Sunday Letters

Awakening

Pay Attention to what you Pay Attention to.

heather

Have you ever noticed that you when you’re shopping for a new car, suddenly you see your object of interest everywhere?  Overnight, everyone started driving Hyundai Konas somehow (to use a personal example).  You know why that is?  You see what you look for.

And WOW is that powerful.

One of my favorite movies is The Matrix.  Just the original one.  The sequels are horrible.  HORRIBLE!  But the original Matrix is a piece of art.  It shows you how constrained we are by our thoughts.  They literally, every day, every minute, create the world around us.

  • Do you believe that people are always out to get what they can out of you?  That will be your experience in the world. 
  • Think you don’t have the skills necessary to excel in that job you really, really want?  That’s right you don’t.
  • Think you’ve had this pain for years, so no matter what,  you will always have it.  Yes, that will also come true.

Research actually supports the concept of the power of our thoughts – placebos work because we think they work.  Our body processes food differently, depending if we think it’s good for us or not.  A combination of intention and attention can heal.  More details on the the power of of our thoughts can be found in an article I wrote here and in a podcast about psychoneuroimmunology here.

We have more power than we realize over the results we get in life.  Our thoughts create our feelings, our feelings create our actions, and our actions create our results (and confirm our thoughts to be true).  And our thoughts ARE changeable.  Once we start to take the immense super power of Attention and focus it on the utter craziness our ego is spewing out non-stop, we can start to shift our Matrix.  Little by little, we can watch that voice, question its veracity, and try on some new thoughts that might create better feelings > actions > results.

Here are some fun questions to play with, when you encounter an exceptionally annoying thought such as, “I suck and will never be good at this.  Life is unfair.  This shouldn’t have happened.  He is so successful because he came from money.  I don’t have enough money/power/formal education to be “successful.”  She shouldn’t be so talkative/bold/lazy.” 

  • Is that true?  How do you know it’s true?  What if the opposite is true?
  • What are you making that mean?
  • Why?  Ask this one at least 5 times to get down through some layers.
  • Who would you be without that thought?
  • What feelings is that thought creating in your body?  Where do you feel those feelings?  What sensations are associated with that feeling.
  • How could I rewrite this story I am telling myself?

Once we start to glimpse a different reality, outside of the matrix we have created for ourselves, we start to realize how empowered we truly are to go after what is meaningful to us.

This is HARD and exhausting and uncomfortable work.  And it’s slow.  Decades of patterns of thought take time, loving and compassionate attention, and present moment awareness to start to unwind.  But, man, isn’t it worth it to be able to rewrite your story of what’s possible for you?

If this piques your interest, there are about a zillion resources I could share with you, but here are two that have really helped me on my journey:

The Life Coach School Podcast – search for podcasts on the Self Coaching Model

Loving What Is

As always, if anything I wrote piques your interest, and you want to know more, holler at me.  And if you need some help with reducing pain, improving your performance, or with feeling more at home in your body, you can book with me here. 

And that’s my quick note for today!  Hope you are having a fabulous day! 

Productivity, Uncategorized

On Liberating Constraints (aka Bossy Calendars)

heather

What do you think of when you hear the phrase, “calendar worship”?  When I first heard it, my ego was like, “Nuh-uh. Nope.  That’s not healthy.  That’s too restrictive.”  But then when I was introduced to the concept of “liberating constraint” in conjunction with “calendar worship,” my perspective shifted.  By putting self-imposed restrictions on our time, it can actually free up more brain space and energy to actually DO the things we want to do.  It can be a boon to focus and flow.  Let me explain.

I’ve been working with a business coach, Kate Reuter, and in response to my frustrations about having too much to do and too little time in which to do it, she encouraged me to start following The Life Coach School – Monday Hour One protocol.  With this protocol, you take your whole To Do list, and you book EVERYTHING on your calendar.  And then you throw away your To Do list.  You don’t need it anymore, because everything you need to do is now on your calendar. 

Easy Peasy, right?

Ha!  Well, it’s not easy.  But it IS eye-opening.

First I pulled together all the random to-do lists I have.  Then I put them in a To Do app (Todoist), and then I integrated that with my Gmail calendar.  That didn’t work so well.

