Tag: yoga

Uncategorized

On Doing IT Right and Shoulds

heather

Well Hello My Friends!
 
Summer is about 1/3 over, and I’ve finally come up for air.  The past few weeks have been spent on preparing for and then executing on a day-long consulting gig, hiking and biking in the Black Hills of South Dakota, and then finishing up my health coaching certification.  Now that the skies are clearing, I’m reflecting back on the past few months and wondering, “Did I do that right?”
 
As I’ve written about many, many times, I have this tendency to take on way too much, and then get overwhelmed and cut way way back.  It’s this constant dance of too much, then too little.  Why oh why, can’t I just ride that middle line??  If I was doing things right, I should be able to know how much I can handle and take on just that much and not an iota more and then I would live happily ever after in the neutral zone.
 
But wait.
 
Living in the neutral zone sounds horrible. So boring.  There is no life, no color, no spirit there. 
 
I’m slowly coming to this realization that perhaps me “doing it right” is me doing a lot, and then doing a little, and just riding that rhythm and flow.
 
It reminds me of some photos that were part of the Upledger CranioSacral 1 class.  Our skull has joints (aka “sutures”) where the bones meet up and connect.  The sutures between the bones are composed of these beautiful curvy lines:


   
Our teacher then shared a photo that her friend had taken from an airplane that showed a meandering river in the plains below. It looked something like this:


 
It was so impactful to see those two pictures side-by-side.  Nature works in curves – crests and troughs and meaningful meanderings.  If you averaged them out, they would form a straight, neutral line.  But the swoops and dips are much more interesting to look at, and they have a story to tell – what caused that river to bump off to the left like that so suddenly, and then Whoa!  bump right back off to the right?  What causes all those little squiggles to form in our noggins?  We know there is a reason and purpose for it because Nature is nothing if not efficient.  If it’s there, it’s there for a good reason.
 
So I’ve decided to view my constant ups and downs and energetic ebbs and flows as Nature embodied in me.  This is the way I’m supposed to be doing it because I am Nature too.  I’m hoping that with each up and down, my average is slightly increasing (aka, I’m growing), so my iterations look something like this:


 
 
I just wanted to offer up that thought for those of you who also question, “Am I doing this right?  Shouldn’t I have this figured out by now?  Why do I keep repeating the same patterns?”  Maybe you are doing it exactly the way you are supposed to, and you are scribing an elegant swooping story on the world with the waves and troughs of your life.

With love,

Hlo

 
Space to be Human Lab
Sometimes we don’t need to be fixed, we just need someone to listen to us while we fix ourselves.  CranioSacral therapy (CST) provides that kind of deep listening.  If you would like some support to slow down and let your body be heard, please book a session here, and use code “CRANIO” for $20 off through the end of summer.
 
CranioSacral is based on the foundation that we have an “inner physician” who knows what we need to heal. Likewise, health and wellness coaching is based on a similar truth – you are the expert on your own life, and you probably even know what you need to do to reach your wellbeing goals.  However, you may need a partner to walk the path with you and help you identify your strengths, motivations, and supports – a partner who believes in your ability to change and achieve your big hairy a$$ goals.  If you are interested in finding out what you are capable of, please book a consultation here.

Newsletter signup
If you would like to get these posts sent to you directly, please click here.

Habit Change, Health & Fitness, Meditation, Yoga

The Power of a Potent Pause

heather

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve been MIA for the past 6 weeks or so…  Or perhaps you didn’t notice, which is OK too. 😛
 
As I’ve mentioned in previous letters, I’m constantly doing this waltz of being way too busy and taking on way too much, and then slamming on the brakes to get my breath. February was one of those months where everything caught up with me, and something had to give (beside my mental and physical health), so it I let go of the newsletters for a few weeks.
 
And you want to hear something SUPER ironic?  One of the things that made me “oh so busy!!” was a trip to the Dominican Republic wherein I laid on a lounge chair for 5 days straight and did the following:  Read 3 books, drank several fruity cocktails, ate lots of seafood, walked along the beach, went to bed at 8PM and slept until 6AM almost every day, and generally did not much of anything at all.

 
And boy was that weird.
 
We arrived in the DR on Monday night, and by Wednesday I was getting the itch.  Should I go on an excursion?  Should I go to the gym?  Shouldn’t I be doing SOMETHING??  Shouldn’t I be milking this experience for all it’s worth??
 
And then I gave myself permission to just sit on my butt, bask in the sun and warm weather, and just read, drink, eat, and swim to my heart’s content.  No judgment.  Just relax.  Oh.  And chat with the septuagenarian Canadians who were encamped in the neighboring cabanas. 
 
Not being “productive” for 5 days was challenging mentally (or maybe I mean culturally??), but oh so necessary.  Us human beings, much like machines, need periodic reboots to keep functioning well and to clear out all the random bits and bytes that are clogging up our junk.
 
