Category Archives: gratitude

Bodywork and TRE update

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Yesterday I learned something: there is such a thing as too much bodywork.

I had an early appointment with Chandler Collins, DC, who did applied kinesiology on me. I’d been having some nerve pain down my outer left leg. He made it feel better. That was about 20 minutes.

At 11, I had two hours with Bo Boatwright. We talked and then did some tablework. We did the stretching myofascial release on my hips, and then he spent a good amount of time doing reiki on my left sacroiliac joint. Just quietly holding. I had some shaking in my left arm. Then a lot of neck work.

That is, if I’m remembering right. You’ve heard of “sex haze”? There seems to be such a thing as a bodywork haze, because when I showed up for my appointment with Fran Bell at 1:30, she took a good look at me and could tell I couldn’t integrate much more.

She taught me an exercise using a stability ball, worked on me, woke me up to being more present. We talked, then she got out her pendulum and had me lie on the table. She checked — my chakras were still, not spinning. (Heck, I can’t tell. All I know is how open they are.)

So she did more work with me on the table, and left me there to integrate it. I dipped down into delta waves for I don’t know how long. My chakras were spinning after that, energy reaching at least a couple of feet out.

Advised me to look at tree trunks and go home and take a nap.

It has hardly ever happened that my appointments line up on a single day like that. A few times I’ve seen two healers, but never three.

You really do need time after bodywork to integrate it and get the most out of it. Take a nap or do simple things — gazing at a landscape, walking at a leisurely pace, making a salad, playing with a child, listening to music — not reading, working on a computer, or watching anything intense on TV or movies. 

~~

This morning I did the trauma releasing exercises, which I haven’t done for a few weeks.

Wow. I had an entirely new pattern come up. After shaking of legs, pelvis, arms, shoulders, and neck while lying with knees bent, soles on floor, I straightened my legs. Usually that puts an end to the shaking.

Not today.

My legs wanted to shake while lying straightened on the floor. They even came off the floor for a bit. Then they shook with my heels as pivots. My feet and legs rocked right and left in unison, like windshield wipers. They moved pointing out-in-out-in in unison. They moved forward and back in unison. Sometimes just my knees lifted and lowered repeatedly.

Some of these are Trager-like movements. (I’m barely familiar with Trager but remember that. My astrologer mentioned recently that she was certified in Trager and referred me to someone if I’m ready to experience it.)

When my body stops shaking, I lie still, not knowing if I’m done. Usually, more shaking arises.

I like to give my body the space and invitation to release what needs releasing. When nothing is forthcoming, just being still seems to give the deeper tensions time and permission to release. 

It wasn’t intense shaking when my legs were straight. The most intensity came from my arms and my legs with feet flat on floor. The rest of it was mild to moderate.

~~

I am hoping to start Level I training in TRE later this summer. After completing it, I’ll be able to do sessions with individuals.

Thank you, readers, for over 10,000 views

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I checked my blog stats today, and it looks like sometime on Thursday, I passed 10,000 views of my blog, a milestone for sure in the past year and a half of blogging.

I also had my best two days ever this past week, 108 views on Monday and 116 views on Tuesday.

Thank you. I’m feeling like I have become a bit successful at blogging. I’m not just foolin’ around any more.

I have a few ideas about getting better too (most of which involve learning from someone whose blog I admire to get tips and techniques for better design and graphics).

Some of the most viewed pages, besides the home page (which changes with every new post), over the last 30 days include:

The most used search terms over the last 30 days include variants on “spartan trailer,” “trauma releasing exercises,” “cave of forgotten dreams,” “byron katie website,” “buddha’s brain review,” “maryann reynolds blog,” “effortless wellbeing,” and “fran bell”. 

Some of the more interesting search terms that led readers to my blog were:

  • “why do i feel pain in parts of my body”
  • “the right side of the brain is hit the left side of the body is affected”
  • “don’t meditate”
  • “is tim ferris into yoga?”
  • “jobs that are not corporate not sedentary”
Some of these might make good topics for posts. Tim Ferriss, are you listening?
Anyway, I just want to say thanks again for checking out my blog, reading stuff, leaving comments. I appreciate you stopping by.

108 blog views yesterday! Thank you!

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Not long after I started my blog, in February 2010, I had my best day in terms of readers ever — my blog got 89 views.

