Years before I went to massage school, I received monthly craniosacral therapy sessions from Nina Davis for about 3 years. I didn’t know what craniosacral therapy was, exactly, but I figured that between trauma, head injuries, sacrum injuries, and scoliosis in my spine, that any kind of bodywork that focused on the cranium, sacrum, and points in between was going to be good for me.
I asked who was good. Nina was recommended.
And it was really good for me! Continue reading
If you’ve friended me on Facebook, you might be aware that I’ve been taking classes in functional movement since August, so four months now. I thought I’d post something about what it is, what I’ve been doing, and my results.
Functional movement refers to fitness and the movements we use in everyday life. As opposed to yoga, for instance. Continue reading
I did my 10 minute presentation on peripheral awareness yesterday. I wish we’d had more time! I’m learning how to teach this by teaching it, and one attendee asked me a great question:
What would someone get out of learning this?
Thanks, Xtevan. That seems worthy of a blog post! So here are my top reasons for learning peripheral awareness, peripheral walking, and night walking.
Some of these benefits don’t happen right away. The originator, Nelson Zink, said it takes 15-20 hours of using a peripheral training device for the eyes to become trained not to switch to focused vision and for the eyes to consistently focus where they’ve been trained to gaze without a device. (He said they always took them with them, though.)
Oh, and walking in public wearing a peripheral vision training device definitely helps keep Austin weird! That’s another good reason to do it!
No wonder the great Japanese sword fighter Musashino said in The Book of Five Rings:
It is necessary in strategy to be able to look to both sides without moving the eyeballs. You cannot master this ability quickly. Learn what is written here: use this gaze in everyday life and do not vary it whatever happens.
If you find this interesting and are in the Austin, TX, area, I teach peripheral awareness/walking for 1-3 people at a time. We walk on city trails. This is required before night walking, which can be arranged when demand is sufficient.
Note: There are just a few spaces left in this workshop, which is limited to 30 people.
~~~
I am going to be attending a workshop September 28-29 in Austin, and I’d love for it to fill up. This workshop is for people who are interested in enlightenment (or maybe just deeper well-being), Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), or both. No NLP experience is required.
The teacher is Connirae Andreas. She’s got her own Wikipedia page here. If you haven’t heard of her, she’s a psychotherapist, writer, and trainer in the field of NLP whose impeccable and compassionate work has helped many thousands of people suffer less and enjoy life more.
She and her sister Tamara Andreas created, developed, and trained people in a process called Core Transformation (described in the book Core Transformation: Reaching the Wellspring Within) that can take you from a problem state to a state of expansion and resourcefulness. Many experience their spiritual core in this process.
I’ve enjoyed taking people through this process so much, I offer it for free. Contact me if you would like a Core Transformation session in Austin.
Connirae has been working on a process for personal growth that she calls “the Wholeness Process,” after studying various spiritual teachings on enlightenment, translating them into a precise method that people can adopt into a daily practice, and then working weekly with a small group in Boulder (her hometown) to refine the method.
She’s presenting the workshop to teach this practice in Austin September 28-29. Click the link for details. Keep in mind that the class is limited to 30 people, so if you’re interested, reserve your space sooner than later. She may not be teaching this again, so this is an opportunity to learn in person from the source.
The practice reportedly has benefits such as:
She’s also learned that the practice has been found to relieve insomnia. It can also be used to dissipate pre-migraine auras and help people deal with their emotional hot buttons.
She found that once learned, the practice can take as little as 5 minutes a day.
Connirae wisely doesn’t promise enlightenment, but she does say this:
…if you use the process, you will experience a natural shifting in the direction that we might call enlightenment. The class is practical and experiential, and no beliefs regarding spirituality or philosophy are needed or offered. However the experiences people have at times resonate with many mystical writings and understandings.
Part of “evolving” in this way, is getting more comfortable and “at home” with our vulnerabilities and “weaknesses,” which become increasingly a part of a felt love and acceptance.
I hope to see you there.
The best first step towards changing the way things are is to fully accept the way things are.
Michael Giles has written a book called Action of Mind: Essential Steps Toward a Satisfying Life. Neatly divided into three sections — Open Mind, Focused Mind, and Big Mind — the book offers chapters on topics like intent, stillness, setting and achieving satisfying goals, the unknown, and your purpose.
