Processing. Movement. Self-care.

Every single thing we take in during every moment of each day needs to be processed.

Whether it is food, drink, air, ideas, energy or information of the sensory and/or cognitive variety, everything that enters us needs to be tended to by our body.

Fortunately for us, the body is designed to process all of these things I listed. It is the body that helps us absorb what nourishes us and to expel what no longer serves us.  The body is designed to have sensory experiences in relationship with these things I’ve listed and then to move in ways that support the absorbing of and the letting go of whatever it is that is being experienced within our skin container.

Unfortunately for us, we’ve created a world that tends to overwhelm our natural capacities toward health.

This blog was inspired by a trend I have noticed recently: people with discomfort in the stomach. Quite a few clients I’ve seen recently have needed somatic support in session to safely explore uncomfortable stomach related experiences.  I have also had several people in my social circle reporting unexpected, intense gut distress with no easily identifiable source. I, too, have woken on several nights in the last few weeks with a sense of queasiness in my mid-section that I know was not food related.

When this sort of synchronicity happens - of noticing a common theme across so many people and over more than 24 hours time span - I pay attention.

I’m curious: what is causing all this gut distress?

Here are my thoughts:

We are all trying to process and digest a lot.  While it is always important to tend to your whole system, it is especially important right now to allow yourself time to slow down, notice and allow movement that will, in turn, allow whatever might be causing you distress to be processed and moved through. Take the time to be present with whatever comes up when you allow yourself to gently give attention to this area of your body. Help your body know it is safe to absorb the parts that are nourishing and to let the parts which are no longer of value pass through and out!

This is such a simple biological process of acceptance and letting go that we have developed the ability to thwart it in all sorts of ways!

Please remember:

You can choose to notice or ignore your bodily sensations.

You can choose whether to tend to or override uncomfortable information in your systems.

You can choose whether you allow your Self to move or to become rigid.   

You can choose what parts of your Self to move.  

You can choose how you move.  

We can all choose to gently learn about the patterned movements of our physical, sensory, emotional and cognitive bodies. 

We can learn to slow down in a way that allows us to notice what patterns succeed in helping us to be more selective, to support the taking in of what is nourishing and letting go of what is depleting.  We all have the capacity to also notice which of our patterns we are using that fall short of supporting this biological process of health.

We can learn how to move ourselves to expand and deepen our capacity for seeing diverse options and making conscious choices that increase the quality of what is entering our body, with each breath, in each moment. 

And as humans we have the capacity to choose to limit our ability to move. We can choose to inhibit ourselves, sometimes for important social reasons. We can also choose to shrink our capacity to notice, to react rather than respond, to resist change, or to believe we are helpless to choose something different, which all serve to undermine individual and social functioning.

The body is designed to live life fully.  To live life fully involves learning ways to move yourself in diverse ways with more ease and integration as well as to discovering and exploring what challenges you from doing so.

Processing IS not simply a cognitive exercise.  Processing IS a whole body activity of movement.

If you notice a sensation of discomfort in your gut or you feel like you are trying to absorb and process TOO MUCH of something or perhaps even find yourself thinking “This is all too much”, I invite you to do the following:

• slow down your activity

• take at least six minutes to Check-In

• allow yourself to truly and fully process throughout your whole system

• support some part of your physical body to move in a way inspired by the speed and quality of the act of digestion

Processing. Movement. Self-care.

We are all in this together. Blessings, folks.

(If you’d like support in MOVING with these ideas, please check out the video support HERE!)

Image source

A Morning Contemplation on Staying Connected in the time of Covid19

I am working on a blog post called “Pacing Yourself in the Time of Social Distancing”; however, because I am pacing myself, it is not yet ready to share. Meanwhile, I would like to share with you this morning contemplation I wrote on connection. My gift to you. - Vic

***************************************************************************************

Good morning, my friend.

Let's get together right now. Would you like that?

We may not be able to touch hands or hug. I may not be able to rest the right side of my face on the right side of yours, heart to heart. We may not be able to face each other, just across a table, coffees in our hands, our words bumping into each other through the sagittal space we share. We may not be able to do any of these things right now...and yet,

we can breathe together, in this space that is spaceless, where there is no real distance, where we are all connected.

I exhale, fully aware that I am releasing parts of myself to the environment. I am confident that my body knows how to release the stuff I no longer need - and while, right now, we might be inclined, consciously or not, to focus on the stuff we or others are exhaling that can be of danger, I'm suggesting we choose to remember that our out breath is also a gift. The trees, the grasses, the crocuses that are just finishing their debut, the ready-for-their-show daffodils all live because of our exhale, and, likewise, we because of theirs.

My exhale becomes their exhale, my toxic waste taken in by their wise cells, accepted, transformed into nourishment for them, and then passed on, out into their environment. Passed out of them into others and others until it finds you, a gift of breath especially for you, to do with what you will.

And please know that I am here, accepting your gift. As I inhale again, I give thanks to you, my human friend, and to all the plants between us, who have made this breath possible. I give thanks to the connections that exist, always.

I urge us both to take time, at least once today and as often as possible, to consciously honor this Breathing thing we are doing and often don't even notice. I want to remind us both to spend some time out of the house and in nature, breathing and paying attention to the life that is all around us.
And to remember: we are all in this together.

Blessed be, my friend.

What is Embodiment? A coffee and conversation talk

This morning I share my thoughts on the topic "What is Embodiment" at a local free Saturday morning event called "Coffee and Conversation."  Here are the notes that I have prepared along with this previous blog entry. 

As embryos, fetuses, and infants we did not have thoughts or emotions as we have them as adults.    We began as an organism, a collection of cells, with sensory receptors and movement.

Our movement abilities formed from amoeba-like to the most complex of walking, jumping and running as a naturally organized process of development in response to the information we received from our environment through our sensory receptors.

Given this, embodiment is…the sensory experience of breathing and of our weight on the Earth, of pressure, texture, temperature, light, smell, sound, taste and rhythm.   These are all the things that prompted us to move in the earliest days of our existence in the body we are in.  We experienced a sensation and we responded or reacted, in pleasure or in pain, in response to comfort or discomfort.

Then we learned words.  Words give a symbolic form to our experiences, a way to communicate sensations, thoughts and emotions.  Words are valuable and words can be spoken from an embodied perspective, but words are not themselves embodied.  Similarly sensory and emotional words are just labels, not things themselves. Emotions are actually a collection of sensations we associate with a specific experience.

The map is not the territory.” A. Korzybski 

We learn, as individuals, and have learned, as a culture, to override the sensory information of our body for many reasons.  Pain.  Traumatic events we witness or experience.  Devaluation by other people’s words or actions.  Descartian split of mind from body. Some religious beliefs, especially dogmatic Christianity.  Consumerism that views sensations as something to market to.  Capitalism that views sensations as a nuisance, diminishing the value of the workforce.  Incompatibility between the design of our sensory systems & the sensory information in our environments.

My perspective is that the result is overwhelm, anxiety, depression, disease, disconnection from ourselves, each other and the Earth.  And that a  regular practice of noticing, deepening, inviting, enhancing embodiment is healing and powerful, in all ways.  This includes breath awareness, sensory awareness and conscious movement exploration to re-pattern what we have learned, as young children and into adulthood, about our body.