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Slowing down and orienting to our senses

Slowing down and orienting to our senses

Sep 5, 2024

Slowing Down and Orienting to our Senses

I was out on a recent Saturday afternoon walking the dog. The weather was almost sublime, and we were walking on one of my favorite streets – quiet, beautiful homes and gardens, hardly a car. It’s the kind of street you can stroll down the middle of and let the leash long. It’s the kind of street that makes you want to slow down and breathe. But what I noticed on this particular Saturday was an internal rush. Some deep sense of urgency and unconscious quickening of pace, tugging a little on the leash, “come on buddy let’s go.”

And why? It was Saturday and I had nowhere to be and nothing to do. There was no need to get back to anything or cut the walk short; no need to hurry us along. And yet it was so hard for my body, my nervous system and even my mind to just go easy and slow. What was I rushing onto? To get home and look at my phone or my computer? To get home and putter around the house? To get home and feel unable to relax there for no reason?

I had to consciously say to myself, slow down and look around. I had to remind myself – it’s okay to take your time. As I slowed my pace, leaned my head back to look at the canopy of trees and blue sky, listen to the birdsong, my body took a spontaneous deep breath. It’s as if by whole being was sighing in relief. I softened my grip on the leash and leaned into the slight humidity in the air. I turned my attention to what was around me and my body almost immediately felt more at ease.

One of the essential aspects of Somatic Experiencing is a practice called orientation. It’s one of the first things we learn in the training and one of the first things we might do with clients. It’s a practice of turning our attention to what we are noticing via our senses, the here and now. We might start with letting our eyes go where they want to in our space, letting them take in what they want with no agenda and to just see what they see. It could also start with the sense of sound, hearing what you hear in your space; it could also be tactile – feeling the texture of something in the space.

In essence the practice of orientation brings us right into the present through our senses, and in some way gives our nervous system the information that it’s okay to notice what is here now, there isn’t danger or threat that I have to be vigilant about in this moment. Many times, when we take a moment to orient, we will notice a shift in our experience. Maybe there will be a deeper breath, or our shoulders will relax or we will just feel more “in the room.” The ability to tune into our environment right in the here and now can help our system settle.

In a way, it’s what was happening on my walk. I had to consciously choose to stop and orient or my nervous system and body would likely have continued its “rush agenda,” but in choosing to slow down and orient to the sights and sounds, I could breathe differently, and I could be more present in that moment.

It sounds like a simple practice, but it can be quite profound and can also take time and practice to even feel like it’s okay to pause and orient to our surroundings. So if you want to try to do it yourself, be gentle; try it first maybe in a moment when you don’t feel particularly stressed or pressured. Try it in a moment where there is already some space for relaxation, maybe even while you are outside on a beautiful day. See which sense is the easiest to tune into and what it’s like to notice what that sense is noticing. Maybe you will even be aware of a shift inside that feels like a sigh of relief.

At the very least your dog might be grateful to not have to rush home so soon!

What if you didn’t try so hard?

What if you didn’t try so hard?

Aug 6, 2024

What if you didn’t try so hard?  What if you could do less, even less?

As a recovering perfectionist, the idea of not trying so hard has been an ongoing journey with many phases, levels, layers, and revelations. As someone who showed early signs of developing an ulcer in the 7th grade, trying to be good, right, and perfect was a deep knot to untie.

I was telling a friend recently about my experience in grad school with a professor who let us choose our grades. If we wanted an A, these were the assignments; if we wanted a B, then these were the required assignments; if we wanted a C, then these. The first semester I had him, of course I went for an A, why wouldn’t I?  But the second semester I took one of his classes, I chose a B.  Some tiny space of letting go had opened by that point in myself to consider it could be, not just okay, but beneficial to my well-being to choose a B. And it was. The deep knot began to loosen even more, and in the loosening, more aliveness and life could enter. In my body, good/right/perfect manifests as tension, rigidity, and constriction through the many layers of muscle, tissue, and fascia.

In my movement practice (5Rhythms), the dance floor has offered a tangible place to explore letting go.  Whether it’s the big movements of my body shaking and head releasing, or the more subtle ways my holding back or carrying tension can surrender to my feet, to the beat. There is no other smile like the one I feel coming from inside when my body actually stops trying and doing and lets itself be moved.

When I was dancing this past weekend, following the impulse to move from within, not to force anything, I heard the facilitator say into the space, into our dancing cells, “what if you could not try so hard?” Something deep in my tissue let go, my face softened, tears rolled over the ridges of my eyes.

