L.I.F.T.

Another new TED talk from Kevin Stone talks about the future of joint repair. Totally awesome. An instance where science achieves something meaningful:

For this post, I’m going to keep it simple. If you read the post on training crying patterns, you already know what I’m recommending here…if not, go read the crying post!

Once you’ve done that, watch this for inspiration:

Among the emotions to play with is Sadness.

Specifically, we can play with the overt expression of sadness – crying.

When I worked at Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare in Boston, MA, my boss and I came up with a crying competition. We would come in to work every morning armed with a new “cry.”

We did the “man” cry. We did the “baby” cry, the “little kid who cries so hard they don’t make any sound” cry, the “silent tear” cry so common in movies.

By the end of the year, I think we had accumulated about 15 unique cries.

We thought it was hilarious, and there it ended. I didn’t think of it again till recently, when posting about playing with smack-talk and/or competitiveness in order to explore affective states and performance.

At my friend Steven Stanfield’s birthday party this past weekend, we resurrected this old game. We must have had over 20 cries by the end of the weekend.

But why, you may ask? What’s the point?

Well, part of the point is to explore your capacity for make-believe.

Part of it is to feel deep within your body the effect that different types of facial expression, breathing, and emoting have on you.

Part of it may be to experience the somatic-psychic connection…that is, how bodily behavior can trigger psychological states or memories. Trying your different cries, do memories pop up unexpectedly? They likely will, since there’s no separation between your body and mind.

So, there it is…the suggestion. Play with crying. You’ll notice when you do that different types of crying (with their accompanying breathing patterns) elicit different feelings in the body.

We don’t have to do anything in particular in order to play (be in the play-state), other than to release certain inhibitions we have about ourselves, others, and “rules.”

To do that, it may be beneficial to practice identifying the other states we assume throughout the day. For most of us, these other states will be characterized by certain “selves.”

For instance, I’ve already discussed The Victim. There are also the roles of “the persecutor,” “protector/rescuer,” “coach,” “challenger,” “cynic,” “skeptic.” And above those there may be others, like the “controller,” the “buddha/enlightened one,” etc.

For more information on this, check out the book (or videos) TED –

We each have our own unique cast of characters. And, though they’ll often assume similar roles, our cast is unlike any other cast. Each role may be played by a different person, depending on our own personal history.

As we go through the day, and experience emotions of different sorts, different characters come in to play.

In order to witness these folks, it is necessary to learn to notice shifts in our energy state – in our emotional or attentional state – as they occur.

When we feel “high,” who is in charge? When we feel “stressed,” who is in charge? When we are in love, who is in charge? When we are angry, who is it? If we feel like we’ve failed at something, who is the voice, the character, that comes up to the front of the stage of our mind?

This process requires awareness and attention, which requires slowing down.

It’s just like learning any new skill. Think about the first time you played a new game of some sort. You had to slow down to learn the technique. You may have “frozen” certain parts of your body or movements in order to work on the technique in pieces. In motor learning it’s called “freeing and freezing degrees of freedom.” You may have moved very clumsily at first, and felt awkward.*

That’s normal.

Now aware of this – that learning requires slowing down, and that awkward and clumsy is normal at first – we can begin to play with these selves when they arise.

Here’s a scenario:

I’ve failed at a big task. The “persecutor” self steps forth and begins his monologue about worthlessness, about me being crappy at this thing, about me not being good enough.

But something has changed. I’m aware that it’s the Persecutor talking. And I say to myself, perhaps, something like, “That’s interesting.”

He begins to get anxious. He looks around for help. He tries to find things to distract me…where did I leave my car keys? What time is it?…so he can continue his act.

But I stay aware, calm, slow, breathing, watching him.

Then I observe. Simply observe.

And then, only then, is choice possible.

*on a side note, this process, of freezing our degrees of freedom, happens when we are “psychologically” stressed as well.

Aight…if you’ve been reading recently, you may be wondering what all of my recent posts have to do with physical activity, health, or athletic performance.

It has come to my attention that most people seek personal trainers for motivation, support, or encouragement, over/above knowledge, instruction, or learning.

First, I think that this is a culturally-based bias. I think that because of the way we treat what we call “physical education” in this country.

Children (at least when I was a kid, in “one of the best school systems in the country” – Fairfax Co., VA) in PE classes are “taught” extremely little. The only instruction we received usually had to do with “rules” of various games we played.

There was one section of the class on “health,” which covered sex education, drug awareness (scare tactics), and something else I can’t remember.

But there was no real physical education happening. If I learned the names of any muscles in high school it was either in a biology class, or through my own readings. We didn’t learn anything about human physiology.

