Saw this article in the NYTimes and I thought, well duh. Don't we know this? Don't you feel that in your soul? Our bodies were meant to be moved, we are engineered to walk, to swing from trees, to swim in the oceans. Within all of us is our ancestors, the Savannah people of Africa. Within all of us is our ancestor, the Great Apes. Within all of us is our Ancestor, the reptiles who crawled out of the ocean. Within all of us is our Ancestors the fish. Within all of us is an organism that is one or two celled, dividing and uniting to form more and larger organisms.
You can see this in our brain. As Carl Sagan writes about in Dragons of Eden, we have the reptilian brain, the mammalian brain and most recently the neocortex: Consciousnes is thought to be a result of the neocortex. But the neocortex is on top of the other two levels of brain which developed first and which in all of us develops first. In fetal development we all go through stages where we are first a single cell, later a fish, later a mammal and finally human. All of these stages are necessary to go through to develop into a whole functioning human. Similarly all of the stages in evolution were necessary for the Human species to come around. The Universe had been around already for billions of years before humans came around. You can not rush something as magnificient as us, you can not skip steps and you cannot cheat biology.
All of our ancestors are creatures of motion, just as we are creatures of motion. It's wonderful that we have developed elaborate cultures, arts, architecture. We have used our immense capacity for imagination, creativity and problem solving to build and change and inspire future generations. But never foroget what we are and how we got here. Never stop moving. The moment you stop moving is the moment you begin to die.
Stay mobile, completely mobile, stay fluid like water, stay flexible like a blade of grass, swing like a monkey, swim like a fish. Exercise like your life depends on it, because it does.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Saturday, July 25, 2009
Addendum to previous post.
So, I want to add something to the previous message. One reader commented that I might be coming off as judgmental. So I just want to clarify something. These postings do not come from a place of judgment, they come from a place of possibility.You may have read my last post correlating loss of movement and sensory awareness with rigidity of structure, increased opportunity for illness, a diminished capacity for change and felt a little insulted and put off. That was not my intention. I do not want to dwell on the negative effects of trauma, stress and sensory motor amnesia. Instead I would like to focus on the positive effects of sensory motor awareness, conscious movement, optimal functioning and adaptation. The only reason I bring up the negative side is as a prelude to discussing how we can move away from that. Not should, there is no obligation to do this, but it is possible if the desire is there. And I imagine for many of you the desire is there. I also imagine for many of you this is something you're already working towards. The popularity of yoga, acupuncture, massage and meditation, the slow food, organic, green, sustainable/local movements all suggest people are in an active process of bettering themselves and their world. Certainly, I'm not the first person to discuss these things.
If you felt that what I wrote was bit out of line perhaps consider where that comes from. Is it because you do not believe what I'm saying or because some of what I wrote resonates with your experience of yourself and the world. It's quite likely that all of you from time to time feel exactly what I'm talking about. Why? because I'm talking about a universal experience of modern, industrialized living. 80% of people in the industrialized world will suffer from back pain at some point in their life. It is one of the most common reasons for job absenteeism and emergency room visits. What are some other major health problems? Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, mental illness, obesity. All of these ailments are common, universal, shared experiences of the modern, industrialized world. And there is industry and culture around these illnesses. They are in a sense, hardwired into the very structure of society so that if you live long enough in this world, you will likely start to get these problems. Again, I don't want to dwell on that. These things exist, and if you don't experience them personally, you know somebody who does.
My question is, what do you want to do about that. The reason I posted that last piece was to start discussing the possibilties offered by Somatic Education as to what you, we, I can do about these things. All of those diseases have a strong component of function, meaning they are influenced, caused and most importantly abated by the outside world and the way we engage with/move through this world. Sure, there may be a genetic component, but we as a species have an amazing capacity for self change and adaptation. We do not need to feel encumbered by our genetics. So I say let the past be the past and let's focus on the future.
In a sense, I'm writing specifically to those that want to focus on the future and not the past. Not in a sense to judge what happened in the past, but there are countless other blogs, journals and other news sources that focus on the past. I'd like to hold the discussion with the creators of the future, people who are interested in defying what their genetics say and what the structures of society say. Those who are curious about where we can go, what are the limitations of consciousness and adaptability. Are there actually limitations? These are things that of course are harder to study and take a bit of trust. Just as we have all shared experiences of pain, suffering and limitation, we have all shared experiences of joy, healing, and positive adaptation. There is subjective evidence within all of us that this is possible and now, thanks to advances in the study of neuroplasticity and physiology, we have empirical, scientific backing to support how that change and adaptation can/does happen. Somatic Education is the product of that study and we use that study to explore a philosophy of experiential change, individual freedom and continuous improvement. So if you believe that the past happened and trust in what science shows us is possible then the future that I am suggesting lays well within your grasp.
Let's move out of the pain side of the experiential scale and over to the joy side, away from what happened and towards what is possible. Each moment is an opportunity to start experiencing the power we have innately to make living a continual process of renewal, improvement and growth, individually and collectively.
Who's with me? Please feel free to post comments(good or bad), thoughts and your own experiences of adaptation and living a life of possibility.