Really? Is it really that okay, to just do a little less? Maybe it’s worth finding out.

Listening to the Layers

Listening to the Layers

May 21, 2024

Listening to the Layers

One of the reasons I am drawn to somatic work and to depth/dream work similarly is the acknowledgment of and working with layers. Whether it’s layers of meaning, layers of experience, layers of interpretation, layers of how we take in information, layers of personal and collective, both worlds (somatic and depth/dream work), invite in the truth and reality of layers. Recognizing and engaging with layers is one way to deepen our relationship to ourselves and the world around us.

Somatic Work

When I am doing somatic work and listening to someone describe sensation, I may also be listening to how they show up in relationships, or how they feel about their work, or what their hopes are for their future. Perhaps what is showing up as an impulse or sensation in the body evokes an image for someone or for me that links us to another aspect of their experience and how to work with it. Our bodies and psyches can speak to us often in non-linear and non-verbal ways, and if we can catch that communication, it may offer us more information about what is going on in that moment.

Even in dreamwork, we have the layers of the action and characters of the dream, but there is also what they represent in us and to us, what they speak to or embody archetypally, what they are bringing to the surface that has been unconscious in us. There may be more than one answer or one frame to what is attempting to speak to us, to get our attention, and to be known.

And why not live with more meaning, more potential for depth in our lives? What could open up for us if we listen to the way our dreams show up in our lives, or the way we experience connections in conversations or podcasts we hear, or images that we see? When our body is having an experience, can we listen with ears of depth, listening for what it may be communicating?

Like a poem, with layers of expression and interpretation, from ordinary to mythic, can we listen to the poetics of our lives, let there be meaning beyond the first layer we meet? Maybe it will bring what has been in the shadows, the dark, out of sight into view. It won’t always be pleasant, or easy to navigate; in fact, opening up to more of ourselves will likely lead to some disruption of our equilibrium and organizing impulses, but we might also discover more aliveness in ourselves and our connection with others and the world.

What could you create in your own life by listening more deeply to the layers of your being?

Mourning Dove

Mourning Dove

Mar 8, 2024

Two Mourning Doves

At the end of 2023, I got to participate in a beautiful writing workshop by Sylvia Lindsteadt.  One of the exercises was to write a short piece of mostly metaphors about something in nature we’ve encountered around our home. We read the poem, Vixen, by W.S. Merwin, as inspiration (do check it out). I chose the mourning dove, who just that past fall had perched and nested outside our guest bedroom window to hatch two baby mourning doves.

Mourning Dove

Keening woman
Weaver of the dark cry
Devotee of the line between life and death
Gaze-holding protector
Mama bear with wings
Creator of the precarious home, perched milk maiden
Stalwart songstress, painting caves of forgetting
Nesting magician, world-maker, whisperer of swift farewells

Is there a creature, a tree, or a flower that you encounter around your home or neighborhood that might inspire you to write a short metaphor-filled dedication? 

Soma and Soul

Soma and Soul

Jan 30, 2024

Soma and Soul

Why those words and what is this work that I’m doing?

The words…

I could have called it Body and Psyche, Body and Soul, Body and Heart, Movement and Depth Work, Tangible and Intangible, Seen and Unseen, Body and Creativity.

You get the idea. It’s a testament to and representation of all these aspects of being human and how they relate to each other.

When I use the word soma, I am also holding the words/ideas of: the body, sensation, embodiment, movement, the body of the earth, the ocean, the light, the weather, nature itself, how I move through the world, how my body experiences the world around me and inside of me, what it is like to make contact with my body, impulses from my body (what it wants to do and what it needs).

When I use the word soul, I am also holding the idea of: the deep, the unconscious, the unconscious speaking to the conscious, dreams, the essence of me within me, the interconnected, the rich tapestry of feeling, emotion, knowing, sensing within me, the flow, the unexplained.

The work…

It’s an ongoing quest to find and create ways to bring together these aspects of myself and to be able to offer that experience to others.

It’s a place/space/way of weaving together my deep interests, my training, and my experiences into workshops and offerings for others.

Soma and the soul provide the priming for the ideas that are inside of me as I create themes, practices and opportunities to come into connection with ourselves and our creative energy. They may show up in different ways during a workshop – listening to poetry, dancing to music, exploring what our body perceives and knows, writing from our deepest longings and wonderings, writing into inviting questions and more genuine answers. What is offered will continue to change and evolve over time and I welcome you most warmly to join in the exploration and give yourself the time and space of deep care and acknowledgment.  

