Category Archives: connecting

Keeping the aging body hydrated

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I’ve been a yogi for a long time, and also at various times, I’ve danced, biked, swum, kayaked, walked, hiked, worked with a trainer in a fitness studio, done tai chi and/or qi gong, Pilates… I’m sure there are some activities I’ve forgotten at the moment.

I love it when my body moves well, when I have full range of motion in all my joints and can move with fluidity and enough energy and strength to do these activities and get through my days with a minimum of discomfort.

I practiced the MELT Method at home, subscribing to MELT On Demand, for a while a few years ago. It gave me online access to hundreds of videos focusing on rehydrating my body parts using soft foam rollers and balls and stretchy bands.

Hydration. Rehydration. We are squishy beings. Infants are about 70 percent water, but it declines with age, to maybe 55 percent in the senior years, which is where I am now.

In other words, we kinda dry up with age, and this shows up as stiffness.

You know what? It is not inevitable! And it takes more than just consuming enough fluid.

You want those fluids to get into your soft tissues, into your muscles and fascia, bones and joints, tendons and ligaments.

You know how good you feel after you’ve received a full body massage? Well, the secret to that good feeling is the massage therapist gliding their hands with light or firm pressure on your skin. It redistributes your fluids, which relieves stiffness, aches, and pains.

The MELT Method is hands-OFF bodywork you can do by yourself, at home, with MELT equipment and videos. Sue Hitzmann, bodyworker and self-described gym rat, developed the MELT Method and continues to add to it.

Don’t underestimate Sue because she is in great shape, attractive, perky, and wears fashionable workout wear. She’s also disciplined and brainy. She has a master’s degree in exercise science from NYU. She’s participated in dissections of cadavers to learn more about fascia and belongs to the international Fascia Research Society. She’s worked with some big names in the field of fascia research: Tom Myers, Gil Hedley, Robert Scheip, Jean-Claude Guimberteau.

She is a somatic educator, bringing information and practices you can use to enhance your experience of well-being.

I stopped doing MELT for a while but just re-upped my subscription to MELT On Demand because I was feeling too stiff.

If this interests you, @MELTmethod is a YouTube channel with free material on MELT, no subscription needed.

Here Sue describes how she developed the MELT Method.

Here Sue describes the MELT Method in 3 minutes.

Here is a link to a 10-minute foot treatment. You can do this treatment on one foot and then notice the difference between each side of your body — the side you treated and the one you didn’t.

You’ll get a clear understanding of what rehydration does for you in a way that words simply can’t convey.

In some ways, it’s like reflexology. The sole of the foot maps to the entire body.

If you want to buy the MELT hand and foot therapy balls and just do that, it’s a great start. 10 minutes every day…no more morning stiffness.

As someone who sits still for long periods in my work as a biodynamic craniosacral therapist, I can’t recommend this enough. My work is oriented to fluids and energy in the body. I help my clients experience more ease in their bodies. If I could receive a session every day, I would!

MELT is the next best thing.

100 posts — and what’s next

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This is my 100th post on Biodynamic Meditation!

Just back from 4 days in Big Bend National Park, with the big sky, desert, mountains, river, hot springs, ravens, Mexican jays, javelinas, and numerous trails.

And most of all, quality time spent with my beloved 22-year-old granddaughter, Hannah.

And…it’s great to be back home, in my own bed, with comfort, solitude, and time to sit.

After over 3 months of daily meditations, when I start sitting, things start happening…perceptions of radiance at my face, the motions of the Tide, the vitality of my life force swirling within.

I remember when I started doing yoga (asanas) 40 years ago. At some point after my practice became habit, I realized I didn’t just DO yoga, I WAS (and still AM) yoga. It was in me.

Same now. I AM the radiance, the Tide, the swirliness, the health. It’s in me, and it’s in you too, and I can help you find it, if that is your desire.

So…I will continue my practice but won’t be posting so much about it. I will be reviewing my posts (I started on 11/11/22), exploring ways of teaching it, as one-to-one private sessions now, and later as a guided meditation/yoga nidra, for small groups, and whatever else emerges.

