Knowledge

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We are Stories (a meditation on transcending the stories that keep us stuck)

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We are walking constellations of stories. Most of these stories are inaccurate, misunderstood, or the opposite of what is real. They are woven into our cells, our tissues, our organs. They reflect in our voice, our words, our actions, our posture. Our entire life becomes the 'singing of a familiar song.' We sing it in various keys, and in various styles, however it is the same song. 

Over the years, I've learned to see the stories that people carry in their bodies. This is not esoteric knowledge. It just requires tuning into another layer of reality. The collapse that is indicative of the early childhood trauma, the anger toward the father, the sexual betrayal, the broken heart. At a glance these things can be seen. 

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Physical Trauma as Emotional Healing. Case study of a 'broken heart' manifesting as a bruised sternum.

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One interpretation: The core wound manifested as a physical trauma, because that was what it took to compel him to work on it… physical pain. The true wound was a broken heart. Healing one heals the other, and vice versa.

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The Spine and The Inevitability of Healing

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Like the entire body intelligence, the spine is brilliantly engineered. The perfect balance between mobility and protection; flexibility and durability. With the elegance of form that rivals anything we've seen. 

The spine is modeled in a graceful natural curve. No one vertebrae touches another. They are buffered by fluid mediums. We float and are fluid in our bodies, and our bones float with us. Even the bones are said to be 31% water (though I don’t trust those sorts of numbers, generally). 

Sometimes, an unnatural twist occurs in the spine. A minor twist, or one so extreme that a diagnosis is required. Scoliosis, for instance. This twist can occur as organs and viscera tighten due to congestion and/or deterioration from a corrosive diet, acidic thought patterns, or it can occur in reaction to a mental pattern. I worked with a client once who viewed her sexual fantasies as ‘twisted’, and this manifested as a physical twist. The body is, after all, an embodiment of our beliefs. As I straightened her torso physically, tears flowed. She just couldn't believe that the way I had positioned her was straight. She'd felt 'twisted. I showed her the mirror, and more tears flowed, wetting her cheeks and shoulders. 

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Case Study: How An Unconscious Judgement Created a Lifelong Shoulder Pain

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As I was working on a client’s shoulder, by simply rotating it slowly, he kept noticing an inner voice chiding him. You’re worthless, it was saying. Pathetic. I saw it in his face so clearly that I could almost hear the voice. 

I narrowed in on the motion, and it seemed something like a throwing motion, the arm over the head, arcing down. Is that familiar? I asked. It seems to me like throwing something. As I said that, he saw a vague image that slowly came into focus… it was the laces of a football, lamely wobbling through the air. This shoulder pain had plagued him since high school. 

And then it came to him; the origin story of the condition. Time stopped. 

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Case Study: Finding your Feet Means the World Changes

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I had a client who, during our conversations, kept hiding her feet. Especially when we broached difficult topics. As I questioned her, she eventually confessed. 

‘I hate my feet. They are so masculine. They remind me of my father’s.’ 

So she never wore sandals, and took great lengths to hide her feet. So, hiding her feet was a way to hide from me, and the world. Hating her feet was a way to hate her father. 

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Deepening Intimacy by tuning into the Rhythms of Life

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Our skulls literally expand and contract at the sutures. This opening and closing happens approximately 10 times per minute. The motion only covers fraction of a millimeter, but we can learn to hone in on it and use it for our own unfolding. It can be a powerful tool for cultivating presence, and its beauty lies in its simplicity.

Tuning into this rhythm on ourselves, the rhythm of life, is the most profound sorcery, however it’s easier at first to feel it on another. The cranial tide swims through the entire physiology, but it’s perhaps most accessible at the skull. If presence is the origin of wisdom, the cranial tide, along with the breath, is the pathway to presence.

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I approach every issue in the same way: Discover and resolve whatever is Incomplete

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People come to me with a business challenge, or a creative blockage, or a chronic relationship pattern. I watch their language, mannerisms, and posture as they tell their story, and within a few minutes, the origin of the challenge reveals itself. The right knee is clenching. What an interesting choice of words. They could have chosen any word, and they chose 'battle' to explain their condition. A wave of emotion fluttered through the room when they mentioned their partner, and they swallowed it. I saw exactly where it went. Did they notice that? 

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How the Budden Process Works (Somatic Breakthrough Delivery); With Esoteric Anatomy of the Skull

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While the benefits the Budden Process work are often very clear, the mechanics can be mysterious. 

They are a mystery in part because we are working with consciousness, and consciousness is, almost by definition, a mystery. Many spiritual traditions that are based in mindfulness practices are studies of consciousness. We don't study it much in our culture. Scientists call it 'the hard problem.' For one thing, how does one observe oneself objectively, when even the most minute particles of matter seem influenced by the observer?

Certain principles show up again and again in Budden Process sessions. So we can use these to deepen our understanding. 

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Transformational Anatomy - The Abdomen

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The body is a conduit for life force. This FLOW is hampered by tightening the abdomen. We learn, in our culture, to tighten our abdomen to fit into some programmed, artificial concepts of beauty. We also learn it through the unnatural postures we engage in regularly (sitting, for instance, and standing in certain footwear). We also may tighten the abdomen so as not to feel our deepest fears; our core wounds. 

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Honoring the entire spectrum of sensations, Flow and Non-Flow and the Transformational Anatomy of the Psoas)

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Sensations are always arising and passing away... arising and passing away. We put a lot of energy into labeling these sensations.

Sensations don't create our reality; the labels do.  The same sensation never shows up twice. 

Included are the tools for making the most of this fluid state. 

The Psoas: Esoteric Anatomy

The psoas runs from the lower 5 lumbar to the top of the femur or thigh bone. When it is congested, it can affect posture, digestion, circulation, sexuality, and the urinary system, to name a few.

Here are a few critical distinctions and tools for opening. 

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The Paradoxes of Healing and Awakening

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I think a well-lived life is a balance between the external happening and the internal reflection. When we spend too much time moving through happenings, without reflection, it can be difficult to discover meaning. There may be one or two experiences that require a lifetime of reflection to make sense. They inform and are informed by our life path.

The process of embodiment, coming back into the body, includes discovering where those experiences have fit into our lives, so they can fall into place; so that our life purpose continues to clarify. 

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards." Soren Kierkegaard

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The 3 Levels of Communication (Sharing from the personality versus sharing from the essence)

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To understand the levels of sharing, it is important to understand the difference between the personality and the essence. A human being is a constellation of stories, from the micro to the macro; each story dependent upon countless others. The whole of this constellation makes up the 'personality.' Most attempts at transformation occur at the level of the personality. Shifting any story moves the whole.  Living from the ground of personality has limitations, regardless of how it has been redesigned, retrofitted, orchestrated. 

The essence, on the other hand, existed before the adoption of any of the stories. We generally touch upon it only in fleeting moments, during transcendental experiences. 

Enlightenment is simply the act of moving from living from the ground of personality, to living from the ground of essence. 

Before enlightenment, we can rehearse this shift in any and every interaction. The superficial levels of sharing occur from the ground of the personality. The personality is acutely aware of itself, and what it is putting forward. It is a show, designed to keep pace with some notion of what we think we 'should' be. 

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The value of embodiment (And how I found my legs again)

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Currently, in our culture, there is little value placed on 'embodiment.' That is not entirely surprising. For one thing, it is difficult to commodify, and thus valued less. It takes in-depth exploration, in a culture that values quick satisfaction. Also, I think embodiment as a way of being is a dangerous prospect, because an embodied person is difficult to control.