I recently listened to Dr. Andrew Huberman’s AMA (Ask Me Anything) podcast episode, and he answered a question about how to increase motivation.  The number 1 thing we can do is to get quality sleep (if you need any tips on how to get QUALITY sleep, please reach out to me – we just covered this in my health coaching class).  The second thing he mentioned was Non Sleep Deep Rest (NSDR).  To the yogis in the audience, this is essentially yoga nidra!  NSDR or yoga nidra is a type of mediation where your attention is systematically led through your body, leading to a deep state of relaxation.
 
Dr. Huberman referenced two Danish studies that show that doing yoga nidra for as little as 10 minutes a day can dramatically increase your dopamine reservoirs (dopamine is closely tied to motivation).  There is also data showing NSDR can help recover lost sleep, as well as increase cognitive ability and performance in cognitive tasks!
 
And now, I’m circling back around to my point.  By RESTING, we can actually be MORE PRODUCTIVE with LESS EFFORT. Whoa.
 
If you’re curious about NSDR, here is a 10-minute practice from Dr. Huberman.  And here is a 10-minute recording of a yoga nidra from yours truly.
 
Happy Resting!
 
Space to be Human Lab
Feel Better, Reduce Pain, Pay Less
If you are experiencing headaches, neck or back pain, stress and tension-related disorders, TMJ syndrome, or general or specific pain, bodywork can help! I’ve added a tool to my tool box – CranioSacral Therapy (CST), which is a gentle full-body treatment that can improve the health of the nervous system.  I am offering CST sessions at a $15 discount for the next few months.  Please use code “CRANIO” when you book a session to receive the discount.

Book online here.
 
The Itsy Bitsy (A catalytic question)
Who are the key supportive people in your life, and what do they provide for you?
 
Newsletter signup
If you like to sign up to get these posts sent to you directly, please click here.

Meditation, Mindset, Pain, Yoga

Don’t Read Me if You’re a Muggle

heather

How the Mysteries may save us

Well, it’s Sunday, and I have a bunch of stuff on my mind.  I’m hoping that as I write, it starts to morph into a coherent throughline, but I’m not making any promises!  I totally understand if you stop reading this right now and go play outside.  BUT, it might be worth it to stay with me.  We’ll see.
 
I’ve been picking up on a current in the ether lately that is capturing my interest.  I’m noticing a few different threads, actually, but I think they are all part of the same rope.  Or wave.  I think I started to mix metaphors there.
 
Thread #1: Slow down to save yourselves and the world
 
I recently finished the book Presence: Human Purpose and the Field of the Future.  It is written by 4 uber-distinguished individuals – Peter Senge (MIT lecturer), Otto Scharmer (another MIT lecturer), Joseph Jawarski (cofounder of the Global Leadership Initiative), and Betty Sue Flowers (Director of the Johnson Presidential library).  And – OMG – I just realized my copy is signed by Peter Senge.  Whoa.
 
ANYWAY
 
This book by fancy schmancy super smart people basically reiterates the yogic sentiment that we are all parts of whole, and we need to start thinking less about Me and more about We; otherwise, life as we know it will end (aka The Requiem Scenario).  HAPPY SUNDAY!  But to do this, we need to develop presence.  We need to observe the world as it is and as we are, we need to retreat and reflect and allow inner knowing to emerge and become a vehicle for something new to arise, and we need to take action on what arises. 
 
That first step is critical – we MUST develop self-awareness in order to break out of the matrix of our conditioning and see something new.  But guess what!  Just like we talked about last week in the post about Somatic Experiencing, in order to develop self-awareness you have to slow the f*ck down!!  (Don’t ask me why I am more comfortable using a euphemism for “f*ck” than the actual word.  I probably need to do some self-reflection on why I feel it necessary to use the word at all if I am not comfortable using the real word.  Brains be weird!!).  
 
Thread #2: There is still some magic left in the world.
 
We (and me) are made of Mystery.  We think that because we know why the sky is blue and where rainbows come from, there is no more magic in the world.  But oh boy.  We could not be more wrong! 
 
