Category Archives: change

Business travel tips for introverts

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I started a training course in the fall of 2021 that involves making 10 trips to Washington, DC, from Austin, TX. The training was actually in Silver Spring, a suburb.

I was very enthused about working with this teacher! And…I didn’t think much about all the travel, not ever having had to do much business travel back in those olden days.

The first trip was adventurous! I took the Metro and visited museums on the Mall on an extra day. I stayed in a crappy AirBnB that was close to the training so I could walk.

The second trip I stayed in a nice rowhouse in Columbia Heights and took the Metro to class each day. I visited the Phillips Collection, a good art museum, on my extra day.

On the third trip, I stayed in an AirBnB in Silver Spring where the owner (who did not live there) had gone crazy with a label maker.

Oh, yes, you could find “BOWELS” on a shelf in a kitchen cabinet.

I took the Metro to the Mall and walked to the Lincoln Memorial when the cherry trees were first starting to bloom. It was cold and windy, and I wore myself out, but I’m glad I did it.

On my fourth trip, I burned out. I’d been in a high speed car accident a couple of months before, and I’m convinced that even though I wasn’t seriously injured, going from 65 mph to 0 quickly and getting “spine-lash” is not something the human body is designed to bounce back from. It’s taken PT for my body and many months off body/energy work and breathwork and meditation for my nervous system to recover. I’m still taking Cortisol Manager. It’s been almost a year.

And there’s more… I’d planned to arrive a day early, but my one-stop flight ended in Oklahoma City because of bad weather in DC, and I unexpectedly had to book a hotel room and then be at the airport at 4 am to get a three-stop flight to DC. I was in six airports in two days on next to no sleep. I was tired when I got to DC, and things didn’t improve much.

I had signed up for a 3-day training right before my regular 4-day class. I learned that 7 days in a row in a classroom doesn’t work well for me. I love learning, but I need time to rest, to move, to sleep well, and to integrate.

And more… The Supreme Court overturning of Roe v. Wade happened the first day of class. I read articles that night about the white supremacist, anti-LGBTQ intent of the new conservative majority, which felt threatening to my beautiful rainbow family’s integrity, and it was happening right there in DC.

And still more… The AirBnB I stayed in seemed haunted, in hindsight. The location was good, but day by day, I felt lonelier and more depleted, and I simply did not want to be there. I couldn’t tell if “there” was in that AirBnB, in the training, in DC, or on the planet. I felt empathy with Anthony Bourdain’s suicide. He probably just wanted out.

Being not suicidal, I later wondered whether in my depleted state, I was picking up energies from a previous occupant of that basement apartment who’d been depressed and suicidal.

I went home earlier than I’d planned, drained.

Business travel is not like going to Maui. I thought about dropping out. I stayed home and did the fifth class on video.

Given time, I recovered and went back to DC for the sixth training, staying in a hostel in Adams-Morgan, which I liked better than most of the AirBnBs, again taking the Metro to and from class. I got a couple of nice walks in every day getting to and from the DuPont Circle station.

I enjoyed the hostel. It has dorm rooms with privacy curtains around each bunk and a shared bathroom. Sometimes there’s a happy hour with games. The staff and guests are young, vibrant people who come from many places. The staff knows the neighborhood well and are very friendly and helpful.

There’s a free washer and dryer with detergent and dryer sheets, as well as a big, fully equipped kitchen to cook in.

I also treated myself to a floatation tank session one evening during this sixth trip. It was a great reset.

I was curious about other introverts traveling for business, and fortuitously, the wife of a member of my spiritual book group, Laura, sat next to me at our annual December potluck dinner. I knew Laura was an introvert who had to do a lot of business travel for her consulting job, and I asked her for tips for introverts doing business travel.

Here’s what she kindly shared with me:

The key is to reduce stress by making everything as close to your home routines as possible.

Think about when you are ready to face the world each day, and schedule your departure to the airport for after that time.

Book flights far enough in advance to get desirable nonstop mid-day flights (or at least less time in transit) and make the whole day a travel day. It’s way less stressful.

She advised packing everything into one carry-on and one personal item to avoid waiting at baggage claim. She re-wears or washes clothes.

I haven’t done this yet, but it’s appealing. My big bag that I’ve been checking is heavy for someone not quite five feet tall, and baggage claim can be very slow and crowded, not to mention managing the big bag on the Metro.

