Things Suck So We EXTRA Need Each Other and Our Practices

I don’t have the bandwidth to write some things that need to be written, but suffice it to say, that I am beyond angry at the world and that that anger has reignited some important and powerful parts of myself.

One part of me knows absolutely for sure that we need to be MOVING in these bodies MORE THAN EVER.

The next classes of sessions starts the week of May 10 so get over here and find something to do that will ground you in your power and energy because we need all of us at our best to get the shit done in this world that desperately needs to be done.

That said… I often use the words “body liberation” and it’s not some light thing that I say about feeling comfie. It’s much much much more than that and I want us all to be on the same page (or you can always go find another book to read because this book is about radical shit):

This is #bodyliberation: Creating culture and community that embraces every single human as the beautiful, fragile yet strong, inherently dignified beings we are. No exceptions.

We are creating (and we demand) culture and community in which your inner sense of yourself and your outer expression are never expected to clash.

We will no longer settle for anything less.

We stand in circle with all beings reaching for authentic, loving lives. #translivesmatter #womensrights #transrightsarehumanrights

The Joy of Lent (that's what I said...): An introduction to the idea behind The Re/Joy Project

A yoga sadhana is a practice meant to transform you.

TRANS. FORM.

Make you into a new form.

Often a dedicated sadhana will last 40 days, and so we come to lent.

Like any religious practice, lent is only as effective and meaningful as the energy we’re willing to put into it.

First we have to decide that this time is more than just an excuse to diet (don’t do that regardless…). And second, we have to decide to reclaim it from the toxic Christianity that has overtaken the truth and beauty of what Christ actually intended.

It’s no accident that lent takes place during this time when we’re all feeling the weight of winter and a deep desire to awaken to more light and warmth. (And my god… as I re-read that sentence… all we’ve been through and all that is currently happening… it surely takes on even more meaning than I even first intended.)

In the Northern Hemisphere, the body of Earth herself is awakening over the next 40 days. By the time we get to the end of lent, most of us will be seeing a profusion of (or the start of a profusion of) tulips, daffodils, green buds, returning birds, pea shoots, thawed bodies of water, warmth in the air, sun that penetrates to bone.

Are we not meant to go through the same process?

Alas, lent ends in a death, you protest, so how can it be included in this more pagan view of rebirthing/awakening things? Regardless of resurrection (or instantaneous reincarnation, as I like to think of it), that death was meant to remove the final veil of fear so that we might live in these bodies “free of all anxiety.”

This time of year is meant for us to shed all the darkness of winter, but more than that, it’s meant to take us through processes that help us to shed the idea of body as burden.

Perhaps we can take on a different sort of lenten journey in which we awaken the body to the light and warmth of our own love for ourselves and thus deepen our capacity to love “other.”

I challenge you — during this very serious time of the year and this very serious time of all of our lives — to be less serious and more joyful.

For lent, I am consciously working on “giving up” my existential despair as a default coping and protection mechanism.

I am consciously working on “giving up” disbelief in the wonder and beauty and magic of life.

I am consciously working on embodying the joy of Peony the Cat.

Would you like to join me?

To start, I will be spending more time cataloging things that bring me joy.

Cataloging can look like written lists but also photos. #DailyJoy

I’ll be paying extra attention to noticing every bit of earth awakening right around me.

I’ll also be spending more time moving in ways that bring me a deep sense of connection to the joy well that already exists within me but that I tend to disregard when things are going badly in the outside world.

What might you add to this list? #therejoyproject

From the Sanctuary: the problem with helping others

I think this will be a part of a new series that I will write here where I take from some of the extremely interesting conversations we have in the JoyBody Sanctuary (the free space that is private on Facebook that you can ask to be added to here).

Rule number one of the sanctuary is that whatever is said in the Sanctuary stays in the Sanctuary so I will only be sharing bits of my OWN WORDS.

Someone was talking about the toxic idea that we can get out of depression by helping others and here’s what I wrote in response:

This is, as always, more complicated than all the memes etc. make it out to be.

Because first, there is a LOT of truth to this.

Our interconnection is key to our health on every level.

But our culture is heavy on codependence and does not generally understand the different that is interdependence.

So we go at things like this with bitterness and should-ness and martyr energy.

And we could write BOOKS, of course, on the complications of this for WOMEN specifically because we are taught to BE martyrs.

But the doing for others needs to come from a... clearer place than that.

And yes, when it can come from a clearer place of compassion and WANTING TO, then it very much can take us out of ourselves in a healthy way.

So first, we must know what WE NEED and work on that.

Second, we have to have healthy boundaries.

Third, we need to work for a compassion that includes ourselves and does not turn compassion for others into a weapon against our own needs.

Fourth, we need to be able to distinguish feeling compassion for a human and the totally legit feeling of NO for some of their actions.

I think they biggest key though is our own needs... are they being met because I don't think we can truly work from a place of compassion without that.

But again, girls are raised to do exactly that... to ignore themselves in favor of everyone else.

If you can't meditate, there's nothing wrong with YOU but with what you're trying to do

I want to talk about meditation, but first a couple of things:

If you have a classic sitting meditation practice that works for you, great. That's you. #ExperimentofOne And I don't want this to turn into a discussion about how that works.

And to be clear, I have studied with some of the leaders in the field of somatic psychologies. For a long time. They would agree with what I'll say here.

Meditation is (like everything) not for everyone, but it can actually be dangerous if you're still in the worst parts of anxiety, depression, OCD, CPTSD, and many other mental illnesses.