Two examples from Presence really struck me:

  1. On page 200, the authors discuss a study that showed that random number generators (RNGs) around the world behaved in HIGHLY NON-RANDOM WAYS on 9/11/01.  The RNGs are protected from forces that could affect their randomness, yet, on 9/11 the non-random behavior began at 5AM and peaked at 11AM, EDT, matching the timelines of events that day.  WTF?!  Me affects We.
  2. On page 247, the authors discuss a study done by a Japanese scientist, Masaru Emoto.  He used MRIs to take pictures of the crystals formed when water freezes.  As you read the following, please remember that we humans are about 70% water (and the earth is covered about 70% by water).  Mr. Emoto took photos of water from sacred sources, from polluted sources, and from distilled water.  The crystals formed by natural springs and sacred sources were GORGEOUS.  They looked like beautiful stained glass works of art.  The crystals from the polluted water looked like a slug, but uglier.  The distilled water had no structure to it – it looked just like a nebulous blob.  UNTIL.  When they played music around the distilled water, the water formed crystals that “seem to visually reflect the essence of the music – the geometric precision of Bach, the balance of order  and flow of Mozart, the beautiful simplicity of folk music.”  They also had a priest pray over some distilled water for an hour, and when they took new pictures, the water formed amazing 7-sided crystals.  The priest had prayed to the Seven Bezaiten, the Goddesses of Fortune.”  WHOA.  (I want to note that his work is controversial – some experts think it’s quackery and others think it’s legit.  And maybe, both things are true??).

What’s the point of me sharing this with you? 
1.  To give you hope.  The world is full of strife and pain and potential destruction, but it’s also full of joy and wonder and the infinite creative possibility. 
2.  To remind me and you that by taking care of our own body, mind, and spirit, we can literally positively impact the entire network of life (we’re all part of a connected field). 
3.  To reinforce how powerful our thoughts are.  If thoughts (aka prayer) can change the crystallization of water, and we are 70% water, what are we doing to our bodies (and our pain experience) with our thoughts?  You can find more science related to this concept in this article I wrote a few years ago.
4.  Changing our thoughts can be super difficult, especially patterns of thought that have been with us since we formed our impression of the world as toddlers.  But an accessible first step is to participate in a contemplative practice like meditation or journaling, so we can start to build awareness of our mind stream. 

There you go.  I found the book very inspiring and really enjoyed its message of hope, so I wanted to share it with you.

I’ll leave you with a quote from a recent interview with Dr. Roger Walsh on the Neurohacker podcast. This quote reminded me that it’s OK (and actually a good thing) to sit in confusion and paradox. 

“All is mystery, and here is our best guess.”

We don’t know what we don’t know, and what we know is probably going to end up being proven wrong some day.  It’s all just an educated guess.

Space to be Human Lab

  • If you are interested in developing more presence, either by developing a meditation habit or by exploring embodiment practices, I can help!  You can book a 60-minute embodiment session here: Booking link.  I also am currently offering free 30 minute sessions focused on the Somatic Experiencing work.
  • If you have a friend, coworker, or loved one who is in pain, and you would like to help them feel better, please let them know they can use this code for $10 off their first session: FEELBETTER.

Newsletter signup
If you would like to sign up to get these posts sent to you directly, please click here.

Uncategorized

What Awaits You in the Shadows?

heather


What happens in the silence, in the quiet, in the moments of non-doing?
 
Well, it’s pretty freaking hard to tell.  Because WHEN do we experience moments of quiet and calm and stillness??  Even if you meditate, at least in my experience, it’s an experience of a constant hamster wheel of thoughts, from which I am continuously trying to redirect my attention.  Not a lot of peace and quiet there some days!
 
This is where Somatic Experiencing can help.
 
I spent 4 days last week learning how Somatic Experiencing (SE) can help me, and how it can help me help you.  Somatic Experiencing is a type of trauma resolution work.  To understand why trauma resolution work is so needed, it’s necessary to understand what trauma is. In SE it’s described as anything that overwhelms the nervous system’s ability to cope.  In today’s fast paced world, we are in a constant state of overwhelm.  Here’s a fun fact:
 
“We are bombarded by about 74 gigabytes of information per day. Yet, we can only consciously handle 6 bytes (40-50 bits) of information per second. Our daily info load is more than what the average person of five hundred years ago would have consumed in a lifetime.”  Rian Doris, Flow Research Collective.
 
When our nervous systems get overwhelmed, they can signal DANGER!!! even when there is no active threat to us.  The nervous system can get stuck in a self-protection response that the circumstance no longer dictates.  When this happens, it’s harder to be in the Here and Now, harder to have access to health and wellbeing.  We can feel stuck.
 
So what to do!?
 
In SE work, you slow the felt experience WAY down, to give the nervous system time to tell its story (which may differ from the story our minds tell us).  It looks like taking time to really notice: What am I feeling?  Where am I feeling it?  How would I describe the sensation?  What colors, textures, shape does it have?  Does it have edges?  What happens if I just watch the sensation?  And, as you experience the sensations, the practitioner is there to help you stay grounded and present by asking questions, by noticing if/when you start to get amped up, and by guiding you back to a safety.
 
I found that, if I am on my own, I just do not allow myself the time to stay present with what I am feeling and sensing.  I feel too busy, too rushed, and the old, “I’ll do it later” thought takes over.  But when I have a kind, compassionate witness sitting with me, really SEEING me, really encouraging me to take all the time I need, lending me their stable nervous system when I need it, it’s amazing the universe of sensations and experiences that I begin to notice. It’s a gift.
 
