The Power of our Stories 2: Gifted through Conditions

In my previous blog post, I described an experience I had many years ago with a concussion that changed the direction of my life. Today, in the wake of New Years’ celebrations around the globe, I would like to discuss the power of this kind of review of our life stories, and the gifts available to us when we are able to witness these stories without identifying with them.

The turn of the year seems like a potent time to examine our lives, or at least the events of the passing year. Based on our year review, we set goals, intentions or resolutions for the year being born. This process, like any transition, can echo our original experience of being born into this life. We often do it unconsciously, with an abundance of numbing substances like alcohol or too much food. This can be a reflection or re-enactment of a birth process involving anesthesia or other drugs. We often feel at the mercy of time, as it moves too quickly or too slowly, emphasized by the passing of another year. Similarly, for many of us, our birth was taken over by the speedy intentions of those attending our birth. It is not uncommon to lose our sense of our own timing in this process.

As January rolls along, I have been with many who are finding themselves feeling heavy, depressed, resistant to embracing the promise life offers them. This is not unusual when we have found ways to evade what is most meaningful for us, following more popular distractions or promises from loud advertisements, or people around us. We may be tired from overeating, partying, or even buying or receiving too many Christmas gifts. What happens to the depths of us in all this activity? I find my clients arriving this time of year feeling worn out, deflated after all the excitement and adventure of the holidays.

For myself, I am aware that the holidays offered not only rest and heart-warming family gatherings; they were also marked by grief and loss. My mother, whose health has been gradually deteriorating, went through a sudden decline at the end of November and seems to have endured a small stroke. I feel sad as I witness her new challenges with walking, talking and orientation. I feel grateful that her sweetness remains and everyone seems to still love her as much as ever, but my mom as I knew her, is not quite still here.

Life or?

At the same time, numerous friends and colleagues are meeting cancerous invasions in their bodies. I witness and support as best I can their valiant attempts to find health in the midst of this embodied chaos. I understand cancer as an expression of cells gone astray, isolated and no longer in resonant communion with the whole. Weakness, weight loss, pain, as well as cognitive effects seem to take over the scene, while the essence of who this person really is strives to express itself. Choices are made about embracing life more fully or embracing death and dying.

I can relate to these challenges. Some years ago, I was diagnosed with a malignant melanoma. I was confused that this happened shortly after I felt I had made for the first time a strong choice to live. This cancer seemed to be a way for my body to quickly express my earlier ambivalence for life. I had always said that, if I were ever diagnosed with cancer, I would only use alternative treatments. When the moment came, however, there wasn’t time to refuse the surgery. My dermatologist told me I needed to get to her office that very day. This was serious! This was life threatening! In that moment, even with the fear of what this all meant, I had no ambivalence. I got myself to her office and had the surgery.

This was a wake up call like no other in my life to date. It is too easy to fall into survival mode, just taking care of what needs to be taken care of in life, rather than deepening into essential presence and intention. After this emergency surgery, the ongoing pain of the scar served to remind me of the choice I had made. I chose to be here. I had the opportunity to leave but I chose to stay. I see this choice being played out by those I know who have been ill or overwhelmed by other life circumstances. They, like me, are being asked to make a choice. I suspect that their choice will affect them for the rest of their lives, just as mine has.

What Do You Choose?

In view of this, I would like to invite you to take a moment now to consider your own past year, and

the life that led up to it. What events stand out for you? What have been your greatest challenges? What has been overwhelming for you? When you consider these experiences, how familiar are they, or the feeling they evoke for you? If they are familiar, chances are you are in some way re-living an aspect of your earlier history. In this case, you have a special opportunity here to revamp your history, if you will. You can make choices now that may not have been available to you back then. Perhaps your situation is about more fully embracing life, as mine was. You have the chance here to really commit, to acknowledge what is most important to you deep down, and choose that.

Take a moment to reflect on this. It may take much longer than a moment, but allow yourself, if it feels right and useful to you, to be with this within yourself. If these challenging situations were offering you a gift or a lesson or a message, what would it be?

If you find yourself opening to new possibilities here, or re-visiting old ones you had forgotten, make some notes for yourself to remind you later. This is important. This is about touching into your original potential. This is about what you are here for.

Whatever it is, welcome to this life you now find yourself in! Welcome to this moment. May it feed and nurture you in whatever way you may need just now.

I would love to hear from you about how this little exploration has affected you. Please feel free to leave a comment below or to contact me to let me know.

Wishing you ease, grace, happiness, peace and embodied potential for this new year!