That day was totally an anomaly. I was averaging 6 views a day those first couple of months, except for that one day. Sometimes WordPress features a blog, and a lot of people look at it. That’s all I can figure.

Yesterday, May 23, 2011, I finally surpassed that record. I had 108 views (auspicious number!). There’s a lot of interest in my posts about the Herzog film The Cave of Forgotten Dreams and in a post on being gluten-free that I also posted a link to on Gluten-Free Girl’s blog.

Several readers read posts about reiki and Fran Bell.

There’s continuing interest in shaking medicine and trauma releasing exercises.

Also, a lot of people are finding my blog these days searching on “spartan trailer” or something similar. That topic (housing) is not really related to the rest of my blog, except in terms of lifestyle design. Moving into a trailer is an experiment for me.

I’m thinking about starting a separate blog about the trailer but feeling uncertain if I have the energy to keep up two blogs. I’m fixin’ to get busy with my return to school.

So maybe I’ll just post photos of the trailer when it gets here (hopefully within two weeks) and as I repair and renovate it, and post the link here. I’ll let y’all know what I decide.

My blog has been getting over 50 views a day for weeks now. It’s very gratifying! My writing has improved with practice, and more kindred spirits around the world are finding this blog, commenting, and subscribing.

Anyway, if you’re reading this, I just want to say thanks for reading me, thanks for leaving comments (200 now!), and thanks for subscribing!

I love writing, following my fascinations, and getting your feedback and suggestions and stories and support.

I feel more connected. I hope you do too.

THANK YOU.

On becoming gluten free

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I was inspired to write this post by the blogger Gluten-Free Girl. She invited people to share their symptoms. They were so all-over-the-place, including migraines, arthritis, random crying, fatigue, menstrual difficulties, infertility, canker sores, peripheral neuropathy, Hashimoto’s, and many more types of suffering, that I wanted to share my story and let anyone who’s just found out about candida and/or gluten-intolerance, or whose story is similar to these, know that there’s hope.

Life can be so great when you have your health. And the food industry and restaurants are increasingly becoming aware of the need to offer us alternatives.

If you have a gluten-free story, I urge you to share it at the link above. It makes a huge difference to have a lot of stories in one place. There are millions of us (18 million out of 307 million Americans, by latest estimate, have celiac or gluten intolerance), but most of us experienced feeling like we were the only one. We have lots of company!

And…in my opinion, this post and all the comments should be required reading for health care practitioners.

~~

When I was a child, sometimes on weekends, my father would make pancakes for breakfast.

Halfway through a stack of two pancakes buttered with margarine and smothered in fake maple syrup (because that’s how we ate back then), I’d start to feel not so good. Not really sick, but not well, either.

I guess the best description is that my usual vibrancy disappeared. I felt a little woozy, a little queasy, somewhat clumsy and sluggish. My belly didn’t hurt, but it didn’t feel good either.

It would last for a couple of hours, then  dissipate. I stopped liking pancakes.

Looking back, that was the most flour I ever ate at once. My family wasn’t big on bread. We didn’t eat much pasta or fried breaded food. But we did eat pancakes and sandwiches and cake and cookies and gravy, so I ate wheat if not every day, then several times a week.

In adulthood, I often had diarrhea, gas, and bloating, and less often, I had painful colon cramps that doubled me over, but I never reported it to a doctor. I thought I was just prone to stomach bugs.

In hindsight, I had no idea what good bowel health was. People just didn’t talk about it! That’s a good topic for another post… ; D

Generally, I felt dull and sluggish a lot of the time. Dissociated, not quite present, uncoordinated, depressed. (I also had PTSD, also unbeknownst to anyone. It’s hard to truly know what to attribute these symptoms to.)

I had skin problems — outbreaks of adolescent and adult acne. I had itchy, blotchy rashes at various times on my stomach and chest, my back, and my arms and legs. I would break out in a rash from sun and heat.

I took Seldane and later Claritin daily for allergies. I didn’t get the association between dairy and mucus, or between liver health and allergies, back then. I thought my allergies were all due to airborne irritants. I didn’t believe it was possible to care for my health so that I didn’t need pharmaceuticals.

I know differently now.

I often had low energy and was easily exhausted. I’d go out on Saturday mornings to run errands, and after two hours, I’d hit the wall energetically and have to go home and take a nap. I attributed it to the stress of being a working single mother.