She recommended staying at the same place. For her, it’s always the same hotel chain, because the layout and rooms are similar no matter where they’re located.

I’m traveling and training on my own dime and can’t afford hotels. Don’t really like them anyway…so impersonal and corporate and don’t feel very fresh.

If I can’t find an affordable nice AirBnB near the training on my remaining trips, the hostel is my next best choice.

Laura advised ordering food delivered from Whole Foods and eating what I’d eat at home.

That works for me. Having a kitchen to cook in is a big plus. I cook for myself most of the time at home, knowing the ingredients are healthy and my food is made with love.

Not to mention, dining out has gotten expensive.

Laura advised setting toiletries out in the bathroom the same way you do at home, and putting clothes in drawers and the closet the same way you would at home.

If your meeting starts on Monday, and you fly in on Saturday, spend Sunday relaxing and reading a good book.

Laura also advised not joining extroverted colleagues in evening activities after workday meetings. Since we introverts recharge our batteries in solitude, make sure you get enough alone time to fully recharge after a day of being in meetings or training with others. It’s also good to reconnect with loved ones back home every evening on the phone.

I got lucky for my seventh class and found an AirBnB on the same block as my training. I could walk to Whole Foods to get groceries, cook for myself, and walk to class with ease. I brought matcha, frother, and add-ins from home.

It was a spare bedroom in a high-rise apartment complex. I saw some gorgeous sunsets from there and a cherry tree in full bloom on my block. My host was someone nice to chat with a few times, and I had privacy. I felt safe and comfortable, staying with her.

I only used Uber to get to and from the airport and never used the Metro this trip. That helped reduce wear and tear quite a bit.

I’m probably not as introverted as she is, because I joined a few of my classmates on Friday night at an ecstatic dance in DC. Since it’s nonverbal movement, it didn’t drain me. It gave me some satisfaction to move exuberantly after so much sitting all week. I blew off a lot of steam.

I slept well that night and returned to Austin the next day. This was the easiest trip so far.

Only three more to go.

What would you add, if you’re an introvert who travels for work or training?

Whole body awareness with HeartMath sensor: 88 percent high coherence!

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I did something different in my Biodynamic Meditation this morning.

I stayed with whole body awareness during my 45-minute session.

I didn’t put much effort into labeling what was happening.

I just felt my life force moving within my body and field, and it felt great.

And wow! So much life force moving within me!

I noticed how pleasurable it was to simply be aware of my life force energy for that entire period of time.

I clipped my HeartMath sensor to my earlobe and set up the Inner Balance app for a session again.

I was in high coherence 88 percent of the time today.

I could see on the report that HeartMath displays after completing a session how my coherence fluctuated. It’s never a straight line. It is always changing.

I just signed up for a HeartMath training called The Resilient Heart: Trauma-Sensitive HeartMath Certification. I so love learning how we can influence the autonomic nervous system since there’s just so much unhealthy stress in most of our lives.

Let’s change that. Change that, change the world.

Re-Sourcing for change and challenges ahead

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“Life and death are of supreme importance. Time swiftly passes by and opportunity is lost. Each of us should strive to awaken. Awaken. Take heed, do not squander your life.” ~ Dogen Zenji

This quote from Dogen has stayed with me from my early Zen days, and I’m finding it handy when life presents challenges.

Yesterday I learned that I may need to find a new place to live in the coming months.

This morning, my adored one messaged he’d started having symptoms of COVID. I’ve been exposed. I’ve escaped it so far, one of the few.

Here I sit with change, hoping for the best outcomes on all counts, holding confidence in that.

My Biodynamic Meditation was deep. Breaths, posture, radiance at my face, Tide in central energy channel. Healing energy in pelvis, heart center, ajna chakra, balancing my instinctive, emotional, and mental centers.

The healing energy knows I need to be resourceful. It knows!

Sometimes in Craniosacral Biodynamics sessions, the practitioner’s head involuntarily nods, from brainwaves heading into delta territory.

That happened, too. Delta, change.

To witness healing, be present and get out of the way

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Feeling grateful this morning, for creation. For you, me, life.

My Biodynamic Meditation today: physiological sighs, settling into sitting posture, noticing tidal motion in central energy channel, monkey mind thinking, healing energy focusing for a bit in abdomen, then longer at cranium.