Worst still, we didn’t learn anything about our bodies from a somatic awareness perspective. For instance, what happens in our physical bodies when we experience a trauma (whether it’s an accidental bump or fall, a major accident, or the experience of abuse from some external source), how to trace that experience, how to allow our feelings to happen without judgment or restriction…

And then, how to help ourselves to heal, by playing between the feelings elicited by that trauma within ourselves and the natural healing responses our bodies create.

This is not “touchy feely” bullshit that I’m writing about. We can point, using “science,” to everything good about a somatic awareness practice.

For instance, it is well known that the body responds to distress with chemical flows that, if lasting, are incredibly destructive. Adrenaline and cortisol, while helpful in emergency situations, are killers if they are present for too long.

This type of ability, and the practice of it, go to the heart of everything we do. This ability is the foundation for the creation of lasting self-worth, self-respect, and ultimately self-responsibility – all of which are, in turn, the foundations for deep feelings of others’ worth, respect of others, and the holding responsible of others for their own selves.

As I’ve said before, emotions are physical states. They are characterized by particular postures/expressions (that is, muscular patterns), and by internal chemical profiles.

The body is always a two-way street. So, similarly (and again, as I’ve said before), if we hold certain postures/expressions, we reproduce internal chemical profiles associated with those postures, and “create” that emotional state in ourselves.

If you are in a “stressed” state, your body cannot perform optimally. The longer that state continues, the less-optimally you can perform.

If you experience a trauma that you do not resolve, your body sets into a self-sustaining cycle that, while it is attempting to resolve the trauma, reinforces the fact that you were unable to resolve it.

Play is one way out of this. Play is the ability to creatively approach situations. I don’t mean “play” as it is commonly construed (another problem with our society). I mean play as creativity, openness, vulnerability, expression.

As the cycle continues, it becomes a habit. Soon, your reaction to certain things (relationship problems, conflicts, physical challenges, etc.) “just happen,” and you “have no control” over them.

The only way to break the cycle is through an intervention. And the way we intervene in our own psycho-physiology is through awareness.

This awareness requires the ability to focus internally, on feelings as they are occurring, observing them as they happen, and sitting quietly with them. When we feel those patterns occur, of reactivity to stress, and can sit with them, we can feel their usefulness. We can feel their reality (are they still applicable to the now, or are they representative of a past event).

And then we can heal them.

I really appreciate Aaron Schwenzfeier’s recent post, quoting Carl Valle on athletes’ performance, posture, and motivation and confidence. Equally important is his earlier post on Emotional Movement Intelligence.

Oftentimes, athletes (or others) succeed in spite of the mental/physical/emotional blockages in their lives. But equally often, these successful people eventually – and when it happens, always tragically – succumb to these restrictions. It may come in the form of a torn ACL. Dog-fighting charges. Rape or murder. Suicide. Depression. Etc.

I have yet to see a single discipline that encapsulates all of the areas needed – physical, mental, emotional/spiritual – to address these issues. And perhaps such a discipline is impossible, due to the sheer amount of information needed to work in all of those areas…or useless, due to the incredible variety of individual experience in the world (i.e., “one size cannot fit all”).

But I encourage (and implore) you to explore your life in this way.

In addition to your “physical education” of working out, building muscle/strength/size/shape, or performing well, find a somatic practice that encourages deep awareness of your body and its movement, such as:
Feldenkrais Technique
Alexander Technique
Mattes Method
Hanna Somatics
Qi Gong/Chi Gong, Tai Chi, Yoga, and some other martial arts
Autogenic Training
Network Care

Here’s an example of what Network Care is about:

Similarly, seek out a method of psychological awareness that allows you to attune, listen, feel, release, and ultimately accept yourself, such as:
Meditation – Zen, TM, Buddhist, Taoist, Eckart Tolle’s works, etc.
Psychotherapy – Psychiatry, Psychology, Coaching, Therapy, etc.
Group Practices – Toastmasters, Religious groups, Wo/Men’s groups, etc.
Somatic Experiencing

Here’s an example of what Somatic Experiencing is about:

One size does not fit all, so you’ll have to do some searching to find what works for you. But please search. You can find videos about any of the things I’ve mentioned above on YouTube.

It’s worth it.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.

In my recent post about the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, I wrote this:

I see one source in the dissociation of people from their “tools.” From everything they use, they are further and further removed. Things become “mere things.” We suddenly are no longer connected in a cycle of creation and destruction. We stand outside of it and look on…passersby, observers, voyeurs of our own self-destruction.