Oh, yeah. I was told that I was a colicky baby, often screaming for hours. Hmm.

I did receive muscle testing and acupuncture treatment (NAET) for allergies in my mid-40s, when I first became interested in alternative medicine. I remember being told that my body reacted to grasses. I thought it was to grass pollen in the air. I never thought of grasses as foods. Of course, wheat and other true grains are grasses! As is sugarcane.

NAET helped. I no longer had an annual winter sinus infection, and I only needed to take Claritin 3-4 times a year.

I still had the occasional colon cramps and diarrhea, gas, and bloating. The colon cramps could be so painful, I’d become pale, break into a cold sweat, and feel weak and shaky.

It took me a long time to heal after a car accident in 1996. My body hurt. I had low back pain and was diagnosed with scoliosis (not sure when it started, and it’s now healed with chiropractic help). I had a couple of bouts with plantar fasciitis. My weight fluctuated by as much as 35 lbs., and I’m 5’1″.

The enamel on my teeth had gotten thin or worn away in spots, leaving me with sensitive teeth. I often had night sweats. I developed rosacea. I had canker sores. Sometimes the toes on my left foot went numb. I lost bone density.

I’m just today realizing that these health problems may have a connection with being gluten intolerant, after reading others’ stories. There are over 300 symptoms of celiac. No wonder it’s so often misdiagnosed. It’s enough to want to tell anyone with inexplicable symptoms to go gluten-free for a month and see if that helps.

~~

I grew up knowing very little about the relationship between food and health. I was never tested for food allergies. I had “hay fever”, and my digestive symptoms appeared when I was an adult.

One of my brothers had asthma and was tested, though. He had the traditional scratch test and was found to be allergic to a lot of things, both food and airborne. He reacted to cats, dogs, pollen, dust, eggs, dairy, nuts, and a lot of other foods, but not to wheat or grains. He took shots for years.

While going to Active Life Chiropractic in late 2006 for treatment, I was told that my health insurance covered food sensitivity testing (the Immuno 1 Bloodprint tests your blood for over 100 foods) and asked if I was interested. I agreed to be tested, thinking that I probably had some minor food sensitivities.

The results of my food sensitivity test came back a couple of weeks later. I was found to be sensitive to wheat, oats, two kinds of yeast, two kinds of beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and sugarcane. That was mind-boggling!

Because of the yeast and sugarcane, my doctor recommended that I be tested for candida. That test came back positive.

So I started my gluten-free journey with the candida diet, which meant no grains, dairy, any sweetener except stevia, yeast, fruit, juice, alcohol, potatoes, peanuts, legumes, mushrooms, chocolate, caffeine, condiments, vinegar, high-glycemic anything, cured or pickled or fermented anything.

(Hmm, isn’t it interesting that most of the foods I tested sensitive to were also banned on the candida diet?)

I cleaned out my fridge and pantry of everything with any forbidden ingredient in it. I didn’t want to be tempted or to make a mistake. It took over an hour to read the ingredients on every single label, and at the end, I had two paper grocery bags full of food to give away. Bye-bye, Michaelangelo’s frozen lasagna, Campbell’s tomato soup, soy sauce, mayonnaise, ketchup, barbecue sauce, coffee, honey, maple syrup!

My start date rolled around. It was by far the most drastic change in eating I’d ever experienced. It was so drastic, I decided to stick to it 100% so I would never have to do it again. Dang, it was rough, but I was determined to find out if I could feel better. 

I lost weight and went to bed hungry at times. Breakfast was the biggest problem because there were no traditional breakfast foods that I could have unless I wanted eggs every day. I often ate fish and salad (with Annie’s vinegar-free salad dressing — bless you, Annie) for breakfast.

Food was no longer inspiring — instead, it was plain and simple fuel. If I got hungry, I just waited until the next meal. Meat, fish, eggs, and non-starchy vegetables were my mainstays. Scrambled eggs were yummy with salsa verde on top. Little discoveries like that kept it interesting.

I took a supplement called Candex, which helps dissolve the cell walls of yeast. My poop smelled yeasty for the first few weeks.

After about a month, I discovered the book The Body Ecology Diet and began making young coconut kefir at home and  drinking Helios brand plain dairy kefir with FOS to get some probiotics into my gut. I slowly added grains like millet and quinoa and low-glycemic fruit like blueberries, Granny Smith apples, and kiwis.