I've said this in person enough times to know that some of you probably just breathed a sigh of relief, thinking there was something inherently wrong with you because meditation feels so impossible. There's nothing wrong with you when it comes to meditation. Meditation is just not necessarily right for you... for right now. (And that might be forever, depending.)

Stay with me here...

Whether or not you've experienced physical or sexual abuse of any kind (and especially then), if you're someone suffering from mental illness, the BODY ITSELF does NOT feel safe.

To SIT in the body and watch the mind CAN BE like throwing gasoline on a fire.

And this is where movement practices come in.

For all of my 20s and 30s, people would tell me to meditate to help with my depression, etc.

And I was one of those who thought there must be something even more wrong with me because it made me feel worse.

THEN I started to dance again. And FINALLY my mind could quiet in that context.

Keeping the body moving, focusing on the breath, and focusing a lot of the brain on a problem solving prompt (a simple example: make as many circles in space with your body as you can)... this quiets the part of the brain that often felt like it was out to get me (my metaphorical experience... insert your own here).

Furthermore, over time and I mean TIME (months to many many years), your brain creates new neural clusters and pathways marked "body is safe to feel."

This happens BECAUSE you are working with someone (like me perhaps) who can create safe ways for you to be in your body feeling all the things, bit by bit... I watch for overwhelm of the system and pull you back when that happens.

Because re-traumatizing is not the damn goal. Which CAN happen if you're sitting in your own nest of awful during meditation with no one there to bring you out of it.

As Gabrielle Roth said, most of our problems were created and exacerbated in the brain/mind; we can't use that same tool for healing. At least and especially not during the initial phases of healing, which again, can go on for many years.

The movement work I teach is not some once in a while thing to be done when you're feeling extra bad or extra good. It's a lifetime practice of tools to be used over and over as we go through new and challenging experiences.

And I have to add ... part of the healing is due to the COMMUNITY aspect of the work. RELATIONSHIP is where true healing happens.

Morgenmuffels UNITE! Or the Meeting of the Morning Nutbags, a Free Group

To say that photo represents me in the morning would not be inaccurate. Me and morning have never been best friends. I got kinda better about mornings in the year or so before I met Craig and then when I first met him. But I was only kinda more friendly with morning because it was a time in my life when I was feeling so happy and energetic that I didn’t need as much sleep as I always have.

And by always, I mean always. Ask my mother. She’ll tell you that I slept over eight hours the first night home from the hospital. I slept so well and so regularly when I was a newborn that they, very young parents, were worried and took me to the doctor, who basically said, “CONGRATULATIONS!”

But then Craig came along and worked crazy hours and even now gets up at about 4:30 (AM!) to have time for coffee and the gym before starting work at 6:15 AM. He is a freaking morning person, for sure. Though he’ll weirdly deny that.

With his crazy hours, my own schedule got so thrown off that I no longer know what the heck I am. I know I do not like falling asleep before 11, that’s for sure.

Add in the pandemic and then Peony’s death and me and sleep have resorted back to kinda frenemies, not to mention how much worse morning has gotten.

Something had to change. I kept putting it off but I knew the answer. I just didn’t want to face and DO the answer. Let’s back up.

Neurodivergence and routines and change

I’ve wanted a new morning routine because I knew it affected the rest of my day.

Pre-Craig, I would get up and immediately take a shower and then sit and read and write and meditate/pray a bit. This worked beautifully and led to the rest of my day flowing naturally and easily from that start. I had kinda… monasticized my life.

Here’s another part of the equation: my weird brain has a hard time getting started. Whether it be the day or a project or whatever… getting started is hard.

YET routine is super important to my weird brain.

OY! I was caught in this kind of loop of not getting started and needing new routines to get started but not being able to start new routines.

TikTok to the Rescue

One of my favorite areas of TikTok is the neurodivergent creators. SO HELPFUL.

And I kept hearing about this concept of “body doubling.”

I also came upon the concept of “catalyst.” It’s how a different sort of brain needs something to get it started and that’s unique for everyone and figuring that out is key.

AH-HA Moment

I awoke with a start: OTHER PEOPLE ARE MY CATALYST!

Yep… duh.

Feeling responsible to other people (in the good way) is what makes me Do the Things.

This also incorporates body doubling. Just sitting with someone else while they write, for example, gets me writing.

A Free Zoom Group is Born and You Can Join

I put out a call. Was there anyone else who was struggling with a new morning routine, whether that mean starting your day with writing, art, meditation, movement, reading, whatever.

A few people said YES, PLEASE, and so we started.

I cannot overemphasize how profoundly this has impacted my life from moment one.

It works. Period.

I get up because I have to shower before I get on zoom and then I get everything ready and start the meeting at 8 AM. I wait until 8:05 and then we all go mute (you can also not have your camera on).

And we work. Together. But silently.

Until about 8:30 when I call time. (This is Eastern time.)

And from there, my day just GOES. I have gotten more done in the couple of days we’ve been doing this than probably the last MONTH.

I move more. I write more. My brain feels way more cooperative. I am getting downloads of ideas again. I’m reading more.

If you want in, just give me a yell.

OH! And during my reading the first day, I came upon this quote. We’re not a “buddhist community” but you get it:

“This involvement in a Buddhist community is invaluable to anyone wishing to take his or her practice seriously, and life as a Buddhist can be very difficult without regular contact with such a Sangha.”

Amen. Life as a human can be very difficult without regular contact with such a devoted and compassionate community.