“Coincidentally” (if you believe in coincidence), I was reading a book today called “Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma,” by Peter Levine.

He describes the official definition of trauma as a stressful occurrence “that is outside the range of human experience, and that would be markedly distressing to almost anyone” (pg. 24, which he takes from the DSM III).

He goes on to mention that trauma can include anything, from falls or accidents, to illnesses and sad events, to the “typical” things we consider traumatic such as rapes, drive-by shootings, war, disasters, etc.

I really really (yes, that’s right, I wrote it twice) like this book, and his approach, which is based around the evolutionary/physiological response to trauma, and an approach to treating it from that perspective. More on that in a second.

The author then describes how modern civilization and technology have taught us to ignore primary, instinctual, bodily-centered resources that once helped us to deal with traumatic events.

Previously in our history, we would encounter life-threatening events, which eventually resulted in finely-tuned responses to danger. I think this capacity is part of the “thrill-seeker’s” profile – they feel a need to experience this aspect of themselves more regularly than others.

As Levine says, “Modern life offers us few overt opportunities to use this powerfully evolved capacity. Today, our survival depends increasingly on our ability to think rather than being able to physically respond…The fundamental challenges we face today have come about relatively quickly, but our nervous systems have been much slower to change…When [the need for the successful facing of challenges] is not met, or when we are challenged and cannot triumph, we end up lacking vitality and are unable to fully engage in life” (pg. 43).

Later in the book, he even quotes Tom Brown, Jr. about the process of tracking. Clearly, he is describing a method of dealing with trauma that uses what I like to call “physiology tracking” in this book.

But it was the paragraph just before a section called “Dissociation” that really grabbed my attention. In it, he writes, “When constriction [as a response to a perceived threat or danger] fails to sufficiently focus the organism’s energy to defend itself, the nervous system evokes other mechanisms such as freezing and dissociation to contain the hyperarousal. Constriction, dissociation, and freezing form the full battery of responses that the nervous system uses to deal with the scenario in which we must defend ourselves, but cannot” (pg. 136).

This state is related to helplessness, which I’ve also written about in previous posts – particularly, learned helplessness, as a result of social conditioning or social conformity.

Levine recommends, specifically, that one not try to avoid dissociation, but rather, to become aware of the feeling of that state in the body, so that one can, first, recognize it, and, later, be able to be in a state of dissociation while still cognizant and active in the world. This leads to the ability to discriminate between physiological events that lead to (or have lead to) trauma, and those that do not.

I resonate extremely strongly with this book, for many reasons. The author’s approach to dealing with one’s problems through a continuing and ongoing process of deepening self-awareness seems to be the type of powerful medicine that everyone can use in their lives. But he also recognizes that physiological responses are rhythmical, as well as the need for play and a playful attitude when confronting survived trauma (at a certain point in the process, of course).

To the last point, about play, the author talks about wild animals’ tendencies to “reenact” traumatic or dangerous events, where they will play the role of hunter and hunted, and either experiment with new strategies for evasion or survival, or repeat the tactic used in the recent event. The physical act of evasion or survival itself is immediate and therapeutic.

In humans, reenactment happens both internally and externally. Internally, it represents itself in states associated with trauma, such as hypervigilance, anxiety, psychosomatic issues, sleeplessness, or other problems. It can also represent itself through repeated thoughts about the traumatic event.

Externally, reenactment can happen either in the “acting out” of previous traumas, either by inflicting those traumas on others, or by creating ritual behaviors that reflect and temporarily mitigate those physiological upwellings; or, external reenactment can take place in the recurrence of traumatic events in relationships, where we seek out situations with others through which our trauma presents itself, again and again, the body searching for a path to resolve that old wound.

Unfortunately, usually, our initial response only repeats itself again and again. With our minds not realizing that we’re replaying these patterns for a specific reason, we succumb to habitual responses, sometimes watching before our very eyes as things crumble apart and wondering “how can this be happening again?”

More subtly still, external and internal reenactment, at some point, collide, and the victim of trauma acquires patterns of behavior that simultaneously save them from further experiences like the first, but also prohibit them from being able to confront that traumatic experience and move beyond it.

Which takes me to his final point, his solution to this dilemma. Since we are confronted with traumas that we cannot resolve through physical means, and have developed habitual physiological patterns of response to situations in which we feel the same types of threat, we have only one tool by which to work with, on, and through those physical manifestations and feelings – awareness.

Through awareness of the traumatic event, awareness of our initial response to it, acceptance of ourselves and the fact that the event happened, and finally, a developed ability to pay attention and slow down when those feelings manifest themselves again, we have acquired tools to operate in a new dimension. Eventually, the nervous system will heal, the process will become second-nature, and life can be rich and fulfilling.