Much love, always.
If you felt that what I wrote was bit out of line perhaps consider where that comes from. Is it because you do not believe what I'm saying or because some of what I wrote resonates with your experience of yourself and the world. It's quite likely that all of you from time to time feel exactly what I'm talking about. Why? because I'm talking about a universal experience of modern, industrialized living. 80% of people in the industrialized world will suffer from back pain at some point in their life. It is one of the most common reasons for job absenteeism and emergency room visits. What are some other major health problems? Heart disease, cancer, diabetes, mental illness, obesity. All of these ailments are common, universal, shared experiences of the modern, industrialized world. And there is industry and culture around these illnesses. They are in a sense, hardwired into the very structure of society so that if you live long enough in this world, you will likely start to get these problems. Again, I don't want to dwell on that. These things exist, and if you don't experience them personally, you know somebody who does.
My question is, what do you want to do about that. The reason I posted that last piece was to start discussing the possibilties offered by Somatic Education as to what you, we, I can do about these things. All of those diseases have a strong component of function, meaning they are influenced, caused and most importantly abated by the outside world and the way we engage with/move through this world. Sure, there may be a genetic component, but we as a species have an amazing capacity for self change and adaptation. We do not need to feel encumbered by our genetics. So I say let the past be the past and let's focus on the future.
In a sense, I'm writing specifically to those that want to focus on the future and not the past. Not in a sense to judge what happened in the past, but there are countless other blogs, journals and other news sources that focus on the past. I'd like to hold the discussion with the creators of the future, people who are interested in defying what their genetics say and what the structures of society say. Those who are curious about where we can go, what are the limitations of consciousness and adaptability. Are there actually limitations? These are things that of course are harder to study and take a bit of trust. Just as we have all shared experiences of pain, suffering and limitation, we have all shared experiences of joy, healing, and positive adaptation. There is subjective evidence within all of us that this is possible and now, thanks to advances in the study of neuroplasticity and physiology, we have empirical, scientific backing to support how that change and adaptation can/does happen. Somatic Education is the product of that study and we use that study to explore a philosophy of experiential change, individual freedom and continuous improvement. So if you believe that the past happened and trust in what science shows us is possible then the future that I am suggesting lays well within your grasp.
Let's move out of the pain side of the experiential scale and over to the joy side, away from what happened and towards what is possible. Each moment is an opportunity to start experiencing the power we have innately to make living a continual process of renewal, improvement and growth, individually and collectively.
Who's with me? Please feel free to post comments(good or bad), thoughts and your own experiences of adaptation and living a life of possibility.
Much love, always.
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
How Sensory Motor Awareness Can Change the World.
In my last post, I talked about Sensory Motor Amnesia, a forgetfulness of how to move and feel an area of your soma. When Amnesia sets in, that area of your soma become unconscious and inaccessible to you. The word Soma refers to the Human Body experienced from within. In another sense, it refers to the universe experienced from your specific location. And so if there is a disconnection and loss of awareness within yourself then there is also a diminished ability to sense and move through the world around you. For this reason, SMA often leads to stiffness, inflexibility, discoordination and clumsiness navigating through the universe and through life. And not just in terms of the physical. From a somatic viewpoint we see that the whole person, including spiritual, ideological and personality development will become stiff, rigid, clumsy and inefficient. The person will become afraid of change because their ability to adapt is diminished. This is reflected in how as people age in modern society, their worldview often becomes more focused/limited and they lose the capacity to see other points of view, ways of doing things. The old adage you can't teach a dog new tricks is indicative of an "old dog" who has acumulated a great deal of Sensory Motor Amnesia. So much of what that "old dog" does is unconscious, involuntary and lost to them.
But you CAN teach an "old dog" new tricks. More importantly, you can teach a human Soma to overcome Sensory Motor Amnesia and turn it into Sensory Motor Awareness. And Because this Amnesia, this forgetfulness of how to sense and move is a Sensory Motor event, it can be addressed quite quickly through sensory motor activity, namely, slow conscious movement. Every event not just in human activity but in the universe is a sensory motor event; feedback loop between information and response. The push and pull between masses of energy, the swaying of a tree branch, the coordinated attack of an alligator, the leaping of a kangaroo, and the walking and talking of human somas. What's unique about human somas is our ability to be conscious of this sensory motor feedback and influence it.
It's this ability that got us into this mess. We have taught ourselves inadvertently, and sometimes quite actively, patterns that have led to disease, pain, and have set a path of destruction to nature and other species. These patterns have been in place for centuries, are in the very foundation of our society and, just like the back tension that we don't feel until it "goes out" with a painful spasm, we don't sense the destructiveness of these patterns until species start disappearing, economies collapse and people start getting sick on mass levels(notice the elevated rates of drug dependency, chronic illness, cancer, obesity). In a sense, society itself is a product of and an instigator of Sensory Motor Amnesia. We must now use this conscious ability to deconstruct those old patterns, reverse the damage we've done and start building more sustainable patterns within our own life and within the larger universe that we share.
