Author Archives: MaryAnn Reynolds

About MaryAnn Reynolds

I practice advanced bodywork in Austin, TX, specializing in Craniosacral Biodynamics and TMJ Relief.

How to live a more satisfying life

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The best first step towards changing the way things are is to fully accept the way things are.

Michael Giles has written a book called Action of Mind: Essential Steps Toward a Satisfying Life. Neatly divided into three sections — Open Mind, Focused Mind, and Big Mind — the book offers chapters on topics like intent, stillness, setting and achieving satisfying goals, the unknown, and your purpose.

He acknowledges that reading the middle section (Focused Mind) will help readers understand better how to achieve specific goals they’ve set for themselves, yet he recommends reading the first section (Open Mind) first to get better results by being grounded in the present moment. The third section asks hard questions and deals with some of life’s difficult-to-accept realities.

I’ve known Michael for the past several years. I met him through NLP. Michael is a master practitioner of NLP and a hypnotist (a term he prefers over hypnotherapist) and coach for the last 13 years. Now he’s a working graduate student in the field of social work, an active member of the Texas National Guard, and father of Reyna, with another child on the way. He’s worked hard on creating his own satisfying life, and in this book, he shares his wisdom.

I’ve known Michael also as a long-time practitioner of martial arts. Michael started studying karate at age 12 and holds multiple black belts. Familiar with the Taoism and Buddhism, he  practices and teaches tai chi. These practices, and meditation, have greatly influenced Michael’s perceptiveness, intelligence, and response-ability, which show up in his book.

Michael draws on NLP, hypnosis, martial arts, his own personal history, and story-telling to share his insights and exercises for living a more satisfying life. Here are some excerpts from his book, little nuggets that hint at the wisdom that follows, written in a style that suggests a coach talking directly to a client:

Nothing will guide you as wisely and creatively as your shadow. Your deepest feelings of hurt, fear, or doubt can serve you when you sit with them.

Visualization can be a very helpful element of hypnosis, self-development, or just getting over that threshold into the success that you want. In my experience, it is good to see yourself doing what you want to do and being what you want to be. I have found that affirmations are most helpful for receiving and achieving while visualization is most helpful in the doing and the being.

Whenever a problem is solved, it is because we have received a gift from the unknown. A more prosaic way of stating this is that solutions are pieces of information that we were ignorant of until we found them. If we know the solution to a problem already, then the problem is not really a problem. It is only a problem while we do not know the solution. It travels from the category of “unknown” to the category of “known.” Therefore, the unknown is the source of all our problem solving, positive change, and personal evolution.

Michael has done a great job of communicating his insights and teaching readers about something that really matters to all of us, living a life that is satisfying.

Referrals for alternative health care providers

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I’ve received different types of alternative health care, and I’d like to list some of my favorite practitioners here on my blog. I will update this list from time to time.

First of all, for do-it-yourself pain relief, relaxation, and massage, get yourself some arnica, some epsom salts, and a foam roller. I also recommend meditation. They cost little to nothing and make a difference.

If you’d like to have a floatation tank experience, try Zen Blend, in far south Austin. I’ve been three times now, and each time I’ve been more relaxed and present. The epsom salt in the water plus silence and darkness all contribute to the relaxing effect.

If you’d like to improve how your body moves, either for a sport or better workouts or the movements of everyday life, I recommend Matt Fuhrmann of Tao Health & Fitness (on Facebook) for functional movement screening and classes. It’s what Tim Ferriss (in The Four-Hour Body) calls “pre-hab”. In other words, injury prevention. Matt also offers classes for kids.

For biodynamic craniosacral work, I recommend Nina Davis. I also recommend David Harel, who specializes in TMJ disorder Gtreatments. In the DFW metroplex, see Ryan Hallford for treatment. He also teaches craniosacral work. (Note: I am studying craniosacral therapy from Ryan after receiving it from Nina and being mentored by David.)

For classical chiropractic, I recommend Active Life Chiropractic, which offers a wide range of services including Graston and “the activator”. I’ve seen both Dr. Cynthia Schade (the owner) and Dr. Cynthia Lara.

For upper cervical chiropractic (first cervical vertebrae and cranium), I recommend Back N Balance. If through head trauma or emotional stress your head is not sitting atop your spine in a balanced manner, check them out. It unwound my spine from scoliosis. I saw Dr. Shelley Lorenzen.

