Author Archives: MaryAnn Reynolds

About MaryAnn Reynolds

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

Yoga update

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Cross-posted on the Yoga Classes page of this blog…

Unwinding, a restorative yoga class, meets Sundays from 5:30-7 pm at Oak Hill Oriental Medicine, 7413 Old Bee Caves Road. We warm up with Sun Salutations, do asanas for low back and neck issues, and move into deeply relaxing, melt-into-the-floor poses, using a variety of props. Your body and soul will love it! $15. For more information, call 512-775-3053 (clinic) or email me at the address on the Contact page of this blog.

The series Beginner’s Yoga, Beginner’s Mind continues for another 12 weeks starting December 1. You can join us any time. We meet on Wednesdays, 7:30-8:30 pm, in a private home in Wells Branch. $10. Please call for more information as space is limited. 512-507-4184.

Contact me if you’re interested in co-creating any of the following classes:

  • Non-Sweaty Office Yoga. I teach a mixed level class at your workplace over the lunch hour. We do deep stretching and strength-building without much sweat, ending with deep relaxation. Includes special poses to counteract heavy computer use, increase energy, and refresh well-being. $10.
  • Yoga for Kids. I teach a 30-minute class for children ages 8 and up. We learn belly breathing and asanas and end with 5 minutes of sitting in silence, which most of them love. I come to your home, classroom, or gathering place. No props used in this class. Rates highly negotiable!
  • Beginner’s Yoga, Beginner’s Mind. I teach yoga to novices. If you find yoga attractive but don’t feel comfortable in a studio or gym, this may be the class for you. We start with what you can do now and build on that. This class helps you gain strength, flexibility, alignment, body and mind awareness, and respect for your body. I come to your home and help you prepare for (or enhance) a home yoga practice or a beginner class at a studio, and I can offer personal attention and adjustments you may not find in a crowded studio or gym yoga class. 12 week minimum, up to 6 students.
  • Unwinding. I teach restorative yoga — passive poses held long, using props for deep stretches and relaxation — in your home or office. Gather family, friends, and neighbors for an evening session in your living room. You supply the mats, I bring the props, we move the furniture. Get rid of unwanted stress and tension you didn’t even know you had! Experience more spaciousness and freedom in your body! Find relief from low back and neck issues as well! 90-minute classes, weekly.

To request a class, ask questions, and/or make a proposal, please call me at 507-4184.

Article: This Is Your Brain on Metaphors

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I found this article in the New York Times fascinating, particularly the information about how the brain confuses the literal and figurative.

Consider an animal (including a human) that has started eating some rotten, fetid, disgusting food. As a result, neurons in an area of the brain called the insula will activate. Gustatory disgust. Smell the same awful food, and the insula activates as well. Think about what might count as a disgusting food (say, taking a bite out of a struggling cockroach). Same thing.

Now read in the newspaper about a saintly old widow who had her home foreclosed by a sleazy mortgage company, her medical insurance canceled on flimsy grounds, and got a lousy, exploitative offer at the pawn shop where she tried to hock her kidney dialysis machine. You sit there thinking, those bastards, those people are scum, they’re worse than maggots, they make me want to puke … and your insula activates. Think about something shameful and rotten that you once did … same thing. Not only does the insula “do” sensory disgust; it does moral disgust as well. Because the two are so viscerally similar. When we evolved the capacity to be disgusted by moral failures, we didn’t evolve a new brain region to handle it. Instead, the insula expanded its portfolio.

Not only does the brain fail to distinguish rotten food from rotten behavior, it also fails to distinguish between being in need of a bath and dirty doings:

Another truly interesting domain in which the brain confuses the literal and metaphorical is cleanliness. In a remarkable study, Chen-Bo Zhong of the University of Toronto and Katie Liljenquist of Northwestern University demonstrated how the brain has trouble distinguishing between being a dirty scoundrel and being in need of a bath. Volunteers were asked to recall either a moral or immoral act in their past. Afterward, as a token of appreciation, Zhong and Liljenquist offered the volunteers a choice between the gift of a pencil or of a package of antiseptic wipes. And the folks who had just wallowed in their ethical failures were more likely to go for the wipes. In the next study, volunteers were told to recall an immoral act of theirs. Afterward, subjects either did or did not have the opportunity to clean their hands. Those who were able to wash were less likely to respond to a request for help (that the experimenters had set up) that came shortly afterward. Apparently, Lady Macbeth and Pontius Pilate weren’t the only ones to metaphorically absolve their sins by washing their hands.

