When early chronic dieting has broken your eating intuition

Intuitive eating is great if you can actually feel when you’re hungry and feel when you’ve had enough. But those mechanisms aren’t always that clear cut or working for a wide variety of reasons, not the least of which is that we’re all different. Our brains are all different. Our reactions to food are all different.

And our eating backgrounds are all different.

If you were a girl growing up in the 1980s, you were likely constantly being put on diets. And that very much damages your relationship to food and your body.

Even when I was a size zero I was not small enough.

Only when I started to dance again in my 40s did my relationship to food and body finally become neutral, which I think is actually the healthiest relationship you can have to those things.

But over the last few years, as depression has eaten away at my healthy mindsets, it has also brought up old patterns around food and body.

And because I can’t simply intuit about food, I end up eating things that do not feel good in my body and I end up eating too much — to the point of discomfort.

Something had to change. Body and mind are one and I know from experience that to get my body back to more comfortable and more active is to then heal my mind.

So I’ve started to track my food again because of that lack of intuition.

And whoa… it’s freaking surprising.

First, I don’t ever think of myself as an emotional eater. As a matter of fact, if I’m super stressed I don’t eat.

But… I am a bored eater. I am a depressed eater.

I am constantly thinking about what food I could be putting into my mouth.

Second, the amount of food that I thought was necessary to make me feel full was way off. I knew this, as I said, because I was uncomfortable, but the amount I needed to feel full and comfortable was a lot different than I anticipated.

(I’m using this macro counter and a food scale. TO BE CLEAR: NOT to deprive myself but to recalibrate my understanding of food.)

So this is part of my journey right now. And if you need to talk about it, you can always email me or ask to be added to my group on Facebook.

And if you need to move more, I start a new 4 week session of Stim Yoga and Peony Somatic Dance online classes next week.

You have to move to feel

This is not a metaphor.

Think about it this way first:

Lay a hand on a cat and it's soft, but keep it lying there and you stop feeling the soft. Or at least, not with the same intensity as when you pet the cat.

Same with water... Get into the Lake (if you’re in Erie or near any lake) and walk through the water, feeling the softness of the water. Stand still. Less input, less sensation.

Go another step and realize that you only really feel wet relative to dry. Or relative to your wet swim suit as you try to peel it off.

(Before we go any further, as always, there are different levels of and ways of moving, but there is always movement of one kind or another, even just the breath and how it moves the chest and back. Or the movement of the eyes. Or the the tongue as it tastes.)

Stand still. Less input, less sensation.

We know that to be still in the body during and/or right after a traumatic event is to get stuck in that moment. (Here for more on that.) The feelings of that moment are then not moved through… or we do not move through them.

This is not a one time thing, of course, and that’s why somatic movement — movement married to intention and awareness and breath — is needed every day in one way or another, because every day brings us more to move through.

This is even obvious in our language. We say we are “stuck,” meaning we can’t seem to “get over” something or move forward in our lives.

Move. More input, more sensation.

Go back to the cat and the water. We experience the world through external sensation entering our nervous systems via our senses.

Same for our emotional lives.

For example, we think we are “intuiting” something about someone else or a situation, but it’s just our senses capturing information so quickly that we don’t notice.

This is also related to your “gut feelings.” That’s your vagus nerve relaying information to you that you might not have noticed consciously.

Move to feel to move.

We take in the world, our lives, the traumas, and then what? We can lock them up and let them gather dust and mold or we can move to feel them fully so that we might move more.

And here is the beauty of somatic dance: we can do all of this with joy in community. (You can check out the basic parts of a Peony Somatic Dance class here.) And over time, we can build our capacity to go through the cycles quicker. This is not so we can develop a method of bypassing. Not at all.

This is a spiritual practice of the most real variety: we honestly look at ourselves and our experiences and we digest them and use that digested material to build the life we really want — rather than the life that just happens to us.

The problem of dissociation when "listening to the body"

When the body doesn’t feel safe

The ground of Peony Somatic Dance is breathe and wait. We focus on the breath first to drop into the now and center, and then we patiently listen for or pay attention to the messages of the body. Following that, honest expression can emerge.

But what if when we breathe and attempt to pay attention to the body, we simply can’t?

What if we have a history of dissociation and that is still triggered?

What if it just feels scary to enter the body in this way?

All of these things can drive us away from something like a somatic dance practice. It can keep us from simple exercise. It can prevent us from truly enjoying the sensual aspects of life, because the body does not feel like a safe space.

How do we develop the body as safe space without creating more shutdown and numbness?

How to deal with dissociatioN during movement

There are a bunch of ways to deal with this issue that are more gentle. Over time you can progress through them, but remember, it’s not a ladder. It’s a spiral.

It’s not a simple ladder because if we’ve had a lifetime of dissociative disorder, I don’t think it’s ever just gone. Extreme stress or vile political administrations can certainly bring it back. It’s so deeply embedded in our neurobiology and our body/mind revert to the oldest coping mechanisms because they’re the most “practiced.”

So these new somatic practices are never one and done.

All of this is also why it’s important to work with someone with deep experience. I can tell when a student is distressed even if they aren’t obviously freaking out, for example, and I have a tool box the size of a castle that I can pull from until we find the thing that helps or soothes, whatever is needed.

Peony Somatic Dance methods of the gentle variety

This is just s small example of the tools I would pull from, but it might give you an idea of where to start. (You could also take a class with me, of course, online if you’re not local to Columbus, OH, or you can contact me about possible one on one work if you don’t feel like you’re ready for a class.)

So here are some possible ways of approaching a body that is not feeling safe:

Put all of your attention on your environment. Externalize your awareness. You could put on some music and start to identify items in your space. If you’re alone, you could do this out loud. “Chair, photo, clock” etc. You could add lots of detail if that felt good. As you’re doing this, allow movement to happen but keep your attention outside of the body and the movement.

Touch and name your bodyparts as you move. This is exactly what it sounds like. Moving your right hand? Touch it with your left and say to yourself, this is my right hand.

Attention to body boundaries. Just notice where your body begins and the space outside of you starts. This could be as simple as focusing your movement in your feet and feeling the floor. Or you could get on the floor and move around gently, feeling the feedback from the floor into your body parts. There are a lot of other ways to get this same feedback but moving on…

Place your attention on another body. This is best done led in a class or you can do it with a loved one at home. You can try mirror movement: each of you taking a turn to lead. Keep things really simple. Another option is to start with super simple contact improv like you see in the photo above or as seen here.

Again, there are so many ways to deal with dissociation even when it can feel a bit scary. (And again, experienced guides are so very necessary.)

Let me know if you have any questions or insights!

Creating softness to do the challenging things

If you’ve been in class with me, you know we end with a “show me.” I observe as you allow your body to express what needs to be expressed. The whole class leads to this moment of deep honesty, and it can be revealing in unexpected ways. Truths can be felt and seen by both the movers and the observer.

Sometimes it’s just a bit of relief in beginning to access some larger truths that will take longer to allow. But sometimes these moments are full of big ideas and revelations that lead all of us to say AH-HA!

These moments can be profoundly impactful. They can be those sorts of “turn on a dime” life changing, mind changing eurekas.

This week during one of my online Peony classes, something of that big sort was revealed.

I was watching Linda Soto move. She started with soft, water like movement that felt soothing even just to observe. The energy was safe and felt healing.

This went on for a few minutes until suddenly she broke into childlike playful movement that was full of joy and strength.

AH-HA! Right?

It struck me how much we want to go right for that latter sort of movement — whether on the dance floor or in our lives — without first taking care of ourselves.

It struck me how childlike wonder, awe, curiosity, playfulness, and joy really need safety in order to emerge. That childlike part of you needs to know it’s okay to come out, that there will be no judgment, that there will be no harshness of any kind.

But often, even when we’re doing these somatic dance practices that are meant to bring us to our own original totality, we go at them so hard. We try so hard. We work so hard.

If we’re not trying and working hard, we might even feel like we’re “lazy” or “not deserving.” Old stories overcome our original loving intentions.

The reality is that we deserve to be safe. We deserve to feel safe. We deserve communities that are safe for this work.

The child in us who might not have gotten enough of that safety deserves it from us now.

So let’s practice — in all things — first creating softness and offering a soothing environment — and then like I always say, breathing and waiting and allowing.

What part of you life can you imagine playing with this idea in? Where will you take it first?

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.

New free weekly experiments

I can’t believe how long it’s been since I’ve written. Yoga Teacher Training has just made my summer so much busier and so much more tiring than I could have ever anticipated. As you read this, I will be days away from finishing! YAY!

New free stuff

In the meantime, I’m starting a new weekly share on my Facebook business page and Instagram. If you aren’t connected to me on either of those, maybe go do it so you don’t miss these. I won’t share them on my blog except every so often.

The weekly share will be around the idea of “experiment of one.”

And it will always be something really simple to play with. We want ease in these practices.

Also? We want to build a sense of devotion and not one of powering-through.

Here’s this week’s:

All week long, just notice your sitting habits. Whether at your desk, in front of the TV, in the car... wherever you sit, notice what you typically do.

Then take it another step: notice and change. See if you can find different ways of entering into your seat and different ways of sitting. Challenge yourself to be uncomfortable for a bit.

I would love to hear if you learn anything interesting!