Category Archives: heart

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.

My cousin the dancing tree

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Was driving to my temp job the other day when I noticed a tree violently shaking near the road.

This particular tree was dancing with such abandon, it seemed possessed by a spirit.

Then I realized it was very windy by noticing that all the trees were dancing. (You know, I woke, got ready for work, and walked a short distance to my car. It’s easy to miss how windy it is unless it knocks you over. The sight of this tree knocked me over.)

And still, this tree was dancing with more wildness than the others.

Who’s to say it was not possessed by a spirit? I couldn’t see a spirit, except in the extraordinary fervor of the tree, limbs whipping this way and that.

I connected energetically with that tree. I empathized because of my practice of shaking medicine. A fresh breath, a newness, an expansion, a connection…

Plants shake, animals shake, people shake (but sometimes have to be taught).

A day later, I bought a new metal water bottle. It was green, with a tree image on it.

I just now made that connection in my conscious mind.

Shaking, connection, expansion — it’s contagious! Are you catching it yet?

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

New book, Shaking Medicine: The Healing Power of Ecstatic Movement

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I found a book, Shaking Medicine: The Healing Power of Ecstatic Movement by Bradford Keeney, at Half Price Books on Sunday when I was looking for another book. Of course it jumped off the shelf and right into my hands!

The author is a professor at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, or at least he was in 2007 when this book was published, and has made a remarkable connection with the bushmen of the Kalahari Desert, who practice shaking medicine ritually. Dr. Keeney has been shaking his whole adult life and has the gift of being able to induce shaking in others.

Plus, he seems to have training in anthropology, systems theory, and hypnosis, so I have a connection there with my NLP training.

Here’s a link to his website. Oh, and he and a colleague (operating as The Mojo Doctors) now offer 5-day experiences they call Rehab for the Soul in New Orleans.

I do like the term shaking medicine better than trauma releasing exercises. And please note that it is about shaking, not dance, although apparently ecstatic dance can unleash ecstatic shaking.

It also seems that the trauma releasing exercises are the latest incarnation of a practice that goes way back in time. It has surfaced in various cultures, religions, and places over millenia. It may be the opposite of meditation: instead of deep stillness, it’s deep uncontrolled movement.

Whatever. It’s good medicine.

I’ll write more as I’ve read more. Just wanted to let y’all know where this path is now taking me…

 

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.

Fall down seven times, get up eight

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I discovered this lovely blog post about the resilience of the Japanese people. Thought it was worth sharing.

They say that in times of crisis people show their true character. Anyone can be cooperative, patient, and understanding when things are going well and life is good. But it is the noble man or woman who can behave with grace and compassion and even kindness when times are very, very bad. For many people in Northern Japan right now, the times could not be worse. And yet, at least to the outside observer, the manner in which the Japanese people conducted themselves in the aftermath of this calamity has been remarkable.

Here’s more:

The best kind of motivation is intrinsic motivation. For the benefit of oneself — and for the benefit of others as well — one must bear down and do their best. Even in good times, behaving uncooperatively or in a rude manner is deeply frowned upon. In a crisis, the idea of complaining or acting selfishly to the detriment of those around you is the absolute worst thing a person can do. There is no sense in complaining about how things are or crying over what might have been. These feelings may be natural to some degree, but they are not productive for yourself or for others.

Click the link to read on.

Claiming some me time

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Like the Energizer bunny, I’ve just kept going and going, with work and training and teaching and transitioning toward a new home, and then things started to go not so well. Low back-ache, fatigue, muscle tension, losing things, not handling a situation well, emotional sensitivity, feeling close to overwhelm.

As in, “If one more difficult thing happens, I’m going to lose it, and it’s not going to be pretty.”

As much as I like to meet life from a place of strength and resilience, sometimes that isn’t what’s real.

So I declared this afternoon as me time. You know. Solitary unpressured time — several hours of it — to rest, ruminate, and recover.

I even cancelled my restorative yoga class, which I try not to do, because I know when you need it, you need it, and it’s disappointing if it’s not available.

Yogis and yoginis, namaste. It’s savasana time for me, and for you if you need it! And, I am changing our class time to 7:30-9 pm so we can all have more “day” to enjoy on Sundays, then eat lightly, do the class, drive home, and go to bed all relaxed.

How does that sit with you?

We all need time to be active, time for sleep, and time for rest. In this case, I have not been getting enough rest.

Rest is when I check in with myself and get back on track, reconnect with myself and recenter.

It’s actually one of the best parts about being human. That we can do this!!!

And now, I’m going within, to get in touch with my feelings, breathe, maybe cry a little, curl up with Mango, and get some rest. And plan how to intervene with myself a little bit sooner so this doesn’t happen again. I hate disappointing people! I believe it may be time to restart my regular sitting practice, which has become irregular.

Yep. This is what happens when I don’t meditate. Yep, I’m really remembering that now.