The Power of Our Stories

Supporting a student recently, I was reminded of just how widespread trauma is amongst us, of how powerful its grip on us can be, and how empowering it can be to simply acknowledge it.

How many of us have not been through overwhelming accidents, embarrassments, abuses, or other assaults in our lives? Most of us have not had the so-called ideal childhood where every moment was wondrous and every interaction rewarding. Most of us were not adequately seen, held, respected, met and reflected as little ones. Research on PTSD (Post traumatic stress disorder) has found that those exposed to challenging situations, like war, for example, are more likely to emerge with ongoing symptoms of stress intolerance if they had a traumatic experience when younger. Our histories, our stories inform us throughout our lives as to who we are, where we belong (or don’t) and what our purpose may be. We define ourselves according to our experience, particularly our very early experience.

The student I talked with had been depressed, having lost interest in the work she had previously been so enthusiastic about. A shocking accident had left her in pain, unable to walk for months, and unable to perform tasks she had previously excelled at. As I listened to her, my heart opened. I felt the angst of her struggle and recognized it. As support, I shared with her a piece of my own history.

My Concussive Story

In 1979, I had a concussion. I was engaged in my favorite hobby – folk dancing. Supposedly a relatively safe activity, I had been dancing Scandinavian turning dances at a weekend workshop out in the country. There were too many dancers on the floor. Someone’s foot accidently became entwined with mine or my partner’s. With all the momentum of the spin, we fell. Had I been on my own, I suspect I would have stretched out my arm and landed on it, probably breaking it. Instead, I went straight back on the back of my head onto the concrete, with the weight of my partner on top of me.

The room went quiet. I now know that the stillness was a combination of both the shock in the room and the shock in my nervous system. There was a doctor at the workshop who came over and starting assessing my state. What is your name, she asked. Can you tell me your name? I knew why she was asking. I had been working as an Occupational Therapist on a Neurology unit. I had patients with recent head injuries who couldn’t remember their names. But I knew my name. Saying it was another matter.

I have no idea how long I lay there in shock, paralyzed, unable to make my mouth or tongue move to say my name. I only knew it took everything I had to make it happen. It reminds me of when a petite mother witnesses her child under the wheels of a car and somehow lifts the car to free the child.  In my case, however, the muscles simply wouldn’t respond. The nerves could not convey their messages. Eventually, after what may have been a minute or an hour, my name came out of my mouth. Relieved, I began to laugh. The whole room joined in. They knew I was fine now and life, or at least dance, could resume.

Beginning A Long Journey

Life was not back to normal, however. I was helped to walk over to a mat at the side of the room to lie down while the others went back to their dance. I felt more lightheaded than I ever had before. As I lay on my mat, I slowly turned my head and there, to my surprise, I saw a newborn baby on the mat next to mine! Someone had brought the baby and left him to sleep while she danced. For me, however, this sight was miraculous. I didn’t know it then, but I, too, was starting a new life. At the moment, innocent like the babe next to me, I knew only what I saw.

For a few days, as my friends checked in with me through the night to make sure I was still conscious and alive, I felt a lightness of being. I felt ecstatic with all life being fresh and new. I wasn’t too bothered when, returning to teach folk dancing, I found I couldn’t balance on one foot to demonstrate a dance step. I simply asked a friend to come and hold my hand as I demonstrated.

Over time, however, the headaches and dizziness began to get to me. I began to worry about my memory. When I returned to work at the hospital, I was horrified to discover myself forgetting important things. One evening after work, I realized I had left a confused old lady on the toilet, having forgotten to go back to retrieve her and help her back to her wheel chair before going home. I feared I would lose my job if I told anyone. I didn’t know what to do. I was immensely relieved to see her happily in her chair the next day. I longed to have my own life fall back into place so easily. I began to feel depressed.

My hopeless feelings were enhanced by my inability at times to find the words I needed. Prior to the concussion, I had loved word games. My folk dance friends and I would spend hours when we weren’t dancing immersed in games of Scrabble and Boggle. I excelled at these games, easily coming up with obscure words that brought me more points than anyone else. Now, nothing came. I struggled at times to remember words even when speaking. A visit to a neurologist added to the growing gloom. Reviewing a brain scan, he told me what he saw in my brain would not come from a traumatic injury like my concussion. It signified a more deteriorative disease like MS (Multiple sclerosis).

