Recently I listened twice to Martha Beck’s bestseller, The Way of Integrity: The Path to Your True Self, on my drives between my office in West Lake and my home in Wimberley, TX.
I’d recently seen Martha on a Huberman Lab podcast, remembered she used to write an advice column for O (the Oprah magazine), and generally had a good impression of her as funny and sharp and compassionate. I downloaded her book.
What compels me to write about it here is this: she discovered in Western literature a tale about a man’s path to enlightenment — another name for the way of integrity.
Before reading this book, everything I had read about enlightenment came out of Hindu and Buddhist traditions, which have their own cultural spins.
I’ve been interested in enlightenment since I first encountered the concept in my early twenties. Just the word — enlightenment — had a charge to it!
My understanding of it has evolved over time, from misunderstanding to mystery to moments.
I loved the book so much, I bought a paperback version, because the book includes exercises that I couldn’t do while driving.
The Way of Integrity draws on Dante’s Divine Comedy, published around 1320 AD in Italy, in which Dante (the main character as well as the author) finds himself lost in the woods, meets a guide (the ghost of the poet Virgil), and goes on a journey through hell (the inferno), purgatory, and paradise. It’s considered a great work of Western literature.
Beck believes that Dante, the writer, himself went through an enlightenment process. She refers to Dante’s journey while bringing it into context for us moderns by discussing the everyday lives of her life coaching clients, her friends, and her own path. Believe me, she did go through hell!
Martha reads the audio version herself. Her version of enlightenment is that it’s a path, we can deepen our integrity (wholeness), and it’s available. There are tasks and markers along the way.
Some of my current practices help me on the path, I’m sure: I do yoga, I meditate, and I practice craniosacral therapy, which is mostly practiced in an expanded state of awareness. These practices have made a difference…and there’s more to explore.
I’m going to read the paperback, do the exercises, and report back.
Also, I’m on BlueSky as “wellnessing” if you want to connect there.
Decades ago, I’d been told I had PTSD stemming from a tragic trauma that happened when I was a child, and I read up on it…enough to learn that there is no “cure”.
I found out, over time, that it’s not a life sentence.
I did a lot of processing of the trauma both with and without a therapist, recovering some forgotten memories, piecing together more about what happened way back then, talking to others who were there, having dreams that encouraged me to continuing investigating.
Experientially, I learned that I could be triggered — when something similar to my original traumatized state of shock and horror and overwhelm was reactivated, when a present-day event had some emotional resonance to an aspect of this long-ago trauma.
My whole self responded as if I was in acute danger in the present moment — when actually, I wasn’t.
The mind is powerful. Something like neurons firing together, wiring together happens with PTSD that causes this reactivation, in my understanding. It affects physiology. The present is hijacked by the past.
When triggered, I felt intense anxiety. My system became flooded with stress hormones.
I learned to ask myself if I was in actual danger. My mind deceived me. But it felt so real!
The first time after therapy that I was aware of being triggered, it took three months to fully recover. I isolated myself and focused on self-care. I still went to work, but I stayed home most of the rest of the time, seeking ways to soothe my nervous system, like listening to soothing music and guided meditations, journaling, practicing yoga and breathwork, taking Epsom salt baths, reading positive things, eating nourishing food, watching comedies, gardening, taking naps, taking supplements for adrenal fatigue.
After three months, I felt good enough to be more social again.
Each subsequent time I was triggered, I recovered more quickly. One month, then two weeks.
One night as I was falling asleep, I felt my nervous system slowly starting to go into a triggered state by some memory from the time of the traumatic event.
I pulled myself out of it by changing my focus to the safety and tranquility of the present moment before those stress hormones flooded my system.
My attention was on knowing I was safe at home in my bed, feeling the weight of my body pressing into the mattress, the warmth of being under the covers, the texture of the sheets, sleeping with my favorite pillow.
It took maybe 10 minutes.
Well done, MaryAnn. That was a major milestone in my recovery from PTSD.
I don’t know whether I’ll ever be triggered again, but I have a lot more resources now for preventing that full-blown download of stress hormones that make me feel like unfit company for anyone.
I’ve posted on this blog for nearly 14 years now, and trauma recovery was a major focus early on. I wrote about the trauma releasing exercises, shaking medicine, reading Waking the Tiger, Somatic Experiencing, and more.
I thought I would share my experience here in case it can help anyone trying to recover from PTSD. If it’s possible for me, it’s possible for you.
Besides this blog, I also have a WordPress website for my bodywork business, in which I practice Craniosacral Biodynamics and TMJ Relief in West Lake Hills (Austin) and Wimberley, Texas.
This is a cross-post to let a wider audience know what’s new. Biodynamic Meditation is a way to learn to experience awareness of the healing currents of life force energy within your own system, without having to become a Craniosacral Biodynamics practitioner.
