posture

Strategies for Living More Fully, Awakening, And Breaking Free of the Past

Everything we do revolves around one premise: how to orchestrate the most dramatic breakthroughs within the shortest timeframes possible. We are obsessed with it. 

At a glance, I can tell where you are abound up in your body and mind, and we set to work within minutes. I'm sometimes guilty of flying through the formalities to get down to the deep work. I hope that is ok with you... time is precious. 

I've gathered much of my understanding of life and consciousness through an awakening experience that occurred a decade ago, and that has been nourished by other experiences that followed. I don't go about to convince anyone of my worldview conceptually, as that has severe limitations. We can't live by concepts. We live by experiences. And so I set about to develop a system in order to demonstrate the experiences that have enriched my life by a thousand times. 

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

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. 

The Spine and The Inevitability of Healing

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. 

How your use of language can keep you from healing, and the transformational anatomy of bones

On the healing journey, be careful about the language you use about your ailment, because that is a clue about how the mind is functioning. 

‘My back is killing me.’ Your back is not killing you. It has been supporting you for a lifetime. It is sending out signals so you change your life path. If you don’t listen, it will send out stronger signals, like small waves before the tidal wave. Let it know that you’re listening. Find out what it needs. 

Can a bone ‘need’? Bones are consciousness. As alive as any other part of you. The plastic skeleton we grow up learning from is not anywhere near reality. Since ancient times, bones have been infused with divine meanings, and many of these have been corroborated by more radical osteopaths. 

Case Study: Finding your Feet Means the World Changes

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. 

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

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. 

Holistic Postural Analysis

'We are all different. Still, standing in the way that the body was designed to stand becomes effortless. Living around our discomfort, (as our adapted posture is usually a way to avoid pain), is  taxing to the entire system. Muscles suffer; bones suffer; organs suffer; we suffer. We drain our energy into a black hole, rather than pour it into creative expression, leadership, love... the building of dreams. 

Standing in flow is a way to stand with whatever is, and to face it head on. I say we meet life with our whole body; nothing tucked away; nothing twisting to deflect; nothing collapsing so as not to feel.

Here are a few guidelines... 

Soften the Belly; Meet the Moment, the Lover, the Ocean with your Whole Self 

Soften the belly in interactions with the lover. Soften the belly in interactions with the ‘enemy’. Soften the belly in interactions with the crushing ocean or the dark forest. Something interesting happens… they soften too, as if on cue. 

Your softening impacts the ocean, not because the ocean compromises her fierceness, (that would be to give up her nature), but because her fierceness was a projection of yours; and now the two of you are free meet in an entirely new world. Now her vastness and serenity can surface (projections of yours).