Next, I actually did what Kate told me to do (Funny how one resists taking advice from an expert that one is paying quite a bit of money for.  Human brains are funny). I took my bullet journal (which is where I keep some of my tasks/appointments), my Acuity calendar (which is where I keep my bodywork appointments), and then I pulled up my Gmail calendar (which is where birthdays, some reminders, and some appointments are tracked).  No wonder I consistently feel overwhelmed – so much data in so many places.  Not to mention my Outlook calendar (which is where my appointments/tasks/reminders for my job as a project & resource manager at the bank are kept), but I’m keeping that sequestered for now.

I took all of my non-bank stuff and put it ALL on my Gmail calendar.  I started by putting in my recurring stuff:  Morning coffee & reading & writing, meditation, work-outs, showers, meals, blocks for when I work at the bank, blocks for when I see clients, and blocks for sleeping (8 hours/night). 

O M G

Before this exercise, I experienced so much self-recrimination for not accomplishing more in my week.  Why don’t I actually DO the classes I have paid for?  Why don’t I read more?  Why don’t I write more?  Why has my car been perilously close to empty for a week? 

Because my week is already pretty damn full with Living Life stuff – eating, sleeping, working. 

This was so eye-opening.  Yes, I do have some blocks of open time in my week, but I don’t have enough blocks to do EVERYTHING at the same time.  Which means I have to look at my values, and schedule those open blocks in alignment with my values.  I have to CHOOSE what is most important, and then block out time on the calendar to accomplish that.

For the past 3 weeks I have been spending an hour on Sundays planning out the upcoming week.  I already have all those recurring appointments in my calendar, which takes care of a big chunk of my week. I then take my list of To Dos that have accumulated over the week and book time for them in my calendar, and I reserve time for the following:

  • Relaxation and NOT doing stuff (usually Saturday afternoon and evening and tidbits of time throughout the week)
  • Finishing the Buteyko Breathing Certification class I bought LAST YEAR
  • Connecting with friends and/or family
  • Creating the Bodymind Blindspot Assessment and Program
  • And the misc. appointments and meetings that need to occur that week

What have I learned whilst doing this process:

  • Scheduling “free time” is liberating.  I can NOT do anything and NOT feel guilty.  “I’m just following my schedule, Ego, you can just be quiet now.”
  • I can’t do everything.  I have more realistic expectations for myself now.
  • Putting stuff on the calendar gets it out of your head, reducing “cognitive load.”  What that means is that all that stuff floating around in your head that you know you have to do “some time” takes up working memory and makes you less focused and efficient.
  • It takes discipline to do what you have scheduled to do.  Sometimes I don’t “feel” like it.  And then sometimes I don’t follow my calendar.  But sometimes I do, and then I feel very proud of myself, which is a lovely feeling!!
  • While I love working with a paper calendar, working with an online calendar makes setting up recurring events and adjusting the calendar much easier.
  • I continue to refine my calendar, based on how things went the prior week.  Each week I have a better idea of how much time things should take and what kind of balance of doing vs. being I need in order to stay sane.

If this concepts piques your interest, here are some additional resources:

Flow Research Collective – Calendar Worship and Time Tracking

  • This introduces you to the theory of “liberating constraint” and the logistics of how to start creating a calendar that will help you get into Flow.  Plus the host of the class has a gorgeous accent.  <3.

The Life Coach School – Monday Hour One

  • Brooke Castillo walks you through her approach.  I personally use kind of a hybrid between the FRC and LCS approaches.

From a spiritual, whole-person wellbeing approach, here is time-tracking guidance from “Yoga Therapy as a Creative Response to Pain” by Dr.  Matthew Taylor:

“Abusing your time commitments is participating in violence against self.  This may be in the form of overscheduling to the point that you are never still.  Or it may be by allocating your time in a manner that doesn’t reflect your inner priorities.

Both create strain and turbulence.  We aren’t machines designed to run at maximum capacity.  Try making a list of your values and prioritize them, then compare those priorities with how you actually spend your time.  Keep this list and check it each week as you plan your time.  Schedule just “being” time and honor that as a high priority.  Set the intention, set the schedule for a human (I LOVE THIS), then review.  Every week.”

Let me know if you have any questions about how I am implementing this advice, or if you need some ideas about how to get started without overwhelming yourself.

