I get frustrated when people who are guiding body based experiences do not use anatomical terms that are accurate because we can limit our body's capacity to move with ease by holding inaccurate mental imagery (and likewise, expand it's capacity with more accurate visualization!)
When we inhale, it is NOT our stomach that expands. It is our torso.
The stomach is an organ that lives in the left side of the torso under the ribs.
When we inhale, it is the entire torso that has the capacity to expand and we can experience a sense of filling three-dimensionally, if we allow it.
Likewise, it is not the stomach that shrinks when we exhale. The stomach changes size by how much or how little we ingest.
When we exhale, it is the entire torso - from the very top of our ribs into our shoulders, through our whole rib basket and down into our pelvic floor - that has the capacity to contract and we can experience a sense of emptying three-dimensionally, if we allow it.
By visualizing your capacity to more fully breath three-dimensionally, throughout your entire torso, you create a mind map that can support you in practicing allowing your body to breath more fully...which in turn is foundational to more health and ease and integrated movement.
If you are not sure what I mean by three-dimensional breathing, give me a ring at 573-575-MOVE and we can set up a session to support you in your embodiment journey.
a lived story explaining therapeutic somatic repatterning...
Nervous systems…
Living together…
Inevitably will find opportunities for the old unprocessed stories of danger and pain to emerge, stories of when the nervous system never got to move the body to safety, when it never got to feel the experience of being seen or heard in a way that let the whole system fully release into safety, when it never got to truly resolve and settle.
And these opportunities can create new stories of the old paradigm, history brought into present.
And the spiritbodymind can get more and more tangled. Especially when two nervous systems are both trying to deal with old unprocessed woundings. The nervous system can so easily be made to believe the thing of the past is happening again. It can FEEL like it's happening again. And when this happens patterns will play out because, without other options, this is what the sensory-nervous-motor systems of the body will do: react. When this happens the body can feel simply awful, hopeless, helpless. This kind of situation can bring out all the fight, flight, collapse patterns your nervous system has as the "tools" to try to help you deal with danger and survival. Tangles and snarls.
And i am here to tell you that this kind of situation can also be an opportunity to learn to disentangle. With practice you, fully somatic human being that you are, have more options available to you than you know!!!
You CAN learn to recognize that the current situation is an opportunity to FEEL a vibration of an old unresolved pattern that needs healing.
You can learn to recognize that to FEEL this discomfort safely you MUST ground and orient your sensory nervous system into the actual literal present (NOT the firings of the stories pushing their way into your awareness, stories that explain and justify the refiring of the old familiar patterns of fear, anger, discomfort and the resulting patterned (re)actions).
You CAN learn to listen, feel, hear when these old familiar protective patterns emerge, and to actively engage with your body so that you can safely explore what the patterns need from you TODAY that will allow them to untangle a bit and eventually to transform.
Healing at this deep level IS possible.
I know because I live this in my life. It is a process for sure. I am still learning. I still get caught up in the effects of wounding that happened long ago as if it was happening again today. I struggle with the deep pain that can surface from small misunderstandings and the reactive protective patterns. I can still feel how helpless my mind becomes when this happens and it feels like it's happening once again.
AND
I have also felt the power of the practice I described above. I have felt this practice transform the very tissues of my body and allow me to have more capacity to move and act and be more whole in the present. This practice has helped me from letting that old energy and pain fully lead my mouth and my actions in my present. I have learned that i do have the power to feel and act on my deep desire to actively be more healthy and more sane, even in times of conflict. I have learned that I can be with those parts of me that are crying out or raging for help without being taken over by them. Accessing this capacity takes practice and that practice creates space for change and healing.
I live this practice.
And in my professional life as a somatic movement therapist I support others to do the same. This, for me, is the essence of my understanding of and approach to therapeutic somatic repatterning.
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I feel like I haven’t been able to explain therapeutic somatic repatterning this clearly before outside of a one-on-one session, but a recent situation in my life helped me feel and find these words. Let me know if you have questions, are curious and want to set up a consultation to learn more. Call 573-575-MOVE or email me!
The Embodiment of Being
I am here to share this radical idea: The Body does not have to learn to BE.
