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!

Introducing quickie yoga for your neurospicy brain

Or rather, introducing a reframing of quickie yoga in a way that tells its story better. We’ve been doing this work all along but now I’ll be bringing it to the forefront. Go here to register for March.

As always, these classes can be done live or with the videos on your own. And this 30 minute quickie, focused format works, I think, really well on video.

As we focus on what I’m calling “STIM YOGA for your neurospicy brain”, we’ll be bringing in a lot of the usual suspects and then some: multiple lineages of yoga, basics from primal movement, basics from systems like tai chi, somatic movement, breath work to match it all, and anything else I happen to be learning and is floating my (brain) boat. ((ha))

This is for those of us who struggle with focus, inner balance, peace, and nervous systems that tend toward anxious. You know where to find me if you have any questions.

It's not just for you

Preface: I’m really struggling with depression and despair, as I’m sure a lot are. I’m triggered by the cruelty of the current government every day. And I’m stuck in some really toxic mindsets that are not good for me or the people around me. I know what I need to do but my motivation muscle is just… flaccid. And yesterday I think I found how to restrengthen it…

Yesterday a treester and I were having a bit of a chat via messenger, and she said she went for a short walk and I told her that she should be proud of herself for that. Then she said something that she doesn't know actually changed my brain a bit... She said she did it after reading my post about my depression because she believes in the ripple effects of our actions.

Um... CLICK went the puzzle piece.

When I started to dance again at 40, it was FOR/in HONOR OF a friend who had passed away too young and without fully embracing his artist's life. Every time I felt whiny about dancing -- which inevitably made me feel so much more joyful -- I would think of him.

And THERE IS THE COMMUNITY SECRET.

We are all connected. Humans are mirroring animals. We are made FOR EACH OTHER. And so any actions we take that are totally based in "FOR ME"... well, for most of us who are loving and compassionate humans ... that's not going to necessarily work long term.

I remembered I do my best work in this world when I am doing it for/with others. Period.

So now I have a note on my phone that goes off at 8:30 AM every day that says: FOR .... and lists a bunch of names.

To remind me that my life is not just about me.

To remind me that my actions have ripple effects.

To remind me that my calling is higher than myself.

I don't expect things to instantly and totally change over night but I can FEEL IN MY BONES that this was that motivation I was looking for.

REMINDER: If you are in need of more community that is healthy, safe, and supportive and also, well, free, you can request to join the Circle of Trees on Facebook.

(BELOW: a video from my long weekend workshop. I thought this wave experiment was perfect for a post about doing for and with others.)

The reality of commitment and consistency and why most people give up

This photo is from about ten years ago (and my hair is dyed so no, I didn’t go silver that fast).

A lot has happened since I took that photo (I mean… I’m taking it from a mirror which tells you a lot has happened even just with phones… ha).

A lot has happened since I took that photo. That, my beautiful nutbags, is a huge understatement.

Even if we only look at the “pandemic years,” so much has happened.

Above it all, the thing that has stunned me the most and has had the biggest impact on this body and mind:

Deep depression like I thought I would never see again came back, and yet again, ate all of the things that are my healing.

Sure, I continued to teach movement but I wasn’t wholeheartedly engaged. I was mostly going through the motions, which you may or may not have noticed. My depression was obvious in general, but I think when I was teaching, you could almost believe I was okay.

But I wasn’t creating any new methods. I wasn’t reading about movement or watching videos or seeking new movement. Big red flag.

I wasn’t listening to my favorite music when I wasn’t teaching. Big red flag.

And biggest red flag ever: I was only dancing when I was teaching and that wasn’t a lot.

Re-enter commitment

I am not sure exactly when it happened, but at some point in the last year or so, that depression started to lift. I think it had a lot to do with returning to playing tennis.

Which makes sense. The first time I seriously kicked depression out the door was when I started to dance again at the age of 40.

It seems I need some sort of return — specifically (and totally unsurprisingly) — to something physical that I have loved in the past.

I got obsessed with tennis. OBSESSED.

And it broke something open inside of me: my body was relearning commitment.

And finally consistency

But tennis is only during the good weather. (Alas, it’s too expensive around here to belong to a club.)

So I waited for the season to start again and started pretty much from scratch at rebuilding my skills.

But my obsession with tennis eventually led to consistency.

I realized I needed to be doing something more tennis-like (as in INTENSE CARDIO and lots of fast twitch muscle stuff) during the bad weather months, which made me do something I did not want to do: join some sort of gym.

I did this thinking that I would quit once tennis season started because I was only doing it to stay ready for tennis, right?

But surprise! I found the thing that created the consistency on top of the commitment. I found the thing that I am willing to get up early for, that I am willing to push myself into discomfort for, that I will not stop now that it’s summer.

Finding Orange Theory was a literal life saver (if you understand how life threatening serious depression can be).

And not because of the Orange Theory workouts. Not at all.

Finding it was a lifesaver because it supports me to do the things that are my life saving medicines.