(By the way, if you borrowed that book from me, I’d like to have it back.)

After two and a half months, I noticed that I felt really different. I felt physically good and my energy level had increased, and I noticed that I felt more present, like my brain was working better, like some kind of brain fog had lifted. I could focus better, read more difficult books, understand more complex thinking than before. My memory improved. I experienced myself differently. I felt smarter and more alive!

I stuck to the strict diet until my body told me I had cleared the excess candida, which was 3 months. The test had said I had mild candida. If it had been severe, I still would have stuck to it to find out if I could feel better. Anything to consistently feel better.

I transitioned from the candida diet to avoiding the foods I had tested sensitive to — the wheat, sugar, potatoes, and so on — and taking it easy on the other candida avoids.

~~

I was tested again a year later. Candida was balanced. I was sensitive to fewer foods (a couple of new ones too), but wheat and several other foods were still a no-no. My chiropractor had my blood tested this time for gluten. I wasn’t sensitive to it, only to wheat. So probably wheat inflames my small intestine.

Then my health insurance stopped covering the test, which was too expensive to continue on my own, so I haven’t been tested again.

Meanwhile, I read Eat Right for Your Type and noticed a strong similarity between the candida diet and the recommended diet for people with Blood Type O. Type Os should not eat wheat.

My theory is that people are born sensitive to certain foods and stay that way, and other food sensitivities come and go, based on stress and/or overexposure and sometimes maybe just shifts in body chemistry. Sometimes we crave the foods that make us feel bad, and sometimes we instinctively avoid them. That is some great learning there!!!

If you can’t afford to get tested but suspect you have food sensitivities, try the Blood Type Diet. I bet you’ll feel better — and it includes feel-good foods, not just avoids.

Also, I’d love to know how many celiacs, gluten-intolerant folks, and people with candida are Type Os and how many are another blood type. Please comment!

I was still in denial about wheat. I’d tell myself that every once in a while, I could have a burger or some birthday cake. I enjoyed those moments, but I eventually learned from experience that my body just cannot handle more than a quarter teaspoon of wheat without affecting my small intestine adversely, and that if I do “get glutened”, it takes 3 days for my body to get back to normal.

What I suspect happens is that the lining of my small intestine gets irritated by wheat, and it stays that way, interfering with absorbing other nutrients, until the wheat is completely out of my body.

That’s 3 days of malnutrition.

It’s just not worth it. I can now resist cake, cookies, burgers, and so on. I feel so much better consistently when I do. 

I’ve learned over the past five years that I can handle spelt and Ezekiel bread, but it also seems important that I don’t eat them often. In general, my body doesn’t do well with grains. Rice is my most tolerable grain. Quinoa is great. It’s a seed, not a grain.

~~

I have no idea if I have celiac disease, and it doesn’t really matter. Gluten-free means wheat-free, and I’m fine with describing myself as being gluten-sensitive or gluten-intolerant, as eating a gluten-free diet. My body doesn’t agree with wheat in particular, grains in general, potatoes, some legumes.

So basically, to cut to the chase, I spent over 50 years of my life consuming something that made me feel bad, interfered with absorption of other nutrients, and diminished my presence, intelligence, and vitality. I don’t like to dwell on thinking how much better my life could have been if only I or my parents had known. That feels tragic, and I can’t change the past. I want to feel great in the life that’s ahead of me.

I suspect my mother may have been gluten-intolerant. She often had gas, bloating, and bowel issues, low energy, took a lot of naps, had arthritis. She had anemia a lot as a child and young adult. She never knew.

I’m so grateful that I know and can act now. And if telling this story helps one person have better health, investigate, or stick to a gluten-free diet, it’s worth it.

Looking for a reason to quit your job?

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Found this article — 10 More Reasons You Need to Quit Your Job Right Now! — in, you guessed it, Elephant Journal, and have been reading and clicking all the links. Very amusing, fresh, and insightful, James Altucher!

He busts the mortgage excuse, the I’ve-got-to-send-my-kids-to-college myth, and asks you to consider your boss, your coworkers, the actual work, the economy, fear, what-am-I-doing-with-my-life?, and the loss of creativity from sticking to a job you don’t really, really love for too long.

Everybody does what they need to do. I’m just sayin’, sometimes it’s time to leave. The life you save may be your own.

