Our Culture is Trauma and We All Live on a Spectrum of Dissociation

Are you more aware of your head/brain than your entire body?

Dissociation...

I truly believe we are a culture of humans living on different points of a spectrum of dissociation.

Our culture is trauma inducing in its very makeup and the main way we cope is to exit our bodies. HOW we do this varies -- from alcohol consumption to the way we eat to TV to never moving to not listening to music (because it brings up FEELINGS) and on and on.

Before I started to dance again after I turned 40, I was one of the most dissociated people you'd ever meet.

I was blank in my eyes from my chronic depression but more than that...

I was a head being transported by a body that I did my best to ignore.

Or had learned to ignore.

I would go all day feeling angry and then realize I had NEVER PEED.

All these signals that bodies send... I just didn't hear them any more.

Here's the thing...

You don't just suddenly repair that.

I'm still working on it 11 years later at 51.

The other day I realized that EVERY SINGLE MONTH it's like I'm getting my period FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER because I can't remember SIMPLE THINGS...

Like, for example, my period actually EXHAUSTS me because I tend toward slight anemia on a good day. (And I thought I was entering actual menopause because of this disconnect too. That's another story.)

EVERY MONTH I think, WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME? WHY AM I SO TIRED? I NEED SOME SORT OF MEDICAL INTERVENTION!

Then POOF! I'm not tired anymore and I go, oh, right...just had my period.

DISSOCIATION.

I still can forget to pee.

I still can forget to EAT or god forbid... drink water.

I STILL forget the basic thing I TEACH -- that if you MOVE, you'll FEEL BETTER. Your brain will be clearer. You’ll have energy. Your mod will be less dark even in difficult moments.

So how about you?

What does your level of dissociation look like? How does it play out? What can we do to stop this?

Because stopping this? It's key to EVERYTHING.

People who are dissociated are easily turned into cogs in the wheel.

People who are NOT dissociated are ACTIVE and they CREATE THE WORLD THEY WANT because they know their own power.

Other Ways to Help

Besides educating ourselves on anti-racism and what that means in action and educating ourselves about the actual and true history of this country, we can and should help by handing our money to black artists and crafters beyond just the big names like Beyonce.

So here is a great list of black owned Etsy shops. Over one hundred of them!

Here’s a list of black American women fine artists. Do you know any of them?

And here’s a list of black American women writers. Have you read any of these? I have not…

This is a list of contemporary women of color poets.

Black contemporary choreographers (with internal links).

And this video under 2 minutes has my head full of ideas:

Online Embodiment Practices (BodyPoetics) for Summer Session One

TESTIMONIAL FROM A NEW STUDENT who does not “dance” and has never done work like this before:

Dance is not my thing. It’d be a stretch to say physicality is my thing (I once did so badly in step class that I laughed myself OUT of said class!) But what Christine does is not that and also - magically - so much more! Her class is movement and muscles. But it’s also energetic work and a safe space to bring my more difficult emotions for processing. Yes, we move but it’s almost secondary to the insights and the a-ha’s. I say “almost secondary” while also realizing it is the KEY component to getting to those realizations. Her class leaves me feeling more grounded and integrated. Every. Time. (Even and especially with the prompts I hate!) Like I said, I’m no dancer, but in Christine’s classes, under her wise and witnessing eye, I’m beginning to accept that maybe that old story about myself isn’t so true. Maybe dance is my thing, after all. (Deborah)

Summer Session One class registration is now OPEN!

LOCATION:  ONLINE so OPEN GLOBALLY (if you miss a class, you can ask me for a list of prompts and music)

TIME ZONE: I’m in the Eastern U.S. Time Zone. For those of you for whom that might not mean much, I’m in the same time zone as New York City.

PLEASE: Pay attention to the HOW of this written below. I am not your tech person; I am your embodiment guide.

ALSO NOTE: Classes, though online, START ON TIME. You can jump in late, but I won't be waiting.

GO HERE TO REGISTER

EMBODIMENT Exploration
MONDAYS, 5:30 to 6:40 PM
June 8, 15, 22, 29 and July 6, 13

COST: $80 for six weeks
Drop in: $20

EMBODIMENT Exploration classes take place on SKYPE. It's free and it's easy so get on there and find me at Christineserfozo@gmail.com THEN I will place you in a "group call." I use Skype so that we can see each other for these classes.