And now on to some news to share with my clients:

I am likely going to be moving in to MY OWN SPACE within the next month or so!! The new space will enable me to offer additional appointment times, and I’ll be able to offer you more treatment options including restorative yoga, mindful movement coaching, and resources to help with shifting your mindset.  I will also have an electric table, which will make it easier for you to get on and off the table, as well as enable me to lower the table, so I can more effectively treat those hips!  I am finalizing the details, but I wanted to give you a heads up as early as possible.  When I move to the new space, I will send an update in the newsletter and within your reminders from Acuity. 

Due to a variety of factors, I will also need to increase my rates.  Starting 2/1/22 rates for follow-up appointments will increase by $10.  I have options that will help keep your cost per treatment down, so please reach out to me if interested.

As always, if anything I wrote piques your interest, and you want to know more, holler at me.  I want to know what YOU want to know!  And if you need some help with reducing pain, improving your performance, or with feeling more at home in your body, you can book with me here. 

Whew, I budgeted 90 minutes for this letter, so I better scoot so I can get it loaded and sent out within the remaining 20 minutes.  Hope you have a great Sunday and chat with you next week!

Cooking/Recipes, Paleo, Product Reviews

On Schmergersburds

heather

Thanksgiving Smorgasbord

I really had no idea that you spelled “smorgasbord” that way.  I thought for sure it was “smorgesboard.”  Doesn’t that look more legit to you??

ANYWAY

Today’s letter will be about a random assortment of things, because it’s the Sunday after Thanksgiving, I’ve not meditated in about 5 days due to busyness/guests, I’ve eaten a lot of sugar, and my routine is all shot to hell.  So my mind is a bit on the bouncy side.  But I want to share a few things before I forget.

Topic 1: Turkey!

I hosted Thanksgiving at my house this year for the first time.  We had 8 peeps here, several of whom are most excellent cooks, and one of whom (Myla) who produced an entire amazing Thanksgiving meal singlehandedly in an unfamiliar kitchen in a rented condo when we lived down in Florida.  So I put a lot of pressure on myself to NOT FAIL with the turkey.

I took the turkey out of the freezer a day late, which meant I couldn’t put the salt rub on until a day late, and I couldn’t get any salt INSIDE the bird because all its holes were frozen shut.  But all that self-induced pressure and worrying paid off. 😛  The turkey turned out quite tasty!  I did a dry-brine, and my 18-lb bird was tender and juicy.  Here’s the recipe in case you’ve developed an addiction to turkey and want to make another bird. 

Topic 2: Shopping

If you haven’t blown your wad on all the Black Friday deals already, here are a few items that I love that help me stay healthy and happy.

  • Lems Boulder Boot:  I LOVE these.  Why do I love them?  Let me count the ways:
    • They are zero-drop, so they don’t funk-up my posture.  If you want to know more about the effects of heeled shoes, check out Born to Run.
    • They are waterproof, so they keep my feet nice and dry.  I also bought them 1 size larger than I need, so I can fit very cozy, thick socks in them. 
    • They have a wide toe-box, so my digits can spread out and respond to the surface on which I am walking. Your feet provide a TON of input into your brain, but they can’t do that when they are in super-cushioned, super-thick soles.  Feet gotta feet.
  • The Women Who Run with the Wolves:  Myths, legends, and stories that re-introduce us to our wild nature.  Let’s sell all our junk, move out to the woods, and dance in the moonlight.  Who’s with me??
  • LMNT:  Electrolytes with none of that bad stuff and all of the good stuff, from my couple-crush, Robb and Nikki Wolf. 
  • Millennium Falcon Microfighter:  Best, funnest $10 you will ever spend.  Go purchase it post haste.  We all need to play more, and you can SHOOT LEGOS FROM THE CANNONS on this thing.  It legit works.  Amazing.  Han Solo is a *little* out of scale, but he has to be so you can appreciate his luscious head of hair.

Topic 3:  Slowing Down

As I mentioned, I’ve been neglecting my meditation.  Any my journaling.  And my breath-practices.  I have this story in my head that I have to do things in a certain way, at a certain time, in certain circumstances or I better just not do them at all.  None of that is true, but I let myself believe these thought errors, and as a result I am now all wound up, moving fast, feeling anxious.  And I bet I’m not the only one feeling that way today! 

If you are all torqued and tight and speedy today, here is a short half-hour yoga class from yours truly that might float your boat.   Body scans/yoga nidras are one of my favorite ways to decelerate.

On that note, I best take my own advice and reconnect with my Self on this sunny Sunday (told ya I love alliteration)!

