The efficacy of fidgeting (and more free videos)

If you know me, you know I am constantly reading and watching videos about the bodymind and trauma and healing and overall fitness (meaning, for me, the confluence of mind, body, spirit), but then I don’t always remember WHERE I get stuff so I apologize for the lack of sources here but whatevs.

There are some new studies out there that are showing that fidgeting can be super helpful in activating a more effective metabolism.

The one study is about simply doing heel lifts when you’re seated. Crazy stuff. They’re called “soleus pushups.”

But little bits of movement throughout the day — and I mean LITTLE BITS — can help long term with overall health.

Turns out fidgeting is good for you. (Though perhaps annoying for the person sitting next to you on the couch… ((cough)) ha)

Here are some things I’m playing with that aren’t exactly fidgeting but are along those lines because I’m doing them quickly and not for more than 30 or 60 seconds at a time:

1. If you’re having to sit for a long time, do those soleus pushups but also do some joint circles — wrists, for one, and shoulders and ankles are easy to do in a chair and to do in these tiny bits I keep mentioning.

2. When I walk past a certain wall toward the kitchen, I try to stop and do just a few wall pushups.

3. When I’m waiting for tea water to boil or whatever, I do a bunch of rises on the balls of my feet (releves) from different foot positions.

4. Sometimes on the couch, I do a ton of weird leg stretches… like a cat!

5. I’m trying to add in brief wall sits when I pass other walls in the house.

6. I’m also trying to remember to put my fingertips on the edge of the door frame and do a weighted drop (not lifting my feet off the ground to hang totally yet because of the shoulder stuff I’m still healing from).

7. You could have a squeezy ball at your desk to just, well, squeeze, because grip is super important to dynamic aging.

8. I also have some actual fidget toys that keep my fingers moving when I’m watching TV.

If you have other ideas, I’d love to hear!

AND in case you missed it, a recent video I made is about some simple movement to do to work with anger, frustration, stuckness, grief, etc.

Remember, if you like the content, please react to it on YouTube with a thumbs up or comment, and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel.

Young Bjork speaking wisdom

I came across this on TikTok a couple of weeks ago, and it’s stayed in my head, so I figure others need it too.

She’s NOT insulting Madonna but speaking some deep truth about instinct versus intellect. Wait until the very end when she talks about the age of your brain versus the age of your instinct… it made me go, WHOA… (This video is about a minute long… you have time.)

New, free joint health video

I can’t believe it’s already March. I’m not sure where February went… perhaps under the stove with all the kitten toys.

I think time has also been eaten a lot by my singing practice but this post isn’t about that. (Though if you know me, you know it’s hard for me not to talk about my current and most special interest. HA)

((pushing my brain on topic…)) So! If you have joint pain or stiffness for any reason, this video is for you.

Since I’ve entered menopause and I think, too, since Peony died, I have been living again with pretty much constant and widespread joint pain. I say “again” because this was my state for most of my life until I started to dance again at 40.

Doing this joint circle work almost daily, though, has been the tool I needed. It really does work. It might take a week or two or three for you to notice but keep going. It can be done in mere minutes or longer… whatever time you have.

I’ll be releasing another version in a chair soon. Let me know if you have any questions. You can ask by email, Facebook messenger, or over on YouTube in the comments.

Making ugly noise to get to the beauty

I wrote these words about 2 weeks ago on someone else’s post on Facebook:

I keep thinking about this as I venture further into my singing lessons. I keep thinking about a documentary about the making of the Joshua Tree (I can't find it to watch it again... it seems to have disappeared...)... Anyway, there's this part where Bono has written the words for I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For and the music was already done. But he has to figure out HOW to sing it... BONO... right? And whoa... it struck me exactly this... he had NO FEAR of sounding AWFUL and THAT is why he can do what he does. So now when I'm practicing, I push like that... just like I would do in dance, of course, but singing for me has been such a fear thing that it's more tender and vulnerable... but I push like that... where can I go that it's BAD... because RIGHT AROUND THERE... that's where you'll find awesome hanging out. 

I wrote that about 2 weeks ago, and since then, so much has changed.

So that little story — and this adventure I’m taking with singing — remember, it’s literal for me, but it’s simultaneously one giant metaphor for all of us, and it’s all about living life fully.

Over the last two weeks, because I’ve been willing to make ugly noises, to falter, to crack, to just sound like OUCH!, I’ve started to truly find my voice.

And under all that fear that I’ve lived with for so long, what am I finding?

That my voice is BIG and it’s sassy and ferocious and demanding.

It makes me think about my honest dance. I’m an aggressive mover when I’m fully in my body, so it’s no wonder that I’m an aggressive singer. (If the word aggressive makes you uncomfortable, sit with that because it’s my preferred word here and if it triggers you in some way, that’s your trigger to pay attention to. I stop to say this because over my life when I use that word, so many WOMEN correct me and say I mean assertive. No. I mean aggressive.)

I also don’t think it’s a coinkydink that once my singing lessons started, my shoulders reached new levels of healing. During a Peony Method class this week, I could feel my whole body connected in a way it hasn’t been for almost two years, thanks to a lot of factors, including Peony’s death and two frozen shoulders.

And they were frozen, for sure. The shots I got were totally necessary, but there’s some woo here, isn’t there?

Shoulders… how many times (if you’ve been in classes with me for long) have you heard me say, “Many women are weak in the shoulder area and that makes sense because it’s the connection space between heart and throat… how many of us are not saying what needs to be said and it’s stuck right at that shoulder level?”

I was obviously talking to myself.

So much...