This work is a slow and meditative dive into your body to access its strength, resilience, and wisdom. I combine all of my studies of many forms of dance, Japanese Butoh, somatics therapy, trauma and the body, and so much more to guide you into another layer of self-knowing and self-expression.

No dance background necessary. No anything background necessary. Do you have a body? Then you're ready for this work. No certain TYPE of body necessary. No level of ability necessary.

If you can breathe, you can do this work and you can benefit from it.

Fascination Learns: To Be AntiRacist

This video is a genius piece of art. In the first bit, there is some extra hard to watch violence. But before you turn away and before you decide not to watch further, check in with your privilege, and then watch to learn.

This is a new series of writings, Fascinations. I’ll be looking at things that, well, fascinate me in various ways, and how those things then take me deeper into relationship with my own body and the body of landscape and community around me and finally deeper into relationship with the entirety of the earth body. Fascination is not always fun. True fascination should take us into very uncomfortable territories.

The world is not “getting worse.”

If you are a white American reading this, you’re just seeing the world more clearly than ever. It is what it has always been. Now it’s just on the steroid of social media so you can’t avoid it.

And if you’re not somehow actively participating to change things, then you remain part of the problem.

Is that harsh? Too bad.

When you do nothing to change systems that benefit you… I’m not going to try to make you feel okay about that.

Time to learn.

All of us.

NOW.

“Doing something to change the systems” can feel overwhelming, and we don’t want to just jump in to spaces that are not ours and do the usual Person of Privilege Crap. You know… take over, show “how it’s done,” stand in the spotlight.

First, your “doing something” has to be about learning.

So in that light, I’m here with some leads and lists.

This list is a great starter, full of articles, books, podcasts, websites, films.

This is a list of ACTIONS, including things like “decolonizing your bookshelf.” (I think back to actual FIGHTS I had with male teachers in my lit classes in college over the simple act of adding a WOMAN to their syllabus. My GOD… truly nothing has changed…)

Check out the online resources at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

And this is a deeper reading list created by the writer and scholar, Ibram X. Kendi.

Here’s a great very short video for dealing with stupid things people say — like “black on black crime” or “blue lives matter too.”

Don’t be overwhelmed. We can’t use that excuse anymore. Pick something and start.

Fascination Listens: The Music of Richard Skelton

This is a new series of writings, Fascinations. I’ll be looking at things that, well, fascinate me in various ways, and how those things then take me deeper into relationship with my own body and the body of landscape and community around me and finally deeper into relationship with the entirety of the earth body.

---

Once in a while, Spotify throws up some new music that makes me stop whatever it is that I’m doing or (most likely) typing while I have it playing in the background. If it makes me stop, it’s special.

It hasn’t happened like this for a while — where it makes me stop, I add some things to a list, and then… then I go even further, listening to whole albums straight through and even looking up the composer.

Richard Skelton is my new fascination musically, and after using some of his work in a class, I know he has the Shaman-Composer nature of Max Richter. I saw it change bodies and deepen body vocabulary right before my eyes.

After I read about him in this short piece here, it makes perfect sense.

He started to compose seriously when his wife died in 2004 as a way to process grief, and his work has been compared to some of the greatest minimalists, including some of our favorites: Arvo Part, Henryk Gorecki, Brian Eno.

I want to play with this 35 minute piece in class soon. And as I said to some students, if you simply put this piece on, sit on the ground and let yourself begin, by the end, you will have gotten somewhere.

If you are on Spotify, find me and follow along so that you don’t miss out on my new discoveries.

We Live in a Culture of Addiction & Dissociation and the Way Out is through the Body

We’ll start with a definition. Addiction is a coping mechanism/behavior that has negative consequences in your life.

Of course, part of the problem is that people don’t recognize negative consequences, in most cases, until they are severe or even life-threatening.

The old joke goes like this: A man jumps off a 30 story building and about halfway down he says, “SEE! This isn’t that bad!”

We live in a culture that encourages easy solutions, and you might be noticing it even more during this quarantine time — in yourself or even in your Facebook feed.

More drinking. More excuses for really poor eating even though it makes us feel like shit. More total days of nothing but bad TV.

We’re coping. But we’re not coping.

And even if we’re not engaging in an obvious addictive behavior, we’re dissociating from all the stress and the fear and the not-knowing and the discomfort.