Not only am I already, I think, showing signs of being a better tennis player this summer than last (and we’ve only played a handful of times so far), but it’s impacting my dance. It’s given me my strong legs back and my balance and of course my stamina.

And it’s only going to get better.

But here’s what I really want to say to you:

Commitment and Consistency for the Win

It takes time.

I don’t think I’ll really start to see the depths of change I want to see for another few months, and I don’t think I’ll be back to the strength and agility I had in that photo for probably a year.

And this is where most humans fail: once they don’t see the change they want within a short period, they quit. And then they blame whatever they were doing but it’s really the lack of commitment and consistency.

This is a long game, folks. As in, for the rest of your life.

Settle into it. Give into it. It’s the only way.

Journaling, Peony Bodyparts, and When We Feel Too Much

These are two stories that are connected in ways that I could not have imagined as they were both happening, which was in about a two week time span.

Journaling

When I met Craig, I was in the middle of the biggest clearing of my life. My house was utterly empty except for things I used day to day and found enjoyment in. There was so much space and it was a beautiful thing.

But in the garage there were a few boxes that were like energy black holes. They contained about 45 full journals from over 20 years of writing. I knew they had to go. They were repetitive and I found them, frankly, embarrassing as I was moving past the need to so closely examine, over and over, the same wounds. (That work was important as I was doing it.)

I threw them out. It was too much to burn in a small city with rules about such things. When they were gone, I could feel another clear space in my life and it was good.

Fast forward and I’ve been trying to get back into journaling. I’m a writer. It’s good to brain dump.

But over the last couple of years I just can’t. No matter how I tried to approach it, it wasn’t working.

Every time I sat down to journal, thinking about how full my brain felt and how much I had to say — how much I wanted to say — I would put pen on to paper and within a few sentences feel this overwhelming bodily exhaustion. I was lucky if I filled a page.

Knowing how I do that it’s important to be writing by hand to get the full somatic/trauma-informed expressive arts therapy benefits of journaling, I kept refusing to try it a different way. (I am so freaking stubborn.)

But I finally gave in. I was desperate to start journaling once I got back into talk therapy. It is so important to have a space to track things.

So I got an app (Day One). I can use it on any of my computers or devices and it syncs across them.

And lo and behold, I have been writing like mad. I’m on day 31 of no days missed and some days I write twice.

Peony Bodyparts

My students in Columbus are, of course, very new to me and my methods, and it has been a joy to go on this journey with them. It’s like learning and understanding and really seeing my processes with new eyes.

One of my students, who is a therapist herself so she’s trauma informed, said to me one day out of the blue: Bodyparts are my favorite.

Now I love Bodyparts. I love it for the concrete way it gets you into your body and ready for more. I’ve always seen it as a logical and needed sort of “warm up.”

I don’t think anyone has ever told me it’s their favorite part of class. There’s so much to a Peony Somatic Dance class that is … well, freaking fancier or even plain old weirder.

The somatics of it all

I was talking to Deb Globus about the journaling issue because she’s the Queen of Journaling, and she said something that was such a huge wake up call.

I will paraphrase but she said, “So writing by hand was putting you into nervous system overload… thus the exhaustion, and by typing, you got rid of that aspect but you can still benefit from getting all the words out.”

MY. GOD. THAT.

THEN…

I asked my student why she loved Bodyparts so much and again paraphrasing:

“Because I can explore my physical body but not get too deeply into the emotional stuff right off the bat…”

Again… Bodyparts (like typing a journal) removes some of the somatic intensity of the work, and that allows us to get some of the best parts of these tools without dysregulating our nervous systems.

What this might mean for you

Sometimes we really can go at things too directly and too hard.

It’s truly a lot of what the Peony methods are about… I mean them to be gentle and I mean them to be modified in ways that make them appropriately gentle to each person’s needs.

But still… we think, THIS IS THE HEALING WORK! GET AT IT!

Then our bodies send us messages that it’s too much, which we often read as STOP.

But instead of stopping, we really need to just reevaluate and see how we can take things down a couple of notches.

The work is good and it deserves our best effort. But we also deserve self-compassion and patience.

(If you’re having an issue like this and need some help creating the “notches down” approach, don’t hesitate to write to me.)

No mirrors

When I was getting ready to start to teach here in Columbus, the studio owner I work for asked which of his studios I wanted to teach out of. He has three and two of the spaces would have worked. But one space has mirrors so it was an absolute no-brainer. The yoga space it was/is.

Not working with mirrors and often having our eyes closed helps with entering into a nonjudgmental playful space in our bodies. It also adds to the meditative aspects of Peony Somatic Dance... a sort of meditation for those of us who don't tolerate seated meditation well.

(Seated meditation is not great for depression, anxiety, and a variety of mental illnesses. If it makes you feel worse, don't do it. I’ve written about how it’s okay if you can’t meditate and why that might be the case here.)

For so many of us, the mind feels like a constant tornado of activity and words and images and ideas and stories. It’s constant and it can seem like there’s never any relief.