On a side-note, this process, of trauma, the formation of “protective” mechanisms which ultimately lead to further repetition of trauma reminds me strongly of the pain-spasm-ischemia cycle I was taught in massage school. In that process, damage occurs to muscle, the muscle “spasms” to protect itself from further damage, but in doing so, restricts blood flow to the area, preventing oxygenated blood (and white blood cells) from getting to the area to begin the healing process and remove restrictions. The “knot” gets bigger and bigger, till it causes overt pain and movement restriction…

Levine notes that our fast-paced culture doesn’t make this an easy task. Which brings me around to the final bit of my essay here (his book continues…if you’re interested, you should buy it and read it).

As I mentioned in my previous blog entry, it isn’t just the fast pace of our culture that “shields” us from slowing down and tracking our physiologies.

In fact, it seems that much of our culture has that exact effect.

Since reading Andrew Weil’s book “Eight Weeks to Optimal Health,” back in the 90’s sometime, I’ve engaged in what he calls a “news fast.” I don’t read or watch the news. Not at all. Haven’t in years, actually. And…nothing has happened to me because of it.

Weil recommends this practice because the news has a few qualities that cause human beings trouble, and for no good reason. First, the news is typically all bad. As Gary Gnu said, “No gnus is good gnus.” Second, the news is aggregated bad news from all over the world. So, not only are you getting a dose of bad news, but you’re getting a large dose of bad news composed of all of the bad news that happened today…anywhere. Needless to say, that news doesn’t really reflect the happenings in your habitat. Fourth, almost all of the news (because of its distant relation to your habitat) will make you feel completely helpless, frustrated, sad, or angry.

Learned helplessness, reinforced, twenty-four hours a day. Thank you?

But the news, or the way we “do” news, is just one symptom of a larger thang – of our approach to life…the philosophical underpinnings of our culture, expressed through or visible in the actions of our culture, and, of course, our selves.

a quick “thang” intermission:

I think one of the roots of that philosophy is a trauma-cycle, associated with something that happened to us culturally, maybe somewhere back in the mid-sixteenth century…in fact, when we were most susceptible to trauma, in our early-childhood…the Renaissance.

Not to be a conspiracy theorist here, but I hope Dan Brown is reading this blog and writes a nice book about this idea…and figures out what that event was, because I have no idea…hahaha.

However, it does seem that some “crisis” (which in Chinese is a character composed of the two characters for “danger” and “opportunity”) occurred, which we could not mitigate or win against, and have repeated ever since.

Hell, maybe it goes even further back than that.

But what stands out to me most is the point at which we dissociated from our tool-making.

We’ve been dissociated from our habitats for thousands of years. Human beings have lived in cities and such for around 8-10,000 years. Sure that could be a factor.

And life has been relatively “distracting” ever since we’ve been in cities. Fast pace, hustle and bustle, are nothing new.

But the loss of consciousness that we are using tools – that symbols are tools, machines are tools, that mathematics and language are tools – that seems more important.

When did that happen? And why? When did we lose sight of the fact that we make technologies to help us?

Because it was at that point that we committed ourselves to a path of recurrent trauma reenactment. It was at that point that we closed our eyes to a process within ourselves (as a culture).

It was at that point that it became “necessary” to pursue pain in order to deserve pleasure. This thing we see in cubicles and offices all over the world.

It was at this point that we begin to see scarcity as our ruling dictum, and fear as its messenger.

I place it in the mid-sixteenth century because that’s the first written record I’ve seen of this same sort of question (from Etienne la Boetie – the Discourse on Voluntary Servitude).

Maybe, like the Joker’s “SmyleX,” there is no single source, but the confluence of many things, contributing to our continued replaying of history.

Check out Frank Forencich’s most recent entry on the Exuberant Animal blog.

In it, he describes the ways in which contact with dirt can positively affect (and effect) your mood and health.

As I said in my comment to his post – since we ARE dirt, dirt is good for us. As we used to say when we’d drop our ice cream cone on the playground back in the day – “God made dirt, so dirt don’t hurt.”

Yesterday I posted a review of the book “Anticancer,” in which the author talks about the Tibetan traditional medical approach to the body as “terrain.” That’s a perfect description.

Our terrain comes from our parents’ terrain to begin with (what Traditional Chinese Medicine practitioners call our “original chi“), and then, once we’re off the breast, from the food we eat, the air we breathe, the fluids we drink, the thoughts we think (what the sociologist/philosopher Pierre Bourdieu called “habitus“), the movement we do (or don’t do), and the company we keep.