For applied kinesiology chiropractic, I recommend Austin Holistic Health. It’s another form of unwinding from dysfunctional neuromuscular patterns. I saw Dr. Chandler Collins.

For integrative healing, I recommend Fran Bell at Austin Holistic Health.

For acupuncture on a budget, I recommend South Austin Community Acupuncture (sliding scale) and the student clinic at AOMA ($35 per treatment, supervised by professors, in both north and south Austin).

I have personal experience with each of these practitioners and clinics, and I know how valuable good word-of-mouth can be. I hope this helps you find healing.

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Trauma never goes completely away

My friend Spike shared a link to this New York Times article on Facebook, and since trauma and recovery are themes on this blog, I thought I’d share it here. The author, a psychiatrist, writes about how trauma and grief never go completely away.

Can’t get over it? You may now stop trying and believing that you have to or that something is wrong with you because you haven’t or can’t.

My mother’s knee-jerk reaction, “Shouldn’t I be over this by now?” is very common. There is a rush to normal in many of us that closes us off, not only to the depth of our own suffering but also, as a consequence, to the suffering of others….

The reflexive rush to normal is counterproductive. In the attempt to fit in, to be normal, the traumatized person (and this is most of us) feels estranged.

Each moment, life as it is, the only teacher: quotes from Joko Beck

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I posted this originally on June 16, 2011. Needing to remind myself of her wisdom, I thought you might want to (re)read her words and appreciate her wisdom too.

~~

Charlotte Joko Beck died yesterday, very peacefully, at the age of 94. She was a Zen teacher who made a major impact on American Buddhism.

Here’s a quote from article that puts her work into perspective (no longer available):

The Ordinary Mind School was among the first Zen communities to consciously engage the emotional life and the shadows of the human mind as Zen practice. The late Charlotte Joko Beck and her dharma heirs adapted elements of the vipassana tradition — a relentless inquiry into the contours of the human mind — as unambiguous Zen discipline.

Here are some quotes from her:

With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn. Whether you stay home or work in an office or whatever, the next teacher is going to pop right up.

Caught in the self-centered dream, only suffering;
holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream;
each moment, life as it is, the only teacher;
being just this moment, compassion’s way.

Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.

Wisdom is to see that there is nothing to search for. If you live with a difficult person, that’s nirvana. Perfect. If you’re miserable, that’s it. And I’m not saying to be passive, not to take action; then you would be trying to hold nirvana as a fixed state. It’s never fixed, but always changing. There is no implication of ‘doing nothing.’ But deeds done that are born of this understanding are free of anger and judgment. No expectation, just pure and compassionate action.

Practice is just hearing, just seeing, just feeling. This is what Christians call the face of God: simply taking in this world as it manifests. We feel our body; we hear the cars and birds. That’s all there is.

Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.

So a relationship is a great gift, not because it makes us happy — it often doesn’t — but because any intimate relationship, if we view it as practice, is the clearest mirror we can find.

Practice can be stated very simply. It is moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others. That seems so simple — except when we substitute for real practice some idea that we should be different or better than we are, or that our lives should be different from the way they are. When we substitute our ideas about what should be (such notions as “I should not be angry or confused or unwilling”) for our life as it truly is, then we’re off base and our practice is barren.

We have to face the pain we have been running from. In fact, we need to learn to rest in it and let its searing power transform us.

We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are; not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life.

Meditation is not about some state, it is about the meditator.

Zen practice isn’t about a special place or a special peace, or something other than being with our life just as it is. It’s one of the hardest things for people to get: that my very difficulties in this very moment are the perfection… When we are attached to the way we think we should be or the way we think anyone else should be, we can have very little appreciation of life as it is…whether or not we commit physical suicide, if our attachment to our dream remains unquestioned and untouched, we are killing ourselves, because our true life goes by almost unnoticed.

Now registering voters in Travis County, Texas

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I have been deputized to register voters in Travis County, Texas, and I’d like Travis County residents to know that, so I’m posting it here, even though many readers are not Travis County residents. If you’re not, please feel free to ignore this post, but you may find something interesting here.

Why fill out a voter registration card?