In this Beginning II training class, we worked with disrupted self-protection responses:  Arrest response/preparatory orienting, flight, fight, freeze.  If any of these self-protection responses are stopped before they can be completed (think about car accidents, falls, accidents, being hit by something, etc.), the energy mobilized by that response can cause disturbances in our bodies, such as:

  • Hypo vigilance – You don’t notice threats, especially coming from a certain direction.  This may mean you bump into stuff a lot, feel clumsy or accident prone.  You may be unaware of space and time and may get lost easily.
  • Hyper vigilance – You are hyper aware of threats, feel anxious, fatigued, can’t connect deeply with others.
  • Jaw tension, holding fists, narrowing eyes, aggressive posture.
  • Angry outbursts or lack of anger when the context warrants it, due to loss of relationship with the emotion of anger.
  • Not really sitting in chair (ready to run).
  • Constriction in legs, arms (bracing).
  • Loss of connection with legs and/or arms.
  • Nervous energy, sense of urgency.
  • Tension in body.
  • Feeling of not caring and that nobody cares.
  • Feeling of being floaty, sleepy, groggy

Interesting, eh??  So many common experiences in our body could possibly be tied back to a traumatic event and an incomplete self protection response.

If this has piqued your curiosity, you can book a free 30 minute coaching session with me here.  I am still learning (I have 2.5 years left of classes), and I really appreciate the opportunity to share this life-changing work with you and get some practice at the same time. You can also book a regular session here.

Newsletter signup
If you have would like to get these posts sent to you directly, please click here.

Habit Change, Health & Fitness, Massage Therapy, Meditation, Mindset, Yoga

A bad case of The Clench.

heather

Hello There!  If you are in the Quad Cities today, you are experiencing probably the MOST beautiful day we’ve had this year.  Nature is a great reset for our minds and bodies, and as I am feeling very…sucked up inside myself (just breathe, Heather!), I am going to take massive advantage of it today.  So, today’s post will be short, so that all of us can go outside and play.  Also, I am going to be on vacation (South Dakota, here we come!) starting next weekend, so you will be newsletter-free. 😛
 
Since today I need to hear some advice on how to regulate a spun-up nervous system, that is precisely what I am going to share with you.
 
Side note:  Why am I wound up today?  WHO KNOWS?!  It could be hormones.  It could be what I ate and/or drank yesterday.  It could be dehydration.  It could be indecision about a decision.  It could be all the things I want to/need to get done before we leave for our trip.  Maybe it’s contemplating the cost of gas and food and fun whilst on vacation.  It could be the 60 to 80,000 thoughts, stories, and internal narratives assaulting me daily.  And it’s most likely a combination of all of the above.  But I guess The Why really isn’t the important thing. The Important thing is, I’ve noticed I’m feeling a bit tense, wound up, and fast.  So.  What next?

  1. Spend 90 seconds just sitting and noticing the sensations I feel in my body.  According to Dr. Joan Rosenberg, the vibrations associated with an emotion last just 90 seconds.
  2. Locate the sensations (I feel it in my throat and belly) and see what happens if I inhale and exhale through the area.
  3. Acknowledge that I am feeling anxiety.  Ask myself, “Is that a problem?”  What happens if I just allow it to be there instead of fighting it and pushing it away (which adds a layer of suffering on top of the layer of anxiety)?
  4. Lay on my back in Constructive Rest and take some long, slow smooth breaths.
  5. Write.  Get all the thoughts out of my head and on paper and look at them objectively.  Preferably this should be done in a Moleskine journal with a nice pen.  Just sayin.
  6. Take a walk, encourage the furrow between my brow to relax.  Open up my peripheral vision.  Notice all the shades of green.  Notice the sounds of the birds and the wind in the leaves. Notice the smell of the lilacs.
  7. Take an Epsom salt bath (FYI – my sister-in-law’s sister told me that taking a hot bath with ½ cup of Epsom salts, ½ cup of baking soda, and ½ a cup of kosher salt can be a mind-opening experience.  I haven’t tried it yet, but I plan to tonight!).
  8. Pet Huehuetenango Schneiderjohns.  Here is a picture of him playing with his new Chewbacca toy. 
  9. Roll my abdomen with the Coregeous ball (this would also help that pesky low back pain).
  10. Do something fun!  Tim and I plan to bike over the new I-74 bridge this afternoon.

There’s my top 10 list of self-advice.  Oh shoot. I just thought of another one.

11. If I’m forbidden to call what I am feeling “anxiety”, what would I call it?  Anxiety can be a “cover” emotion that hides something deeper going on. What emotion am I hiding from by saying I feel anxious?  (This also comes from the podcast linked in #1).