As always, if anything I wrote piques your interest, and you want to know more, holler at me.  I want to know what YOU want to know!  And if you need some help with reducing pain, improving your performance, or with feeling more at home in your body, you can book with me here.  I also offer gift certificates (click on the View Products/Packages at the top of my booking link) if you have a friend or loved one who could use my help.

Health & Fitness, Paleo

On Better Butts & Hot Flashes

heather

Talkin’ ain’t doin’

Man, what a gorgeous Sunday.  We spent the day yesterday doing yard work – cleaning dead bugs out of the lamp by the front door, getting the trees out of the eavestroughs, cutting out all the hostas that got murdered by the frost, raking leaves, etc.  While I got sore and tired pretty quickly, my stamina was better than it was last autumn, and I am less incapacitated today.  WHY?
 
Because I started strength training.
 
Putting on slabs of muscle is just, SO SO critical for our health, wellbeing, and longevity.  Here is a laundry list of some of the benefits:

  • The psychological benefits are what I find most interesting (and probably least talked about), so let’s start there:
    • Lifting weights is empowering.
    • It increases confidence.
    • It can boost mood (when you strength train, your body produces anti-depression chemicals).
    • It encourages us to TAKE UP SPACE.
    • It shows us WE ARE CAPABLE.
  • And now for the physical benefits:
    • It can reduce your risk of experiencing osteoporosis, diabetes, high blood pressure, joint pain, and injury.
    • It can improve metabolism.
    • Muscle is anti-inflammatory (unlike fat which is pro-inflammatory).
    • Muscle can REDUCE MENOPAUSE SYMPTOMS like hot flashes!
    • It can decrease your risk of falls by helping you move quickly and react to falls.
    • It gives you a better butt. 🙂 

Source:  Menopocalypse by Amanda Thebe and https://drgabriellelyon.com/muscle-centric-medicine/
 
So, I know all this stuff.  I’ve probably consumed a jillion podcasts and books on the subject, but in the immortal words of Zoe from Serenity, “Talkin’ ain’t doin’.”  There is such SUCH a large gap between knowing what needs to be done and doing it. 
 
So, what to do in that situation??  Get some help!
 
So that’s what I did.  I contacted Sarah Strange at Basis Health & Performance, who I discovered via Robb Wolf’s Healthy Rebellion community.  Sarah and I met for 2 hours over Zoom and she did a full assessment on the range of motion (ROM) for each of my major joints.  She then compiled a summary doc that listed where I had “opportunities” to improve my ROM, and she provided links to several videos/exercises that could help.  I wanted even more help though.  Basically I just wanted her to tell me what to do.
 
So I joined their Train Heroic platform, and now Sarah loads daily workouts for me.  I open the app, and the workouts are all listed there, with videos and notes showing me how to do the movements.  She tailored the workouts so I can do them with the equipment I have at home (some dumbbells, a bench, yoga blocks, etc.).  The workouts consist of Functional Range Conditioning (FRC) joint mobilizations for the targeted area (e.g. shoulders), a series of  strength/power training movements, and then FRC exercises called PAILS and RAILS that help you build up strength in the joint in a variety of positions.
 
I work out for 45-60 minutes 4 days a week at 5:30 AM now, and my mood, stamina, and self-concept have all improved in just 3 weeks of training.  I have a better relationship with my body and I just feel more capable.

If you are interested in learning more about strength training, here are a few resources for you:

If you are overwhelmed and don’t know where to start, you could check out this 10-minute video.  In 10 minutes, without using any weights, you can start to build some strength.  If you are interested in working with a local coach, I have a few people I can connect you with.
 
Well, that got longer than I intended, but hopefully it helped you understand why putting on some muscle mass could save your life, and it gave you some ideas about how to take action on that knowledge.
 
And remember, if you want guidance with finding more freedom in your body and mind, I’m here for you.
 
Have a great Thanksgiving week!!

Awakening, Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Meditation, Yoga

On Feeling those Feelings

heather

My Emotions!

Happy Sunday!  It’s grey and windy here in Iowa today, but I’m digging it.  I’m tucked in at the kitchen table, watching the gusts blow the flame-colored leaves from our bushes, and appreciating that I now have time to write.  If it was nice outside, I would just HAVE to go for a walk or a bike ride or a car-ride to Crawford Brewery. 🙂

So, the big question is, what to write about??