As I said before, this must be a conscious process, creating Sensory Motor Awareness individually and globally. Individually, by moving slowly and gently, you force the conscious part of your brain to spring into action, finding the connections between body parts and coordinating movement through space. As your movement becomes more coordinated, all of a sudden your sensation throughout your Soma starts to improve. In this process of Sensory Motor Awareness; pain, imbalance and disease begin to disappear. As you become much more sensitive to what is happening throughout your system, your internal mechanisms of homeostasis take over, returning you to health and balance. Similarly as more of your soma becomes incorporated with movement; circulation, lymphatic drainage, blood pressure, and your immune system starts working better because all parts of you are now receiving adequate blood flow and nutrients. Your posture and temperament become more flexible, more dynamic. Your emotional range, capacity for joy, sadness and everything in between, increases dramatically.
Not only that, but as you become more sensitive internally and coordinated, you also will become more aware of your position in the world and your relations with other people. Your movement through space will become graceful, efficient, and responsive. You will have less injury and be less afraid of change because you will have faith in your innate powers of adaptability and healing. On a larger level, you will start to feel more your relationship with nature and other species. In my estimation, a populace that is engaged, aware and connected will automatically stop poisoning and destroying our planet. people that are pain/disease free will be more compassionate and joyful towards other Somas. The mass Sensory Motor Amnesia of Somas in a society is an inability to change the path of destruction we're on. And as the pains of what we're doing to the world are reflected in our own disease and suffering, so too are the joys and changes we make. What society would you live in if you felt you could do anything, and were unafraid of change? It's not that awareness in itself will be that change but mass awareness opens the door to proactivity, sustainability and successful cohabitation between all Somas; human, animal, plant, and other.
The point is to be aware, to be sensitive, to enjoy your Soma for all that it can offer you and all that you can offer the world. This is our place of control and reflection, this is our place of change. I welcome you to come and explore this with me in my regular Tuesday evening class, 6:00 at 3380 20th street or come in for a one-on-one session. That's all for now, feel free to comment and respond or share this in anyway you see fit.
But you CAN teach an "old dog" new tricks. More importantly, you can teach a human Soma to overcome Sensory Motor Amnesia and turn it into Sensory Motor Awareness. And Because this Amnesia, this forgetfulness of how to sense and move is a Sensory Motor event, it can be addressed quite quickly through sensory motor activity, namely, slow conscious movement. Every event not just in human activity but in the universe is a sensory motor event; feedback loop between information and response. The push and pull between masses of energy, the swaying of a tree branch, the coordinated attack of an alligator, the leaping of a kangaroo, and the walking and talking of human somas. What's unique about human somas is our ability to be conscious of this sensory motor feedback and influence it.
It's this ability that got us into this mess. We have taught ourselves inadvertently, and sometimes quite actively, patterns that have led to disease, pain, and have set a path of destruction to nature and other species. These patterns have been in place for centuries, are in the very foundation of our society and, just like the back tension that we don't feel until it "goes out" with a painful spasm, we don't sense the destructiveness of these patterns until species start disappearing, economies collapse and people start getting sick on mass levels(notice the elevated rates of drug dependency, chronic illness, cancer, obesity). In a sense, society itself is a product of and an instigator of Sensory Motor Amnesia. We must now use this conscious ability to deconstruct those old patterns, reverse the damage we've done and start building more sustainable patterns within our own life and within the larger universe that we share.
As I said before, this must be a conscious process, creating Sensory Motor Awareness individually and globally. Individually, by moving slowly and gently, you force the conscious part of your brain to spring into action, finding the connections between body parts and coordinating movement through space. As your movement becomes more coordinated, all of a sudden your sensation throughout your Soma starts to improve. In this process of Sensory Motor Awareness; pain, imbalance and disease begin to disappear. As you become much more sensitive to what is happening throughout your system, your internal mechanisms of homeostasis take over, returning you to health and balance. Similarly as more of your soma becomes incorporated with movement; circulation, lymphatic drainage, blood pressure, and your immune system starts working better because all parts of you are now receiving adequate blood flow and nutrients. Your posture and temperament become more flexible, more dynamic. Your emotional range, capacity for joy, sadness and everything in between, increases dramatically.
Not only that, but as you become more sensitive internally and coordinated, you also will become more aware of your position in the world and your relations with other people. Your movement through space will become graceful, efficient, and responsive. You will have less injury and be less afraid of change because you will have faith in your innate powers of adaptability and healing. On a larger level, you will start to feel more your relationship with nature and other species. In my estimation, a populace that is engaged, aware and connected will automatically stop poisoning and destroying our planet. people that are pain/disease free will be more compassionate and joyful towards other Somas. The mass Sensory Motor Amnesia of Somas in a society is an inability to change the path of destruction we're on. And as the pains of what we're doing to the world are reflected in our own disease and suffering, so too are the joys and changes we make. What society would you live in if you felt you could do anything, and were unafraid of change? It's not that awareness in itself will be that change but mass awareness opens the door to proactivity, sustainability and successful cohabitation between all Somas; human, animal, plant, and other.