The larger terrain, our unique, individual habitat, at that point becomes our full “terrain.”

If any parts of our terrain are polluted, it comes into our terrain. If our air, food, water, thoughts, movement, or social lives are toxic, it leaches into us, and causes trouble.

Can you see your environment in these terms? Can you see yourself as continuous with your environment? With your:

• air
• food
• drink
• thoughts
• actions, and
• social interactions?

It’s a good daily meditation, to look at your unique habitat, your full terrain, and to try to see how it’s affecting you on the smallest, middle, and largest scales.

Focus on honing in on these things. How pure is your air? If you work in an office, you might want to try to get outside for some deep breathing exercises.

What about your food? Try to buy organic foods, and eat foods that have been as little tampered with as possible – that is, in their natural state, not processed.

Drink water. Pure water. The author of anticancer also recommends green tea and red wine (one glass per day : ( ) for their antioxidant power.

Keep your thoughts free from anger and fear. If there’s something you’re angry about, or fearful of (worry is a form of fear), resolve it! Life is too short to hold those thoughts, and by doing so, you only make your life shorter!

Try to get good healthy movement into your life. Walking is fantastic. Try to go for a walk after dinner every night!

Make sure your social circle isn’t polluting your life. That’s all I’ll say about that one!

Try it out…let me know what you think!

Here’s a great way to experience what I like to call “physiology tracking.”

The next time you go visit friends, and have some good times for a while, pay attention to your physiology. There is a chemical composition of “happiness” or “joy” happening inside you during that time.

But the time you might notice the effect the most is afterward, when you go through chemical withdrawal.

Some people will call this “sadness” or “feeling blue,” and it is…but it is also “happiness withdrawal.”

The symptoms will be the same as any kind of withdrawal. What will you feel? A lack, as if something is missing. Maybe you’ll notice how much/little of that feeling you had before. That, at least, can help to determine in part how powerful the withdrawal might be – a marker of how much you’ll crave that feeling.

You might notice, upon reflection, that the feeling of withdrawal means that you aren’t feeling that enough in your life…happiness. You might need to figure that out.

If that is the case, the withdrawal feeling points to something we’ve excluded from our lives. Why has it been blocked out?

In that way, withdrawal can help to point us in the direction we want to go (or don’t want to go!). It can serve as a homing beacon (come closer).

Perhaps a lighthouse is a better analogy…it signals both potential safety and potential danger – the shoreline is here, you are safe!… or…the shorelines is here, watch out! dangerous rocks!

In either case, this is the place where you can sublimate your withdrawal into wisdom and action.

The “internal alchemy” here is to follow the feeling of loss or lack…to stick with it, and to track it well. Find what it points to within you, and meet it face to face.

Most “indigenous” cultures have methods for doing this that often involve dancing, singing, playing, (and sometimes, drugs) that allow the tracker to pursue more deeply, free from inhibition.

I think you’ll get plenty deep without the drugs, so try it that way first…but it’s almost always fruitful at some point to take your feeling out into motion in the world. Run, feel your breathing, and use your feeling of withdrawal as your mantra, your training device/guide. Keep it right in front of you. Let it tell you where to go, how far/fast, how many repetitions, and keep pursuing it more and more deeply…listen…listen…

Good luck.

I was joking around at Play Camp the other day, about flexibility.

I’ve had a ton of clients who have said things like “I’ve never been flexible. I’m just not flexible.”

The only thing I can do in situations like that is agree. Yes, you aren’t flexible.

But the key is what has to change before you can become flexible.

The real limiter for most of those folks is always their inflexible mind. They’ve convinced themselves that they’re unable to become flexible…so it will never happen.

The other side of that mental flexibility – of being able to allow yourself that you might someday be able to become physically flexible – is the flexibility required to pursue flexibility.

That is, you have to be flexible with the fact that you can’t do certain things immediately. You have to be flexible when you come to sticking points, and not see them as impassable barriers.

You have to be flexible with pain, and learn to know the difference between feeling discomfort because you are pushing through personal boundaries – or getting into physical positions or movements that are foreign and therefore uncomfortable – and real pain because you are about to injure yourself. That requires flexibility as well…

Practice flexibility in your mind, then apply that flexibility through your body, to your entire life.

Frank Forencich, on the Exuberant Animal blog, asks “Have We Gone Mad?!”

He’s responding to an article in the New York Times that chronicles that author’s experience with flat feet and podiatrists.

Frank raises some good questions, I encourage you to head over there and check out his post.