Well, the thing that’s been on my mind most often lately, is Feelings.  I dig how the Universe will continually tap you on the shoulder with something that you just REALLY need to know or figure out. Like over and over and over again, in many different ways, via many different sources, until you finally listen.  The current in the Ether in my world is revolving around Feelings, and more specifically, the need to actually Feel those pesky things.

Why?  Why is it important to feel your feelings?

Oh, for SO many reasons!!  But here are 3 good ones: 
1.  When I don’t take time to notice what I am feeling, I miss vital information.  Emotions provide guidance on what you need more of and what you need less of. 
2. When I don’t take time to process my feelings, when I ignore them and push them away to be dealt with “later,” I add yet another layer of tension, another layer of armor.  Emotions are energy, and if that energy is not transmuted, it will get stuck and take up space in the body.
3. Finally, if I don’t learn to how process emotions, they scare me, and I avoid doing things that could cause me to feel that emotion.  The desire to not feel certain things creates false bumper rails, making my life and experience more and more narrow.  Life gets smaller, less colorful, less interesting.

Does that happen to you as well?  

What can we do about it?  How does one start to “feel” feelings, when one has never been taught how to do that?

Here is a practice that might help.  When you notice the impulse to grab your phone, grab something to eat, grab something to drink, take a breath and pause. Ask yourself, what am I feeling?  If you have the time and space to do so, set the timer on your phone for 2 minutes and sit and watch what that emotion looks like on the inside – Where do you feel it? Is it heavy or light? Does it have a color? How would you describe the texture?  Does it stay in the same place or does it move around?  Notice what happens when you turn towards the sensation with curiosity instead of turning your back on it with resistance.

When I practice this, sometimes the emotion stays with me, and sometimes I watch it move around and then leave.  And when that happens – wow – I feel more space inside.  One layer of the onion has dissolved!

This podcast really made me think even more deeply about the need to feel and process our emotions.  Here are some questions you can ask yourself:  What am I avoiding because I don’t want to experience emotional pain?  What emotions am I afraid of experiencing and who would I be/what would I do if I wasn’t afraid of experiencing these emotions?

As always, thank you for reading.  I hope you have a fabulous week.  Have some fun.  Find a safe space and feel some feelings.  Get outside.  Connect with someone for realsies – talk about Life, The Universe, and Everything.

And remember, if you want guidance with finding more space in your body and mind, I’m here for you.

Take care,

Heather

Awakening, Health & Fitness, Meditation, Movies

On Running With Wolves

heather

“Women Who Run With the Wolves.” The title grabs you, does it not?

What does it invoke in you?

To my mind it brings the image of the wild child from Princess Mononoke, a beautiful film about Industry and Progress killing the Spirit of the Forest.

Princess Mononoke LITERALLY runs with the wolves.  She was raised by them.  She loves them, and she loves the Forest and hates the Industry that is stripping the mountains of their resources and beauty.

Ugh.  Just such a beautiful movie. 

But, I digress.

Women Who Run With the Wolves is about ancient stories full of symbolism and signs, almost un-interpretable to the modern woman, disconnected as she is (we are, I am) from the Earth, the body, the cycles, the rhythms.

Fortunately, author Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes is a Jungian psychoanalyst/poet/scholar who collected these stories and breaks them down for those of us who want to learn their lessons.

I am 1/3 of the way through it, and it’s helping me find my heart, my teacher, again. 

Despite 10 years of investigation into the mindbody realm, I still remained “separate than” – an analytical observer of things, dispassionate, unfeeling (except for when it comes to annoyance, frustration, and anxiety – those I experienced in spades).  Oh, I had glimpses and shimmers of connection with Self, but they were so fleeting – a flash of connection, and then the mind retreated upstairs, and the body went back to being an overlooked, shy, beautiful (but with glasses, frizzy hair and hand-me-down clothes) girl sitting in the shadows surrounding the dance floor – just hoping to be noticed and escorted back into the limelight. 

This book is helping me reintroduce my heart to my head.  It reminds me that as a Woman, I am meant to be Wild, attuned to nature, full of darkness and light and mysticism.  That is my birthright. 