I have been lucky enough to participate in many practices and workshops and events that have included the exploration of and communing with body, heart, soul, and creativity. Not only have I been left changed and imprinted upon by the experiences I’ve had and witnessed, but I have also been left with an immense gratitude for the teachers and lineages over the years that have created places and opportunities where these experiences can happen. My offerings are also a way that I can give back to and continue what I have learned from so many wonderful bodies and souls.

To name a few…

From the early years on. (this list is not exhaustive)

My original dance teachers – Miss Irene and Miss Wanda, two sisters who lived and breathed dance. For over ten years, my feet found a home on their floor.

The theatre directors and choreographers in my high school years, who took seriously the artistry of our young souls – Colleen Durkin-Lapowsky, Joey DiMarco, Leslie Madison, Ken Williams.

My college acting teacher and mentor, John Jamiel, who demanded a depth of craft that opened my world and my heart and taught me what it means to be embodied and present.

My college theatre director, Alan Souza, who inspired me (in words and in living it himself) to be fearless in doing the deep inner exploration and in bringing to the surface what I found.

My social work grad school teacher and mentor, Jim Kreider, who brought a level of integrity and integration to my understanding of what it means to be a spiritual and embodied human, and the courage to not shy away from the bigness of who we are.

The woman who reintroduced me to the dance in my soul, to the dance that is mine, to the dance that is not about performing but about being, my first 5Rhythms teacher and mentor, Laura Martin-Eagle.

 

The many somatic practitioners who gave me new language for what was happening in my body and in my experiences and helped me to befriend the wisdom of my own system – Joshua Sylvae, Cindy Perkiss, Cheryl Sanders, Kathy Kain. And the somatic practitioners who brought the integral piece of race, social location, connection to non-human life into my somatic awareness – Resmaa Menakem, Prentis Hemphill, Karine Bell.

The woman who reconnected me to my creative self, my writing self, the voice of my soul, Marlene Schiwy and her Body Soul Writing program. She also reintroduced me to the work of Marion Woodman, who had wandered through my years of study, but until I experienced the practices inspired by Body Soul Rhythm with Marlene had not imprinted themselves so emphatically on my body soul. They are forever there from Marlene and Marion, whispering to me from the depths, to not be afraid of the dark or the light.

And finally to the therapists I have had over the last 25 years, who have accompanied me through descents and transformations that continue to reverberate every day in my body and my psyche, and infuse all of my work and offerings.

Whenever I sit in myself to create and offer these explorations, all these people and lineages are present. I would not be here without them, and their generosity, love and wisdom continue to hold me and move through me.

Up with the dog at the dawn of New Year’s Eve

Up with the dog at the dawn of New Year’s Eve

Dec 31, 2023

Up with the dog at the dawn of New Year’s Eve

The turning of the calendar – the man-made calendar, the calendar that was superimposed on the earth.

The new year in the celtic world, from which my ancestors come, would be Samhain, the end of October. The year begins with the last harvest and the descent into darkness.

It’s only a couple of months difference, but ideologically much farther away from our modern calendar which seems to indicate an end in the darkness.

It says something, to me anyway, about the relationship my ancestors had with the natural world and the acknowledgment or maybe reverence of the wisdom and potency of the darkness.

The darkness is the beginning, it is that from which everything comes.

Seeds in the dark ground.
Babies in the darkness of the womb.
Revelations arriving out of difficulty and tumultuous times.
Creation out of the primordial darkness soup.
Something emerging from a seeming nothing.
But we know, the dark is not nothing
Alchemy is happening in the dark.
Sparks of creative elements exist in readiness in the dark.

And this isn’t to glorify or paint a pretty picture of the dark.

There’s darkness that people don’t return from. We know that all too well.
There’s darkness that doesn’t reveal light in the way that transforms it.

There’s dark shit that no amount of creativity and light can undo or make not have happened.
There’s darkness that doesn’t need to be filtered or burdened by an expectation of a healing to come.

Darkness happens. It exists.
And sometimes it is part of a cycle of emergence. And sometimes it’s unbearable.
And sometimes we find ways to bear the unbearable anyway.
And sometimes in the bearing, something else comes forth.

Whenever we sense our beginning, our personal turn of the year, may we be held by something or someone or somewhere that helps us bear the unbearable. And may we be mirrored and uplifted in our joy and radiance.