If you don’t like what’s happening politically in Texas, work to replace those holding office. The days of apathy are over. The least you can do is vote for someone different and better. You could also campaign for a candidate you like, make donations, write letters to the editor, hold house parties, drive people to the polls, and so much more.

One thing that many people don’t know is that just because you’ve voted in the past, it doesn’t mean your voter registration is current. For one thing, if you haven’t voted in two years, your registration gets purged. If you’re not sure when you last voted, fill out a card!

For another, if you’ve moved to Travis County or within Travis County since you last voted, you need to update your voter registration with your current address.

I can help you with that. Seriously, if you’re a Texan, contact me, and I’ll get you registered.

I have the word of Bruce Elfant, Travis County Tax Assessor, who oversees voter registration, that they’d rather you register twice than show up to vote and not be eligible. They screen for duplicates and only use the most current card.

Apparently a whole bunch of us uppity Texas women (and men) have gotten deputized to register voters recently, due to current political circumstances. I heard that over 100 people showed up to the training held yesterday.

How to become a voter registrar

If you’d like to register voters yourself, you can go through the training every Saturday at the First Unitarian Church, 4700 Grover, at 10 am, through the end of August.

You can also become a volunteer deputy registrar on Tuesdays at 10:30, 12:30, and 6:30 at the Travis County Tax Office on Airport Blvd. Training takes about an hour.

Here’s a link to the website for the latest information: http://www.traviscountytax.org/goVoters.do. Bruce Elfant runs a great program educating voters and training registrars. If your Texas county doesn’t have a great program, use the information here.

Being political and registering voters

You can be as political as you want, according to Bruce Elfant. You can sit at a table for the Democratic Party, a particular candidate you support, the Feminist Justice League, Stand With Texas Women, Planned Parenthood, or whomever sponsors voter registration drives, and register voters.

The catch is you have to register anyone who asks to register. You cannot turn anyone away because you disagree with their politics. So I’m going to let them know up front what my politics are!

I’d like to create a button, an orange t-shirt, and a bumper sticker that say:

Don’t Mess With Texas Women. I Register Voters.

I’d love to have other voter registrars go in with me on this. But I only know one other. Maybe this will reach more?

One of the best organizations going (and I’m so glad to see them in Texas) is Battleground Texas. Remember how shocked the Republicans were when Obama got re-elected? Karl Rove on Fox News, refusing to believe the truth? Obama’s campaign staff actually knew how to get out the vote. Obama’s campaigners have fine-tuned electioneering to make it extremely effective.

After he won, his national field director decided that turning Texas blue would be a good follow-up (no matter how long it takes — and it’s inevitable given demographic trends) and set up shop in Austin. Battleground Texas is not a bunch of good ol’ boys slapping each other on the back. These folks are political nerds who collect and analyze data and take action based on facts. They register voters, get them to the polls, encourage early voting, and know where to target to get great results.

Face it, Battleground Texas is the anti-Koch Brothers, the anti-Ted Cruz, the anti-Rick Perry, the anti-Greg Abbott. It’s the pro-women’s rights, the pro-democracy, the pro-Constitution, the pro-health care, the pro-education team working for a better future for the whole state of Texas.

I’m excited about working with them and am waiting to hear back about how I can register voters where it’s most needed.

P.S. added October 17: I have BGTX training on Saturday, October 19!

The mindful diet

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First. Let yourself get hungry. Abstain from eating so that you feel hunger. Check in with what your body is feeling every so often for an hour after you first feel hunger. Notice whether the sensations stay the same or change.

Drink water and notice what happens. Sometimes we mistake thirst for hunger. Learn the difference.

Savor these sensations. They are wisdom from your body. They are real, present sensations. Hunger for them. Trust them. You may have been ignoring them. You may have trouble recognizing them.

(Don’t worry. If you are reading this post, you will not die from hunger in one hour, or thirst, although your mind may be telling you differently. Your mind has been conditioned to mindless eating. That’s what is changing.)

If your mind starts thinking about food, write about it. Make a list of foods you daydream about. Evaluate this list. Is it good for you? If not, could something else satisfy you — a hug, a walk, dancing?

Notice the difference between what you feel with your body and what your mind is doing. Each way of being has a signature.

What would your life be like if you only ate after you fully and consciously felt hunger? Would you eat at certain times, or might the times vary? How often do you really need to eat to maintain or improve your health?