Meditation
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, There is a field. I’ll meet you there.Rumi
Meditation enhances my craniosacral biodynamics practice, and practicing craniosacral biodynamics influences my meditation experience.
The overlap between these practices is so great that I now call the way I meditate Biodynamic Meditation.
Biodynamic Meditation is an awareness practice that develops around experiencing the life force moving in and through your own body, increasing your coherence and well-being.
I myself have found the experience to be centering and grounding and peaceful. It has increased my perception of being whole, of being connected to everything, and brought a deeper appreciation of my innate healing processes and vitality.
I would love to teach this to others, working with one person at a time to start.
I’m looking for someone who would like to experience these benefits by learning Biodynamic Meditation — without needing to go through the process of first becoming a bodyworker, taking advanced classes, and developing a practice (although bodyworkers are welcome).
If you have some meditation experience, have received craniosacral biodynamics, and desire to explore this way to experience well-being, let’s connect.
If you are interested, please schedule a free 15-minute discovery call so we can talk at a time that works for us both. I’m thinking at this time that a student doesn’t have to be local, that we can meet on Zoom: chat, practice, chat again about your practice, and so on.
This past Saturday, I provided the “ofrenda” at the monthly gathering of women dancing the 5 Rhythms (Step Into Yes) in Austin, facilitated by Lisa DeLand (dancingfirelizards.com).
Lisa and I are old friends. We met at Sweat Your Prayers, an ecstatic dance, in 1995. We have similar paths of recovery from adverse childhood experiences, and now, having worked a lot with our selves, by ourselves and with the help of others, we are in the primes of our lives in terms of creating and offering paths to wholeness and wellness for those in search.
Our paths have some overlap. We both are acquainted with the vast amount of suffering in the world, including our own, and feel moved to offer paths that liberate us and those we work with from conditioning that limits us.
My ofrenda was called Bringing Us Home To Our Existence, and I had 20 minutes between waves of dancing to teach the 28 or so women present about their inner rhythms: breath, heartbeat, and tide.
Background: In late 2022, I began posting on Instagram daily — for 100 days — my experience of what I was then calling Biodynamic Meditation. I’d actually begun practicing it many years previously, in 2013, after I took my first class in Craniosacral Biodynamics and wanted to explore how the concepts of the breath of life, primary respiration, potency, and the tides actually manifested in my own embodied existence.
I sat and sat and noticed more and more. It helped to have some direction from my training, and I could go to my teacher, describe my experience, and have him verify whether I was on track.
That’s one way of learning.
I had planned to start teaching Biodynamic Meditation in 2023, and then I learned I was going to have to move from my home of 12 years, which disrupted my plans.
The move is complete. My foundation training in Craniosacral Biodynamics (and certification) is complete. I’m spending this year learning how best to teach Biodynamic Meditation, and I dipped into in-person teaching of a large group for the first time on Saturday. It was too brief, but they got a taste of it. My take is that some people (who all gathered primarily to dance) were not deeply interested, and others came up afterward and thanked me.
I’m now considering calling it meditation for self-healing, meditation for healing, meditation for health, or simply, how to make friends with your body.
If this is a topic you are interested in, I’d love to hear from you! I’m open to working with individuals, small groups, in person, and online.
This is the name of a Substack I subscribe to. The writer, Natureza Gabriel, is releasing a book by this title chapter by chapter on Substack now, and the book itself will be published in April. You can preorder it.
This topic is fascinating to me. As a bodyworker, biodynamicist, and teacher of meditation for self-healing, I work with the autonomic nervous systems of my clients/friends in every session (how can I not?), mostly assisting them to move more deeply into a parasympathetic state where healing has more resources to happen — healing like tissue repair, better regulation of metabolic processes, better coordination of the body’s systems, reduction of pain and tension, more wholeness, and more.
People experience themselves differently after a session, and some of each session is cumulative. It lasts. Getting regular sessions changes the autonomic nervous system, reducing stress levels. People sense themselves as more whole, integrated, coherent, healthy. I experienced this myself and changed my livelihood to offer it to others.
When the body is in a more sympathetic state, it’s gearing up for action and doesn’t have resources for healing. And…many if not most people in our culture live in bodies that are more stressed than is healthy. Sometimes way more stressed. And that affects everything: health, relationships, performance, behavior, cognition, presence, intuition…
There are many more autonomic states than parasympathetic and sympathetic. It’s more of a spectrum or spiral than an either-or equation, as seen in the image of the book’s cover above of a poster of the autonomic spectrum. You can get these posters from Gabriel’s organization for your office: https://restorativepractices.com/product-category/posters/
I’m someone who years ago, after being diagnosed with PTSD and processing a major childhood trauma (that occurred before PTSD existed as a diagnosis), asked herself, “How relaxed can I get while awake and not using substances?”