There is an idea that I have heard throughout my life, that we somehow have to WORK to learn to BE. I have come to understand that this is a basic misunderstanding of HOW we develop.
The Body has ALWAYS known BEingness and at this very moment yearns for the complex YOU to allow it more and more! (Can you hear it whispering, “please oh please oh please”?)
Here is how I view it: Body was conceived into Beingness. One moment you were something - spirit, energy, Divine, nothingness, take your pick - and then the next moment you were the embodiment of Being. In that moment of your conception the cells knew how to Be. They didn’t need an instructor or a book. They knew. They Breathed, taking in nourishment and letting go of what didn’t serve their desire for Life. They accepted the support of Gravity as it sequenced through the Body of your host. They allowed and welcomed growth and change. All of this is what supported You to become the Being that could viably live outside your host mother in your many layered complex form. Your cells then continued to allow and welcome growth and change as you became…the YOU of right now and all that you’ve been.
Today, right now, you can trust that your cells. While having changed their form many times over, they are still as wise as they were in the BEginning. You can trust that they have the capacity to continue to allow and welcome growth and change (as long as your more complex Self doesn’t thwart them in living their deep wisdom!)
The embodiment of BEing is foundational within all of us. It is how we all began.
To connect with the history of the human experience of this deep wisdom we just need look at the way we’ve have created language to try to capture this very experience. The etymology of the word “Be” is “I am”, “I exist” and “I grow”. Similarly the word BEgin derives from roots that mean “to open to existence”.
We are always capable of sensing of BEingness…that is IF we allow ourselves to access the deep wisdoms of the Body, I’m talking about accessing the deep wisdom of the Body in its own right, with its own unique information and not as our Minds conceives of it.
Can you grok this? Do you feel any of your Body’s parts resonate or become more enlivened as you read this idea? Do you feel curiosity and/or desire well up in your tissues?
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I will say it again.
The Body does not have to learn to BE.
We do not have to do anything to BE, other than to allow ourselves to connect with the most foundational experience of our physical embodied Selves.
When we think we have to learn to Be, we forget that it is actually the DOing that we learned and must relearn, unlearn or change to feel more health.
As we grew from that initial tissue into the more complex human form that we most likely still carry with us in some way in this moment, we moved and we engaged with the environment. It is this movement and engagement that invited the mind to began its process of being created.
And it is the mind that was taught to separate our DOing from the foundational support of BEing. It is the mind that was taught to prioritize the DOing. And it is the mind that was taught to dis-embody ourselves, to we make our bodies DO in ways that exhaust and deplete us. (When I say “taught” I am not talking about the intentional lessons of educators. I am talking about everything what we experienced, saw, felt, were told, were subjected to by people, things and situations (well-meaning or otherwise) that formed our understanding of our Selves - then, now and in-between.)
Given this, we are all fully capable of allowing ourselves to be open to embodying our BEingness ALL THE TIME (or at least, opening ourselves to the possibility that we are all fully able to be open to this in some way), even while we are DOing.
And yet, I have learned and observed that it is not an easy thing to reconnect with this foundational aspect of our Selves. The lessons of disembodiment are deep. Our patterns and practices of disembodiment and disconnection are strong and familiar in our culture (and sometimes we have learned to disembody and disconnect for important and valuable reasons that served us at the time!)
In spite of the challenge, it is the practice of reconnecting with the embodiment of BEing that is essential to living our life more fully (in my probably not so humble opinion). It is my experience that one of the keys (if not THE key) to living life with more health, ease, confidence, creativity, and compassion (to name a few of the benefits) is this practice of connecting to one’s sensory, moving, breathing, living Body in whatever ways are possible in this moment and in each moment.
If you are curious and want support exploring and reconnecting with your sense of your foundational BEing Self, contact me.
Blessings. Victoria aka DidiAletheia
A Somatic Perspective on the 6th step of the 12 steps of Recovery
For those of you who don’t know me well, let me introduce to you that I am a longtime and grateful member of Al-anon and a recovering codependent who actively works the Twelve Steps as part of my recovery toward living healthier and saner.