Second. Eat. After an hour of hunger and its sensations has gone by, eat. Eat some food that is healthy. Eat it slowly with an eye to noticing the sensation of satiety, of having eaten enough.

Do not eat with the goal of cleaning your plate. Give yourself a small serving.

The goal is to really notice eating and “enough”. Take one bite. Chew it. Taste it. Notice as many qualities of the taste as you can. Swallow.

Take another bite. Chew, taste, swallow. Move your arm slowly as you pick the food up with your fork or spoon or fingers and bring it to your mouth. Chew slowly.

After the third bite, pause for a minute. Notice the sensations in your stomach. How have they changed? Do you still feel hungry? Do you feel less hungry?

Remember that your empty stomach is the size of your fist, and your full stomach is the size of both fists. You don’t even have to fill your stomach to feel satiated.

Eat ten bites and notice your stomach sensations.

You might decide to stop then, or you might decide to eat 15 or 20 bites. But stop when you’ve eaten less than you would mindlessly eat.

Then see how long it takes for you to feel hungry again, and do it all again.  It might mean you need to have food available as you go through your day, perhaps some nut butter, a banana, an avocado. Just enough to stave off your hunger pangs. You could eat half a banana or avocado, or a teaspoon of almond butter.

You might also think about where the food came from, plant or animal, soil, rain, sunshine, farmers, and all the places it has been and hands it has passed through to get to your mouth. With gratitude.

Third. Do this often. It’s a great way to lose weight, because it’s portion control, but more importantly, it gets you back in touch with your body, and it extends your experience of gratitude and connection to the planet.

Also, if you are only eating when hungry, and only eating enough to stave off hunger for a couple of hours, you will want every bite of food you eat to be nutritious as well as delicious. No HFCS, please.

And that’s it. I’m posting this to remind myself that I can eat like this, because I have put on a little more weight than I’d like. I’m having a small cup of quinoa tabouli for breakfast, then it’s off to work.

If you have State Farm insurance and are pro-choice, here’s something you should know

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State Farm is a supporter of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). In fact, State Farm is deeply entwined in this extreme right-wing, pro-corporation, anti-choice, anti-women group, which provided the “model legislation” for the recent spate of anti-abortion bills as well as the “Stand Your Ground” laws as brought to public attention in the Travon Martin shooting tragedy.

According to Sourcewatch, which lists corporate supporters of ALEC (as well as corporations that have cut ties to ALEC), State Farm is not “just” a member but is extremely active in supporting ALEC’s radical, anti-consumer agenda.

I don’t want to change insurance companies. I’d like for State Farm to cut its ties with ALEC. I simply will not be handing over a hundred-plus dollars per month for car insurance to a company that supports ALEC.

The non-ALEC alternatives are Progressive Insurance and All-State. (GEICO is an ALEC member.)

Note: A Facebook friend recommended Texas State Low Cost Insurance, a brokerage that I’m also checking out. They provide homeowner insurance as well as auto coverage.

If you’d like to let State Farm hear your opinion about their political activities, you can go here to leave your comment.

Here’s what I wrote:

I’ve been a State Farm customer since 2000, and I live in Texas. I was very, very disappointed to find out that State Farm is a supporter of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is writing anti-choice, anti-women legislation being enacted legislatures in several states, including Texas. I’m strongly considering changing companies.

A bunch of comments like that may change their tune. Let’s put the chill on the ALEC members whose products and services we use! We have a choice too. If they can influence legislation, we consumers can vote with our dollars as well as vote non-ALEC supporting politicians into office. (Did I mention I can now register voters?)

Also, just reminding y’all that the smartphone app/website Buycott has campaigns you can join that allow you to scan items with your phone that you’re about to buy to find out if they’re made by an ALEC supporter.

Abortion bill could benefit Perry’s sister? Huh?

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One of my Facebook friends commented on my last blog post with a link to some “follow the money” research done by the Houston Chronicle about the abortion bill.

It seems that Rick Perry’s sister sits on the board of the Texas Ambulatory Surgical Center Society, and she is a lobbyist for a company in Addison that owns about 60 ambulatory surgical centers around the state.

The bill would effectively close down 37 abortion clinics around the state that could not afford to upgrade to become ambulatory surgical centers.