He acknowledges that reading the middle section (Focused Mind) will help readers understand better how to achieve specific goals they’ve set for themselves, yet he recommends reading the first section (Open Mind) first to get better results by being grounded in the present moment. The third section asks hard questions and deals with some of life’s difficult-to-accept realities.
I’ve known Michael for the past several years. I met him through NLP. Michael is a master practitioner of NLP and a hypnotist (a term he prefers over hypnotherapist) and coach for the last 13 years. Now he’s a working graduate student in the field of social work, an active member of the Texas National Guard, and father of Reyna, with another child on the way. He’s worked hard on creating his own satisfying life, and in this book, he shares his wisdom.
I’ve known Michael also as a long-time practitioner of martial arts. Michael started studying karate at age 12 and holds multiple black belts. Familiar with the Taoism and Buddhism, he practices and teaches tai chi. These practices, and meditation, have greatly influenced Michael’s perceptiveness, intelligence, and response-ability, which show up in his book.
Michael draws on NLP, hypnosis, martial arts, his own personal history, and story-telling to share his insights and exercises for living a more satisfying life. Here are some excerpts from his book, little nuggets that hint at the wisdom that follows, written in a style that suggests a coach talking directly to a client:
Nothing will guide you as wisely and creatively as your shadow. Your deepest feelings of hurt, fear, or doubt can serve you when you sit with them.
Visualization can be a very helpful element of hypnosis, self-development, or just getting over that threshold into the success that you want. In my experience, it is good to see yourself doing what you want to do and being what you want to be. I have found that affirmations are most helpful for receiving and achieving while visualization is most helpful in the doing and the being.
Whenever a problem is solved, it is because we have received a gift from the unknown. A more prosaic way of stating this is that solutions are pieces of information that we were ignorant of until we found them. If we know the solution to a problem already, then the problem is not really a problem. It is only a problem while we do not know the solution. It travels from the category of “unknown” to the category of “known.” Therefore, the unknown is the source of all our problem solving, positive change, and personal evolution.
Michael has done a great job of communicating his insights and teaching readers about something that really matters to all of us, living a life that is satisfying.
Trauma never goes completely away
My friend Spike shared a link to this New York Times article on Facebook, and since trauma and recovery are themes on this blog, I thought I’d share it here. The author, a psychiatrist, writes about how trauma and grief never go completely away.
Can’t get over it? You may now stop trying and believing that you have to or that something is wrong with you because you haven’t or can’t.
My mother’s knee-jerk reaction, “Shouldn’t I be over this by now?” is very common. There is a rush to normal in many of us that closes us off, not only to the depth of our own suffering but also, as a consequence, to the suffering of others….
The reflexive rush to normal is counterproductive. In the attempt to fit in, to be normal, the traumatized person (and this is most of us) feels estranged.
I posted this originally on June 16, 2011. Needing to remind myself of her wisdom, I thought you might want to (re)read her words and appreciate her wisdom too.
~~
Charlotte Joko Beck died yesterday, very peacefully, at the age of 94. She was a Zen teacher who made a major impact on American Buddhism.
Here’s a quote from article that puts her work into perspective (no longer available):
The Ordinary Mind School was among the first Zen communities to consciously engage the emotional life and the shadows of the human mind as Zen practice. The late Charlotte Joko Beck and her dharma heirs adapted elements of the vipassana tradition — a relentless inquiry into the contours of the human mind — as unambiguous Zen discipline.
Here are some quotes from her:
With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn. Whether you stay home or work in an office or whatever, the next teacher is going to pop right up.
Caught in the self-centered dream, only suffering;
holding to self-centered thoughts, exactly the dream;
each moment, life as it is, the only teacher;
being just this moment, compassion’s way.Enlightenment is not something you achieve. It is the absence of something. All your life you have been going forward after something, pursuing some goal. Enlightenment is dropping all that.
Wisdom is to see that there is nothing to search for. If you live with a difficult person, that’s nirvana. Perfect. If you’re miserable, that’s it. And I’m not saying to be passive, not to take action; then you would be trying to hold nirvana as a fixed state. It’s never fixed, but always changing. There is no implication of ‘doing nothing.’ But deeds done that are born of this understanding are free of anger and judgment. No expectation, just pure and compassionate action.