Ok.  Now I’m really done.  Hopefully if you struggle with that fast/spinny/unable to exhale sensation, this list will give you some ideas to experiment with.  And I’ll remind both of us that:  MAYBE FEELING ANXIETY IS NOT A PROBLEM THAT NEEDS TO BE SOLVED.

Space to be Human Lab

  • The Lab will be closed 5/28 to 6/5.
  • Don’t let your self-care suffer during the busy summer months!  You can purchase a 3 pack of 60 or 90 minute sessions and save $10 per session!  Link here (click on Products and Packages link at the top).

Happy Sunday!  I look forward to regaling you with stories from South Dakota when I write again on the 5th. 😛
 
<3

Hlo
 
Newsletter signup
If you would like to sign up to get these posts sent to you directly, please click here.
 

Uncategorized

A Break from routine

heather

Good morning!  Perhaps you noticed that I didn’t send out a newsletter last week.  The Sunday got away from me, honestly, as Sundays have a tendency to do.  This Sunday, at 7:50AM, is already wriggling, slippery, and cunningly trying to bolt, so I’m going to try to catch it while I can.

I wanted to share with you a theme that’s been surfacing in the ether – that of the necessity of breaking from routine (um, maybe that’s why I skipped a week of newslettering last week…).

Having good routines and habits can be SO useful and beneficial.  When we can just follow the same path every day, we don’t have to expend precious energy on redeciding every moment.  We don’t have to decide to brush our teeth, we don’t have to decide which roads to take to work, we don’t have to stop and think, “what’s my password” when we unlock our phone.  We just run the program and effortlessly  and unconsciously do most of these things.

But, have you noticed how a whole day can go by, and you weren’t really there for it?  Your teeth are brushed, but did you notice how fresh and clean your mouth felt?  You arrived at work, but did you notice the magnolia tree on the corner that looks as if it popped right out of a Japanese woodblock print?  You’ve unlocked your phone a bazillion times, but did you ever once notice the ridiculous cuteness of your puppy pic on the lock screen?

Habits and routines, while saving us energy, do so by putting us in a well-worn rut.  And often times the secret to changing our pain experience lies in breaking out of that rut and TRYING SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

When we do something new, our brain wakes up and takes notice.  It comes online and starts to recalculate the massive amounts of input constantly streaming it.  Different inputs mean different outputs.  And guess what – PAIN is a an output from your brain.

I listened to a really interesting podcast Mindful Strength: Why Strength Training Helps this week.  Kathryn Bruni-Young and Nikki Naab-Levy are two cutting-edge fitness professionals who incorporate current biopsychosocial pain research into their fitness programming.  In this podcast they talk about how important strength training is, especially for people who are super mobile and stretchy.  They also talk about how important it is to break up the routine of strength training – the body is SUPER adaptable, so you need to constantly be throwing new stuff at it.  From a strength-training perspective this can look like:

  • Changing the tempo of your lifts.
  • Pausing at the top or bottom of your lifts.
  • Changing the number of reps and sets.
  • Taking rest days when your body is like, “NOPE.”
  • Changing the position in which you lift (e.g. instead of always doing pushups with your hands directly under shoulders, experiment with setting your hands super wide, or with one hand close to your shoulder and one hand really far away, or with your fingers pointing in different directions, etc.).

When you play and explore like this, not only are you sending some new and attention-grabbing stimulus to your ol’ brain pan, but you are building strength in a variety of positions – meaning that when you need to crouch down on all fours and reach waaaaay far under the dresser to grab your baby’s wubba, your shoulders and wrists will be like, “Hey. I gotchyou.  We’ve trained for this.”

A side benefit of breaking the routine is that you start to notice your days, you start to have more fun, life gets more interesting.  What could you do to nudge your way out of ruts that are no longer taking you where you want to go?  An easy thing to play with is to try to brush your teeth with your non-dominant hand.  Give it a go and watch your body be utterly confused about how to accomplish this simple task.  And notice how HARD it is to resist the urge to go back to using your dominant hand.  That urge to return to comfort is insanely strong and persuasive.

If you need help in figuring out how to add some novelty to your workouts, I really recommend the Mindful Strength Membership.  It’s $35/month (CAD), and you get a really interesting and fun assortment of classes – yoga, restorative yoga, strength training, crawling, etc.  The crawling classes are super fun and super challenging. The weird stuff is always more fun. J 

Space to be Human Lab

  • If you are in pain and are interested in exploring how some new inputs (organ massage, cranial mobilizations, movement, breath, cupping, etc.) could affect your output of pain come see me!
  • Hours:  Monday and Friday 2PM-5PM; Tuesday and Thursday 2PM-7PM.  Occasional Saturdays from 8AM-12PM.

I hope you are having a bonkers good Sunday and can do just ONE small thing that could shift your experience today.