And — get this — holding a warm drink affects judging personalities as warmer!

Another example of how the brain links the literal and the metaphorical comes from a study by Lawrence Williams of the University of Colorado and John Bargh of Yale. Volunteers would meet one of the experimenters, believing that they would be starting the experiment shortly. In reality, the experiment began when the experimenter, seemingly struggling with an armful of folders, asks the volunteer to briefly hold their coffee. As the key experimental manipulation, the coffee was either hot or iced. Subjects then read a description of some individual, and those who had held the warmer cup tended to rate the individual as having a warmer personality, with no change in ratings of other attributes.

The author goes on to talk about what really ends bloodshed and creates peace. Highly recommended reading!

3,000 views! Thank you, readers!

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Just a quick note to share my gratitude with you, the readers of my blog. Today my odometer rolled over, so to speak, and I have reached the milestone of 3,000 views!

Last summer, after a jump in readers, the number 3,000 came to mind as a goal I hoped to reach by the end of this year.  Now I’ve reached it a month and a half early. That means the rest of this year is pure lagniappe! Or icing on the cake, or gravy, if you prefer those metaphors.

Thank you for stopping by.

The number doesn’t really tell me much. It’s just the number of people who have viewed my blog.

It doesn’t tell me which posts and topics you like most or which titles whet your curiosity. I do know that a few of you are subscribers, some are occasional readers via Facebook and Twitter (@zafu_report), and some find my blog by accident, searching for information on, say, trauma releasing exercises or brain waves.

I posted an analysis on October 1st, and the way I put it all together bears repeating:

What I get from this analysis is that you guys, my readers, are curious about body/mind/emotions/spirit connections. You want to read about discovering/returning to some kind of integrated state of healthiness and wholeness. You’re interested in ways to frame experience, to give it context and perspective. And reading about geeky brain wave states does not put you off!

The brain geeks among you have something to look forward to. I’ve been experimenting with theta waves and will post about it before too long.

Writing and reading are a reciprocal exchange. All I can ask is that you come back, enjoy yourself, and please do not hesitate to give me feedback and comments!

Again, thank you for stopping by.

Bumping into a former yoga teacher, dancing in Whole Foods

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Today I had a gratifying day. It is the first day of the East Austin Studio Tour (E.A.S.T.), and I live in East Austin. Many people come through the neighborhood to check out artists and studios.

I walked from my house to a studio two blocks away, and there, sitting at the kitchen table, was a former yoga teacher of mine. I spotted her beautiful, completely white hair, and then her twinkly blue eyes and lovely face clicked with me, and we had a little reunion.

I hadn’t seen Sandra Gregor in several years. I attended her twice-weekly yoga classes when I worked at Vignette for two and a half years, 2000-2002.

Doing yoga with Sandra that regularly back then helped me become yoga. The renowned teacher Shiva Rea says you don’t do yoga, you are yoga. Yoga gets into your body and saturates your being with well-being. With time and dedicated practice, you become yoga.

I loved that yoga break in the middle of the day. Sandra brought a CD player and had a way of teaching yoga that was calming and relaxing, especially needed in a competitive environment like Vignette. By the time we got to savasana at the end of each class, it was like being in kindergarten again with the best kindergarten teacher in the world and having nap time.

Sandra’s serenity and kindness made a lasting impression on me.

She is in my lineage of yoga teachers. I believe she once told me that her background was in Integral yoga, with some Sivananda experience. So much of my experience has been in Iyengar yoga. I’m grateful to have some breadth.

Later I learned that she is well-known in the art community as an art consultant, having been hired to select the artwork for The Crossings and for the Dell Children’s Hospital.

She is still teaching yoga and looking as radiant as ever, as if she had not changed a bit in 10 years.