Thank you for checking out my posts on this inquiry. Please stay in touch! Links are in my Instagram bio.

#biodynamicmeditation #craniosacralbiodynamics #craniosacraltherapy #craniosacral #biodynamiccraniosacraltherapy #bcst #radianceatmyface #tide #swirliness #perception #love #vitality #lifeforce #teaching #practice

Happy Valentine’s Day!

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Busy day ahead, three sessions in two locations and a yoga class, so this post will be short and sweet.

Happy Valentine’s Day to everyone who loves, is loving, lovable, who cares about others.

The heart chakra is the most powerful chakra of all, extending at least 3 feet out.

I’m taking a class, The Resilient Heart: Trauma-Sensitive HeartMath Training and Certification.

To become more heart centered, breathe as if your heart is doing the breathing, breathing in and out with your heart center.

It really activates that chakra.

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.

I dreamed I was pregnant

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I dreamed that I was pregnant, and that I was preparing to go into labor with lots of support, even from people far away whom I didn’t know.

I am preparing to teach Biodynamic Meditation, and this is a good omen!

My Biodynamic Meditation this morning started with my posture, then breathing physiological sighs (sniff sniff ahhhh) until I yawned.

Radiance at my face. Then sensing the Tide ascending and descending my central energy channel.

Spacing out (heard the first mockingbird of the year singing outside — joy!).

Noticing the Tide had gotten swirly and was investigating various areas: abdomen, sacrum, throat without settling long anywhere.

I decided to pose a question to the healing energy: If you could find the most optimal place for healing in my system today, the place that’s most ready to heal, where would you go?

It settled in my spine in the mid-thoracic region and stayed there.

It was still there when my timer went off after 45 minutes, but it didn’t feel “done” so I waited 5 more minutes until it felt done.

Sometimes “done” is clearly done, and sometimes it’s “done for today”. I will find out which as the day progresses.

I have a slight reverse S curve in my spine, and this is a place where the vertebrae shift directions. I’ve been doing PT exercises for months to straighten my spine…

Yes, you can communicate with the healing energy. In my experience, it takes time to build energetic rapport with it, to develop trust and familiarity.

Even now, when I ask it a question, sometimes it doesn’t answer, and sometimes it consents…by simply doing.

It doesn’t speak English, but it understands intent.

It’s mysterious! So much more to learn! This communication comes after a lot of listening.

It might be Biodynamic Meditation 201 or 301. I’m focusing more on preparing to teach 101 now.

Locating and healing stuck fear in my body

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I woke early, not sure when, still dark, though.

It happens.

I’ve listened to multiple Yoga Nidra/NSDR meditations on YouTube to help me get back to sleep, enough to improvise one for myself.

So I did! I included my chakras and central energy channel as well as breath and body parts, and indeed, went back to sleep until daylight.

Hmm. New idea for teaching Biodynamic Meditation in person!

So when I did my own Biodynamic Meditation, I was already primed.

By the second physiological sigh, I sensed radiance at my face. By the third, my central energy channel with Tide.

A cranial stillpoint came on. Then swirliness.

Then I felt a steady sensation of coolness in my abdomen. At first it was larger, and as I stayed with it, it became smaller.

I don’t know what’s going on, except that there is a holding pattern there that feels old that I haven’t noticed before.

Our bodies hold so much history.

It seems related to fear. Stuck fear.

It didn’t unwind or dissolve today, but the healing energy showed it to me and gave it more healing resources.

I’m wondering if this will be a new focus in future sessions, the way my cranial bones and pelvis — sites of multiple injuries — have.

This is day 87, practicing Biodynamic Meditation. The sun is shining on a lot of tree damage in the Austin area, and power is coming back on for many. My office park is without power or water… I look forward to working when it’s restored.

Photo of Florida sunrise by Eric Towler, photographer and Zen friend.