This shocking news landed on top of the concussion shock, still lingering from a year earlier. Having worked with patients with MS, I had often thought this debilitating disease with no cure was the last diagnosis I would ever want. The neurologist wanted me to do a spinal tap to complete the diagnosis, but something in me rebelled. I had the uncharacteristic thought to not go through with the spinal tap and just think of myself as healthy. I never returned to the neurologist.

  

Guided into a New Life

I now believe something was protecting me, guiding me. Over the next few years, my life began to turn around. I found myself drawn to alternative therapies, leading me into my body and through my earlier trauma history. As I faced my traumas, they began to resolve, loosening their hold on me. The depression lifted. My life force strengthened. Eventually, led to Craniosacral Therapy, the remaining symptoms from the concussion began to diminish.

Today, I look back to that folk dance accident with immense gratitude. I don’t think I would be able to do the subtle therapies I do now had I not been knocked out of my old ways. Up until that time, I had essentially lived from the neck up. My body was just something I had to take care of so it wouldn’t bother me. After the concussion, I could no longer be as heady, intellectual or articulate as I had been before. It was a huge loss for me. Depression was a natural response.

 

Talking to the student, I described my story briefly, acknowledging how common it is to feel depressed after a life changing injury. I also explained that chronic pain after an injury can affect nerves up into the brain, repeatedly setting off a stress response. The person begins to feel chronically overwhelmed. Their resources are taken up with dealing with the pain. Their cortisol levels are high. They have nothing to fall back on when stress arises in their life. They feel exhausted, drained, losing interest in anything that takes energy.

The student was glowing more and more with each word I spoke. She felt heard and touched by hearing my story and knowing that others have similar experiences to hers. The next day, she thanked me profusely, telling me how helpful it was just to normalize her situation.

Our interaction inspired me to write this, wishing I could as deeply touch and reassure the many others with similar experiences.

Our Stories as Support

We are all unique. Our experiences are all different. But they are also the same. We all have the potential for compassion based on our own suffering. We actually understand much of how it is to be someone else, even though we can’t possibly understand how it is to be that person! We all share this human journey. Perhaps, the most important service our stories provide is the potential for that understanding. While it can be devastating to identify with our stories, believing they define us, there is profound healing and connectedness available when we witness ourselves in relation to those stories. Knowing we are more than what we have done or seen or experienced, and yet that we have been affected. Our stories are powerful and we can be powerful with them.

As Rumi wrote: "The wound is the place where the Light enters you." When we become our stories, we often cannot perceive or receive the gifts they have to offer us. It is when we step back and allow ourselves to hold our stories within the larger wholeness of our being that we begin to understand. Perhaps then, we even have the potential to embody and pass on the message delivered to us via our experience. The Light is then posted for all to see and share.

Presencing, Being, and Animal Communication

I have just watched an amazing and touching film I wish everyone could be exposed to. You can watch it, too, at  http://www.cultureunplugged.com/documentary/watch-online/play/11936/The-Animal-Communicator

This is a documentary on communicating with animals. It follows a woman who listens to and talks with wild and often upset animals. As I listened, transfixed by her presence, I recognized the kind of resonant, receptive presence we aspire to in Biodynamics in establishing and working within a safe relational field. This is important in Biodynamics in order for the client's system to settle under conditional patterns and resonate more fully with deeper, Biodynamic forces.

The animal communicator endeavored to explain her ability to talk with and understand animals as a function of the quantum connections between us all. As she spoke, I thought of the natural resonance accessed in a quiet being state. In relative stillness, I suspect we all can receive and listen to animals. We also can receive and listen to ourselves and each other.

The state of resonant presence required to practice Biodynamics and other forms of therapy requires  deepening beyond an egoic state of active doingness into a state of universal beingness. Here, we can receive and communicate what is essential for health and well-being.

This is a state we naturally and relatively easily enter into in practicing Continuum Movement. Emilie Conrad, founder of Continuum, speaks of interspecies inclusivity. Like the animal communicator listening to the animals, the Continuum practitioner slows down into a quiet, receptive state, where we can experience the nourishing waves of energetic information from the cosmos, the planet, and our own internal fluids. We may find ourselves moving like other species, our arms becoming wings, our tail swaying, it's movement rippling up through our mid-line.

In communication with other species, there is an acknowledgement of an interspecies continuum. Indigenous peoples who are still skilled at this level of listening and being, declare that we are all connected and belong to one family. We can learn about ourselves and our potential from other animals, as we are on one continuum with them. We can also help them, as well as ourselves and each other, in this state

We can consider this a natural and spiritual state. In the film, traditional animal trackers speak of seeing a line of light leading them to the animal they are tracking. This again is similar to my experience of Biodynamics (and Continuum). I often see or sense light, like a path, guiding me to understand the dynamics of the client’s system and where it wants me to make contact next. Like the animals, the client’s system is often relieved just to perceive it is being heard, without requiring anything of it.

