sonoma county

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

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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. 

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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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What is Nourishment, Really?

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“A fight is going on inside me," said an old man to his son. "It is a terrible fight between two wolves. One wolf is evil. He is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is good. he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you." 

The son thought about it for a minute and then asked, "Which wolf will win?" 

The old man replied simply, "The one you feed.”

Here are some tips for feeding the right one. 

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Seeing the World Through New Eyes

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After I witnessed her whole body clench and vibrate (the signs of trauma releasing from the tissues), her face went through every season. It darkened, it clenched, it lightened, there were tears, gasps, a smirk. In the aftermath, the familiar peace descended. The loop had been resolved. 

As she opened her eyes, they were shades lighter. She was gazing out into the backyard, blinking and rubbing her eyes. 

What is it, I asked? What do you notice? 

The leaves on that maple are extraordinarily red, she whispered. I thought I was hallucinating. They almost seem too red.  I think I just wasn’t seeing them before.

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Most people don't actually want to heal.

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You know, most people don’t actually want to heal. They are enamored of their wounds, hold them tenderly and gaze down at them lovingly. 

It can be a startling but liberating realization. Because allowing someone to cradle their wounds, for as long as they choose to, is loving unconditionally. It doesn’t mean you have to associate with them, necessarily, when they launch into a familiar song. It just means, we can now look at them knowing that their wound has become like their child. We can’t separate them from a bond that strong until the time is right. As of now, they wouldn’t even know how to conceive of life without it. It’s like a magical totem. It offers protection from falling in love, and all of the perils that might accompany that, or it offers a reason to stay in a relationship, without needing to brave the unknown. It becomes  evidence that supports a fear based worldview. It’s a shapeshifter, this wound… it becomes anything it needs to be. 

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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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Releasing past 'trauma'; by accessing the layer of consciousness where it is stored

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It’s common for people to underestimate their traumas. Some even shy away from using the word trauma. I simply use it to mean ‘something that the body is still holding on to.’ It could have come from something as extreme as  years of ritual physical abuse, or something as seemingly innocuous a harsh word from a trusted parent. It doesn’t really matter how it compares to the lives of others. All that matters is that we discover and honor our own experience; acknowledge where we’re stuck so we can move forward as gracefully as possible. 

This requires feeling the emotions fully. This sounds simple… it isn’t for most. 

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

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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. 

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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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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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Gaps in Awareness (and how to fill them)

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In day to day living, we are largely unconscious. We often behave mechanically, going from pattern to pattern automatically, moving through our days and lives. We live in the liminal spaces, looking forward to life events, or back with nostalgia on the past.

Here are some practical tips for bringing awareness back, using the body as a springboard. (Hint: this has nothing to do with meditation). 

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Holistic Postural Analysis

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'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... 

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Deepening your Healing Practice

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Faith is critical during this process, because healing happens outside of linear time. We weave in and out of childhood as though time didn't exist, welcoming back old abandoned pieces. Most of the tools we learn for measuring and quantifying in life do not apply here. 

How do you measure the healing of the heart and soul?

How do you compare one moment to another, in a constellation where 'change is the one constant?' 

The flowing forward calls upon an inner knowing; on following an inner compass that is uniquely your own.