 

In the Light of Love: A Tribute to Japan

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If you read my earlier post containing the beautiful letter from Japan written by the American woman Anne who taught school in Sendai, please watch this video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGWAZVZG1TA&feature=player_embedded#at=13

Deva Premal and Miten made it in loving tribute to the Japanese people affected by the earthquakes and tsunami. They write:

The earthquake happened while we were working on a remix on this song. Later we put images to the music in an attempt to portray the elevation of the human spirit in times of such overwhelming and inconceivable destruction. It is our tribute to the brave hearts of the Japanese people.
The letter at the end of the clip is a first hand account of a friend of a friend, living in Japan.

With love

Miten and Deva

…ps… we just received this message and thought you’d like to know: “And in case you don’t know — the baby in the pink snuggly being smiled at by the soldier was found in the wreckage 2-3 days after the tsumani and was reunited with her father….one of the biggest miracles to date…”

Badshah Khan, leader of a nonviolent army in Afghanistan

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This is a little bit different from most of my blog posts, but I found this tale compelling and want to share. This little bit of history is new to me, and perhaps to you as well.

My friend Peggy Kelsey, who has a special place in her heart and photography for the women of Iraq and Afghanistan, posted this story on Facebook.

Who would have thought that a master of nonviolence would have come out of modern Afghanistan?

Badshah (a title meaning king) Khan lived to be nearly 100 years old, and he died in 1988.

One of his remarkable achievements is that he raised, uniformed, and disciplined an army of 100,000 Pashtun men, and it was a nonviolent army. That’s right, a  nonviolent army. An oxymoron? Let’s find out.

They faced down the British army, and the British came to fear them more than they feared armed Pashtuns. The Pashtuns had simply found the strongest weapon available: nonviolence.

Khan was a devout Muslim who would always remain a devout Muslim, one who thought his religion required nonviolence.

Did you even know there were devout Muslims who practice in nonviolence? I didn’t. Or maybe I did, but thought of them as Sufis.

Beginning in 1910, Khan opened schools in the mountainous region he grew up in. He opened schools for boys and for girls. He taught agriculture, sanitation, self-sufficiency, and nonviolent resistance to empire. Khan learned of Gandhi in 1915 and joined him in calling for nonviolent opposition to the British in 1919, for which Khan was locked up for 6 months.

Here’s a description of their nonviolent technique.

The British ordered troops to open fire with machine guns on the unarmed crowd, killing an estimated 200-250. The Khudai Khidmatgar [servants of God] members acted in accord with their training in non-violence under Ghaffar Khan, facing bullets as the troops fired on them.

“When those in front fell down wounded by the shots, those behind came forward with their breasts bared and exposed themselves to the fire, so much so that some people got as many as 21 bullet wounds in their bodies, and all the people stood their ground without getting into a panic.”

This continued for six hours. When an elite military unit called the Garhwal Rifles was ordered to fire on an unarmed crowd, its members refused and were themselves court-martialed and sent to prison.

When Badshah Khan died, the Soviets were fighting in Afghanistan. A ceasefire was declared and honored by both sides so he could be buried.

You can read more about Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan here on Wikipedia.

To relax, to improve health, to change the world, just breathe

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Last night I attended the monthly Austin NLP meetup. Katie Raver, who was raised by an NLP-trained mom and who is a co-founder of Austin NLP and who created Year of the Breath in 2009, presented on the topic Breathing Life into Rapport.

Note: Katie is my temporary roommate. And she loves my cat, Mango. I may be biased.

Katie drew on her experiences in Hawai’i (where ha means breath, thus Hawai’i, aloha, ha‘ole — without breath, ha prayer). When she returned, she noticed how shallow breathing negatively impacted a work-related meeting she was in, and she experimented with pacing and then leading the alpha person at the meeting (not the speaker, but the key decision maker) to breathe more deeply, thus changing the state of the meeting for all 17 people present. Only Katie — or as we call her, the instigator of love — was aware of how that shift occurred.

We had fun doing exercises like matching someone’s breathing while talking to them and matching their breathing while they’re talking to you. Sorry you missed it.

I must say, it’s a lovely experience to have a room full of people breathing in unison. It’s on a par with hearing a room full of people all chanting OM. Deep. Alive. Powerful. 

 Today an email led me to this NPR article dated Dec. 6, 2010, Just Breathe: Body Has a Built-In Stress Reliever.

As it turns out, deep breathing is not only relaxing, it’s been scientifically proven to affect the heart, the brain, digestion, the immune system — and maybe even the expression of genes.

Yogis and meditators know this. Breath is powerful.

But more importantly, [breathing exercises] can be used as a method to train the body’s reaction to stressful situations and dampen the production of harmful stress hormones.

Click the link to read up on the latest scientific findings about using breath to influence health and well-being.

You can also make meetings more satisfying. At least you won’t be bored.