<3


Hlo

Newsletter signup

If you would like to sign up to get these posts sent to you directly, please click here. 

Uncategorized

And your foot bone is connected to your…belly bone?

heather
Mobilizing the liver

I took Friday off work.  I had a few errands I wanted to run, a corporate yoga class I wanted to draft up, and a day off just sounded super nice.

I looked forward to it all week.  I was super excited on Thursday.

And then Friday came.  And Oh Boy.

All this free space, all these To Dos.  Where should I start? What should I do?  Should I be productive?  Should I relax?  Should I clean the house?  Should I chuck the whole list to the wind and just hang out with Huehue?  Doesn’t a living being deserve more attention  than updating my check register?? SO OVERWHELMING.

What did I do?  I know you’re on the edge of your seat.

I did the One Thing I really had to do for the day – I wrote a super spiffy yoga class for my corporate client (I am calling the class “Undo The Cube(icle)” which just truly tickles me.  And then I kinda just floated with the day. 

I got my nails done and had a great conversation.

I took a bath and tested out whether meditating in the bath tub gives me super powers like when Eleven used her powers in  the sensory deprivation tank in Stranger Things.  (I don’t think it did, but it was just Try No. 1).

I took a walk and listened to a podcast.  And in the podcast I heard a Chinese saying from Martha Beck that struck me:

“When nothing is done, nothing remains undone.”

Ahhh.  So I don’t have to push and get it all done.  I can just do what I choose to do, and that is OK. It is possible to have peace – again by changing how I look at things instead of changing my circumstances.

And with that, I’m choosing to just rest a bit more on my deck, read a fiction book (Mists of Avalon), and quit f@cking trying so hard.

Space to be Human Lab

  • The Feet Belly Connection – As part of my LTAP class, I’ve learned assessments that provide clues as to which organs could use some massage, movement, or focused attention. Why is this so cool??

This is super cool because your muscles main job is to protect your organs.  Yeah – they also move your body around, but job numero uno is organ protection.  Organs are vital to this.  This means, that when you have a pain in your what feels like your muscles, it could actually be stemming from your organ!  Isn’t this list of referrals interesting??

  • Liver- right shoulder, neck, sciatica
    • Stomach- left shoulder, mid-back
    • Small intestine- mid-back, low back, feet
    • Colon- hips, sciatic
    • Kidney- knee, hip, feet
    • Bladder, Prostate, Bladder, Uterus- Sacrum, hips
  • Come see me if you’re interested in exploring how your organs could be factoring in to your pain experience!

I hope your weekend was full of the sun kissing your cheeks and the wind playing with your hair.

<3


Hlo

Newsletter signup

If you would like to sign up to get these hilarious and helpful posts sent to you directly, please click here. 

Awakening, Health & Fitness, Yoga

On The Hardness of Going Soft

heather

Tim and I took a perfectly timed trip to Florida over Christmas break. We left at 5AM on Christmas day and just positively SAILED down to Destin, FL.  We were there in 15 hours, even with pee and fuel breaks.  There was NO traffic, and the time passed swiftly due to some fascinating podcasts and the audio version of Wheel of Time: Eye of the World.  We returned home on Thursday, right before Davenport got buried in about 6 inches of fluffy white stuff that was most definitely not sand.  On our way back north, we saw so many instances of cars at a standstill going south.  Sometimes it really pays to go against the grain!  😛

We had 4 full days down in Florida.  Our hotel was right on the beach, so our days consisted of waking up (without an alarm), partaking of the free hotel breakfast (the Fairfield Inn hot breakfast is really not bad!  They actually had protein options instead of just bagels, oatmeal and sugary yogurts), grabbing our gear, and heading to the beach.  We sat on the beach, read, watched the waves, actually got into the water a VERY little bit, headed to town for lunch, came back to the beach for more reading, watching, wading, then walked or drove to supper, and then tried to watch TV in the hotel (SO MANY COMMERCIALS), and then went to sleep.

It was so eye-opening how HARD it was to actually let ourselves relax though. 

Should we “make the most” of being there and DO more stuff – go stand-up paddle boarding, go hiking, check out museums, visit Seaside (the town where Truman Show was filmed), find all the best restaurants?? 

We decided that outside the door of our hotel was a gorgeous ocean with soft white, squeaky sand dissolved from quartz ages ago.  That was enough to appreciate for 4 days.