The point is to be aware, to be sensitive, to enjoy your Soma for all that it can offer you and all that you can offer the world. This is our place of control and reflection, this is our place of change. I welcome you to come and explore this with me in my regular Tuesday evening class, 6:00 at 3380 20th street or come in for a one-on-one session. That's all for now, feel free to comment and respond or share this in anyway you see fit.
Saturday, July 18, 2009
SMA blocks to our Authenticity
Sensory Motor Amnesia, a term that Thomas Hanna coined referring to a forgetfulness of how to move or sense an area of your Soma. SMA is something we all have, it occurs naturally due to Trauma, repetitive stress, or the unconscious confirming to or our culture and society. SMA is the major cause of functional disorder throughout the Soma and often leads to pain. Most importantly Sensory Motor Amnesia is a major block to accessing our authentic self. What do I mean by that?
As Devon White of the Human Operating System says, "You were born perfect, metaphorically drop shipped from the factory with a flawless human operating system, just like a brand new computer." It is the stresses, traumas and learnings that happen over our course of our life that cause malfunction and disorder in that programming.
Using computer terms, he refers to this self as 'Default' Moshe Feldenkrais used the word Potent. I often use the word Authentic. Of course, that would imply that many of us our leading inauthentic lives. I am not trying to offend anybody but when we are disconnected from ourselves, the desires and feelings become imposed by external culture, friends, family, politicians, media and on and on. We are unable to actually feel what is happening internally and so lose a sense of control and authority over ourselves. We then have to ask doctors and other authorities to tell us what is happening. The more that you are disconnected from your whole body experience, the less you are able to sense what is happening. It is a continuum in a sense, on one end you have complete and constant connection:authenticity, on the other side you have compete disconnection: inauthenticity. We're all somewhere in the middle. The question is how do we progress towards Authenticity; who we really are and what we really want?
If you have large areas of Sensory Motor Amnesia, it's impossible to tell because you literally can not feel what is happening. What I want you to know is that this place of Authenticity, which everyone can learn to access, has an inherent drive towards success, joy, love, excitement, and fulfillment. It's written in to our DNA coding, the structure of our skeleton and nervous system demands Forward Progress, Go Explore it says! Just as you don't need to tell a plant to turn towards the sun, you don't need to teach a person to succeed, all you really need to do is release their Authentic self and the drive will carry them forward.
So how does Sensory Motor Amnesia occur? The simplest way to explain that is to tell you that your system thrives on efficiency, your brain and nervous system are in constant action, refining how you're doing things and looking for patterns. When you start moving in patterns, these patterns become primed by the subcortical, unconscious, parts of your brain. For instance when you start a new activity, you are often quite clumsy at it. This beginning stage is conscious requiring a lot of awareness and control. So you practice and practice and start to improve, smoothing out the activity until you get good at it. At this point, you stop doing it consciously. When you get good at something, it becomes a program in your nervous system and you have effectively learned that program. This works with writing arithmetic, soccer, language and every other pattern of your life. In an effort to make your soma as efficient as possible, unconscious programmed behavior is ideal.
This works with posture too. so if you spend a lot of time in one position, day after day hour after hour, your soma will start to Learn and Program that position. Eventually it will become completely unconscious. You will know longer have to think about forming that posture and actually, you will know longer feel the parts of your soma that responsible for keeping you in that posture. You will become rigid and tense in that area but you will not even feel that until it becomes a major problem. This is why people don't often experience pains and aches until the late 20's and 30's. It takes years for these programs to start causing pain. But the disconnection has been happening for years. People who have suffered injury become rigid is a position of protection and stability to continue protecting, unconsciously, the injured/traumatized area. Those of us who are very active and constantly on the go, get stuck in a position of engagement, excitation and effort. Those of us who have experienced a lot of stress and anxiety become stuck in a posture of defense and fear. As we get older, all three of these things start to combine into a posture releflecting great rigidity, exhaustion and pain.
Something to think about, desks and chairs, sitting for long periods of time in a hunched position puts yourself into a position reflecting a state of anxiety, fear and stress. The longer you sit in a hunched, flexed position you will actively be picking up the traits of that position; shortened abdomen, inhibited breath, forward head, slumped shoulders, tight anus. It's as if the modern work force is teaching us to be anxious and fearful. Your thoughts, feelings, desires will then start to reflect this state. In a sense you will start acting inauthentically, feeling pulled by the posture and experience that you are unwittingly foisting on yourself. It's sad but true, we are unconsciously teaching ourselves to be disconnected, anxious and fearful. We then become more and more susceptible to the fear mongering and chaos on the news and in the media because we start looking for things that confirm our internal experience.
If you want to change your experience and if, in the larger picture, you want to change your world, you must become actively involved in the process. It is a process then of turning areas of Sensory Motor Amnesia into areas of Sensory Motor Awareness. You can do this at any point and you don't even have to quit your day job to do it.
What I'm suggesting is that you can spend your time in a hunched, flexed, anxious position during the day but then spend some time getting reaquainted with your authentic self. yoga, gyrotonics, meditation, feldenkrais, and Hanna Somtics are great ways of moving and consciously connecting with yourself to make sure that these patterns of modern society to not get imprinted on you.