Really, if this topic at all intrigues you, you just have to read this book!!  But here, to get you started and to pique your interest, are some symptoms of a disrupted relationship with wildness force in the psyche (I’m paraphrasing below):

  • Feeling dry, depressed, without inspiration, without meaning, stuck, uncreative, compressed, powerless, chronically doubtful, unable to follow through, inert, uncertain, overprotective of self, self-conscious, drawn far into domesticity or intellectualism or inertia because THAT IS THE SAFEST PLACE TO BE for one who has LOST HER INSTINCTS.
  • To fear to venture by oneself or reveal oneself, fear to set out one’s imperfect work, cringing before authority, numbness, anxiety. 
  • Afraid to try the new, to stand up/speak up, becoming conciliatory or nice too easily.
  • Afraid to stop, afraid to act, ambivalent yet fully capable.

Does any of that resonate?

This reads like an autobiography of my life.

But things are shifting – maybe like a 10% shift.  Not super seismic, just enough to notice, just enough to put me on a new course. 

When I feel myself rushing.  I slow down.

When I feel my insides getting pulled upwards by the storm in my head, I pull myself back in to my feet, my pelvis, and my heart center.

When I need to make a decision, I pause.  I check in and see what the answer is.  And I try to listen to whatever message comes up (and often nothing comes up, and that’s OK).  I express gratitude and respect to my inner teacher – my heart.

As a result, I NOTICE things.  I see the person in front of me, I notice the bark of the tree by the side of the path, I watch the urge to pick up my phone to kill time and I DON’T PICK UP MY PHONE

It’s a nice shift.  I feel more real.  I also feel scared that I will lose this.  But now I know that life is full of rhythms and cycles.  If I lose this.  I will find it again.

Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Meditation, Yoga

On Spirals

heather

Think about where you see spirals in nature – in the tendrils of a vine, in a seashell, in a tree trunk spinning its branches out as it climbs up towards the sun. Spirals are EVERYWHERE in nature.

And guess what.

Spirals are everywhere in YOU. You/we are nature. We often feel separate – Other Than – nature, but the patterns and rhythms we experience in the natural world around us are reflected in humans, from the tips of our hair, to the formation of our bones, to our very heart.

This is a beautiful video that shows how the heart itself is a spiral – a fleshy, living, beating, spinning conch shell – spiraling blood throughout the body.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MbOyozg_GTs

I’ve noticed that when I get stressed and tense, I feel my insides torquing – they get wound up, tighter and tighter, compressing all the space in my body, making me smaller and twisted.

If we compress in spirals, we must decompress in spirals too – via breath or movement or expansion of thought.

Have you found a way to unclench, spiral out, spin out your energy as you reach towards the sun?

Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Meditation, Uncategorized

On Getting a New Perspective

heather

I’ve written before about Balance and how the theme of balance keeps surfacing in the ocean of my experience – the need for balance in thoughts and opinions, balance in work and fun, balance in movement practices. Eventually everything needs to wobble back to center – it’s just that we don’t know the timescale!

I took a manual therapy training class recently that is helping me embody more balance in how I think about manual therapy and in how I practice hands-on work.

I was trained in a school of thought that was very much posturally focused. We were taught how to analyze someone’s posture and note where the patient was twisting or shearing or in some other way moving out of “neutral.” These deviations from neutral provided clues to what muscles or organs or systems needed some attention.

It was/is a useful analysis, and many people WAY smarter than me are using it every day to literally change people’s lives. But, the more I read and learned about other modalities, the more I realized that posture is only part of the story. And in my own personal practice, I noted that many of my clients were feeling much better after seeing me, yet their posture remained essentially unchanged. How to reconcile this??

To further confound myself, I worked on an article for Tune Up Fitness on the importance of posture. I had the privilege of talking to several experts in the field of human performance and well-being, and most of them stated the same thing – posture is just a piece of the puzzle of pain. Oh. And the research says there really is no “perfect” posture. The really important thing is being able to move through a variety of postures depending on your need in the moment.

This whole exploration of the importance of posture helped me practice the skill of believing almost mutually exclusive things to be simultaneously true. Is posture important? Yes. And also No.

So to further develop the skill of becoming comfortable with uncertainty, I took Walt Fritz’s class, Foundations in Manual Therapy. Walt also comes from a therapy lineage that focuses on posture as a primary indicator of pain. However, after taking several classes in several different modalities (that all worked), he realized that while they all worked, their explanations were often not founded on scientific literature. YET THEY ALL WORK!! Why??