The sensations today in my cranium were not of bones subtly becoming more aligned, but of the dura mater at my temples and behind my forehead shifting, optimizing.

It’s still happening as I write, this incremental nature of healing.

We are made of energy patterns that shift in response to experience. Healing is about both being present and also getting out of the way to allow our patterns to optimize.

We get to witness this in Biodynamic Meditation.

Craniosacral therapy helps with insomnia

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I’ve been giving a lot of Biodynamic Craniosacral Therapy sessions since returning from some advanced training at the beginning of October.

I’ve also done some trades with other Biodynamics practitioners.

I love this modality of bodywork/energywork. It seems to me to be a natural extension of both bodywork and meditation: it involves light touch, perception, stillness.

I’ve found it is especially helpful for insomnia. I’ve experienced better sleep after I receive a session, and my clients report the same, even those who have difficulty falling asleep as well as difficulty staying asleep.

It helps with both.

One thing we do know about how it works is that it has a calming effect on the central nervous system — the brain and spinal cord — deep in the body.

CST is thought to improve efficiency of biological processes through boosting inherent self-regulation, self-correction and self-healing.

The Cleveland Clinic

By stimulating the rest and recovery systems of the body, the subtle work of CST allows the body to re-source its powers of rehabilitation and revival.

Craniosacral Therapy Association, UK

Craniosacral therapy

After the Texas freezepocalypse…

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I’m working in my office one day per week (Tuesdays) and have since September. I took 6 months off because of COVID, and it’s almost 6 months since I’ve been back.

Working one day a week means that my workday is full with no gaps between appointments. This is time-efficient for me since I have a 30-minute commute each way (barring rush hour, which can take 20 minutes longer).

Although I optimize my road time by listening to relaxing music or audiobooks or podcasts, honestly, I’d rather not be in the car that much.

I’ve had one dose of the Pfizer vaccine with the second scheduled for later this month. My system should reach maximum COVID immunity on April 7, and at that time I will add another day in my office, Wednesdays. I’ll continue to add days as my time in the office fills up.

I’m seeing a lot of people coming in for craniosacral therapy. It’s so good for stress, and the pandemic and recession and political insanity have taken their tolls. You may have heard something about the polar vortex reaching Texas in mid-February, creating what’s being called “snowmageddon” and “freezepocalypse” because of the electrical grid nearly going down.

There was a lot of uncertainty with that. Even for those who came through it with little discomfort (including me), no one knew if they would lose power or how long it would be out, or if their pipes would freeze or burst, or if they would have food and water.

Temps got down to 4-8 degrees F in this area and stayed below freezing for 4-5 days. Usually if our winter temps go below freezing, it gets down to maybe 28 for a few hours. So homes aren’t built for cold. We have no snow plows. We sand icy bridges, and businesses and schools and offices close, and that’s it. “Snow day”.

So…lots of stress means lots of clients for me. I’m offering a discount now, which helps make craniosacral therapy affordable for more people. And we’re still taking full COVID precautions. And because of the downtime, I’ve been able to study in more depth both Upledger and biodynamics styles of CST.

I spent 8 days with my family during the freeze, and it was wonderful, 5 of us under the same roof, cooking, watching WandaVision (which I liked although Avengers fans had to explain the backstory to me), Servant (which I didn’t enjoy), enjoying each other’s company. One member has 4WD but not much was open. Cats, dogs, guinea pigs. Laughter.

I did miss the silence of my solitary abode, where birdsong is the soundtrack, but I was out of propane to cook with, and it was cold. My pipes froze but didn’t burst, and my electric bill will probably be enormous.

And now it’s spring, just like that, with highs ranging from 60 to 80.

We’re taking stock of the freeze damage to the plants. My Meyer lemon tree is probably a goner but I’m going to wait before doing any cutting. My spinach, collards, parsley, cilantro, carrots, onions, lettuce, and fennel made it through with frost damage, but chard and beets, snap peas, fenugreek didn’t.

The live oaks look bad but will probably recover. Palm trees, agaves, cacti, nope.

I’m doing a lot of MELT method sessions to help my body recover from a low back injury last fall when I tried to lift too much. Because some yoga poses were prohibited, I decided to give up yoga classes and to do MELT at home this year. It’s so good at helping the body to release compensatory tension patterns from injury and lack of use (being sedentary or workouts that don’t work the whole body).