Jittery about the election? Here are some simple things you can do to reduce stress

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I recently completed a 4-hour continuing education class in Ethics, Communication, and Boundaries through the Lens of the Nervous System. The instructor based this course around applying polyvagal theory in a massage therapy practice.

I want to share some simple things that anyone can use to reduce stress, because many of us may be feeling jumpy and tense, especially with an election approaching. 

Experiment with these and find your favorites — and use them as needed when your stress response is activated! 

  • Making your exhalations longer than your inhalations for a couple of minutes.
  • Singing and humming. 
  • Orienting to the space you’re in by slowly gazing all around you. 
  • Lifting your gaze and imagining the sun shining on your face, neck, and shoulders. 
  • Finding something that’s pleasing and telling yourself “I am safe and happy”. 
  • Making micro movements, dancing, doing yoga. 
  • Listening to calming music. 

Do you find yourself doing any of these without a thought? My mother often hummed when she was washing dishes.

Music and dancing are important parts of my life. I created a playlist of happy music with the help of numerous friends on Facebook who made recommendations. I’m capping it at 100 songs and will post a link to it on Apple Music when I’ve finished listening to everything…a lot of it was new to me.

I have noticed already that some of the happiest-making songs are about dancing!

 

Becoming the one

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I have been single for a very, very long time. In fact, since before I turned 30…and I’m 60-something now.

I’ve had relationships, and I’ve also gone for long periods without being in a relationship. Child raising as a single working mother, graduate school, trauma recovery, helping raise my grandchild — sometimes I just didn’t have the time or the energy, or simply preferred solitude, which I benefit from greatly but never got enough of until recent years.

Got to know myself, appreciate myself, entertain myself, live life my way in peace and contentment.

As an introvert (but since people are sometimes shocked that I test as one, maybe I’m an ambivert, sharing qualities of introverts and extroverts), I actually enjoy my own company. I like making good connections with people. I have a few close friends and lot of friendly acquaintances. And I still prefer to spend part of each day in solitude.

I had a couple of relationships in 2019 with men in their late 40s that were fun at times but didn’t work out. Thank you, next, as the song goes.

COVID upended my sense that I never got enough alone time. When the world pretty much stopped in March 2020, I could not practice my work as a licensed massage therapist.

Remember that back then, we didn’t know how bad it might get. I did my end-of-life paperwork, wondering if COVID was going to take me out.

I felt deeply grateful for the people in my life, especially my family and closest friends.

I was at home with myself 24/7. I wore a mask to visit family members, one of whom worked in a hospital, because of my age. We knew then that COVID was harder on older people, but not why. I didn’t want to die or be hospitalized from COVID.

(Fast forward to now, October 2022. I still haven’t gotten COVID. I take good care of myself, am vaxxed and boosted, and I wonder if I’m immune.)

I had a gentleman friend with whom I spent time during COVID. He is a sweet, funny, heart-centered guy, and I was very grateful for his company, sense of humor, hugs, and stories. We are in a couple of communities together and share some interests.

At times I wondered if our friendship would evolve into something deeper, but it didn’t. There were so many unknowns then. I was pro-vax. He was on the fence. Our personalities were different: we were just not a partnership match. We simply gave each other much-needed support and are still good friends to each other.

Now that COVID seems like it’s mostly over (but who really knows?), I am re-evaluating, exploring whether and how I want to be in a relationship — a long-term, committed, partnership type of relationship.

I’m not in a hurry…there’s a lot to explore. I am learning a lot about myself.

I’m reading a book, Calling in “the one”, by Katherine Woodward Thomas, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

Guess who “the one” is? It me.

This book was recommended by a therapist, and one friend told me she used it and then met the man who became her husband.

The book is actually a workbook, with homework, that, if you do it every day, takes 7 weeks to complete. I’m doing it as I have time because some days are busier than others and I’d rather explore this topic thoroughly.

In a way, it’s about examining the barriers I have built against loving and being loved. It is guiding me through explorations of my wounds, agreements, beliefs, identity, intention, and wisdom that influence relating.