I connected with another friend, Nicky Jeffords, at her studio, and she told me about a workshop that sounds like a must do event for me. I will write about it later. Nicky is someone who discovered her artistic talents in mid-life, not having a clue that she would become a quite gifted portrait painter.

Later I went to Whole Foods and had a fun and lovely Saturday night dance with chiropractor and human being extraordinaire Bo Boatright, right there in the essential oils aisle, dancing to the background music that Whole Foods plays.

Saturday night seems to be R&B night. We danced to Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, and The Supremes as people walked by and smiled.

We put smiles on lots and lots of faces tonight.

Left brain, right brain

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I love having both hemispheres of my brain as resources, the left brain for practical matters, logic, reason, and the right brain for intuition, creativity, the big picture, connection with the Universe or the Source or Big Mind, whatever words you want to use to denote the unfathomable mystery in which we all live.

The right brain’s work is actually bigger than, and completely holds, the left brain’s work, which is in service to survival. Imagine that!!!

The right brain holds all other awareness not needed for survival. (Which is why stress can be so debilitating. If your focus is survival, literal or figurative, you’re probably not using your right brain.

Healing lies in the right hemisphere.

Western science has discovered that within a day, our brain hemispheres shift in dominance roughly every 90 minutes. This is often when people take a break from what they were doing — go to the bathroom, get a drink of water, stretch or stand up and walk around, make a quick phone call.

When the hemispheres switch, the nostrils also switch dominance.

You may notice that often, one nostril is more open, and that this changes. (Given of course that you don’t have a cold or allergies or obstructions to nose breathing.)

If you haven’t noticed that before, check it out. Which is more open now? When you wake up? When you go to sleep? When you’re paying bills? When you’re praying or meditating or listening to poetry?

Nadi shodhana, also known as alternate nostril breathing, influences nostril dominance to balance the hemispheres of the brain. It’s a yogic breathing technique.

There are several YouTube videos available to show you how to do that. This one shows that you can place one hand under your armpit to help the hemispheres switch dominance. This one is good for actually learning the technique.

Being able to switch quickly from hemisphere to hemisphere, of course, gives one a great advantage. The hemispheres’ roles and personalities are so different, it’s like having access to two brains with great and various resources instead of just one.

And who doesn’t want more resources in life?

I find the practice calming and centering. When life seems to be coming at you too fast, which applies to most of us with jobs / families / businesses, nadi shodhana is a useful addition to your day.

The joy of being a Five

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I finally figured something out, something that has been fishy for a long time where I work, that no one will speak openly about, like a shameful family secret.

I have wracked my brain trying to figure out what makes sense about this situation, which has been rather crazy-making.

I went into a theta state listening to a new CD, and I got an image of being in a rowboat out on the water, and the large and long arms of a woman who remained submerged reached up and grabbed control of the boat.

Oh, and when the other chief instigator of crazy-making, the one who is not submerged but deeply connected with long-armed woman’s energy, came into my office to say hello, I just happened to be watching this hilarious video.

The image and that “coincidence” tell me a story about what’s really going on.

I’m going to use this blog post to address this shadowy, long-armed woman. Everyone else who reads it, please pray for the most wounded of the two women to find peace. We will work on the other one later.

I know who you are, and it is time for you to completely let go. Way past time. This is no way to be living your life, through someone else.

I am sorry that you are in so much emotional pain and carry such a great need to control things. There must be a great well of tender vulnerability underneath that furious need to control others.

Your path to true happiness — and it is as available to you as to anyone else — lies in fully acknowledging your vulnerability and your fear.

Life is short, time passes quickly, and with it our only chance. Soften.

Let go of the need to control, let down your guard, and heal your heart.

By doing this, amazingly, you become able to lovingly protect yourself, tend to your own life, and become the magnanimous, self-surrendering, courageous, forgiving person that you really are.

You can find the help you need.

Best wishes to you. Now go your own way.

Holotropic breathwork compared to trauma releasing exercises

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I finally did holotropic breathwork yesterday evening with Patrice. It’s also known as rebirthing, since if you do it enough times, apparently you get back to, and release the trauma from, your birth experience.

I had no sense of time, memory, or when I acquired the energies I released. But release I most certainly did.

