Tag Archives: understanding

The end of a hero’s journey

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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. 

Testimonial for a distance healing session

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Another review after a distance healing session. This woman was the first recipient I’d never met before. She lives in Indiana and was referred to me by a former client who moved there from the Austin area.

Before this session, I had a strong hunch that the distance apart doesn’t really matter, nor does having met someone in person. This confirmed it.

“I am fairly new to energy work and had been in a good amount of pain when I contacted Mary Ann. Through a distance energy healing session, she guided me through a process of understanding my pain and communicating with it in a way that brought me a lot of relief. She also taught me how to continue using these techniques on my own. Because it was a distance session, Mary Ann and I communicated throughout the process and she brought me into the experience in a way that was extremely empowering!” ~ N.V., 5/6/2020

For more of what people are saying, check out this page on my website.

To schedule a session with me, click here.

Thank you for your interest. 🙏🏽

Note: I no longer have distance healing listed as a service since the quarantines have ended, but if you’re interested in a session, please schedule a discovery call.

Morning download, 2.19.19

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Sitting in my favorite writing spot, staring out the window as spring unfolds upon the land here in Austin, Texas. There’s a mature tree on my property, a volunteer planted by nature, that is fully laden with white blossoms. It may be in the apple family, malus. It doesn’t bear fruit and has thorns, and butterflies and bees love those blossoms.

Yesterday, an intense phone conversation. Attempts to set things right, correct misunderstandings, set boundaries, wrestle for domination, with no shouting, but needing to be fierce and interrupt. Two very different ways of using the English language were struggling to be understood.

This is the closest I’ve been to having a fight with someone in years. It was healthy, timely, and deepening, in my opinion.

“The meaning of your communication is the response you get.” That’s a presupposition in NLP. What does this mean to you? Do you check to see if your words are understood?

Meanwhile, I was watching butterflies alighting on blossoms, feeding, fluttering away.

How do you know when you’re out of your cocoon, when you’re done turning and are ready to emerge and spread your wings? My full emergence is yet to come. This wasn’t it. Or maybe it was. Sometimes metaphors only go so far.

I like my verbal communication to be personal, simple, and clear. When I’m working with another person professionally or just having a long conversation with a friend, I like to listen and use my touch in just the right place or use my words to say just the right thing. It’s like seeing where the cracks are and bringing the light that gets in. I like to be accurate and clear. Best case, it penetrates, heals, and adds to their wholeness. Click. Breathe. Yes.

Sometimes it takes a while to get there. Some bodies and psyches are confused, including mine, at times.

I do not yet know if there was anything healing for my counterpart in yesterday’s exchange. I mind a lack of healing, because that is the intent.

I met it as best I could and still felt prickly enough hours later to leave my house to dance because movement and rhythm help me come back into myself.

I don’t enjoy conflict and have often fled from it. Sometimes it’s important to say who I am in a world that underestimates me, to plant myself and stand my ground and let my hard-won worthiness be known.

photo courtesy Yoga Journal

I felt strong in my center line throughout, connected to heaven and earth. When I felt pushed off center, I recovered my balance.

That is healing enough for me.

Six great things about making mistakes

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For most of my life, I have been afraid of making mistakes. Even the “MBTI Prayers” mentions my type as being perfectionistic:

INFJ: Lord, please help me not to be so perfectionistic! (Did I spell that correctly?)

Yes, I am a good speller, and I am also a fear-based Enneagram type, a Five, somewhat evolved but still a Five.

Fear! Fear! Fear! Boo!

I can poke fun at myself now, but used to, I couldn’t. I was a good child, didn’t make waves, did well in school, was serious and well-behaved, was friendly and funny with my peers — but was isolated, not close to anyone emotionally. I had a lot of fears and doubts and no one to talk to. My fears and doubts kept me from talking to anyone! I feared they wouldn’t understand me and would ridicule me, and I doubted anyone could do or say anything helpful to me. So I didn’t reach out very far. Adolescence was particularly lonely. I was afraid of making mistakes.

My fear of making mistakes meant being tense before I even started something!

Wow. When I think about that now, I can see how I made myself miserable. I robbed myself of the joy of failing, trying again, and doing better. I didn’t understand the learning curve.

By the way, here’s a great video about the learning curve. Watch this baby learn about her body and what she can do, and notice how complex rolling over is, and how she learns to do it:

 

I’m not sure exactly when this happened, but I recently realized some Very Important truths in life that changed my mind about making mistakes:

  • Mistakes are inevitable. Every single person is different from me in values, history, habits, expectations, thought processes, communication styles, emotional make-up, priorities, and so much more. I can’t read minds. Also, I filter things out that I should have paid attention to, had I only known or really understood. I forget, get distracted, am preoccupied, and so on. As the politicians say, mistakes are made.
  • You grow more from making mistakes than you do from perfection. When you do something or see something done perfectly, you and others can appreciate the beauty, elegance, and righteousness of it. Perfection lets us appreciate that someone has reached an ideal. You can reflect on what made it perfect, respect the luck or skill that went into it, and then you store that memory and move on to what’s next.

When you make a mistake, well, there are all kinds of opportunities to develop yourself and grow as a human being:

  1. You get to reflect on your behavior and remember what you were thinking/feeling and (with hindsight) what you were distorting/deleting/generalizing about that led to your mistake. So you know more about your subjective experience and your behavior, and you understand yourself better.
  2. By understanding yourself better, you have an opportunity to develop compassion for yourself. If you can understand how making the mistake really happened, moment by moment, you can have mercy on yourself, be tender toward yourself for your limitations, forgive yourself.
  3. If you can forgive yourself, you can extend that understanding and mercy to other humans who make mistakes (and of course to all sentient beings). Next time you realize you’ve made a mistake, after you’ve held yourself accountable and developed compassion for yourself, think of someone whom you hold a grudge against or judgment about because they made a mistake with you or someone you care about. You can now understand that they had limitations and were doing the best they could at the time. Just like you. You can extend your tenderness and compassion to them. We all live in the human condition.
  4. You have an opportunity to understand how you could have done it better. With hindsight, what could you have done differently that could have resulted in a better outcome? Of course, there’s no way of really knowing what the actual different outcome might be because there are always innumerable variables beyond our control, but you can at least imagine moving in a different and healthier direction, and it can still be soothing to your heart and mind to retroactively right your wrong in your imagination.
  5. You now hold the key to actually doing it better next time. Imagine a similar situation in the future, and see yourself not making that mistake.
  6. Depending on the severity of the mistake and the person you made it with, you may have an opportunity to make amends and reconnect in a healthier way. You may want to talk about what happened, listen, apologize, reset boundaries, and/or make a peace offering. Who knows? They may have something important to tell you. You invite them to understand you better and perhaps to understand themselves (or what they project) better through seeing how you misperceived them. And mostly, you get to spend time valuing each other’s humanity, and that’s a simply awesome way to spend time with people.

There’s still a part of me that doesn’t want to make mistakes, because there’s pain involved. I don’t want to cause anyone pain or suffering. But I can’t let that paralyze me. Intent counts, and it’s more complex than that. This is where the Serenity Prayer comes in:

Mistakes are perhaps the best education available for the heart and the mind when it comes to gaining skill with life. They teach you how to be heart-full and mind-full.

With the attitude that mistakes are inevitable and there for me to learn from, and the recognition that I have learned from them and will continue learning from them, life feels more playful, free, promising, and joyful. I’m moving in the direction of Big Mind and Big Heart. And how much better can it get than that?