Here’s an audio version of this post
Hello Friends~
“Equinox greetings to everyone: “down under” and “up top”.
There’s been many changes in my life, two worth mentioning here: I’ve relocated back to the Pacific Northwest of the US. Second, my email marketing platform dissolved just as I was in the throes of the move so here I am!
A head’s up for those who’ve not read me before, I live, work, and write in the domain of mindful guidance and somatic education.
In this work we engage body awareness as a lens for studying how we create and interpret our psycho-emotional experience.
My life and work rest upon three ideas: the original wholeness of our being, our body as a map of the psyche, and our interconnectedness with all life, which means our personal work offers healing to the world.
Original wholeness? What is that? What I mean by that is there’s no one broken and no one needs to be fixed: that what we seek in our inner work, exists in us already. So rather than re-inventing ourselves, we turn toward what ails us, with trust that it contains wisdom and the way home. It’s a learning process.
“Our best self” awaits our return, not our invention.
Our body as map of the psyche, what does that mean? From my perspective, our body is the ground of our experience. Our emotional life lives in our musculature, our sinews, our breath, our biology. The fields of neurobiology, neuroscience, and psychophysiology lend credence to experiential perspectives.
Our psycho emotional experience is an interpretation of our felt sense. We need a body to have a psychological, emotional, or spiritual experience.
The Buddhist tradition that has brought us the “mindfulness revolution” expounds on what is called “The Four Foundations of Mindfulness”. The first foundation of mindfulness is “contemplation of the body in the body.” That may sound esoteric but what it means is, in this body as it is, is the place we begin our mindfulness practice. Our body is a trustworthy instrument of knowing.
Then there is the interconnectedness that allows our personal healing work to be an offering to all beings. I’ve had experiences of this myself. I’ll write about that another time. What is important to appreciate is that our commitment to our own waking up benefits all beings. Altruistic? Maybe but what do we have to lose?
Usually what motivates us to seek guidance is our own personal troubles and yet as we grow and learn we discover that our committment to growing our self compassion, allows us to see others with greater compassion. Our commitment to transforming what gets in the way of our hearts’ expression in the world, makes a difference.
Thank you for coming along on this journey with me. More next time. You’ll find my current offerings here which includes a guided somatic course on Insight Timer, “Recover & Restore” . There’s another course to come in the months ahead.
You can contact me here.
“The study of movement is not about words: it is a direct transmission of life. However, when words arise out of the subterranean field of aware movement, another knowing is realized.” ~Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen