Growing our community muscles has to be a priority

From a recent local class.

Let me start by saying that a lot of us have grown, over our lives, complacent about community building. We tend to participate in communities that are convenient and easy.

This has been especially true since the pandemic, from which we learned to isolate more and more. Of course, this was necessary in terms of 3D human encounters to protect us all, but many of us gave up altogether even in the face of tools that could have kept our community muscles a bit more healthy.

So we enter into next week, into a new and potentially damaging paradigm, leaning again into isolation.

This won’t do.

Not if we want the coming years to be at all safe for women and marginalized humans. We can’t just sink into our aloneness and stay at home watching television and judge the world as it burns from our comfortable front windows.

We must commune with likeminded humans. We must build trust and companionship because that’s the foundation of the work that will call to us.

We must build this trust and companionship via shared story (and truth) telling.

We must embody this trust and companionship.

I’m convinced that this cannot only all be done in 3D but also if we are far away from one another via the very tools that many want to use to hurt us.

Tools are only as good as their users… whether this be the maps of religions or tech tools or hammers or communication.

And we must not desert these very powerful tools to those who would use them for evil. (Yes, evil.)

I will be staying, for example, on Facebook because it has a free private group function that no one else offers. I can use that to grow community.

But beyond that, I am staying because I will not let these spaces be taken over by hateful voices. I will be a compassionate voice. I will fight for the space that has given me so much.

And I will, of course, continue to teach online via zoom. The community that has grown in those classes since the start of the pandemic is as beautiful and deep and solid as any community in 3D that I am a part of. To say otherwise is to demean our basic, DNA level need and capacity to connect to one another regardless of circumstances.

So I come to you with two things.

If you’re not in the Circle of Trees on Facebook, ask me to add you.

Here’s a quick take on what goes on in there: It's a space where people feel really safe to share challenges -- and joys. We talk a lot about neurodivergence/neurospicy brains, and mental health, and of course. somatic/healing movement. The support in this space and the kindness and compassion are indescribable.

And as always, I have classes starting. They start next week, the week of the inauguration.

I, like most of you I assume, am grieving that inauguration, but I know, too, that I can’t stay stuck in grief, and being in somatic dance spaces with other humans is how I take care of my emotional and mental health so that I can be strong for myself and everyone around me.

You can register for Peony Somatic Dance classes right now.

Don’t hide. Don’t disappear. We need every single one of our voices out in this world. Now more than ever.

Listening to music from our youth is not just nostalgia

Me, at about 16. And yes, I’m singing as I dance… I always have.

A few weeks ago, I was having an extra rough stretch of days. It might have been soon after the election so it was more like a couple of months ago. I taught my local class and then got in the car to drive home. I put on a random Spotify list from the 1980s and the song that popped up was Notorious by Duran Duran.

You might not know, but likely do, that I was a major Duranie all through high school and beyond. At this point, I’ve seen them four times, including twice in the last two years with Craig.

Their Notorious tour was the first time I saw them. I would have been 17/18 years old and my mother took me to Blossom in Ohio to see them (one of the places I just saw them with Craig, actually… time is funny, isn’t it?).

Anyway, as soon as that song started in the car, I felt a physical change in my body. And over the first bit of the song, my mind shifted and my heart opened. And I realized that I suddenly felt… really powerful.

That is the only word for it… powerful. REALLY powerful. That kind of youthful “I can do anything in this world” powerful.

It felt amazing. So over the next couple of weeks, whenever I got in the car, I put that song on and it kept working. It helped me to recover my sense of myself.

A lot of people see us as stuck if we listen to music from our youth. And you know me… I am constantly learning new music. I know what’s happening in the music world… always.

But there’s more to the music of our youth than just nostalgia.

About 14 years ago, I came across a study from 1979 called Counterclockwise, and I’ve talked about this study a lot over the years. A group of older men were brought to a house that only had things from their 20s. And they only listened to music from that time. Over the week, they regained what they thought was lost-forever mobility and their memories got sharper.