I have a way to go but the pain is much less and my range of motion in all my joints has improved a lot.

Although the governor of Texas has declared Texas 100% open for business and ended the mask requirement, all the major grocery and superstores are requiring them, although how good enforcement (which usually falls to low-paid but somehow essential workers) will be remains to be seen.

Texas is something like 47th among states in getting its population vaccinated, and Houston is the only city in the nation with all 5 variants of COVID.

What? What was he thinking? Diversion from the near-crash of the electric grid and dozens of deaths and billions in damages resulting from that? Because of policies recommended during past less-serious strains on the grid but never enacted, to keep Texas attractive (cheap) to businesses? Because he appointed the members of the Public Utility Commission, which oversees ERCOT (whose board is mainly people he appointed)? Because most of the cities in Texas are Democratic — although GOP gerrymandering and voter suppression are what keeps them in power? To slap President Biden in the face after he quickly released FEMA funds to the state (in the minimal amount Abbott requested) with no questions asked?

I’m pretty sure only Republicans will be attending mask-burning parties, before they are even vaccinated. I’m pretty sure that businesses who thought Texas was a good place to do business are having second thoughts.

Time will tell, but this extreme partisanship and lack of sensible governing could sure tilt Texas blue again. I’m ready for it.

New offering: Self-Help for Jaw Pain, an online course, starts soon!

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Besides blogging here, I have had a private bodywork practice in Austin, Texas, USA, for years.

One area that I specialized in was relieving jaw pain. I developed a 5-session protocol (done over 4-6 weeks) that helped hundreds of people over the years. That work included working in people’s open mouths to release tension in the small, hard-to-access internal jaw muscles.

Well, COVID put an end to working in people’s open mouths in a small room, in a office suite that treats medically vulnerable people.

I thought about giving it up.

But when I thought about all I’d learned over the years about treating jaw pain, and how much pleasure I got when people felt the difference between tense jaw muscles and spacious ones, I looked for a way to continue to offer the revelation of a spacious jaw that so many patients experienced.

Plus, at this unusual time in history, stress levels are high, which translates to more clenching, grinding, tooth damage, and pain.

So I put together a 5-class course, Self-Help for Jaw Pain, that I will teach over Zoom.

The first class starts Thursday, Sept. 24, and will be a small class. A few spaces are left.

If you’re interested, please check out my business website. There are multiple options available for your participation:

  • A jaw pain quiz
  • A Facebook group for people with jaw pain (and those who treat it), Word of Mouth
  • A free phone consultation
  • Sign up for the class