Patrice was a great coach. I didn’t know what to expect as she had me start exhaling through my mouth, then after a bit, adding inhalations through my mouth. (Both of these are such a no-no in yoga!)

She told me what I might expect (shouting, shaking, crying, coughing, all forms of physical/emotional release) and made it all sound perfectly okay to experience whatever came up for me. She helped me feel that it was safe to surrender.

She warned me not to fall asleep — that some people do that as a way to escape their emotions.

She did not have to worry about that!

Patrice had put a few needles in key points, including LI4 (associated with the ego and being grounded), and at various times, she moved her hands on my body to support the energy flow. She may have also done some medical qi gong (like reiki) on me. I wasn’t paying that much attention to her after a while…

Then we sped up the breathing. And nothing happened. The exhales were supposed to have a “ha!” sound to them, and after about 5 minutes of this, I started laughing. My ha! ha! ha!s became hahahahahaha’s. She laughed with me.

‘Cause, you know, it was totally ridiculous to be doing this! Ridiculously funny and silly and wonderful!

Then I coughed a little and that felt good so I coughed some more. Patrice helped me sit up on the table. Then I started roaring… It was like some energy was coming up from my stomach out my mouth, and it was fierce and loud, and I got red in the face several times as it just kept coming up and out of me.

And then my eyes started tearing and water gathered in my mouth, and I thought I was going to throw up. Patrice got a wastebasket.

And you know what? I never did, and she  told me later she knew that I wouldn’t. But I didn’t know that. I was vomiting something. It felt real. It just wasn’t food. It was some nasty energy that had been inside of me, now coming out.  Then that urge was over.

I laid back down. More of the ha ha ha. Faster! Sharper!

My legs soon wanted to move. Soon they were shaking involuntarily, much like in David Berceli’s trauma releasing exercises, except that my legs were straight with just a little support under my knees, instead of with my knees bent. My left hand also shook, but not my right — just like when I do the trauma releasing exercises.

I went through cycle after cycle of leg shaking. I even repeatedly kicked something out of my body (which I never do with TRE), then went back to leg shaking. The kicking seemed to be removing something energetic from my sacrum, which (if you know me or have been reading this blog regularly) is where some ancient issues have been residing in my body.

After awhile, I slowed down on the ha’s, drawing them out, making them long, and at the beginning of each exhalation, my legs would start quivering, and by the end of the exhalation, they were nearly still.

Winding down… At the end, Patrice was just rubbing my belly gently. I laid there, getting more and more still, feeling the surge of electrical energy in my body, just like after TRE.

Patrice said later that I was putting out so much heat, she had to open the door and let some cool air in. I was totally unaware of that.

I feel so grateful that I had the core strength and the stamina to stay with the process all the way through. Thank you, yoga!

So… to compare holotropic breathwork to David Berceli’s trauma releasing exercises from his book The Revolutionary Trauma Release Process…

The holotropic breathwork overuses the diaphragm, the breathing muscle. The trauma releasing exercises overuse the leg and hip muscles. With both, you deliberately create a state of overload or stress in the body, and the release brings up deeper stuff.

The trauma releasing exercises don’t include noise. I liked being noisy. But you can do the TREs in a hotel room and/or alone, so there you have it. Make noise if it works for you! There’s a place for them both.

The holotropic breathwork should definitely be done with a guide present, because you could get so wild, you might hurt yourself. (Apparently people do this in groups. That must be quite an experience!)

You can do the trauma releasing exercises alone, without a guide. At least, I’m guessing most of us can. For someone who’s recently been traumatized, it is probably best to have a guide present.

So, having heard of holotropic breathwork but not knowing what it is before doing it, this was my experience. And afterwards, Patrice gave me a compliment — that I went through a nice range of emotions.

I liked it. I want to do it again.

Reading What Really Matters: Searching for Wisdom in America

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I do not know how it happened that I missed this book! Published in 1995, it is the story of a successful journalist’s (as it says) search for wisdom in America. Tony Schwartz helped Donald Trump write a little book called The Art of the Deal, which made him rich but unsatisfied. He went on a quest that he shares in this book.