Now there are people working to replicate that study. You can look here. (I haven’t dug into all of the links yet, but I will be and I encourage you to.)

And recently there was a big cover article for National Geographic about how much aging really is just a cultural story. Hmmm… who has been yelling that for the last 15 years!?!? (That article is behind a paywall but I intend to get it. If anyone has access, read it and let me know what you think.)

Here’s the thing: there are big time benefits to tapping into the music of our youth on the regular.

And as you’ve heard me say countless times, there are HUGE benefits to moving to music we don’t know.

It’s a both/and thing. They each have benefits.

So here’s my question for you: what music makes you feel amazing? Or brings back a younger version of you?

Movement play inspiration for your new year

I would like to say happy new year but I’m writing this on January 6th and I’m just not feeling it. I’m assuming most (if not all) of you reading this are on the same page.

I also just taught at the residential recovery center and spent that time talking to someone about their fears about what’s coming. Wherever I go, people are anxious and worried. January feels like we’re collectively holding our breath until the 20th and the few days after. But then I think we’ve all been doing that to some degree since the night of the election.

Here’s hoping that the guardrails hold…

Regardless we need to keep moving forward, and focusing our energy on the things we can actually control becomes more important than ever.

Taking care of ourselves and filling ourselves with joyful energy is crucial if we are ever to build the kind of world that I know we all want — one of inclusivity, compassion, and real love… the kind of love that values every being as worthy.

With that in mind, I come to my main new year’s intention: to get back my sense of passion and playfulness with my own dance/movement practices, rather than only feeling that way when I’m teaching.

I’m starting slowly with about ten minutes at noon every day. I got a fun disco light just for this. I turn that on and put on a list of 80s dance music. I don’t “try” to “do” or experiment or create. Just dance. That’s it. Let it flow.

Next week, I’ll be building more aspects of my practice.

And in preparation for all of this, I’ve created a playlist of inspiration on YouTube that you also can access by hitting the upper right corner where it says 1/16 on the video below or click here. There’s only one of my own videos on this list and then other things that you can skip around in for ideas.

I’ll add to this list whenever I come across anything that fits that bill.

Let me know if you have any videos you think belong on it.

Brains, Memories, Energy, and Menopause

My 40s were absolutely fab. And there are a bunch of reasons that many of us are not having great 50s, including the orange clown entering our lives in 2016 and then the pandemic and more of that circus recently. But apart from all of that, from what I’ve gathered from older women, the 50s can definitely be a rollercoaster ride.

This is your reminder that if you follow me on Facebook and/or Instagram you’ll be getting new, weekly, free experiments.

On average, it’s when full menopause starts. And I say starts because that one year mark is just the beginning. Like our teenage puberty, menopause is really years long. Things take time to settle.

I’ve been noticing energy and brain changes, but what’s really been getting to me is the pit-of-my-stomach, visceral (different than ever before) understanding that I will not, for one example, ever smell my nana’s house again. It really punches me in the gut when I think about it.

I’m not someone who has been living in de-lu-lu land about such things but my 50s have brought them into my consciousness at a new level.

It turns out there’s plenty of reasons for this.

Thank God for the wisdom of Katy Bowman, right? I was lucky enough to meet her and take a workshop with her about basic biomechanics years ago, and I feel like she will always be one of those scientists who brings us gold mined from her own life experience.

As she has been in perimenopause, then, she’s, of course, been figuring shit out.

Like the very likely reason behind our brain fog and how much it’s really about us — in this toxic productivity culture — not listening to and sinking into these new bodies and minds that want to teach us new things. Like paring down. Like cutting back. Like freaking resting now that we are where we are.

Listen to or read the whole podcast here. Really. It’s worth your time. I’m still thinking about it and hoping Katy will write a freaking book.

Force versus joyful challenge

A little backstory

You know I started going to Orange Theory because I needed a serious kick in the ass when it came to my commitment/devotion to movement. I needed something outside my usual box. I needed an environment that helped me to do the thing, and Orange Theory covered all the bases.