For those of you who have suffered from trauma or who's posture has become quite rigid, you should consider working with a Hanna Somatic Educator, someone who can actively help you feel and move again areas that you are unable to access on your own because as I said early, once these SMA's are formed you are unable to even feel that it is happening, you are truly amnesiac to the experience.
It's not my job to tell you what your Authentic self is or how you should feel. It's merely my job to help you again experience that place of authenticity so that on your own you can find it again and again and again. And every single one of you has the capacity to reawaken areas of disconnection, release patterns of tension and pain, and become more and more authentic.
Once you learn how to release into this authentic self, that can then become again the programmed behavior, your natural default state. You won't have to try and release the effects of stress and trauma, your system will just naturally do it, again and again. Your sense of self will deepen, your trust in yourself will be absolute and you will begin to feel better and better and better. I guarantee.
As Devon White of the Human Operating System says, "You were born perfect, metaphorically drop shipped from the factory with a flawless human operating system, just like a brand new computer." It is the stresses, traumas and learnings that happen over our course of our life that cause malfunction and disorder in that programming.
Using computer terms, he refers to this self as 'Default' Moshe Feldenkrais used the word Potent. I often use the word Authentic. Of course, that would imply that many of us our leading inauthentic lives. I am not trying to offend anybody but when we are disconnected from ourselves, the desires and feelings become imposed by external culture, friends, family, politicians, media and on and on. We are unable to actually feel what is happening internally and so lose a sense of control and authority over ourselves. We then have to ask doctors and other authorities to tell us what is happening. The more that you are disconnected from your whole body experience, the less you are able to sense what is happening. It is a continuum in a sense, on one end you have complete and constant connection:authenticity, on the other side you have compete disconnection: inauthenticity. We're all somewhere in the middle. The question is how do we progress towards Authenticity; who we really are and what we really want?
If you have large areas of Sensory Motor Amnesia, it's impossible to tell because you literally can not feel what is happening. What I want you to know is that this place of Authenticity, which everyone can learn to access, has an inherent drive towards success, joy, love, excitement, and fulfillment. It's written in to our DNA coding, the structure of our skeleton and nervous system demands Forward Progress, Go Explore it says! Just as you don't need to tell a plant to turn towards the sun, you don't need to teach a person to succeed, all you really need to do is release their Authentic self and the drive will carry them forward.
So how does Sensory Motor Amnesia occur? The simplest way to explain that is to tell you that your system thrives on efficiency, your brain and nervous system are in constant action, refining how you're doing things and looking for patterns. When you start moving in patterns, these patterns become primed by the subcortical, unconscious, parts of your brain. For instance when you start a new activity, you are often quite clumsy at it. This beginning stage is conscious requiring a lot of awareness and control. So you practice and practice and start to improve, smoothing out the activity until you get good at it. At this point, you stop doing it consciously. When you get good at something, it becomes a program in your nervous system and you have effectively learned that program. This works with writing arithmetic, soccer, language and every other pattern of your life. In an effort to make your soma as efficient as possible, unconscious programmed behavior is ideal.
This works with posture too. so if you spend a lot of time in one position, day after day hour after hour, your soma will start to Learn and Program that position. Eventually it will become completely unconscious. You will know longer have to think about forming that posture and actually, you will know longer feel the parts of your soma that responsible for keeping you in that posture. You will become rigid and tense in that area but you will not even feel that until it becomes a major problem. This is why people don't often experience pains and aches until the late 20's and 30's. It takes years for these programs to start causing pain. But the disconnection has been happening for years. People who have suffered injury become rigid is a position of protection and stability to continue protecting, unconsciously, the injured/traumatized area. Those of us who are very active and constantly on the go, get stuck in a position of engagement, excitation and effort. Those of us who have experienced a lot of stress and anxiety become stuck in a posture of defense and fear. As we get older, all three of these things start to combine into a posture releflecting great rigidity, exhaustion and pain.
Something to think about, desks and chairs, sitting for long periods of time in a hunched position puts yourself into a position reflecting a state of anxiety, fear and stress. The longer you sit in a hunched, flexed position you will actively be picking up the traits of that position; shortened abdomen, inhibited breath, forward head, slumped shoulders, tight anus. It's as if the modern work force is teaching us to be anxious and fearful. Your thoughts, feelings, desires will then start to reflect this state. In a sense you will start acting inauthentically, feeling pulled by the posture and experience that you are unwittingly foisting on yourself. It's sad but true, we are unconsciously teaching ourselves to be disconnected, anxious and fearful. We then become more and more susceptible to the fear mongering and chaos on the news and in the media because we start looking for things that confirm our internal experience.
If you want to change your experience and if, in the larger picture, you want to change your world, you must become actively involved in the process. It is a process then of turning areas of Sensory Motor Amnesia into areas of Sensory Motor Awareness. You can do this at any point and you don't even have to quit your day job to do it.
What I'm suggesting is that you can spend your time in a hunched, flexed, anxious position during the day but then spend some time getting reaquainted with your authentic self. yoga, gyrotonics, meditation, feldenkrais, and Hanna Somtics are great ways of moving and consciously connecting with yourself to make sure that these patterns of modern society to not get imprinted on you.