What are my needs in relationship? How can I make more space for love in my life? How can I know, respect, and love myself the way I’d want a partner to? How can I be the one for someone who has also done their work and is a good match? How can I be the one for myself?

I can live and am living a very fulfilling life already, in many ways. I love the work I do and plan to keep doing it as long as circumstances allow, even into my 90s if I am blessed with that much health and longevity.

I have family members nearby who no longer need me to mother them but whose adult company I enjoy tremendously. And I am fortunate enough to have a few really good friends that are interesting and loving people.

I do believe that having a partner who’s able to match me in needs for both intimacy and autonomy, communication skills, with whom I share some key interests, who’s actually available, could add even more fulfillment to the rest of my life.

So…I’m stepping out of my cocoon, dipping into the dating pool.

I’ll keep you posted.

10 years after she died, a tribute to Gabrielle Roth

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One of my practices is ecstatic dance. I discovered it in 1995 in Austin, and it became part of my life. Gabrielle was my primary teacher, through teachers she trained and also in person.

Gabrielle was, well, not the inventor of ecstatic dance, since I’m pretty sure it was happening the moment humans began creating rhythm, perhaps even before then in response to nature’s rhythms, shapes, sounds.

She named these rhythms and sequenced them: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, stillness. A wave.

If you’re not familiar with it, ecstatic dance is not performative. It is about connecting with your own body, moving from the inside out. We dance like nobody is watching.

I have danced with several of the people in this video: Kathy, Lori, Andrea, Vincent, Ya’acov, Jo, Michael, Amara, and I met Robert.

Watch Gabrielle move at the end.

and then I met Gabrielle | memories of Gabrielle Roth, 1941-2012

Most of my ecstatic dancing has been here in Austin, which offers many choices now, though we started as Sweat Your Prayers, dancing the 5 rhythms.

I’ve danced in Dallas, Santa Fe, Taos, Mill Valley, Santa Cruz, Maui, London, Montreal, and DC.

My primary teachers have been Claire Alexander, Lisa DeLand, and Oscar Madera.

Ecstatic dance helped me get into my body and move in an authentic and pleasurable way, challenging myself to find all the movements, developing finer coordination and balance, being able to hold my space in a room full of dancers, connecting, becoming part of a community.

Over these many years through this practice, I developed an auditory-kinesthetic synesthesia, in which sound and movement are one. It gives me a lot of satisfaction to tune into my body and let what wants to move, move.

Dancers enjoy the fun of dancing. It’s not intellectual. It’s not serious. We are present and full of vitality, aware and responsive. We show up with who we are. We communicate nonverbally, inviting another to move with us, or moving into our own solo dance, with eye contact (or lack of it), using prayer hands, touch (with consent), bows, moving toward or away, expressing with body language.

We tend to hug a lot, and we’re pretty good at it.

I’m so grateful to have found ecstatic dance and to have practiced it for nearly 30 years. I believe it’s helping to keep me young, and the older I get, the younger I get!

👣💚🙏🏽

For more of Gabrielle herself, she spoke at length at the Breath of Life Conference in London in 2009, to practitioners of another one of my practices, Craniosacral Biodynamics.

Here’s the video.

Do you have TMJ issues?

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Treating them is one of my professional specialties! I would love to share with my wellness blog readers (you!) a page from my professional website.

Learn more about TMJ issues currently includes articles on these topics:

  • Learn to treat your own TMJ issues on Zoom
  • You can learn to stop clenching
  • Stop grinding your teeth during sleep
  • The importance of a good pillow
  • Portrait of a typical patient
  • Types and causes of TMJ issues, and exercises
  • What various professions do to help
  • Choose a practitioner that works on specific muscles
  • The link between restless leg syndrome and sleep bruxism
  • The jaw-pelvis connection
  • Foods and nutrients that can make a difference
  • The role of the sphenoid bone
  • Music and meditation to heal the throat chakra
  • Asymmetries in the rest of the body can affect jaw alignment