If I signed up for a class and missed it, it cost me money, so I was always motivated to get out of bed and freaking go. When I got there, the music was fun and I didn’t need to think about anything because the coaches just tell you want to do. It was the perfect blend to keep me working harder than I had in a couple of years.

Let me emphasize this: I did need this to get me moving in the right direction.

And enter: Force

But one of my defaults is to push too hard. I have to watch for it, because it can happen so easily and so suddenly and I can justify it to the moon and back.

Eventually I was going to Orange Theory four times a week. On top of teaching a lot and doing other classes for my Yoga Teacher Training and playing tennis.

I was exhausted all of the time and “couldn’t figure out why.” ((hahahahaha))

I can be slow. ((even bigger laughter))

Eventually I figured it out. I cut my Orange Theory back to twice (and often once) a week. I almost quit altogether but I really do like the community there and have made some friends, and I figure in the winter, I’ll go more.

But that’s not the point of this post.

What’s wrong with force?

Isn’t force just big willpower? Lots of trying? It can be… I guess.

I think force comes into positive play when, for example, I’m deep in depression. If I can manage to force myself to do the things I do not want to do, well, it’s really a sign of hope, right? That kind of force shows that my willpower brain isn’t totally broken yet by the depression and that I am going to be able to drag my ass out of it (yet again).

But often force is just a sort of self inflicted violence.

When we work with force in our bodies, we’re definitely (most often) disconnected from our bodies. They’re a thing that we’re trying to change or contort. A lot of times, movement in this context is pure punishment.

This creates a toxic internal environment on the chemical level.

When we approach change from this kind of force, we’re stressing the nervous system, releasing cortisol, and keeping the body in a dysregulated state.

Change will not come in this state.

Your body is going to work against you, mistaking you for the enemy. Or not mistaking you… because when you’re treating yourself like this, you actually kinda are the enemy.

So what about joyful challenge?

The body knows the difference. Period. Your state of mind is different and so you’re more likely to create the joyful chemical stew in the brain that your body needs for healthy change.

If you approach your movement from a place of play and curiosity and experimentation, you are not working from punishment.

This is the state that regulates the nervous system. It’s from this state, that you’re clear on your motivations and they’re of the healthy variety.

When I’m working with force, my motivations are definitely aesthetic. That’s poison for me.

When I’m working from joy, my motivations are all about my mental health. That is my sweet spot. And most humans’, for that matter.

When we work from joy, compassion, and care, we’re not not challenging ourselves. It just is healthy challenge. It’s sustainable challenge.

The results

Since I’ve recalibrated my movement practices back to joyful and devoted, I already have noticed the kinds of changes I really need:

• I have more energy, of course. Because I’m not killing myself in the name of, again, aesthetics.

• I am getting stronger and more balanced by the day because I have more energy to work harder when I am working. I’m not just dragging myself through my practices and hoping for the end.

• I am happier. This is the big one. This is why I do the work I do — for myself and for others. It’s always been about mental health for me.

I’ve worked really hard to overcome disordered eating and body hatred from my youth but they can still pop up. It takes constant vigilance, and even then, it can be so easy to slip back into old habits.

We teach what we need. I learn that over and over and over.

A bit of radiance

Today I started teaching a fresh online session of morning quickie kundalini, and as I was preparing, it hit me that I wanted to share a tiny reading at the beginning of class.

Then I realized… whoa, I haven’t even wanted to pick a reading for so long, much less read it aloud in class, thanks to the darkness of utter disbelief in anything but the material world that has been plaguing me for the last few years. (I wrote about my sudden release from depression related atheism in the previous post.)

This felt like a big deal… yet another layer of change or another layer of becoming myself again.

And when I was explaining this at the beginning of class, the glee with which long term students reacted to my little announcement confirmed my feeling that we’d all been missing this.

If you’ve been in classes with me, you know I select these randomly by letting the book fall open or having someone yell out a page number.

So here’s the one I read this morning. It’s from this book, which is one of my favorites ever.