As the antidote to having a “stress disorder” that’s conventionally considered incurable, I set off on a journey of meditation, movement practices, bodywork, NLP, shaking, Zen, vipassana, breathwork, stillness, perception, and craniosacral therapy. Then I trained in craniosacral therapy.
The writer Gabriel has trained in neurobiology and also with indigenous people who have maintained connections within themselves, each other, with the world around them that are not prevalent among people in today’s predominant capitalistic, technological cultures.
I’m familiar with some of these connection states as a long-time meditator and through exposure to shamanic/indigenous and Buddhist/yogic beliefs and practices.
Another book by this author is Restorative Practices of Wellbeing, which I just received and will soon be delving into. Find his books here: https://restorativepractices.com/product-category/books/ You can preorder The Neurobiology of Connection as well.
We make the world a better place starting with ourselves.
It’s a drizzly day here in Central Texas. I drove on wet country roads to get to a women’s silent retreat, because I needed a few hours to simply be with myself peacefully in a quiet environment and allow what wants to arise to arise.
On the last day of November, 2023, I completed a foundation training in Craniosacral Biodynamics that started in September 2021. Ten four-day seminars in Silver Spring MD near Washington DC, meeting and exceeding the requirements for giving and receiving sessions, reporting to and receiving supervision from teaching assistants, writing a research paper on the cranial nerves, taking a four-hour test…
I put a lot into it and got a lot out of it, and I’m pleased with the work that I did to embed doing this bodywork modality deeply into my system.
I’m healthier for it, I’m able to do so much more for my clients, and my practice has grown.
My desire to undertake this training arose during COVID. I didn’t work for the first six months after the initial lockdowns, and when I went back to work it was only one or two days a week until April 2021 when a lot of people had been vaxxed and felt comfortable coming in for (overdue) bodywork.
I had received unemployment benefits and stimulus checks, my expenses were low, and I had a lot of time on my hands when so many people were getting sick, some dying or getting long COVID.
It was a sobering time. I did my end-of-life paperwork and reflected on what I’d really like to do with my life, given the opportunity and capability to make a difference.
I knew my skills as a craniosacral therapist could deepen. I’d had training in both Upledger and Biodynamics styles of craniosacral therapy. I’d thought about getting more training in Biodynamics before, but it never seemed like the right time, affordable, convenient, so I kept blowing it off.
During COVID in spring 2021, I got clear: I wanted to study Craniosacral Biodynamics, doing a full foundation training with a seasoned teacher. I was pretty sure which teacher I wanted to work with, got confirmation on that from a more experienced therapist who’d met this teacher, applied for his next training (which happened to be in DC), and was accepted.
It was a good decision. The teacher was beyond excellent and had three experienced full-fledged Biodynamics teachers assisting him. I don’t know that I could have asked for anything more. Well, perhaps not having to travel.
I did as many Biodynamics sessions as I could, and my practice grew. In addition to my private practice, I began working in an integrative medical clinic.
I did as many trades with other Biodynamics grads as I could and received professional sessions as well, averaging 2 sessions a month over the course of the training. Fortunately, I had a highly experienced practitioner in the office next to mine to answer my practical questions.
I experienced several other challenges doing the training. We wore masks indoors for the first few seminars, and of course in airports and on planes.
I made the trip halfway across the country and back nine times, opting to do one of the middle seminars on video at home when my energy was depleted.
Unaccustomed to business travel and not a frequent leisure traveler by air, the crowded airports and planes were a shock at first. I got TSA Pre-Check and later took a fellow introvert’s advice about how to do business travel with the least amount of stress, and it helped a lot. I feel more ease with business travel now.
I stayed in various AirBnBs in the DC area. Most were okay, some barely tolerable, one felt haunted (or maybe I was more sensitive), one was excellent but only a one-time possibility. I stayed in a hostel midway through and in a hotel for the last two seminars. I used the Metro to get around at first and was fascinated by it, but later took ride-shares between Reagan airport and found lodging in walking distance of the training.
It was lonely, being so far away from home in a place I was unfamiliar with. I made friends with my classmates, but I was on my own after class and sometimes felt acutely lonely. I loved my time in the classroom and appreciated every bit of kindness and connection from those associated with the training, but sometimes the rest of it was really hard.
I’m definitely not an East Coast person, and I had a new appreciation for being embedded in my central Texas community — I know I’ll always have meaningful connections here.
Being adventurous, I explored the wide variety of cuisines in downtown Silver Spring: Thai, Korean, Senegalese, Ethiopian, Vietnamese, Nepalese, Japanese, Spanish-influenced Mexican, something similar to Tex-Mex, diner, upscale American.