Over the last few months I have found myself struggling with the language and conventional approach to the Twelve Steps that I often hear discussed in meetings. I respect the essence of the Twelve Steps. I have felt the way it changes a life. Yet as I increasingly view the world at large and this recovery framework through the lens of somatic movement therapy/education/philosophy, I find myself desiring a Twelve Step framework that incorporates the research and discoveries related to brain and movement development, the bodymind connection, neuromuscular patterning and trauma in the years since the Twelve Steps were established in the early 40’s.
Recently I felt this strongly while in several conventional Al-anon meetings. Because it is the sixth month of the year I was listening to many people talk about their relationship with step #6.
For those who are not familiar with step #6, it comes (obviously) after the first five steps. Each Twelve Step program has slightly different language and there are myriad alternative versions. The AA and Al-anon wording of step #6 is this:
“We became willing to ask God to help us remove our defects of character."
During these recent meetings, I heard so many people share that they BELIEVED that they were ready to give up a challenge/defect/pattern and then when they did the action of trying to open up or let go of whatever “it” was for them, they snatched “it” back. I noticed that many of these folks sounded hard on themselves as they shared this. They said things like they believed that their challenge in this situation was not trusting more in their Higher Power. Many described what they were doing as an act of “willfulness” and categorized it as a "character defect".
It was a real struggle for me to hear this perspective over and over again. It caused me, and continues to cause me, feelings of grief and some frustration.
(For my friends in 12 Step programs who are reading this, please know that I KNOW that I am in these meetings to support my OWN recovery and that, yes, this situation has given me ample opportunity to actively practice keeping the focus on myself and my recovery during the meeting, and to practice letting go of wanting to share with that individual and to practice trusting that the speakers’ recovery paths are theirs to travel as they are able! Whew. <loving this opportunities, she says with a deep exhale>)
And yet, I do feel called to share the information that I have that I believe offers a kinder (although not necessarily easier) approach to step #6, and so I am writing this blog post.
Because of my training and experience as a trauma-informed somatic movement therapist and my deep self-exploration as an embodiment witch, I KNOW that there is another way to talk about and engage with the meaning of this step that doesn't involve such judgement and self-recrimination.
From a somatic perspective, every human is made up of patterns of all the experiences of their life up to this moment. Many of these patterns (such as walking, reaching, smiling, pushing, holding, pulling, sitting) we take for granted and use every day in all our activities of daily living. Some of these patterns are protective patterns designed to keep us safe, and some of these protective patterns have become dysfunctional and no longer serve in the way we once felt or believed that they did.
As a misquote of Stephen Covey might say, "You cannot think yourself out of problems you behaved yourself into."
These protective patterns are wired into our neuromuscular system to react in certain situations, especially situation that resonate within us similar to our experience with past dangerous people and situations. From the somatic movement point of view, I understand that if you try to force your body to DO something because your MIND thinks it is a good idea without checking in with the body's sensory experience in the moment, you may get overwhelmed or shutdown and, as some folks said in these meetings I mentioned above, you may find yourself doing the opposite of your mind's intention. The reality is if we try to override the neuromuscular patterning within us through mental will, to push past our body's experience in this moment without tending (kindly and safely) to what is attached to the habit of the old patterning, then the old pattern will often re-engage within us even stronger than in the past because it is now trying to protect us from the threat of change that we ourselves have created. In short, the danger becomes the mind trying to exert willfulness over the body.
On the shelf of my studio is a bumper sticker that says, “Go only as fast as the slowest part of you feels safe to go.”
Again, this is an IDEA that sounds really great when we hear it AND it takes a LOT of work to be able to DO. It takes work and consistent repetitive practice to learn and to pattern the small changes that are necessary to move ourselves toward the bigger change of being able to be open and to let go with ease. It takes a lot of practice to learn to repattern at a speed that will allow you to actively notice what is happening in your body and to develop the capacity to be aware as you feel when the old protective patterns kick in. It takes even more time and practice to be able to notice the sensations that happen early in the process as the old patterns starts to kick in. And then it takes practice to slow ourselves down in a way that allows us to settle ourselves so that we can, eventually, be able to engage with the discomfort that arises within us related to the old pattern that is happening inside of our spiritbodymind, without judgement and with kindness. It is in this process of practice that we discover that we are developing the skills to safely open ourselves in ways that gently transform the shape of that old pattern in ways that could, possibly hopefully, make space within us to be able to practice acting in ways that move us closer to living and acting in accordance with our idea of who and how we want to be: the idea that our mind had in the first place.