Excerpts from some of the links in the article follow. This one is about why owning your own home might not be so great:

Let’s spell out very clearly why the myth of homeownership became religion in the United States. It’s because corporations didn’t want their employees to have many job choices. So they encouraged them to own homes. So they can’t move away and get new jobs.

On how to be lucky:

All you need to do, minimally, is exercise enough to break a sweat for 10 minutes. So about 20-30 minutes worth of exercise a day. This is not to get “ripped” or “shredded”. But just to be healthy. You can’t be happy if you aren’t healthy. Also, spending this time helps your mind better deal with its daily anxieties. If you can breathe easy when your body is in pain then its easier to breathe during difficult situations.

If someone is a drag on me, I cut them out. If someone lifts me up, I bring them closer. Nobody is sacred here. When the plane is going down, put the oxygen mask on your face first. Family, friends, people I love – I always try to be there for them and help. But I don’t get close to anyone bringing me down. This rule can’t be broken. Energy leaks out of you if someone is draining you. And I never owe anyone an explanation. Explaining is draining.

I feel that most people don’t like the word “spiritual”. They think it means “god”. Or “religion”. But it doesn’t.  I don’t know what it means actually. But I feel like I have a spiritual practice when I do one of the following: [pray, meditate, be grateful, forgive, and study].

What to do if you get fired:

Find your “customers.” Treat yourself like a one-man business. Make a list of customers (i.e. places or people you might want to work with). Then come up with a list of 10 ideas for each customer/place you might want to work. Ideas that can make them money. This way you keep your idea muscle intact.  Don’t let your idea muscle atrophy! Pitch your ideas to that customer if you can. If you can’t, move onto the next customer.

Make a list of the people you’ve worked with over the past ten years that you are grateful you worked with. Email them and tell them why you were grateful you worked with them. Ask them sincerely how they are doing.

About being an entrepreneur:

 For me, being an “entrepreneur” doesn’t mean starting the next “Facebook”. Or even starting any business at all. It means finding the challenges you have in your life, and determining creative ways to overcome those challenges.

If you are offering a service, call it a product. Oracle did it. They claimed they had a database. But if you “bought” their database they would send in a team of consultants to help you “install” the database to fit your needs. In other words, for the first several years of their existence, they claimed to have a product but they really were a consulting company. Don’t forget this story. Products are valued higher than services.

Don’t listen to the doom and gloomers that are hogging the TV screen trying to tell you the world is over. They just want you to be scared so they can scoop up all the money.

A reader’s experience with shaking medicine

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I’m feeling very blessed to have recently had two readers of this blog respond to it in depth, either by sending me a personal email with questions or by leaving a lengthy comment on a post and sharing their experience.

Readers, you are welcome to comment on anything you read that so moves you. You may also email me privately with questions. I love the personal connection.

My theory is, if you take the time to ask your questions or share your comments, there are at least 10 people behind you with questions and comments, and I’d like to share them publicly, disguising your name to preserve your privacy unless you explicitly give me permission to use it. This is one of the great strengths of blogging — the community aspect of it. I’m currently getting about 50 views per day and one or two new subscribers a week. This blog is reaching and speaking to people interested in at least some of the things I blog about — people who want to come back. I’m really tickled about it!

Jose Luis shares his experience with shaking medicine, and his experience is worth sharing in a post

Hi Mary Ann,
just a sharing… Shaking Medicine emerged in my life spontaneously during a series of Holotropic Breathwork workshops I attended years ago…and then 12 years ago, I found Brad Keeney’s work: everything fitted… Brad Keeney’s “The Energy Break” is a nice, friendly-user introduction (you can begin inmediately!). Amazing medicine! Finally I could attend two three-days-gatherings: As-toun-ding! It’s a deep mystery, but this I know: It’s heart medicine, for sure…and it keeps “cooking me”…