For those of you who have suffered from trauma or who's posture has become quite rigid, you should consider working with a Hanna Somatic Educator, someone who can actively help you feel and move again areas that you are unable to access on your own because as I said early, once these SMA's are formed you are unable to even feel that it is happening, you are truly amnesiac to the experience.
It's not my job to tell you what your Authentic self is or how you should feel. It's merely my job to help you again experience that place of authenticity so that on your own you can find it again and again and again. And every single one of you has the capacity to reawaken areas of disconnection, release patterns of tension and pain, and become more and more authentic.
Once you learn how to release into this authentic self, that can then become again the programmed behavior, your natural default state. You won't have to try and release the effects of stress and trauma, your system will just naturally do it, again and again. Your sense of self will deepen, your trust in yourself will be absolute and you will begin to feel better and better and better. I guarantee.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Somatic Storytelling: the bunion
A case Study:
I saw a woman this week with a bunion, a bony growth on the inside of her big toe. She had suffered pain in this foot for twenty years and was contemplating surgery. Now, what can one do about someone else's body growing extra bone on their foot? Thinking about it from my perspective: as a somatic educator, my question is Why would someone grow extra bone in their foot in the first place. Structure over function. Structure means your bones and nervous system. Function means what you do with the structure, how you carry it through the world. It seems quite unlikely that someone would just happen to grow extra bone in their foot. There must have been a functional imperitive, the way she was using her body demanding that the structure of the foot shift.
In fact, bunions are very common among women(another plague of patriarchal society perhaps). There's speculation that it is caused by squeezing the foot into tight, constricting shoes. I think quite simply what is clear is that it means the person's center of gravity, which should be spread out evenly throughout their whole foot has been shifted, perhaps narrowed or set off center. If this happens long enough the structure will compensate.
When you look at her whole soma, indeed there is a great deal of compensation. For one thing, her weight is shifted onto the other leg. This could be so that she doesn't bear weight on the painful foot or it might be that the imbalance in the foot leading to the bunion started from this weight shift higher up in the center. Potentially from an earlier trauma. Two, there is a great deal of tension in the hips that seems to lock the pelvis and corresponding legs in their position, diminishing her capacity for comfort and healing.
So, my focus is on comfort. At this stage, there is nothing I can do to get rid of the bunion, all that I can do is help her refind her center of balance and release the tension around her pelvis letting the legs move freely and restoring ease to her gait. As with most problems, this involves keeping focused on the center of the body. This is where real change has to come from.
And I'm happy to let you know that it seems to be working. After just one session of lengthening and balancing the muscles in her waist, she felt a great deal of comfort in her body and actually noticed that the foot pain went away. As long as she continues to remind herself how to stand in an easy, balanced way, the bunion pain should go away. And I'm very curious to see if, once natural, balanced function is restored, the bunion might actually start to diminish. If the extra bone is no longer needed for support, will her Soma start to absorb it back? We shall see. This is just another example though of our amazing capacities for self change and healing, at any point in our lives.
I saw a woman this week with a bunion, a bony growth on the inside of her big toe. She had suffered pain in this foot for twenty years and was contemplating surgery. Now, what can one do about someone else's body growing extra bone on their foot? Thinking about it from my perspective: as a somatic educator, my question is Why would someone grow extra bone in their foot in the first place. Structure over function. Structure means your bones and nervous system. Function means what you do with the structure, how you carry it through the world. It seems quite unlikely that someone would just happen to grow extra bone in their foot. There must have been a functional imperitive, the way she was using her body demanding that the structure of the foot shift.
In fact, bunions are very common among women(another plague of patriarchal society perhaps). There's speculation that it is caused by squeezing the foot into tight, constricting shoes. I think quite simply what is clear is that it means the person's center of gravity, which should be spread out evenly throughout their whole foot has been shifted, perhaps narrowed or set off center. If this happens long enough the structure will compensate.
When you look at her whole soma, indeed there is a great deal of compensation. For one thing, her weight is shifted onto the other leg. This could be so that she doesn't bear weight on the painful foot or it might be that the imbalance in the foot leading to the bunion started from this weight shift higher up in the center. Potentially from an earlier trauma. Two, there is a great deal of tension in the hips that seems to lock the pelvis and corresponding legs in their position, diminishing her capacity for comfort and healing.
So, my focus is on comfort. At this stage, there is nothing I can do to get rid of the bunion, all that I can do is help her refind her center of balance and release the tension around her pelvis letting the legs move freely and restoring ease to her gait. As with most problems, this involves keeping focused on the center of the body. This is where real change has to come from.
And I'm happy to let you know that it seems to be working. After just one session of lengthening and balancing the muscles in her waist, she felt a great deal of comfort in her body and actually noticed that the foot pain went away. As long as she continues to remind herself how to stand in an easy, balanced way, the bunion pain should go away. And I'm very curious to see if, once natural, balanced function is restored, the bunion might actually start to diminish. If the extra bone is no longer needed for support, will her Soma start to absorb it back? We shall see. This is just another example though of our amazing capacities for self change and healing, at any point in our lives.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
modelling:how we learn unconsciously from our surroundings...