When we emerge from this being state, we run the risk of forgetting it in our busyness, then need to return to rejuvenate. This is one reason I am so grateful for my occupation, where I can spend my days deepening into quiet presence with others, appreciating and receiving who and how they are. It is also why I practice and teach Continuum, as I see an almost desperate need for those of us immersed in modern culture, and its incessant speed and overwhelm, to settle into being and re-member, re-connect with, what really matters.

Being is not only our original, natural state; it is also essential for us to thrive. It may be becoming increasingly important for our basic survival as a species. I hope it is not too late, and that we are willing and able to let go enough to return to being.

Being as Nourishment: Wu Wei Wu Part 3

A client recently raised the question about doing Continuum when in pain but not doing it to get rid of the pain. How does that work? Her question reminded me of the concept of wu wei wu or doing not doing. I felt inspired to talk about being with as providing nourishment rather than more actively trying to reduce pain. That might be a useful side benefit, but our challenge is to not make that our goal.

It is natural when tested by pain, be it chronic or acute, physical or emotional, to want to get rid of it. Most of us dislike pain. We pursue what feels good and avoid what doesn’t. When pain becomes intense, we naturally seek help. Any technique, medication or practitioner offering hope becomes a beacon, signaling escape from pain.

Health practitioners also usually want to reduce pain. Often, we go into practice knowing what it’s like to hurt. The “wounded healer” desires to diminish or prevent wounding. Although possibly expressing unconscious practitioner needs, we consciously hope to reduce clients’ suffering. Faced with a client in pain, we do everything we can to help; trying every tool in our toolkits, every technique we have learned.

When we enter the realm of being, however, we practice not doing, not trying, not interfering. How can it be helpful to not try to reduce pain? Is that even ethical?

Nourishment or Escape?

The example of a baby crying comes to mind. Would you leave her to cry it out? Or pick her up and try to soothe her, exploring if she was hungry, wet, or had some other needs? In choosing to soothe her, what might motivate you? Would you be trying to get her to be quiet, or have some other intention?

Caregivers wanting to quiet a baby may stuff a pacifier or breast in the little one’s mouth. They might yell at the baby or, even more extremely, put a pillow over the infant’s head. All of these have been known to happen. Babies die of being shaken by distraught parents who cannot tolerate their crying.

While these methods will quiet the baby eventually, perhaps indefinitely, caregivers usually have other motives besides just getting the infant to stop crying. A crying baby can drive a parent to distraction, but most parents care deeply about their children, wanting them to not only be quiet, but to survive, even thrive, growing up happy and healthy. With this intent, they hold the crying baby, perceiving a need. If the baby is hungry, they want to feed her. They desire to nourish and nurture the little one, supporting her growth and well-being. Beyond their own need for quiet, they aim to give their baby what is most supportive and nurturing.

How many of us have such a compassionate attitude towards ourselves when we are in pain? When we practice Continuum, treat clients, or engage in any of the practices we engage in, what is our intention? Often, we want to reduce pain, but we may also have larger intentions, worth acknowledging.

Considering our role as nourishing and supporingt, rather than rescuing and fixing a problem, we may discover ourselves as surprisingly more effective.

I learned this in Biodynamics, where we perceive the fluid body as highly sensitive to external intentions. Even a practitioner’s well meaning desire to change a misalignment causing pain may interfere with the system’s own inherent treatment plan. On the other hand, aligning ourselves with a deep bio-intelligence enhances the potential for that intelligence to effectively express itself. Our practitioner orientation supports the client’s system in accessing the greater nourishment of the Breath of Life. To this aim, we settle under our busy minds and ego-centered needs to do or accomplish or succeed at something.

Our cultural conditioning can get in the way:

What will my client think of me if this pain doesn’t go away? What will my friends and family think if I still have this pain after months, or even years, of trying all kinds of practices and practitioners?

Deepening under such externally imposed goals can be both challenging and rewarding. Returning to the model of the embryo, where nourishment equals environment, can help.

Nourished like an Embryo

Embryos develop according to the context they find themselves in. As cell biologist Bruce Lipton points out, fetuses develop differently when mother perceives her environment as safe and nurturing or as dangerous and threating. Different genes are turned on and off within embryonic cells in preparation for the environment the little one will be born into.