“Bushman knowing is inspired by feeling love rather than thinking ideas. The more they feed love – loving the loving in a recursively spun positive feedback loop – the more they amplify its presence and impact on their body. It causes them to tremble and shake, an indication to them that they are awake and in the only state worthy of trustworthy knowing. For them, thinking should serve authentically experienced love rather than the latter being an abstraction for intellectual word play. Bushmen seek to make their “ropes” (a metaphor for relationship) strong. They do so by shooting “arrows” of amplified love into one another. You might be tempted to say that they are “cupid scholars” who hunt for “n/om” (the soulful life force). They work to make themselves “soft” through absurd play and open hearted expression so that the arrows and ropes that enhance relational connectivity may pierce and join. Bushman stories emphasize changes that surprise and trip you into being off guard with any convenient category of understanding. In effect, Bushman knowing is all about letting yourself out of any and all typological grids of abstraction so that the Heraclitean movement of spirited love can dance you into ever shifting relations with life.
***
A group of elder women n/om kxaosi were asked what made them so strong in matters of n/om (Keeney 2010). They replied, “we are this way because of the tears we have wept for the ancestors who have passed on.”  The deepest longing human beings experience often comes from the loss of a loved one. Rather than trying to emotionally get over it, these Bushman elders keep the longing alive, feeding it until it breaks their hearts wide open in an awakened way, bringing them inside a more expansive and intimate relation with their ancestors. In this connection tears flow along a channel that keeps their relationships strong and permits a never-ending expression of love and soulful guidance.

Another intense form of longing is familiar to all lovers who fall deeply in love. In this infinite ocean of Eros we find there is more than simple love. There is loving love. When we become lovers of loving, the ropes are inseparable from us and carry our hearts into the highest realms.”

Nice interview with Brad here:
http://www.futureprimitive.org/2008/05/shaking-up-bradford-keeney-phd/

warm regards
Jose Luis

PS (Peter Levine speaks briefly about the connection between trauma and spirituality at the end of his latest book…in fact he is writing a book about the spiritual experience…)

Thank you, Jose Luis. I took the liberty of making bold some things that popped out at me.

I’m adding Brad Keeney’s The Energy Break to my next book order. I love what he has written about love in the Bushman culture. I’m still reading Shaking Medicine and recently got Shaking Out the Spirits.

I would so love to know about these gatherings! Please email me about these.

Love is embodied experience. It does mean opening to our own softness and letting down our defenses, which once protected us but often become habitual. I thank healer and bodyworker Fran Bell for showing me the difference.

The intent of Bushman storytelling seems very Zen-like.

What you shared about Bushman grief expanding the heart came just in time for me to share with a friend who recently lost her mother and is grieving deeply.

Peter Levine’s latest book, In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness, has been highly recommended to me by others as well, and it’s now on my list. His book Waking the Tiger changed my life. One of my friends just got certified in Somatic Experiencing.

Thank you for the link to the interview. Thank you again for sharing.

Resentment and poison, failure and feedback

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Readers, I am processing something that happened this week, and I beg your indulgence as I move through my stuff. Maybe you find other people’s processing interesting. If not, skip reading this post.

Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die. – Malachy McCourt

Social work professor and authenticity researcher Brene Brown posted this quote on Facebook yesterday. (No, I don’t know her in person, but her work is pretty awesome, as are her TED Talks.) The timing for me to encounter this quote was perfect. On Monday night I had a meeting with someone who told me he has resented me for a year, since we both came onto the leadership team of a social and educational organization.

Suddenly I got insight into the tension I’d felt coming from him and how he related to me as if I were a bad employee to be corrected or micromanaged, his dissatisfaction and hypercritical attitude toward any mistakes I made, and a lack of support, gratitude, and appreciation for anything I did, even to the point of undermining me (which was why I wanted to meet with him, to tell him I didn’t like that a bit, you jerk).

It had the ring of truth to it. I also felt horrified. Frankly, it’s creepy to have someone tell you that they’ve resented you for a year. A year!

I left after about 20 minutes. Clear that I don’t want to work with him any more, I ended our “conversation” by resigning. I felt disappointed, but also that there was no real choice. Interest has tapered off. I don’t have hope that the organization will survive.

Later that evening, I found out another person on the leadership team had resigned that morning. And yet another person — also a supporter who has shared his gifts with this organization — soon decided after fruitless and frustrating conversations with this person to take his talents elsewhere. After learning this, I quit as a member.

I just wanna say this:

Hey, dude. Maybe it’s not me. Maybe it’s you.

Maybe members sensed your hidden resentment and decided not to come back. You probably think that’s too woo-woo. But maybe there’s a whole field of awareness that you’ve been blind to.