I spent a beautiful couple of days up on a hillside overlooking the pacific ocean this past weekend. I set up my tent on this ridge just above the fog line, and at times it felt like I was floating on clouds. I did a bit of hiking but mostly just sat; observing, thinking, feeling, feeling, enjoying and I came back revived and inspired.
Something I often come back to when considering how we Somas develop and interact is the Mirroring reflex. Like all reflexes, the mirroring reflex is hardwired into our very structure. What it does is causes us to mimic, to reflect what we see around us. This is helpful when learning how to walk, talk, dance, run because we don't have to ask somebody how they do something, we can just observe and repeat. In fact, we don't even have to be conscious of it, we just naturally do it.
But does that stop at human mirroring? What needs to be considered is not just how we mirror other human somas, but how we mirror other animal somas and in fact, how we mirror our environment as a whole. It's nice to think that all the world is a stage and we are merely players, but that neglects the obvious fact the world, the universe, our environment is the biggest player of them all.
With modern civilization we have done a great deal to shift of surroundings, manipulating and suppressing nature. We have built stronger and stronger fortresses to live in with rigid straight walls and hard cement roads. What can one learn from cement and tall rigid houses but to become stiff, rigid and hard?
Watching the grass this weekend, I was reminded of the strength in flexibility. In order to survive through the seasons, grass, even in its dried state has to maintain an enormous amount of flexibility. As the winds gusted the tall tan grasses bent and swayed far away from their upright position and as I walked through them, they seemingly cleared a path, sharing the space with me. In this same way, in order for us Human Somas to survive in a world that is often unpredictable, definitely more crowded and sometimes quite gusty, we would do well to model these grasses and be more flexible, less rigid, more able to share our space, bend with the changes and stand up tall with the sun.
So I'm positing two things.
1 I think we all need to spend a lot more time out in nature away from the hardness, rigidness of our modern roads and buildings and
2 If we insist on continuing to create and distance ourselves from nature, can we do it in a way that will reflect growth, efficiency, flexibility, and sustainability?; inspiring ourselves with our imagination and letting the power of reflexes and nature guide us to a better place.
Something I often come back to when considering how we Somas develop and interact is the Mirroring reflex. Like all reflexes, the mirroring reflex is hardwired into our very structure. What it does is causes us to mimic, to reflect what we see around us. This is helpful when learning how to walk, talk, dance, run because we don't have to ask somebody how they do something, we can just observe and repeat. In fact, we don't even have to be conscious of it, we just naturally do it.
But does that stop at human mirroring? What needs to be considered is not just how we mirror other human somas, but how we mirror other animal somas and in fact, how we mirror our environment as a whole. It's nice to think that all the world is a stage and we are merely players, but that neglects the obvious fact the world, the universe, our environment is the biggest player of them all.
With modern civilization we have done a great deal to shift of surroundings, manipulating and suppressing nature. We have built stronger and stronger fortresses to live in with rigid straight walls and hard cement roads. What can one learn from cement and tall rigid houses but to become stiff, rigid and hard?
Watching the grass this weekend, I was reminded of the strength in flexibility. In order to survive through the seasons, grass, even in its dried state has to maintain an enormous amount of flexibility. As the winds gusted the tall tan grasses bent and swayed far away from their upright position and as I walked through them, they seemingly cleared a path, sharing the space with me. In this same way, in order for us Human Somas to survive in a world that is often unpredictable, definitely more crowded and sometimes quite gusty, we would do well to model these grasses and be more flexible, less rigid, more able to share our space, bend with the changes and stand up tall with the sun.
So I'm positing two things.
1 I think we all need to spend a lot more time out in nature away from the hardness, rigidness of our modern roads and buildings and
2 If we insist on continuing to create and distance ourselves from nature, can we do it in a way that will reflect growth, efficiency, flexibility, and sustainability?; inspiring ourselves with our imagination and letting the power of reflexes and nature guide us to a better place.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
experimenting with the malleability of attention
Sometimes an understanding of neurophysiology really comes in handy when you come upon an unexpected situation. I wanted to share with you an experience I had with an interesting road block that required some thinking outside the box.
I've been working with this particular client pretty steadily for a few months now, helping her resolve a chronic vertigo and migraine problem. The focus for the first month or so was on simply unwinding steady tension around the torso. If you are rigid and tense all over then the shocks and jolts of the modern world will violently shake you with every step you take and bump you drive over. A relaxed, responsive Soma can easily absorb and diffuse tension throughout their system keeping them from getting jostled too much. So this was our focus in the beginning and she had been making slow and steady improvement with the home exercises and hands-on sessions.
A few weeks ago I tried to bring in more twisting to our sessions. Twisting of any sort had been quite uncomfortable for her and would trigger flair-ups in the migraines and naseau. Twisting; such an integral part to comfortable, relaxed walking, is something that needs to be comfortable.