It’s Tony’s personal search, and he documents it as if writing in a journal (but with plenty of background info), rather than the “impersonal, keep your personal experience out of it” style of journalism.

He begins with Ram Dass and the influence of Eastern religions on America in the 1960s, covers the early days of Esalen, and moves on to brainwaves and biofeedback in Part I, The Pioneers.

I’m currently in the second part, Mind-Body Potentials, reading about Betty Edwards and drawing on the right side of the brain.

This quote got my attention:

As she stood by my side on that final afternoon [of a 5 day “drawing on the right side of the brain” workshop at Harvard], I suddenly understood the powerful impact of Edwards’s continuing encouragement. She creates a nurturing, nonjudgmental environment in which the expectation of success is high and the possibility of failure never enters the picture…. Put another way, the right hemisphere mode is a fragile and elusive state that can easily be overridden by the left hemisphere’s rush to judgment. At the same time, when the left hemisphere faces a challenge that it is ill equipped to meet, Edwards believes that it often simply gives up instead of turning the job over to the right hemisphere.

“We work very hard to thwart that inclination to quit,” Edward told me…. “I think of the left brain as the gatekeeper of the ego. One of its functions is to protect us from being made a fool of. In order to let the right hemisphere come forward and take over, the left hemisphere needs to be reassured that things will turn out okay. That’s what we try to do with our cheerleading. We’re creating a safe environment in which to let go of conscious control.”

One of the biggest changes I notice in myself that I believe comes from meditation is that my right brain is becoming more active. As I’ve mentioned before, whole body awareness is in the domain of the right brain. And it seems true, that the left verbal brain has to be able to let down its guard to experience wholeness. Even if just for brief periods of time at first, to know that it’s actually safe! And not just safe, but a wonderful, unnameable experience!

This is a rich book for seekers of wisdom. I am looking forward to reading about flow, learned optimism, dreams, Ken Wilber, the Enneagram, and his conclusion, entitled The Point Is to Be Real.

I wonder if he’s written anything that updates this book, which is now 15 years old. It seems like he might have something on American teachers like Byron Katie and Gangaji, who use satsang or inquiry to help people grow.

What else? Oh, I imagine he might add something about deeksha. And perhaps something about the recently discovered neuroplasticity of the brain.

What’s cutting edge in the search for wisdom?

Downsizing, simplifying

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Haven’t posted much lately because I have been getting my house ready to sell. There’s been yard work to do outside — pruning and sifting compost — and weeding through stuff inside that I’ve accumulated over 10 years.

I’m ready to downsize and radically simplify my life.

A few friends came over on Sunday and took art, furniture, and more. Lots of stuff went out to the curb for the city’s bulky item pickup, and most of it got picked over by resourceful scavengers long before the city trucks appeared today.

A big pile by the front door, gathered this evening, is waiting for my daughter to see if there’s anything she wants. The rest will go to Goodwill.

I love Goodwill.

This letting go feels so good! Like the more stuff I give away or sell, the  more space (and freedom) I feel in my life. I feel my energy brightening up.

Funny that I didn’t notice stuff weighing me down, holding me back, keeping me stuck — until all of a sudden I felt compelled to simplify.

A good question to bring into my life when it comes to material goods is, “Do I really, really need this?”

I’ve pared back on possessions a couple of times before. Moving is always a good occasion for it. But this time I will have even less stuff accompanying me into my new life.

Because really, how many teacups — with saucers — does one woman really need?

New restorative yoga class, Unwinding

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My new yoga class, Unwinding, meets on Sundays from 5:30 to 7 pm at Oak Hill Oriental Medicine, 7413 Old Bee Caves Road, near the “Y” in Oak Hill.

  • We’ll start with a few sun salutations to warm our bodies up.
  • We’ll hold some strategic stretches to lengthen tight muscles.
  • We’ll segue into deeply relaxing poses.
  • We’ll serve decaf yogi tea afterwards.

This class will focus on easing low back and neck issues as well as releasing stress and restoring health. Many props — blocks, blankets, bolsters, belts, sandbags, and eye pillows — will help us with asanas. You just need to bring your mat and your water bottle.

The fee is $15.