You were a real pill to work with, and as much as I loved doing my role, even imperfectly, I’m okay with severing our association. Relieved. Let me get away from your poison. I came away with many new relationships with people I do like. I even liked you sometimes, but not as a leader.

Here’s a beef: You don’t use the skills this organization promotes to resolve problems! When I asked you what the outcome was that you wanted, you avoided answering my question. Others have noticed that you have difficulty answering a clear, direct request with a clear, direct answer. The meaning of communication is the response you get.

You went off on a tangent but actually got the outcome I think you wanted — my resignation — without ever directly asking for it.

So, um, you could have just asked for my resignation at any time without all the drama, you know. So why didn’t you?

Dude, where’s your well-formedness?

I don’t even think this has much to do with me. It’s more about his ego.

I understand that he’s working out something karmic in his life. This is not about what he thinks it’s about. It’s about self-revelation. He doesn’t seem to know himself very well or be effective in a leadership role. If people don’t trust him or have confidence in him as a leader, then he’s not a leader, no matter what title he has.

I’ve been thinking a lot this week about what good leadership is. It seems clear to me that it’s situational. People talk about leadership style, but the style has to match the situation.

What works in an employer-employee relationship where you pay someone to fulfill your agenda will not work in an organization composed of volunteers. That is much more about relationship skills and consensus building, rapport and responsiveness, not command and control.

New awesomeness arises out of the ashes. I am free to pursue my best interests, and that’s already taking shape in a very satisfying way.

~~

Update a week later: Everything is perfect just the way it is. When this guy is my age and looks back on who he was at this current time in his life, he will have great perspective on how much richer his map of the world got. His identity, his role in creating this, his ability to be congruent, his skills in relating to people and in leading people will all be vastly more developed and nuanced.

Thank you, readers

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At the end of January, this blog had gotten 5,000 views.

Today the count is up to 7,355 views. I also have several new subscribers. Welcome! I hope you find some value here.

Just want to say thanks to all of you. I appreciate you reading my posts and especially enjoy getting your comments.

This blog is an outlet for me to follow and pursue what interests me and share what I discover, both in myself and “out there” in the world. I imagine that not every post is everyone’s cup of tea, but to those who read my posts occasionally, or regularly, I really want you to know how grateful I am to have something to offer. And I’m glad you can pass up the ones that don’t resonate, too!

I feel like I’m on a journey, and I don’t know the destination yet, but getting there is a lot of fun. Thanks for being company on the road.

Tibetan monks in Austin

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Some Tibetan monks from the Gaden Shartse monastery are visiting Austin. They made a sand mandala at City Hall over the past week, and yesterday they held a ceremony in which they destroyed it. My friend Tom and I went to see it.

Quite a crowd had gathered at City Hall, with people on the stairs and balconies, gazing down. Bumped into old friends Rebecca and Jutta.

One of the monks was American and explained things well. He said one monk was a geshe and described what it takes to become a geshe (20 years of monastic academic studies and a lot of winning debates with other monks). Another was a lama, a title indicating an honored dharma teacher.

You can see their wonderful hats.

They chanted for a long time. I couldn’t understand a word, but I liked it. I recorded it on my iPhone but can’t figure out how to upload a voice memo to my blog, so you can just imagine the chanting.

After destroying the sand mandala with paint brushes, they gave each person attending a small bag of the sand and suggested it was good for two things — to sprinkle on the four corners of your property as a blessing for your home, and to rub a bit of it into the crown chakra of a dying person to ensure a good rebirth.

I couldn’t resist making the final photo my new masthead photo!

So what is this ceremony about? Nonattachment. A visual lesson about creating something of beauty, intricacy, and special meaning, with highly focused, meticulous, and lengthy labor, and then destroying that creation — because life is change and nothing is permanent — and releasing it back to the Source. The practice of presence. Equanimity.

I loved their energy. One of the monks in particular just radiated so much intelligent alive awareness in his mostly silent presence (and no, he wasn’t the geshe or the lama). I felt connected energetically to them all. They radiated such deep well-being.

Here’s a link to their activities for their remaining time in Austin.

Circling the sand painting

Destroying the sand painting

Chanting at the lake...

...as a monk pours the sand into the lake

Ceremony over, posing for photos

Working with a healer, Fran Bell

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Yesterday I went to see a new kind of healer. Her name is Fran Bell. Remember that name.