Radiance Sutra #61

Adorable one,

Sit or lie down, completely immobile,
Beholding the cloudless sky —
Or if there are clouds, the sky beyond.

As vastness envelops you,
The body vanishes,
Thoughts forget to come.
In this moment,
You are the nature of the great sky.

How YTT is awakening parts of me that I thought were just gone

Have I written about doing a Yoga Teacher Training here? I got an opportunity to do a sort of trade because the training is at the studio where I now teach Peony Somatic Dance and the owner very much believes in staff development.

And I knew when the opportunity came that it was the right thing for me, not even necessarily as a teacher but as a human. I needed something to help with the rut I was in.

I have, over my life, gone through many cycles of depression and a good number of those come along with a friend named atheism and a side buddy called cynicism. Not even just skepticism, which is okay in my book and healthy, but the toxic cousin cynicism which shuts down our capacities for awe and curiosity and wonder.

This last cycle, someone wise pointed out, really started with the death of Peony. At that point, something in me just froze.

And then the atheism just stuck around. I’ve never had it last over a year. This time, it was probably about 3 years.

So I started to think, Okay, this is it. This is me now and forward.

I dove into it like I do anything. I studied and read and thought and wrote.

Atheist eventually became an identity that I was even somewhat comfortable with.

Then I started this YTT. Months before, I had started with a really excellent therapist, and I was also finally back to journaling thanks to this app.

I’m not sure exactly when it happened, but I left a weekend of YTT (and I’m just over halfway through now) and I knew I had to start chanting again. Specifically to Ganesh. This chant.

Within days of starting that, I don’t know… a big old iceberg in the center of my being started to melt.

And out popped belief. ((ha))

It was that sudden. But not sudden at all, right? Since I had been carrying that iceberg around for almost 3 years.

And it’s melting faster by the day. Every few days, I get this butterfly feeling in the pit of me and I can tell there’s been another layer released, and with that, more emerging of the parts of me that I thought were just gone..

I thought that Ganesh and some tantric philosophy would be it. I assumed that would be enough.

But we are born into certain cultures and those cultures run in our very blood.

I found myself ordering some Thomas Merton. Then another. I just did it… didn’t stop to question it… followed the impulse that was definitely coming from a body level.

So I’m reading Merton outside in our wee backyard every morning with the birds.

I’m as stunned as maybe you are (or aren’t).

(I’m thinking a lot of us are in need of that Camus quote on my photo right there…)

A story about overcomplicating and underestimating...

On Wednesday I went to an Orange Theory class that they were calling "Everest."

Spoiler Alert: I did not take any kind of clue from that title.

This was the day that I said on Facebook that I had I hit some sort of wall at about the 50/55 minute mark of my morning class.

Now keep in mind: I had been to the previous two days’ classes at Orange Theory, had taken a hard yoga class, and had just come out of my first yoga teacher training weekend.

But I still thought... WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME!?!?!? (You can chuckle.)

The Overcomplicating Part

I spent a good chunk of that early evening talking to Craig about it. We looked at my water intake (great! perfect!) and what I had been eating. We both got on our phones to try to figure this out. ((FFS))

Now two important things DID come up that I will be working on: Making sure I'm getting enough calories (without counting ... tricksy but doable) and watching my iron intake (I tend to be slightly anemic and can deal with it with food and B12 but I have to be AWARE).

Fastforward...

The underestimating part

CRAIG (who is definitely currently in better shape than me... I mean, he does the Beast on the Bay -- an obstacle 10 mile run -- with barely any training)... CRAIG took that same class that night while I was teaching locally.

And the next day after work, he said he was utterly exhausted and?

THAT IT WAS FROM THAT CLASS.

LIGHTBULB.

IT WAS A HARD FUCKING CLASS, CHRISTINE.

So yeah... I immediately had overcomplicated things -- instead of just understanding the class was freaking difficult -- and then I underestimated MYSELF by thinking there must be something "wrong" rather than just seeing it was a hard class and ANYONE would be tired.

So... you know... where are you doing crap like this to yourself?