Practice is just hearing, just seeing, just feeling. This is what Christians call the face of God: simply taking in this world as it manifests. We feel our body; we hear the cars and birds. That’s all there is.
Life always gives us exactly the teacher we need at every moment. This includes every mosquito, every misfortune, every red light, every traffic jam, every obnoxious supervisor (or employee), every illness, every loss, every moment of joy or depression, every addiction, every piece of garbage, every breath. Every moment is the guru.
So a relationship is a great gift, not because it makes us happy — it often doesn’t — but because any intimate relationship, if we view it as practice, is the clearest mirror we can find.
Practice can be stated very simply. It is moving from a life of hurting myself and others to a life of not hurting myself and others. That seems so simple — except when we substitute for real practice some idea that we should be different or better than we are, or that our lives should be different from the way they are. When we substitute our ideas about what should be (such notions as “I should not be angry or confused or unwilling”) for our life as it truly is, then we’re off base and our practice is barren.
We have to face the pain we have been running from. In fact, we need to learn to rest in it and let its searing power transform us.
We learn in our guts, not just in our brain, that a life of joy is not in seeking happiness, but in experiencing and simply being the circumstances of our life as they are; not in fulfilling personal wants, but in fulfilling the needs of life.
Meditation is not about some state, it is about the meditator.
Zen practice isn’t about a special place or a special peace, or something other than being with our life just as it is. It’s one of the hardest things for people to get: that my very difficulties in this very moment are the perfection… When we are attached to the way we think we should be or the way we think anyone else should be, we can have very little appreciation of life as it is…whether or not we commit physical suicide, if our attachment to our dream remains unquestioned and untouched, we are killing ourselves, because our true life goes by almost unnoticed.
First. Let yourself get hungry. Abstain from eating so that you feel hunger. Check in with what your body is feeling every so often for an hour after you first feel hunger. Notice whether the sensations stay the same or change.
Drink water and notice what happens. Sometimes we mistake thirst for hunger. Learn the difference.
Savor these sensations. They are wisdom from your body. They are real, present sensations. Hunger for them. Trust them. You may have been ignoring them. You may have trouble recognizing them.
(Don’t worry. If you are reading this post, you will not die from hunger in one hour, or thirst, although your mind may be telling you differently. Your mind has been conditioned to mindless eating. That’s what is changing.)
If your mind starts thinking about food, write about it. Make a list of foods you daydream about. Evaluate this list. Is it good for you? If not, could something else satisfy you — a hug, a walk, dancing?
Notice the difference between what you feel with your body and what your mind is doing. Each way of being has a signature.
What would your life be like if you only ate after you fully and consciously felt hunger? Would you eat at certain times, or might the times vary? How often do you really need to eat to maintain or improve your health?
Second. Eat. After an hour of hunger and its sensations has gone by, eat. Eat some food that is healthy. Eat it slowly with an eye to noticing the sensation of satiety, of having eaten enough.
Do not eat with the goal of cleaning your plate. Give yourself a small serving.
The goal is to really notice eating and “enough”. Take one bite. Chew it. Taste it. Notice as many qualities of the taste as you can. Swallow.
Take another bite. Chew, taste, swallow. Move your arm slowly as you pick the food up with your fork or spoon or fingers and bring it to your mouth. Chew slowly.
After the third bite, pause for a minute. Notice the sensations in your stomach. How have they changed? Do you still feel hungry? Do you feel less hungry?
Remember that your empty stomach is the size of your fist, and your full stomach is the size of both fists. You don’t even have to fill your stomach to feel satiated.
Eat ten bites and notice your stomach sensations.
You might decide to stop then, or you might decide to eat 15 or 20 bites. But stop when you’ve eaten less than you would mindlessly eat.
Then see how long it takes for you to feel hungry again, and do it all again. It might mean you need to have food available as you go through your day, perhaps some nut butter, a banana, an avocado. Just enough to stave off your hunger pangs. You could eat half a banana or avocado, or a teaspoon of almond butter.
You might also think about where the food came from, plant or animal, soil, rain, sunshine, farmers, and all the places it has been and hands it has passed through to get to your mouth. With gratitude.