Essentially, his answer is, because of the Therapeutic Alliance – that connection between the client and the therapist – the exchange of energy and attention and intention – that communication between two nervous systems – that is really where the magic of therapy happens. It’s not that the therapist released a trigger point or freed up a restricted nerve, or unstuck some fascia. It’s that the therapist jibed with the client.

The core of his approach, “Rather than using a protocol or trusting your knowledge and experience, you’ll instead listen to your patient.”

I so love this.

I am ever grateful for what I learned at the Center for Neurosomatic Studies. But, man, the human body is all sorts of complex, and when my brain starts trying to follow the twists and turns and flexes and extensions found in a body, my insides start to get all wound up too, and my brain gears start overheating. And guess what happens then? I get all up in my brain instead of my in my body, present and accounted for with my client.

BUT

When I have scientific “permission” to focus instead on what the human being in front of me is telling me with their voice, their eyes, their body language, and I can focus on that instead of solving a puzzle, wow – then I can be present, aware, and open to possibilities that the client/therapist partnership can open up. And there is so much beauty and freedom in that.

So that is what I am experimenting with – taking all I know, all I don’t know (SO MUCH), all of what the client needs and wants and expects – and putting all that together into an experience for the client that helps them find more space, freedom, and ease. And, oh yeah, trying to have fun in the process. 🙂

Come join me on the exploration, if you want to see what opportunities for healing we can discover together!

Health & Fitness

On Toughening Up!

heather

Back in, I don’t know, February-ish, I got a wild hair and texted my brothers and asked if they would want to do a siblings-only hike.  I figured that the time was right – due to COVID, work schedules were more flexible, and I needed some incentive to actually do something besides eat, drink, and re-watch all of my favorite sitcoms.

Nate, my older (very adventurous) brother immediately said yes. I don’t recall if Benny (my younger, more cautious (Heather-like) brother) ever explicitly agreed, but by then, the seed of the idea was planted.  It was done.  We were going on a hike.

We did some preliminary (aka half-ass) research and decided on a beautiful 30 mile trail in North Carolina, The Art Loeb Trail. Nate sent us a list of gear we would need to procure.

I balked.

OMG.  Hiking gear is EXPENSIVE.

I tried to back out. 

Nathan pscyhotherapized me, reducing my objections to dust.

I bought all the gear.

ALLLLL the while hoping, praying, hoping that something would happen, and I would not, in fact, have to walk 30 miles with a 40 lb pack on my back up 8,257 feet of elevation.

While hoping it would all come to nothing by the grace of God, I still continued buying gear and even starting training!  Despite our best intentions to do practice hikes of 10-12 miles fully loaded with gear, the best we did was an 8 mile hike with 797 feet of elevation.

And Lo!  The week of the hike approached.

By some weird twist of fate, Russian hackers did a ransomware attack on the fuel pipeline servicing North Carolina.  This happened 2 days before we were scheduled to DRIVE to NC! 

We quickly convened a Sibling Zoom and discussed options.  Should we cancel?  Postpone?  Find an alternate?  Nate was coming from NYC, and we were coming from Iowa.  We decided that there is no time like the present, so we decided to “pivot” (the theme for 2020/2021) and meet up in PA instead, to do the 30 mile Tioga West Rim Trail.  At 4,356 feet of elevation, it was still no joke, but it seemed more doable (both physically and from a gas-supply perspective) than the Art Loeb Trail.  So we headed out, only one day later than planned.

I am sitting here, about a week after completing the hike, and I am SO HAPPY that the Universe did not grant my silent wish and put the kibosh on the hike. 

Living outside, with all that you need carried on your back, helped me feel more strong, resilient, and weathered.  Over the past year life has shrunk a bit. I have retreated back into a cozy, comfortable home cocoon, and in the process got raw, pink, and sensitive.  Hiking 30 miles helped me realize what I am capable of (to quote Glennon Doyle, “I can do hard things!”). 

It also helped me see how much my body and mind thrived when disconnected from modern life.  My eyes saw trees, hills, rivers.  My ears heard babbling brooks, the sounds of my brothers’ voices, and the occasional inexplicable noise in the woods.  My feet felt the earth, the roots, the slope beneath me.  My skin welcomed the sun and the wind.  I need more OUTSIDE time in my life!!