Ft. Walton Beach, Florida

While at the beach I read a really amazing book, Healing Ourselves – Biofield Science and the Future of Health.  The whole book is about our ability to heal ourselves and others via energy practices.  At face value that may sound very woo woo, but there are dozens of studies that show the healing power of our thoughts, attention, and intention (what do you think causes the placebo effect!).  Two things are very clear from the research the author relays in the book:

  1. We are all interconnected.
  2. We have so much more power to heal ourselves that when have been taught. 

I plan to dive in to the practices outlined in the book and will share with you the ones that I love.  In the meantime, to explore the concept of self-healing for yourself, you could start simply by taking a moment to notice your feet on the ground, soften up those soles, think about plugging your feet into the earth like you would plug your charger into a wall socket.  Notice the energy in your feet, calves, and upper legs.  Take a moment and ask yourself, “Who do I want to be today?”  Set that intention for the day (I prefer to write it down to make it more concrete and visible), revisit it often, and see what changes in your experience of your physical, mental, emotional, or spiritual self/layer/body.

Space to be Human Updates

  • If you were unable to make it to my Introduction to Meditation class, but you are interested in the topic, you’re in luck!  I recorded the class, and you can watch it here at your leisure.  Feedback and suggestions are much appreciated!  If this class piques your interest, and you would like help in developing a meditation practice, you can book a session with me here.
  • Did you know that the Quad Cities is hosting its very own yoga festival?? The QC YogaCon will be held March 4-6, and guess who is teaching!  Me!  I am teaching a Yoga Tune Up® class (Total Tension Tunedown) on 4/5 at 4PM.  You can find more details here.

That’s all for today, my friends!  Happy 2nd day of 2022!  Please reach out to me at heather@spaceotbehuman.life or book a session with me here if you would like to feel better in your body.

Newsletter signup

If you would like to get these posts directly in your inbox, please sign up for my Newsletter here. 

Awakening, Health & Fitness, Yoga

On #Winning & Secret Desires

heather

We are at the start of new year, which means it’s time to run a Lessons Learned to close out this project that is Life in 2021.  What went well?  What could we do better next time? 

What Went Well

Why should we review “What Went Well?” Oh for SO many reasons!

  • Our brains are wired for negativity, which is a helpful yet annoying survival mechanism.  We downplay our successes, and we latch on to our failures.  Does any of the following sound familiar?
    • We get our annual review.  The boss says, “You did an amazing job this year.  We love you.  You’re awesome.  Next year we would like you to show more leadership on your projects.”  What runs through your brain?  “Shit.  I’m a loser.  I should have been more assertive.  I should have worked more.  I better start looking for a different job…”  So much good feedback, yet we glom on to that little bit of feedback and use it as proof that we are a failure.
    • Here’s a personal example.  A few weeks ago, I co-presented on the topic of Emotional Intelligence for Lead(h)er.  Public speaking is a big trigger of panic for me, but by using some calming techniques and mindset work, I was able to keep my voice from shaking, I logically went through the material, and my face did not freeze into any weird contortions.  But.  Then came the Q&A.  A question popped up that did not compute in my brain.  I stumbled through some answer that I’m not sure made any sense or that even remotely addressed the question.  So – great little presentation where I actually exhibited some poise and overcame something very scary for me  – but the rest of the night I had a pit in my stomach, and my mind kept recycling the core belief, “I suck.”  Fun times!
  • We need about a 3:1 ratio of positivity to negativity to offset the negativity bias.
  • Life moves fast, and we are usually focused ever on the future.  “What do I have to do tomorrow, next week, next month to move towards my goals?”  But, Baby, look at how far you’ve come!!  You’ve grown SO much, accomplished so many of your goals, Past You would look at Current You and be like, “Daaaaammmnnn – that’s me?!”  Take some time to relish this.

What are your Wins, your Successes, your Peaks for 2021?  Don’t be shy!  Write them out.  Send them to me or share them with a friend.  Get them down on paper and DOCUMENT THEM.  Brag!  Don’t let self-judgement hold you back you in this exercise.  When it pops up, say, “Thank you, Sir, for trying to keep me safe and small, but I don’t need you right now.”  And Write.

Here are a few of the things I accomplished in 2021 that make me proud:

  • My therapy practice almost tripled.
  • I worked with a psychologist and a life coach and did a lot of work on learning how to feel what I am feeling (instead of stuffing it down to deal with “later”) and how to question the stories on constant, speedy, reflexive repeat in my head.
  • I asked and was granted a decrease in my hours at the bank, enabling me to put more time into my therapy practice.  And I was able to deal with the, “Oh God, Oh God, how am I going to have enough money?!?!” fairly well.
  • I co-presented 2 Emotional Intelligence presentations, which made me super duper DUPER nervous.  One of the worst case scenarios actually did happen during the first presentation – the network at the presentation location was down, so none of the A/V equipment worked.  We printed out the slides as a fail-safe, only to scramble madly when the network came up minutes before the presentation was scheduled to begin.  But, BIG BREATH, it all ended up totally fine.
  • I put my money where my mouth was and hired a personal trainer, and I’m getting stronger. I overcame one of my most favorite thoughts, “I’ll do it later, when I feel like it.”

What could we do better next year?