Sometimes when I’m not writing a lot, it’s because there’s so much going on that I either am pressed for time or my brain needs time to process what’s happening in a way that it can be written about. Right now, it’s both of those things.

For now, I want to let you know that weekly classes will start up again the week of January 23rd. Please go here to read about what I’m offering and to register!

And I’ll be writing about what’s happening soon!

Stuckness and Grand Gestures

I was having a delightful as usual discussion with Deb Globus (you may know of her work with Storybeads), and we were discussing stuckness, and she said, “you need a grand gesture!”

What? Because that phrase instantly rang a bell for me. And over the coming days, it took me right back to the true start of my healing, when I started to dance again about 14 years ago. (And this is relevant to today but I’ll get there…)

Once I knew that dance was that important, I ordered my first pair of capezio ballet slippers in forever. They came and I didn’t like the feel, but I used them as a talisman (and still have them).

But I knew I needed to do something significant that would keep me on track, so I signed up for a training at Kripalu. I found something called YogaDance that seemed like a good fit.

This was about more than dance. I would have to TRAVEL. I would have to leave the cats and the almost agoraphobic love of my house and my very own spaces. It was a very, very, very big deal.

And to keep myself committed, I announced it on my then blog, BlissChick, which had a significant readership, full of humans who were more than willing to make sure my ass got in that seat on that bus and traveled to Massachusetts.

I followed through, as most of you know, and over the next few years actually went to Kripalu about ten times, gathering and synthesizing everything I could get my brain and hands and feet on until we’re in present day and all of that has become The Peony Method.

But back to now… and this feeling of stuck. I didn’t put it all together but within DAYS of talking to Deb, I signed up for that first private singing lesson.

And it took a couple more weeks to remember that discussion and see how it had worked its freaking magicks.

I’ve never doubted my ability to move/dance. I always feel confident and I don’t care who is in the room or space with me. I feel the same way about acting.

But singing is something so fragile to me…this is even bigger than that trip to Kripalu. Truly.

And it’s changing my life, because that’s what grand gestures do. I feel more focused. I feel more energetic.

I might still feel a wee bit stuck but I can feel the momentum coming back. I can feel my capacity for dreaming returning. I can feel words again. I am interested and curious in ways I was just… not. (That was the scariest thing to me… no curiosity.)

So I’m here to tell you that there’s nothing like this idea of grand gestures to get you out of even a very serious rut. When I started to dance again, I had been chronically depressed for a decade and at times it was life threatening. But something in me was still just ever so slightly open enough to allow for the tidal waves of changes that dance brought.

I’m certainly no less open to that idea now and I’m already feeling the rising, living waters that singing is bringing.

What grand gesture do YOU need?

Free BalletOM Quickie Video as a Thank You

BalletOM is a combo of yogic breathing, simple fundamental human movements (like circles), and biomechanically aware basic ballet moves.

I find it’s super helpful as an investigative tool, in that it quickly reveals where your body’s weaknesses are.

It’s great for balance, grace, overall mobility, and strengthening and lengthening (yes, that’s a thing because what we call tightness in the body is actually a shortening).

It’s also really helpful for people who might have not been allowed to take ballet when they were little or they were rejected by teachers of ballet or they have had any kind of trauma around dance/ballet.

It reawakens your inner ballerina in a safe and kind way.

So I’m offering this free video but there’s a catch — a simple one. You have to be in the JoyBody Sanctuary on Facebook to have access. If you’re not in there, just let me know you want to be added.

This particular class is all on the floor so you don’t have to focus quite so hard on alignment.

You can do a lot of this from a chair, if you’re not yet ready to be on the floor.

If you do the class and have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask!

Singing class update!

I meant to write about this much closer to when it happened (Monday the 14th), but the week got away from me really fast. (Side note: Is anyone else feeling just extra time smooshed lately?)

Singing class…

I had Craig drive me because it was starting to get dark AND I was so damn nervous that I didn’t want to even think about how to get there or parking or anything.

I walked in and there were a LOT of kids there, coming and going for their various lessons. The thing that made me giggle right away was the “welcome our new students” sign that had my name on it.

I figure everyone else on that was likely under the age of 12. HA

My teacher arrived right on time. Molly. She’s 27 so I could be her mom. (Another HA)

But here’s the thing. Before I went I told Craig, “I am just focusing on thinking that this Molly person is basically me but with singing instead of dance… She just wants me to LOVE singing and she just wants me to HAVE singing in my life…and she just believes in me automatically because I am showing up.”

Well… somehow I manifested a mini me. We had so much in common from music to being sci-fi/fantasy nerds to thinking a lot about neurodivergence and yes… her thoughts about teaching singing are exactly mine about getting people to dance: that we’re meant to do this.

She also kept reminding me that my fears around singing won’t just magically disappear and that this will take time. That helped because I would have expected myself to be clear of fear at our next lesson. Which is redonk.

We talked a LOT but we finally did some warm up stuff. She offered me two options that my body immediately rejected and then during a third she was using the sound “me” and I said…yeah… but could you make up some words instead of just that syllable?

Which she did and then I was fine! Well, I was okay to warm up with her.

Then she asked me to sing something I like with it playing on my phone. I chose this.

I WAS SO DAMN NERVOUS, but when I closed my eyes at one point, I felt like she got to kinda hear what I actually sound like.

And LIKE ME as a teacher, she was often saying things like, “OH! THAT WAS GOOD!” Just what I need. (Just what we all need.)

I learned that I’m an Alto TWO; thus my love of singing with tenors.

I have another lesson Monday the 21st and I am making a singing playlist on Spotify and practicing a bit each day.

I’m obsessed. Which is when I’m at my healthiest.