Air travel was easier and less expensive when I left and returned on Saturdays, and class was Monday through Thursday, so I had extra time to explore DC. I took the Metro to the Mall and visited art museums and admired the gardens. Another time, I saw the Phillips Collection. I went to the Lincoln Memorial during cherry blossom time.
Toward the end, I rented a car and took day trips to Annapolis and the Chesapeake Bay, and to Gettysburg and Harpers Ferry, just to see the countryside around DC.
A really difficult challenge happened in April 2022. I was in an automobile accident that totalled my car, and even though I wasn’t seriously injured, the effect on my nervous system was substantial.
I wondered why I couldn’t just get it together afterwards. Then I saw a post in an online Upledger group, wondering why people can have, say, shoulder surgery and be fine in a few months, but it can take 1-3 years to fully recover from an automobile accident.
Part of it is the shock. Surgeries are usually planned and can be life-saving. No one plans a car accident and you’re going to be worse off.
My autonomic nervous system experienced a dire threat. I could have lost control of my car and ended up seriously injured or dead. I could have seriously injured others, too — four cars were involved.
Humans are simply not meant to go from 65 mph to zero with impact in 5 seconds or less without repercussions. Every cell is affected. Not only did I feel stiff and unsettled, I felt buzzy electrical energy leaving my body for a few months after the accident.
It took my nervous system 11 months to recover energetically from the accident, and that’s with the help of physical therapy/yoga therapy exercises, giving and receiving Biodynamics sessions, and doing regular qi gong and meditation.
I know I did the best I could to protect myself and others from serious injury, but the person who failed to secure a ladder before driving at high speed in the middle lane of a freeway initiated the whole 4-car accident. They were never identified. My insurance went up, and someone is supposedly suing me, although I haven’t been served any papers yet. Thank goodness for the guard rail I slammed into.
The Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v Wade also happened when I was in DC, not long after the accident, and I read about this far-right court’s desire to overturn gay and interracial marriage and outlaw birth control…a direct threat to the happiness of my family and countless others.
I experienced outrage…and depression. No government should have the right to make these decisions for individuals.
I met a man in person last November after messaging with him. He gave me a book I was interested in. We took it slowly, getting to know each other, and our friendship evolved into boyfriend-girlfriend status a few months later. It’s been a bright spot this year.
The last major challenge was learning I was going to have to move in February 2023. I felt settled in my trailer park. I didn’t want to move. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to find a new location or sell the trailer. After going back and forth on it several times, I ended up selling it and moving in with my sweet boyfriend in Wimberley in August. It’s going well.
Even the 35 mile commutes to work in Austin, driving on two-lane scenic Hill Country roads, are pleasant and restorative.
Being in the classroom and then employing new skills in my practice after each class were bright spots. I look forward to continuing to grow my skills and understanding and hopefully to contribute something to this field.
Doing this training was a true hero’s journey. I met allies, had mentors, encountered dragons, was a dragon, was tried and tested in several ways, and I came through it, completing my mission, transformed and changed.
Now, to enjoy some spaciousness as “what’s next” begins to show up.
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.
Most of my Biodynamic Meditation this morning was sensing big currents of energy moving within and through me.
At one point the energy condensed in my heart center and then released and swirled some more.
It felt pleasurable, like heart-love feels.
I was in high coherence 84 percent of the time. I’ve spent time with HeartMath in the past, then forgotten about it. Now I’m back, using a sensor during my sessions and training in The Resilient Heart to have more skill doing trauma-sensitive work with my clients.
I’m a trauma survivor myself. I believe most of us are, to some degree. Maybe all of us.
Who has not experienced overwhelm or shock? If you’re fortunate, you have enough resources in yourself and from others to recover. That’s resilience.
If the shock is deep enough, or repeated before you can recover, it can leave imprints in your system.
Recovering your resilience is possible. Biodynamic Meditation and Craniosacral Biodynamics are so helpful at increasing resilience, releasing trauma imprints, and assisting in trauma recovery.
I’ll be camping at Big Bend for the next few days. Will take notes on my meditations and post when I return.
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.
My Biodynamic Meditation today came after spending time in a friend’s hot tub and going for a walk, including a heart-pounding hill climb.
Now, rest, meditate, write.
My session this morning included radiance at my face, the Tide, and swirliness in my head, heart, and pelvic centers.
Swirliness shows up in several ways: seeking, settling into an area or spot in the system, and reorganizing.
This is how self-healing works. Attention is love, so you bring it inside and really pay attention to your sensations, rhythms, patterns. You feel the Tide regulating your system, then you may have a stillpoint, a pause that acts as a reset button. When swirliness happens, your system frees stuck energy, increasing your vitality.
You always start with where you are today, in this moment.
L’chaim!
I heard some great music Friday night at Sahara Lounge. This is Atash. They’ve played Carnegie Hall. Amazing musicianship, danceable music!
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 