Tag Archives: wellness

Interested in enlightenment?

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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.

Eating for gut health, part of my healing journey

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This article from the British paper The Guardian about the connection between eating certain foods and improving gut health contains some new information.

I make (and sometimes buy) fermented foods like kombucha, kraut, kimchi, and kvass (haven’t tried making kefir yet), but there are a lot of other fermented foods, including cheese, miso (which apparently you can make at home — who knew?), olives (!), and vinegars.

The article also mentions prebiotic foods, like legumes (pulses in British English), mushrooms, dark chocolate, and sourdough bread. Sourdough is fermented, so maybe it’s in the wrong category?? Cacao beans, from which chocolate is made, is also fermented.

I had no idea that mushrooms were prebiotics. There are lots of others.

Just gonna mention here that although I don’t bake bread, I do buy a sprouted sourdough made by Alvarado St. Bakery (a California co-op) and sold at Austin’s Wheatsville Food Co-op.

On my own personal healing journey, digestive health was the second episode, after trauma and its effect on my nervous system.

I got food sensitivity testing, was positive for too much candida and sensitive to 14 foods including wheat and corn (but interestingly, not gluten). I did the very strict candida diet, which came with warnings that one slip-up could allow the candida yeast to get out of control again…so I followed it strictly for two-and-a-half months.

I didn’t know what “well” felt like until then.

Deepening awareness of embodiment

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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.

Let what wants to happen, happen

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When I wake up too early, I listen to a Yoga Nidra guided meditation on YouTube, led by Liam Gillen.

That happened this morning.

I’d stopped it from playing about halfway through the last time I listened so I could sleep.

This morning it started where I’d left off, and I realized I’d never heard the second half of it!!

It’s that good at getting me to sleep.

What I heard was a guided tour of the chakras, moving energy up the central channel, chakra by chakra, from root to crown.

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2018 blog stats

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Every year since 2010, I’ve written a post summarizing the year on this blog. Here are the highlights for 2018.

My posts from years past about healing my injured sacroiliac joints have gotten a lot of comments in 2018 from people who are also suffering, and that has brought the most gratification this year, to know that documenting my healing journey offers hope to others.

To summarize that journey, I saw many practitioners in various bodywork modalities for a couple of decades before finding one who truly understood what it would take to heal the injury. I followed her advice, and it worked. My final post, Sacroiliac joint healed!, published in 2017, includes links to all my previous posts on the topic.

In 2018, I had 94,239 visitors and 127,235 views. This is down a bit from 2017, even though I wrote more posts in 2018. I’m attributing the downturn in visitors and views to social media burnout.

Social media has been a fun new toy — and more people are seeking balance in their lives. I’m actually fine with it, as I’m seeking balance too. Writing fewer posts but having them be more germane to how we can live better lives works for me. Plus, I’m a bodyworker and wellness advocate by trade. Less text neck, eye strain, forward head posture, and sitting are better for your health. I want you to be healthy!

I wrote 32 blog posts in 2018, totaling 16,319 words, averaging 510 words per post, a bit shorter than I typically have written.

Of the posts I wrote this year, these have gotten the most views (listed newest to oldest):

The most-read post in 2018 was one first posted back in January 2014, How to drink water with lemon and preserve your tooth enamel. It’s gotten the most comments of any post I’ve ever written. Believe it or not, almost 5 years after it was first published, 40,960 people read that post in 2018. I hope they/you are preserving their/your tooth enamel!

At the end of 2018, I have 292 followers on WordPress, 92 on email, and 605 on social media. Thank you!

The most popular day and hour for reading my blog is Sunday at 2 pm.

And now (drum roll), where are readers from? Well, it looks like this:

  • all of North America except Greenland
  • all of South America except for one tiny country north of Brazil (French Guiana)
  • all of Europe except Svalbard islands
  • all of Asia except Iran, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan
  • most of Africa except Western Sahara, Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Chad, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Somalia
  • I imagine there are some tiny island nations that don’t appear on the map with no readers

As always, it astounds me how connected the world is now because of the internet.

One of my intentions for 2019 is to improve my writing. I’d like to write a monthly post but have each be more interesting, compelling, and shareable.

Thank you so much for reading!

Updated products I recommend

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I’ve updated this page with some new recommendations! New for 2018: the book How to Change Your Mind by Michael Pollan, a new online dispensary for supplements, stainless steel drinking straws, a hand/face/body lotion, and more.

Happy shopping!

 

Habit tracking simplified

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I do much better when incorporating new behaviors into my life when I have a way to track them that’s visual and shows more than just a few days. I found an online PDF, Habit Tracker, that has space to track up to 17 behaviors for one month, so you can easily view trends, skipped days, etc.

One of the activities that is motivating when trying to develop a new habit is checking off each time you do something on a monthly calendar. When you’ve done it for a few days in a row, you see your streak of successfully incorporating the habit, and you don’t want to break the chain. This technique was attributed to Jerry Seinfeld, but he doesn’t claim credit. Whatever. It works!

Screen Shot 2017-07-19 at 11.56.00 AM

Source: https://www.clementinecreative.co.za/reach-goals-free-printable-habit-tracker/

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What people are saying after Zero Balancing

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So far in 2016, I’ve done 96 Zero Balancing sessions ranging from 15 to 45 minutes in length. Most were about 30 minutes.

Help me make at least 100 in 2016! [I made my goal!]

The part I love most about giving my clients a Zero Balancing session comes after the fully-clothed bodywork has concluded, when the receiver slowly moves from supine on my massage table to sidelying to seated to standing, taking a pause after each movement, and finally takes a few steps around my office.

I ask, “What are you noticing?” Continue reading →

Gravity Pal, a low angle inversion table, makes a difference in a minute a day

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I just had the pleasure of taking Zero Balancing II training in my pursuit of skill and finesse in my bodywork practice. Jamie Carmody was an excellent teacher, her lovely San Antonio studio well located, and my fellow students a delight to learn with, practice with, and get to know.

For more about Zero Balancing, go here. I’m getting ready to send out a newsletter with some sweet special offers, including one for Zero Balancing that will be impossible to resist for wellness-seekers in the Austin area. If you’d like to subscribe and get in on this time-limited offer, please send your email address to me at mareynolds27 at gmail dot com.

If you haven’t yet encountered it, you’re probably wondering what Zero Balancing is. My description is that it lets you feel like you’d feel without habitual tension patterns or the constant pressure of gravity pulling you down. Younger? Taller? Lighter? Buzzing with healthy energy? Can you even imagine feeling like this? I invite you to come get a session, or two or three, and find out how it affects your body.

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A tale of recovery: my path from traumatized to healer

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I had lunch a few weeks ago with John, someone I’ve known for about 12 years but haven’t seen much in recent years. He commented that I am a very different person now from when he met me, and that would not be apparent to people who hadn’t known me that long.

When we met in 2004 (I think), I seemed troubled to him, and I was. John said that now, I appear to be happy and “like a fountain” (which I love), and he was curious about that.

Other people have said I’ve changed more than anyone they know. Well, that’s probably because I was starting from a more troubled place than most.

So I’m reviewing my path in search of insights to share. This is for you, John, and I know that some of you are interested in recovery from trauma, and some of you are interested in personal growth, so this is for you too.

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