So we began to do some very gentle twisting movements, differentiating the movement of the neck and eyes from the movement of the torso and shoulders. We moved slowly, finding comfort in every step of the way so that she could feel that twisting could be a positive experience. *Contact me for the specific technique of this movement*
And as she began to find ease and comfort through this twist she became acutely aware of a very deep tension around her esophagus, almost as if something was choking her. This is something that happens quite frequently, when you start unraveling layers of tension. In particular, this is something I've come across with trained ballet dancers. Although they are quite flexible and don't seem to have a great deal of superficial tension, there is often a a lot of deep stabilizing tension. And so at this point I asked the client if she had been trained as a dancer and indeed, as a child she had.
So what do you do with these deep muscles that don't seem to bend the joint in one particular direction but instead seem to lock around the joint, stabilizing it in all directions? You have to get a bit inventive. And so I thought back to a story I heard once of famed Neurologist V S Ramachandra helping patients with phantom pain in amputated limbs. The limb was clearly inaccessible, but through a creative use of a mirror box and the still attached limb, patients are able to release the phantom spasm and subsequent pain. Go here for a great video of him talking about this and other neurological stories http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html
The reason for this is that all sensations of the soma occur in the sensory motor cortex, an area of amazing malleability. So to activate this part of her Soma, I had her concentrate on the tension surrounding her esophagus, and imagine it as a fist that was gripping around her throat. I've found imagery to be incredibly useful for turning something intangible into reality. So then, to attach the imagery to something useful, I had her clench her own fist on the right side; her dominant and more contracted side. So there was now a simultaneous contraction around the throat and in her hand. Through imagery these two contractions were linked together. As her fist tightened, the grip on her throat tightened and then, as the tension in her fist lessened, the tensions around the throat lessened. With the tension around her throat lessened, we could proceed to more freedom of movement and ease in twisting.
The gripper muscles of the hand just happened to be a very appropriate connection to make 1 because their action is quite similar to what was happening to her throat and 2 Because it was a very easy image to visualize, that of a hand gripping the throat. For sure, not a pleasant image, but then again there is nothing pleasant about tension around the esophagus.
I'll update you as our work together continues if anything else of note comes up. And please, if you have any commments, thoughts or suggestions, I would love to hear it.
I've been working with this particular client pretty steadily for a few months now, helping her resolve a chronic vertigo and migraine problem. The focus for the first month or so was on simply unwinding steady tension around the torso. If you are rigid and tense all over then the shocks and jolts of the modern world will violently shake you with every step you take and bump you drive over. A relaxed, responsive Soma can easily absorb and diffuse tension throughout their system keeping them from getting jostled too much. So this was our focus in the beginning and she had been making slow and steady improvement with the home exercises and hands-on sessions.
A few weeks ago I tried to bring in more twisting to our sessions. Twisting of any sort had been quite uncomfortable for her and would trigger flair-ups in the migraines and naseau. Twisting; such an integral part to comfortable, relaxed walking, is something that needs to be comfortable.
So we began to do some very gentle twisting movements, differentiating the movement of the neck and eyes from the movement of the torso and shoulders. We moved slowly, finding comfort in every step of the way so that she could feel that twisting could be a positive experience. *Contact me for the specific technique of this movement*
And as she began to find ease and comfort through this twist she became acutely aware of a very deep tension around her esophagus, almost as if something was choking her. This is something that happens quite frequently, when you start unraveling layers of tension. In particular, this is something I've come across with trained ballet dancers. Although they are quite flexible and don't seem to have a great deal of superficial tension, there is often a a lot of deep stabilizing tension. And so at this point I asked the client if she had been trained as a dancer and indeed, as a child she had.
So what do you do with these deep muscles that don't seem to bend the joint in one particular direction but instead seem to lock around the joint, stabilizing it in all directions? You have to get a bit inventive. And so I thought back to a story I heard once of famed Neurologist V S Ramachandra helping patients with phantom pain in amputated limbs. The limb was clearly inaccessible, but through a creative use of a mirror box and the still attached limb, patients are able to release the phantom spasm and subsequent pain. Go here for a great video of him talking about this and other neurological stories http://www.ted.com/talks/vilayanur_ramachandran_on_your_mind.html
The reason for this is that all sensations of the soma occur in the sensory motor cortex, an area of amazing malleability. So to activate this part of her Soma, I had her concentrate on the tension surrounding her esophagus, and imagine it as a fist that was gripping around her throat. I've found imagery to be incredibly useful for turning something intangible into reality. So then, to attach the imagery to something useful, I had her clench her own fist on the right side; her dominant and more contracted side. So there was now a simultaneous contraction around the throat and in her hand. Through imagery these two contractions were linked together. As her fist tightened, the grip on her throat tightened and then, as the tension in her fist lessened, the tensions around the throat lessened. With the tension around her throat lessened, we could proceed to more freedom of movement and ease in twisting.
The gripper muscles of the hand just happened to be a very appropriate connection to make 1 because their action is quite similar to what was happening to her throat and 2 Because it was a very easy image to visualize, that of a hand gripping the throat. For sure, not a pleasant image, but then again there is nothing pleasant about tension around the esophagus.
I'll update you as our work together continues if anything else of note comes up. And please, if you have any commments, thoughts or suggestions, I would love to hear it.
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