Sitting in meditation can exacerbate all of that. (Again, see what I already wrote about this.)

But when we work with somatic dance, we become so focused on the prompt and the body and the music that it is like being in the eye of the tornado.

Suddenly we have peace and calm and quiet.

The body is truly the gateway to this.

The body and the mind are one, and when we try to … tame the mind via the body, we are working against our very nature.

When we enter into fully embodied and moving joy, then we are using ourselves as we are built to be used.

Movement is life. And movement is the tool the mind will respond to most easily, most naturally, and most joyfully.

No exertion, frustration, or extreme effort needed. Just be in play.

Not having mirrors in our space removes the temptation to turn toward ideas of perfection and “prettiness” that get in the way of this bodymind-ness that we are seeking.

(Side note: sometimes I work with mirrors very intentionally to work on issues around invisibility. I consider this advanced work that the student enters into when they are ready.)

Here’s some movement to be inspired by.

Update on slow jogging experiment

I came here to write an update on my slow jogging experiment and I’ve come to realize that I’ve not written about this here. I think I only really shared about it in the JoyBody Sanctuary on Facebook.*

(Side note: Are you in that group? because it’s seriously full of goodness and humans being so beautifully loving and supportive of one another through some very difficult stuff. If you’re not in there, just ask me to add you.)

*EDIT: I did write about it. I just couldn’t find it. Here.

So now I’ll back up…

Slow jogging is a very specific sort of jogging that has come out of Japan, and there’s a ton of research that shows how much better it is for you than other forms of jogging and running because biomechanically speaking it’s more like walking.

You can learn about the form by watching this video. And here’s a post about the benefits with links to studies.

So I started to slow jog on my treadmill last fall at some point. I’ve always hated running. HATE IT WITH A PASSION actually.

Some of you might remember that I spent a summer running until I could run a full mile non stop and then I stopped the experiment because I still hated it. Also remember, I can go to a workshop and dance for 8 hours a day no problem. This isn’t about fitness of the body but just a hatred for the form.

When I started to slow jog last fall, I had also just started to play tennis again, and the main thing I noticed that I was lacking in tennis was “light feet” and quickness on the court.

Slow jogging changed that within a couple of weeks. ((SNAP!))

At first I would just slow jog for five minutes. And it was hard, for sure. Because I’m just not a natural.

But here’s why I came to update:

I’ve not been really consistent with this practice. I can go a week without doing even one minute, but lately I’ve been doing it a bit more because of my Apple Watch. I aimed for ten minutes (and I would watch a dance documentary to keep my mind occupied).

Quite suddenly… I found myself EASILY doing 15 minutes. And now? I just had a 26 minute slow jog and my heart and lungs were great for the entire time. I sweat a lot but I’m not out of breath. (PERFECT zone.)

And? Though I’m still doing the form, my pace has also gotten a lot faster.

Again, without a lot of serious commitment to the practice.

My point? As I turn 55 in November, my message remains the same: your body is miraculous and is capable of much more than you can even imagine. No matter where you’re starting from.

If you want to change your body...

First, let me say, I’ve been quiet. September is rough… it’s both the month of Peony’s birth and death, the 5th and the 21st. So I hit that first one and feel melancholy but then I know the other is coming. It’s been 2 years.

That said… onto the title…

If you want to change your body, I will not be someone to tell you that you “shouldn’t want that” or that you should “just accept what is.”

I want you to love you and sometimes loving includes change.

That said, the other day, someone brought up the idea that they want and need to lose weight for health and aging reasons (again, why is none of anyone’s business). They said they’re frustrated and don’t know where to even begin, so I wrote this in response and I feel like it’s a handy little list (that is also full and layered and nuanced and you have to find your own way through each of these):

The key to this is where you put your focus. It has to come from a place of joy and love. I've been here and I've done this and I've watched this approach work for a lot of people around me:

1. Eat what gives you energy. So really start to notice the AFTEREFFECTS of your food. Take your time with this. It's a lifelong sort of practice. Maybe even start a journal about it to track it.

2. MOVE FROM JOY ONLY. There is NO room for "exercise." You must find ways to move that make you feel one or more of the following: joyful, happy, laughy, curious, engaged, flowing, concentrated. (So for me? Tennis and dance. Though over the last 15 years I've learned how to transfer this approach to all sorts of movement but that takes time.)

3. KEEP IT SIMPLE AND SMALL. So with movement, think about little bursts throughout your day. Five to fifteen minutes of whatever, multiple times a day.

4. Figure out your motivators. For me? MENTAL HEALTH and DATA. So I love tracking and comparing and all of that (EXCEPT for calories or weight... I do NOT do those numbers ever), and I’m acutely aware that if I don’t move over an hour a day, my mental health will deteriorate. (That amount of time varies for each user. Ha)

5. Focus above all on feeling GOOD.

(And because this is my work... you know I do one on one sessions and this is the exact sort of stuff that I work with women on.)