Self-Help for Jaw Pain course coming soon

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Update: The website is up for this online course: maryannreynolds.com.

~~~

It’s been a while since I posted here.

I am well. Adjusting to these strange times.

I hope you are well and adjusting too.

Current Austin stats: over 22,000 cases, 287 deaths. The number of daily positive cases has declined from over 700 in June to less than half that since late July.

Austin appears to be doing better than other large Texas cities.

I am still not doing bodywork.

That just doesn’t feel safe any more, especially given that more than half the sessions I gave included working inside the mouth.

That’s very risky in these times.

So…I’ve been working on creating an online course, Self-Help for Jaw Pain. It will be a 5-class series offered on Zoom. I hope to get going in September. ]

Courtesy webmd.com.

The coolest thing about the class is that I don’t know that it’s ever been done before: a course that teaches people with pain and tension in their jaws to work on themselves, working inside their own mouths to release tension in the never-touched but overworked internal jaw muscles.

That is often a revelation, based on my experience of having given over 500 TMJ Relief sessions and consultations since 2018. (I started doing intra-oral sessions in 2013 but switched from paper to electronic records in 2018 and haven’t sorted my records from 2013 through 2017.)

The course will also address factors that predispose people to experience jaw pain: strain patterns, stress, and habits such as clenching and grinding.

Changing these habits will keep jaw pain from progressing.

I’ve worked on so many people (who’ve paid way more than this class costs) who have lived with jaw pain for a decade or longer.

This kind of suffering is optional.

Please help spread the word.

The first class will be limited to 8 students and will be offered at a low price, so I can learn and tweak It as needed.

I will post more here when I’m a bit further along in course development.

Anyone with jaw pain who’s interested can also check out my Facebook group, Word of Mouth: Resources for Relieving Jaw Pain/Dysfunction.

Using “energy hands” in a distance healing session

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When I started doing distance sessions at the beginning of the COVID lockdown in March, I would feel energy pouring out of my hands just as I would when doing bodywork with someone in my office, even though the receivers were sometimes in other states.

I didn’t know what to do with it at first with no body in front of me, but I definitely understood it was an indication of me being in a resourced state for healing.

In the 27-hour intensive course I just completed in Long Distance Healing, the instructors called this phenomenon “energy hands”.

Courtesy of namastest.net.

It’s fairly common for bodyworkers to experience this energy flowing out their hands, especially when the type of bodywork they practice includes deep listening with their hands, as do craniosacral therapy and Reiki, or if they are also trained in some types of yoga or meditation that cultivate this kind of awareness.

(By the way, distance healing is not craniosacral therapy, which always includes physical touch, and some craniosacral skills transfer over to distance healing.)

With my distance receivers, I started placing my energized hands on the area of the body the receiver had identified as wanting attention.

Paying attention is the most basic and profound expression of love.

Tara Brach

Usually an identified area is experiencing some form of disconnect from the healthier parts of the body. It’s not necessary to recall the original reason for disconnecting, and in fact the mind may get in the way, but it may help to understand that your intelligent body-mind system was working to protect the rest of you when something happened (physical or emotional or both) in that area, and you may not need that protection any longer. The energy involved in keeping the identified area separate and contained can be freed and returned to the whole system.

Receivers said they would begin to feel changing sensations in the identified area: for example, the area would change shape or temperature, pain would lessen or disappear, tension would soften, and sensations would become more diffuse, possibly move to another area, or even bounce around (“Hey, you’re finally looking at me! Yippee!”).

Although our bodies are constantly healing themselves below our level of awareness, in these sessions, receivers often sense the healing as it occurs.

To be clear, I don’t heal you. Your own cellular intelligence is the healing power. I show up for you in a resourced state (built on years of yoga, meditation, and studies in how healing works), which your system can entrain to. I show up with presence, curiosity, and support, as an ally and a witness, with an intent (shared with you) for healing to take place, but no agenda about how that will happen, because it’s your body, your history, your awareness, and your healing. I just facilitate.

I have not yet worked with anyone who did not experience a change for the better. I’ve worked with people trying their first energy healing session after Western medicine was unable to explain or treat their issue without drugs, and I’ve worked with people who are deeply aware somatically.

Courtesy of psychiclibrary.com.

We practiced with partners during the training, placing energy hands on our partner’s shoulders and having them say when they felt them and whether they wanted the touch to be more intense or diffuse, and then disconnecting and switching partners.

We also did this with the adrenals, which pump stress hormones into our systems, since most of us are feeling some stress and anxiety because of COVID, the economy, our culture, the future, etc.

When my partner held my adrenals, after about a minute, I felt my autonomic nervous system down-regulate into a deeper parasympathetic (rest and digest) state. That’s another benefit of working with energy hands. I can put my energy hands inside your body, not just on the skin.

I want to do more distance healing sessions. These sessions are collaborative, empowering, use a lot of dialogue, and are based on consent. I cannot do anything to you that you do not allow.

If you’re wondering what it’s about and would like to try it, I’m offering sessions on a donation basis for a limited time. Look at what it’s worth to you, what you can afford, and donate accordingly.

I know some readers are skeptical. After half an hour, if you don’t think it’s doing anything for you, we will end the session without your donation.

Click here to schedule a session.

If you’d like to talk first, you can schedule a 15-minute phone consultation.

Click here to schedule a phone consultation.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Testimonial for a distance healing session

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Another review after a distance healing session. This woman was the first recipient I’d never met before. She lives in Indiana and was referred to me by a former client who moved there from the Austin area.

Before this session, I had a strong hunch that the distance apart doesn’t really matter, nor does having met someone in person. This confirmed it.

“I am fairly new to energy work and had been in a good amount of pain when I contacted Mary Ann. Through a distance energy healing session, she guided me through a process of understanding my pain and communicating with it in a way that brought me a lot of relief. She also taught me how to continue using these techniques on my own. Because it was a distance session, Mary Ann and I communicated throughout the process and she brought me into the experience in a way that was extremely empowering!” ~ N.V., 5/6/2020

For more of what people are saying, check out this page on my website.

To schedule a session with me, click here.

Thank you for your interest. 🙏🏽