I propose a new take on this.  Instead of thinking about things that went sideways and how we could keep them on track next time.  Let’s think about what we want for next year.  What do you desire for next year?  Better yet (and thanks to my coach, Kate Reuter for this question), what do you SECRETLY desire? No one else has to know besides you and your pen and your paper.  If anything was possible, what would you desire?   

Don’t be alarmed if you try this exercise only to find out you don’t know what you want.  You might know what you DON’T want (that one is a lot easier).   Ask yourself, if you DID know what you want, what would that be?  If you are an intuitive, empathic person, chances are you are used to having your feelers attuned to what everyone around you wants.  So when you ask yourself this question, you may just get a blank stare.  But trust me.  You do know what you want.  You just need to practice asking and listening.  Again, bring self-compassion, non-judgement, and a sense of massive curiosity to this.  THERE ARE NO WRONG ANSWERS!  If you do it wrong, you’re doing it perfectly.  😛

To give credit where credit is due, I’m borrowing, mixing, and integrating the work of so many people in this post.  Here are links to my main teachers, should you care to dive into this stuff more:

The Life Coach School Podcast – How To Be Proud of Yourself

Kate Reuter Coaching

Dr. Yoga Momma – Yoga for the Mind program

Lashaun Dale

I hope you can find some time to reflect on the year and appreciate how far you’ve come!

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

Have a fabulous day!

Uncategorized

What is Neurosomatic Therapy?

heather

You know that quote from Morpheus in the Matrix?

“Unfortunately, no one can be told what The Matrix is. You‘ll have to see it for yourself.”

That’s kinda how I feel about neurosomatic therapy. I mean, at its base, it’s a form of massage therapy. But I feel as if I have to layer on all these caveats and qualifiers, after I drop those words, “It’s a form of massage therapy,” so that people have a more realistic expectation of what treatment entails.

How about I just get started instead of wasting both of our time talking about talking about it!!

NST is a form of very targeted bodywork that is focused on bringing balance back to the body and the nervous system. Each session begins with a postural assessment during which we measure the position of many of your bones, including the bones of your head, in a few different positions (standing, seated, laying down).

We use these measurements to identify areas where the body is tilting, twisting, flexing, or extending. These measurements, along with your history and symptoms give us a good indication of what muscles, organs, or bodily systems need attention.

We’ll review the results of this assessment with you, help you understand what we think could be contributing to your pain, answer any questions, and then dive into treatment.

Treatment usually consists of very focused manual therapy (we might just work your right anterior deltoid, for example, instead of working your entire shoulder or both shoulders). We not only treat the usual suspects (upper traps, posterior neck, etc.), but we also treat muscles commonly overlooked such as the muscles on the face and head, the front of the neck, and inside the mouth, eye muscles, muscles of the hand and foot, etc. Treatment may also include joint mobilizations, breathing exercises, and treatment of your organs (heart, lungs, liver, intestines, bladder, etc.),

The work can be intense for some, as we search out specific areas (trigger points) that are not getting good blood flow. While the treatment may at times be uncomfortable, it should never be painful to the point where you are bracing against the pressure.

What can NST help with?

Headaches, migraines, tinnitus, vertigo, TMJ disorders, sinus issues, neck pain, whiplash, frozen shoulder, thoracic outlet syndrome, tennis/golfers elbow, carpal tunnel syndrome, back pain, scoliosis, low back pain, digestive issues such as IBS, painful periods, hip pain, sciatica, shin splints, foot pain, plantar fasciitis, etc.

Can NST fix me?

With NST we help you and your brain bring awareness to areas of the body that are misused, abused, or confused. This improved awareness, enhanced by expert targeted manual therapy and consciously done exercises, can help decrease pain and improve your performance. Ultimately, it’s YOU that heals YOU, by using this new-found awareness of postural patterns and habits to change how you move and interact with the world.

How long does it take to get better?

Some clients see marked improvement in their first session; however, many clients feel much better after the 4th session. Some clients see tremendous improvement after 10 sessions or so. It really depends on the severity and length of your symptoms, as well as other factors that influence your perception of pain (e.g. sleep, your thoughts about the pain, nutrition, movement, etc.)

What should I expect in a session?

During the session you could be up and down off the massage table, and you may be moving into a variety of positions (prone, supine, side-lying etc.) for treatment. To facilitate how active and varied the session can be, you will be dressed in either gym shorts (if you are a male) or a NST gown (shorts and a shirt that opens in the back) if you are a female.

Each session will begin with the postural assessment and interview. Then treatment will commence. Treatment will include education, using models or anatomy software, to help you understand what is going on in your body. You may also do some exercises, and you will likely get homework. Lasting change can only occur by repeatedly showing the brain how to access the “new normal.”

Here is a video that shows a typical NST session.

What if I have more questions?

Leave me a comment below, or contact me using the link above or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/hloyoga/.