I work with practitioners who specialize in one healing modality, and others who combine modalities, and some who’ve learned and integrated multiple modalities and added something else to it. They’ve invented something that nobody else does.

That’s the kind of healer Fran is. Her business card says she is an integrated health coach. Because of course, the body, mind, heart, and spirit/soul are integrated. The name of my blog and her business card nearly match!

So the background for me going to Fran is this (skip ahead if you’ve heard my story before – la di dah): I’ve had a lot of body and alignment issues in my life, including a sacral nerve injured at birth, a major childhood trauma that left me with PTSD, scoliosis from adolescence until a couple of years ago, and a car accident that left me with significant soft tissue damage in my lower back, which centered around my left sacroiliac joint.

And you wondered why I like yoga so much! It’s all about healing and expanding my well-being.

So all this physical and emotional trauma, even with yoga and everything else I do, has left me with movement patterns that stem from trying to hold myself together in ways that are less than optimal.

These ways were the best my jangled nervous system could do right after the injury. They did hold me together when I had to soldier on — go to work to have health insurance, be a single mom. (That’s part of the problem, too, the belief that I had to soldier on and couldn’t really take the time for myself that I needed to heal.)

I’ve had balance issues. Tree pose is hard. I often wake and go through my day with minor aches and pains. I don’t have stamina for being on my feet for more than a couple of hours, and forget running!

So now it’s time to learn functional ways of holding myself together, ways of just using what is needed and letting everything else relax. These old injuries are long healed, and the patterns no longer serve — they constrict.

If I knew how to repattern my body on my own, believe me, I would have done it.

I went to Fran because I had been told by my chiropractor that she was trained in Functional Movement Systems, which Tim Ferriss wrote about in The 4-Hour Body. (Read the chapter called Pre-Hab: Injury-Proofing the Body.) FMS looks at bodies in terms of mobility, stability, and strength. I was sure I needed more stability and was looking forward to Fran giving me some exercises.

Fran starts where she starts. She’s a delightful person who knows that people get into these holding patterns because they’ve experienced injury and they’re trying to protect themselves. She knows how to make a client feel safe.

She’s empathic, intuitive, and has developed her perception of how to correct dysfunctional patterns to a remarkable degree. That is something that has marked the healers I’ve worked with in the last few years: they have developed their perceptions (of injury, imbalance, energy pathways, blockages, holdings, and releases, movement patterns, the nervous system) to such a degree that I can barely understand how they do what they do, except to know that it’s beyond me. It’s deepened my awareness.

Fran watched me walk and said I had a big holding pattern. She took me to a massage table. She had me move this way and that, coordinating movements with my breathing.

I came out of our first session feeling different and better when I walked. Before, I was holding myself together from the sacrum, with stiffness in my lower back and not much range of movement.

After, I was walking from the hip joint, which is the natural place to walk from. My lumbar curve increased and I got to experience a springlike movement there as I walked, a fluid dynamic relationship between the masses of my pelvic bowl and my rib cage.

My breathing was more relaxed.

I also could see more clearly. Fran took me to the window and raised the blind. Everything had more depth and richness.

Wow. Isn’t this what we all want, to be more alive?

A day later, I’ve lost a little of that freedom I felt at the end of yesterday’s session, but I know I won’t revert to how I was before. I can feel my body shifting, adjusting, taking in as much as it can of a new way of being.

After my session with Fran, I actually did remember that after the car wreck, I was aware that my body felt very different, almost alien-feeling. One day when I was walking, I realized I was dragging my left heel. I made an effort to pull myself together, and at least I didn’t drag my heel any more. That’s probably where this pattern stems from.

Fran is certified in Spiritual and Medical Healing by the Jaffe Institute, now called the University of Spiritual Healing and Sufism. She’s a Certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist, a Certified Personal Trainer, as well as being trained in Functional Movement Systems. And she’s been a healer since the age of 11.

I’m going to see her weekly for a while. I’m feeling very grateful to have this opportunity right here in Austin, Texas, USA. And I’ll keep posting. You can search my blog for “fran bell” to find posts about my work with her.

If you have body aches and pains that are persistent, I recommend seeing Fran. And here’s a link to some more testimonials.

She’s at Austin Holistic Health. Call her at 538-5993 or email fran.bell @ yahoo.com to schedule or discuss. Her rates are $120 for the first session and $95 after that.