Cells forming the embryo also develop differently according to their immediate environment. They grow, divide and shape shift according to what surrounds them, informed by messages from other cells, growing towards nourishing fluids, and protectively withdrawing from toxic influences.

Regardless of age, perceived safety promotes growth, while threat triggers

protection mode. One of the most helpful things to offer ourselves and our clients is a sense of safety. Safety, and anything that supports our sense of it, is nourishment.

Fluid nourishment

Fluidity is also nourishment. Our embryonic tissues are fluidic and juicy. Embryos consist almost entirely of water, a highly resonant element. Founder of Continuum Movement, Emilie Conrad, notes that our fluids resonate with the rhythms of the both the planet the cosmos.

When our tissues, like those of the embryo, are soft and fluid, they are nourished by receiving information they need through resonance. In injury and dis-ease, they tend to densify, becoming isolated from the whole and losing touch with essential information flow. Cancer cells, for example, seem to dance to a different drummer, indifferent to the rhythms of their host organism.

Health depends upon fluidity and its resonance. As A. T. Still, founder of Osteopathy wrote,

“He who is able to reason will see that this great river of life must be tapped and the withering field irrigated at once, or the harvest of health be forever lost.”

In health, as in the embryo, our tissues and cellular communities dance in resonance with the whole of our body, our being and our larger community. Mother Earth is always there, holding us in her ample lap, while she, in turn, is supported by the whole of the cosmos. We are nourished on all these levels. Simply returning to resonance with these fields within fields waters “the withering field”, often more effectively than applying more active techniques.

Resting into a Larger Whole

In taking care of ourselves and others, we can remember the embryo growing in relationship to its environment. Deepening to orient to the larger whole, pain ceases to be experienced as the whole of us (or our clients). Widening our view, the wound gains access to a larger whole and its resources. Our field of resource and nourishment grows and the problem can more easily be addressed within it.

Widening our perspective supports health and healing, and provides needed nourishment. This is challenging however until we slow down.

Slowing into Being

We are not designed for the speed of the modern world. We undergo constant stimulation from electronics, commuting, and even just from knowing so many more people than we would in a quieter traditional village. Our nervous systems are repeatedly overwhelmed with input and demands for immediate response.  Within a world of speed, our sympathetic fight-flight nervous system is on over-drive, while our para-sympathetic system often numbs us. This protection mode contributes to a myriad of modern dis-eases, mostly unknown until recent history.

The simple act of slowing down can benefit and feed us in so many ways! For example, when a cranial client settles on the treatment table their digestive system often begins gurgling.

In sympathetic mode, digestion is relatively shut down. Only those functions essential in emergency mode are active. Slowing down, our bodies can register safety. The saber tooth tiger is gone. Miraculously we were not eaten! Digestion can resume. Other physiological activity supported by the parasympathetic system also returns. We enter rest and rejuvenation mode. Our immune system begins to do its job more effectively once we know we are likely to survive long enough for it to matter. Somatic repair teams return to work. The body begins to mend.

Emotional healing also happens more readily when we slow down. In speed, we tend to function automatically. Lacking time to consider alternatives; we engage the same old patterns repeatedly, unable to perceive the safety of the present moment. When trauma patterns are triggered, we are sucked into them, reinforcing neurological pathways involved. We feel powerless to make significant changes.

Slowing down, we have more possibility of perceiving and accessing the options available for us. We can recognize safety. Our true potential becomes more apparent.

The Path of Least Resistance

In speed, we take the path of least resistance. It’s a bit like moving house and finding yourself

unconsciously driving home from work to the old house instead of the new one. Habit. The path of least resistance when we are in a hurry or not paying attention is the path most traveled. If we are hiking in nature, it is relatively easy to follow a path already well trodden. To take a new path, we need to slow down, survey the environment and make choices. We may need to cut down grasses or move branches and rocks so we can get through.

The next time we approach this same spot, we may find ourselves taking the old path because it is easier. Without pausing to evaluate the situation, we might miss the new path, which is still relatively unclear. We walk right past it. Then, realizing at some point we are back on the old path, we wonder, how did we get there?  Choosing a new path initially takes awareness and work. Each time we pause and make the choice to take the new path, it becomes clearer, while he old one gradually becomes overgrown.

Slowing down can be a key to creating new pathways, in our bodies, our relationships and our lives. New options become apparent. Nourishment begins to flow. Old patterns may then seem less important or even less relevant. We may be surprised to discover the old pain is gone. Instead, something new is emerging.