Third. Do this often. It’s a great way to lose weight, because it’s portion control, but more importantly, it gets you back in touch with your body, and it extends your experience of gratitude and connection to the planet.
Also, if you are only eating when hungry, and only eating enough to stave off hunger for a couple of hours, you will want every bite of food you eat to be nutritious as well as delicious. No HFCS, please.
And that’s it. I’m posting this to remind myself that I can eat like this, because I have put on a little more weight than I’d like. I’m having a small cup of quinoa tabouli for breakfast, then it’s off to work.
State Farm is a supporter of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). In fact, State Farm is deeply entwined in this extreme right-wing, pro-corporation, anti-choice, anti-women group, which provided the “model legislation” for the recent spate of anti-abortion bills as well as the “Stand Your Ground” laws as brought to public attention in the Travon Martin shooting tragedy.
According to Sourcewatch, which lists corporate supporters of ALEC (as well as corporations that have cut ties to ALEC), State Farm is not “just” a member but is extremely active in supporting ALEC’s radical, anti-consumer agenda.
- State Farm Insurance Co., ALEC “Private Enterprise” Board of Directors member,[1] corporate co-chair of ALEC’s Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force,[141] recipient of ALEC’s 2011 Private Sector Member of the Year Award,[66] and “Chairman” level sponsor of 2011 ALEC Annual Conference[17] ($50,000 in 2010)[18]
I don’t want to change insurance companies. I’d like for State Farm to cut its ties with ALEC. I simply will not be handing over a hundred-plus dollars per month for car insurance to a company that supports ALEC.
The non-ALEC alternatives are Progressive Insurance and All-State. (GEICO is an ALEC member.)
Note: A Facebook friend recommended Texas State Low Cost Insurance, a brokerage that I’m also checking out. They provide homeowner insurance as well as auto coverage.
If you’d like to let State Farm hear your opinion about their political activities, you can go here to leave your comment.
Here’s what I wrote:
I’ve been a State Farm customer since 2000, and I live in Texas. I was very, very disappointed to find out that State Farm is a supporter of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is writing anti-choice, anti-women legislation being enacted legislatures in several states, including Texas. I’m strongly considering changing companies.
A bunch of comments like that may change their tune. Let’s put the chill on the ALEC members whose products and services we use! We have a choice too. If they can influence legislation, we consumers can vote with our dollars as well as vote non-ALEC supporting politicians into office. (Did I mention I can now register voters?)
Also, just reminding y’all that the smartphone app/website Buycott has campaigns you can join that allow you to scan items with your phone that you’re about to buy to find out if they’re made by an ALEC supporter.
One of my Facebook friends commented on my last blog post with a link to some “follow the money” research done by the Houston Chronicle about the abortion bill.
It seems that Rick Perry’s sister sits on the board of the Texas Ambulatory Surgical Center Society, and she is a lobbyist for a company in Addison that owns about 60 ambulatory surgical centers around the state.
The bill would effectively close down 37 abortion clinics around the state that could not afford to upgrade to become ambulatory surgical centers.
It says nothing about current ambulatory surgical centers profiting from performing abortions. It certainly does not prevent them from making that change.
So the bill is two-faced. There’s what it says it’s about, playing to the right-wing anti-choice crowd, and what it could really do, put performing abortions into new hands who will charge more money and be regulated less.
It’s estimated that 1 in 3 women will need an abortion in her lifetime. Demand won’t go away if the bill passes. Women will just go to other states or pay more at whichever ambulatory surgical centers offer it, and if they can’t afford those options, have illegal abortions or unwanted children. They won’t be safer.
The article also stated:
It should be noted that the legislation now under consideration by the Texas Legislature is patterned after proposals that have been adopted in other states, so it did not originate with Gov. Perry’s office [cough *ALEC* cough]. Rich Parsons, a Perry spokesman said he could not say whether Perry has discussed the legislation with his sister, but said, “he strongly supports protecting women’s health by raising the standard of care they receive at abortion clinics.”
Which we now know is higher than what they’d receive at ambulatory surgical centers.
Another reason the bill stinks. Republicans: don’t vote for it!
The Well: bodymindheartspirit 