This is the process of recognizing that intention is, in itself, not what creates change. What creates change is giving attention to the experience within us as we try to manifest this intention as we are right now. In giving attention we can discover what our strengths are right now and what supports us in our process right now. We can also discover what challenges us, and use those strengths and supports to help us engage with the challenges with more ease, self-regulation and stability.
One of my favorite quotes seems relevant here, from the amazing somatic activist Dr. Amber McZeal:
We learn how to breathe and center ourselves, not to maintain the status quo, but to transform it. We learn how to self-regulate in order to go into the places that are much more challenging and much more gravitas.
My current rewriting of step #6 for my recovery process is a much lengthier series of two sentences:
“We became willing to ask our Higher Power(s) to help us learn to practice kindness with ourselves and to learn to practice honoring our old patterns of thought and action that were once protective in some way and to acknowledge gently that these patterns are no longer serving us. And in this process, we became willing to ask our Higher Power(s) to help us to practice the above skills as we experience the challenges of developing our capacity to safely open to the possibility of letting go of pieces of these patterns while we also develop our capacities to think and act in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways that support our recovery.”
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I’d love to hear your thoughts on this approach to the recovery process! Blessings, Victoria.
Giving Yourself Grace - what does this mean?
I was inspired to google the terms giving yourself grace and found this interesting essay.
What inspired me to search on these particular terms? I was motivated to do this because I had observed this topic as a theme in many conversations and in many sessions with clients these past few weeks. The conversations may not have included the exact word "grace", but what I have observed is the expression of the desire of having more grace with(in) ourselves and/or of the feelings of being pushed upon and away from our sense of grace or the feelings of being compelled to push against someone or something, that caused a feeling of gracelessness in ourselves.
Does this resonate with you? If so, I invite you to read on:
The writer of this article I shared above offers the following quote in in her essay:
think of "grace giving as a form of equanimity. That concept is defined by an openness, softness, and love, qualities that allow emotions to come and go, "without push or pull," says Sola."
I invite you to consider that what the writer is talking about, whether she knows it or not, are some of the key aspects of somatics.
Giving yourself permission to Yield, to soften into the support of your experience of your body breathing and being supported by gravity in this moment, is a foundational resource necessary for giving yourself grace and also for the process of safely opening somatically.
For those who don't know what I mean by Yield, it is one of the five fundamental Actions. These five fundamental Actions (Yield/Push, Reach/Grasp/Pull) are the universal energetic "pathways to life and...movement" (from Susan Aposhyan, for another perspective on this click here).
Yield is resting in contact, allowing oneself to actively rest in connection with what supports you in the present moment. It is this capacity, to actively Yield and allow the support of the Earth and our breath, that underlies our capacity to Push.
And this, dear ones, IS the act of equanimity: to be able to fully and easily Yield into what is supporting you in this moment and to allow that support to communicate to your nervous system that you are whole and safe and secure and to allow yourself, if you choose, to Push yourself upward or to take a stand or to take an action WITHOUT losing your sense of yourSelf as a supported, fully alive and present human being. This is equanimity.
The act of Grace.
Consider practicing living grace as a verb. Invite yourself to allow yourself to honor your whole Self - spiritbodymind. To honor your experience of Presence, right here, right now It is all awareness, it is just awareness, it is part of awareness of what is the truth of this exact moment - and give yourself permission to not be Pushed or Pulled into the past, the present, the story, the rules or the judgement.
The embodiment of Grace.
************************************************************************************************************ As always, if this inspires questions, curiosities, concerns, confusion, inspiration - please let me know. I would love to explore it together! (I am currently putting individual clients on a waiting list as I am full to the gills!)
Also know that you can always find out what sort of opportunities to explore I am offering - simply check out my website for upcoming events