It says nothing about current ambulatory surgical centers profiting from performing abortions. It certainly does not prevent them from making that change.

So the bill is two-faced. There’s what it says it’s about, playing to the right-wing anti-choice crowd, and what it could really do, put performing abortions into new hands who will charge more money and be regulated less.

It’s estimated that 1 in 3 women will need an abortion in her lifetime. Demand won’t go away if the bill passes. Women will just go to other states or pay more at whichever ambulatory surgical centers offer it, and if they can’t afford those options, have illegal abortions or unwanted children. They won’t be safer.

The article also stated:

 It should be noted that the legislation now under consideration by the Texas Legislature is patterned after proposals that have been adopted in other states, so it did not originate with Gov. Perry’s office [cough *ALEC* cough]. Rich Parsons, a Perry spokesman said he could not say whether Perry has discussed the legislation with his sister, but said, “he strongly supports protecting women’s health by raising the standard of care they receive at abortion clinics.”

Which we now know is higher than what they’d receive at ambulatory surgical centers.

Another reason the bill stinks. Republicans: don’t vote for it!

Okay, so who REALLY wrote Texas SB5/HB2? Not a Texan.

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Here’s why I say that:

  1. Screen Shot 2013-07-07 at 10.34.47 PMThe legislator reputed to be the bill’s author, Rep. Jodie “Rape Kits Clean Women Out” Laubenberg, R-Collin County, struggled when reading the bill aloud, stumbling over the words referring to parts of female anatomy (surprise surprise, she probably got her sex education in Republican-controlled Texas), according to a witness. When you write something, you have to read the words as you put them together. You don’t stumble on words you wrote.  Jodie, you have learned what “cleaning women out” after a rape is actually called, haven’t you?
  2.  A letter from my own state rep Paul Workman bore a red flag. It’s part of the spiel that those who support this bill have cited as justification, that holding abortion clinics to the standards of ambulatory surgical centers protects women’s health. The fact is that abortion clinics are safer. This bill has now been introduced three times, in the regular session and in two special sessions. Only last week was any testimony actually given by someone who works for the Texas Department of State Health Services. The DSHS Health Facility Licensing Manager said that Texas abortion clinics are inspected every year, while ambulatory surgical centers are inspected every three years. Abortion clinics are safer.
  3. Laubenberg is the Texas chair of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the right-wing policy group based in Washington, DC. ALEC produces right-wing legislation for states.

Texas Republicans, it’s a bad bill, and it’s not even Texan. Don’t pass it.

Dear Texas Republican Senators and Representatives,

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Are you playing doctor again? You know, practicing medicine without a license is against the law. Anyone could make a citizen’s arrest if you pass legislation shutting down 37 abortion clinics and otherwise restricting women’s rights to abortion.

Why, my vagina doesn’t even know you (stolen from a fabulous sign I saw at yesterday’s protest), and yet you want to get in my business! Shame.

The majority of Texas voters oppose this legislation. 

The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists opposes this legislation. 

You don’t realize that your actions are revitalizing the Texas Democratic party and helping Texas turn blue even sooner than it would have.

Because you are idiots. You are afraid to not vote in a block, that’s how scared you are. You have made a very personal, private decision into a partisan political issue.

Guess what? TEXAS WOMEN VOTE. And we’re pissed. And if we don’t stop this legislation from being passed, we’ll see you at the Supreme Court.

Sincerely,

A Texas Women Who Just Got Deputized to Register Voters Because of You

P.S. Oh yeah, and one more thing (taken from this web page) shows how well thought out and reasoned this bill “to protect women’s health and safety” really is:

According to a resource witness from the Department of State Health Services in charge of licensing compliance for both abortion clinics and ambulatory surgical centers, abortion clinics are inspected far more often than are ASCs, meaning if HB 2 passes, abortion facilities, going forward, would face less oversight.

Indeed, DSHS Health Facility Licensing Manager Ellen Cooper said she is aware of no current issues with licensing requirements, serious complications, or deaths related to abortion clinics and providers that would have prompted the push to pass HB 2, the sweeping omnibus abortion regulations bill that would severely limit access to legal abortion in Texas.

Cooper’s testimony marks the first time that a state expert witness has been asked to testify before any committee in connection with the abortion regs measure that is now in its third iteration since the beginning of the year.