I also have some practical insights to share, for other first time hikers:

  1. REI has load of super helpful videos. 
    1. I was very concerned about the logistics of pooping in the woods and was seriously considering just holding it for 3 days (soooo not possible when one is eating a diet of beef jerky, nuts, seeds, bars, and freeze dried food).  But I ran across this video, and it answered all my questions!
    1. Here’s another video about how to pack a backpack – so many good insights!! 
    1. And this one, also from Miranda, had some good insights for beginner back packers.
  2. My shoulders were KILLING ME within 20 minutes on the trail.  I have very prominent, bony clavicles, and it felt as if the pack was resting right on the bone and also pinching all the nerves exiting my neck.  I was sure I was going to have permanent nerve damage from the pack.  Nate noticed my pack should ride a bit higher on my hips, so I shortened up the back, and then Benny suggested putting some padding under the shoulder straps.  I pulled out a pair of super cushy SmartWool socks (LOVE THEM) and tucked them under my straps.  It may have looked weird, but it made ALL the difference!!!
  3. BRING A PAPER MAP!  We all had AllTrails Pro on our phones, but we couldn’t tell where the campsites were located, so we just had to keep hiking until we found a suitable spot.  Also , the AllTrails map did not track to the real Tioga West Rim Trail; it utilizes a shortcut (Siemens loop) to cut a few miles off the trail.  We missed the loop (by accident), but then got really confused when our GPS showed us way off the trail, but the blazes showed that we were in the right spot.
  4. If you are doing a Thru Hike, make sure you have all the keys and wallets you need with you in your pack.  We left one car at the Northern end, and then drove another car to the South Terminus.  We were about 15 minutes down the trail when Nate remembered that his keys were still in the car.  Benny ran back and got them – crisis averted!!  Until we got to the Northern end and realized that Nate’s car only had 1/8 of a tank of gas, and all of our wallets were safely stashed in Benny’s car at the South end, about 45 minutes away.  We actually had enough gas to get back to Benny’s car, but the anxiety of potentially running out of fuel in the mountains took about 3 years off of Benny & I’s lives. Nathan was nonplussed, however!
  5. Do take the threat of bears seriously.  We got a bear canister and hung up whatever didn’t fit in it several feet outside of camp.  WE didn’t have any run-ins with bears, but we ran into some other hikers who, the previous night, had a bear come into their campsite at 3AM.  They eventually scared it off, but they didn’t sleep a wink the rest of the night, and they still had about 7 miles to hike to finish the trail!!
  6. Share your plans with people at home.  On Saturday night we could not get a cell signal, so our families went several hours without hearing from us.  My husband was all set to drive out to PA on Sunday morning to rescue us.  But he didn’t even know if we started at the North or South end, so if he really DID need to find us, it would have been tough.
  7. I was using my Garmin Forerunner 35 to track our hike.  But it died mid-way through Day 2.  I think if I had remembered to turn off the heart rate monitor function, it would have lasted the full hike.  I’m not sure how accurate its tracking was in the mountains, but at least it gave us some idea of how far we were.

This post is already miles long, so I’ll stop there.  If you have any questions about the gear we used, what we liked and didn’t like, or any other questions about the Trail itself, hit me up in the comments.

Happy Hiking!!

Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Meditation, Yoga

On The Power of the Pause

heather

Life is moving fast. Even in COVID times. I hear many people say that this has been a year to reflect, to slow down, to Be instead of Do. I have no doubt that was/is true for a lot of people, but I think that peoples’ experiences of 2020 are as varied as the shells on a beach. Tim and I were blessed in that neither of us lost our jobs; we actually have had the opposite experience – we have been super busy with work and multiple jobs. Busy to the extent that we have felt as if we have no time to slow down!

But, as I continue my dive into learning about what makes a Human Being thrive (not just survive), it’s become abundantly clear how important it is to Pause.

To Pause between the exhale and the inhale.

To Pause after moving your body in a new way to see what has shifted.

To Pause to appreciate THIS moment – this moment that will never Be again.

To Pause to notice the progress we have made and to appreciate the process and not get fixated by the destination.

To Pause and let your feet actually sink into the ground beneath your feet instead of skimming across the surface.

To Pause and notice before responding.

To Pause and notice that what you are thinking might not be true.

To Pause and widen your gaze, hear the leaves rustle, feel the breeze play with your hair, smell the wet earth.

To Pause and see what it’s really like to live from within a Human Body, not above it it or in front of it, but from within it.