, growing our capacity to discover an aligned response which is essentially creative.  From our wholeness and grounded presence, we can turn toward whatever is not working inside or around us, and respond, choose, create, and invite collaboration. 

Collective trauma makes itself known to us as symptoms of disconnection, polarization, harm, lack of balance, stuckness, and injustice in our societal systems and social norms.  For example, when a child asks a question about why something that doesn’t make sense is the way it is, and we answer, “that’s just how it’s always been,” we are likely touching on a collective trauma symptom.  

To heal, restore wholeness, and create systems that are grounded in integrity and also responsive will likely take many individuals practicing on their own and together to create a body of coherence that can begin to witness our collective issues.  We will need to learn to see to the root of things with wisdom and not blame, so we can create accountability, healing, and systemic change and restoration for people who have been systemically oppressed or systemically oppressive.  

And so we practice…

~~

Introduction to Listening & Subtle Competencies for Healing

I'm offering two free sessions.  Please pre-register to attend either at least one day in advance:   * Thursday, February 4 @ 7pm CST *  Tuesday, February 9 @ 9am CST

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.

Nurture Your Inner Garden of Spaciousness with 4-Sync Meditation

Within us, we each have the potential to access an inner garden of spaciousness.  

How are you . . . 

- caring for your vitality, health and physical relaxation?

- befriending your emotions which may be stimulated by all that's going on in the world every day? 

- tending and clearing your mind, focusing on what's important and what's yours to do? 

- touching deeper meaning and resource? 

In these difficult times, it's more important than ever to replenish the inner resources you need to show up and in the world as in invitation for peace, connection and creativity.

Transformation Playground - Guided Meditations on Sound Cloud

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