We’re lying in bed paralyzed.

We’re going through motions but not noticing.

We’re barely reaching out.

We’re ignoring the terror in our belly and locking up all the things that we think we “can’t handle.”

Here’s the secret: We CAN.

But we have to be brave; we have to FEEL.

The true rebellion, the REAL REVOLUTION, would start from our bodies.

The true rebellion would be BEING IN THESE BODIES UNAPOLOGETICALLY. Which is the same fuckin' thing as BEING IN OUR LIVES UNAPOLOGETICALLY.

Which then allows space for all other humans to do the same.

THIS is how important it is that we do the work to not be a Walking/Talking HEAD in a Culture of Addiction & Dissociation.

FEEL. BE. DO. EXPAND.

FEEL. BE. DO. EXPAND.

FEEL. BE. DO. EXPAND.

People in their bodies and in their lives FULLY? They don’t accept a culture that says one life is worth more than another or a culture that puts economy over health and happiness.

They build something brand new and they don’t fear the work of it.

They accept nothing less of themselves or the structures around them.

To quote Toko-pa Turner:

“We think of rebellion as something we put to external service in the world: we become activists in protest of some wrongdoing, some injustice we must speak against. But I think there is a rebellion before the rebellion—a more intimate form of protest speaking from and for the devalued feminine.

The feminine has nothing to gain. She doesn’t vie for leverage. She doesn’t want to prove anything or achieve dominion. She does something infinitely more rebellious. She strips falsity and stirs up feeling in the anaesthetized heart. She awakens a kind of long memory throughout and beyond ages. She gives shape to the swelling and collapsing heart. That is all; but it is so much. Because when we sing with her voice, anyone who hears it remembers what they too have forgotten: that we are noble, and beholden to each other.

Rebellion is the pushback on that long-standing amnesia. Like nausea rejects a poisonous substance, rebellion wants to see what is beneath falsity. What is really enduring when all else is stripped away? What longing, if we undam it, might pound through our lives, bringing life to the dryness of an over-harvested creek bed within? What if there is a story coming through us which is trying to find its way into the world? If we can withstand the trials of exile, can we have the chance at turning that story into something that shows others that they aren’t alone?”

Morning Quickie: Online 20 Minute Christine-a-Lini Yoga for Peace & Energy, 2X a Week for June, Live or Recorded

One of my students dubbed the Kundalini Yoga I teach Christine-a-lini because it’s not my nature to stay in any one box. I like to mix things up. So this practice is based in Kundalini but I bring in all kinds of other movement and philosophies. You never know what you’ll get but you know it will be grounding AND energizing.

NOTE: this yoga can be done by ANY BODY. PERIOD. Because you can do it in a chair if that’s what works for you.

You’ll leave the class feeling like you can conquer anything but you’ll also feel a profound sense of settledness.

Who doesn’t need more of both of those things right now?!

WHAT YOU GET:
Access to TWO 20 minute practices a week, which you can watch live or you can watch the recording when you have time. It’s all up to you.

You can also REPEAT the material as much as you want. Each class will stay up in the group for the entire month and a bit beyond.

You also have access to ME. You can ask for help ANY TIME in the group.

HOW:
You have to be on Facebook.

You’ll be added to a “Morning Quickie Yoga” PRIVATE group.

TIME ZONE: I’m in the Eastern U.S. Time Zone. For those of you for whom that might not mean much, I’m in the same time zone as New York City.

ALSO NOTE: Classes, though online, START ON TIME. You can jump in late, but I won't be waiting.

COST: $55 for the entire month of June Tuesday and Thursdays:
Tuesdays: June 2, 9, 16, 23
Thursdays: June 4, 11, 18, 25

TIME for LIVE CLASS is 10:30AM

GO HERE TO REGISTER!

Disposability

When I say revolution begins in the body, I'm not using a metaphor.

Bodies in our predominately Judeo-Christian traditions are hated, seen as sin machines, but in our colonial capitalistic culture, they're also and further seen as disposable.

And there's, of course, a hierarchy of bodies in this disposable body world.

When we take back the body of self and the body of community, THAT is when real revolution has occurred.

But first we have to face a lot of hard truths and I thank Abi K Veld for making this piece of writing visible to me this morning. I don't even know what to share from it because it's WORTH YOUR TIME TO READ and then come back here and let me know what called you out most, what you need to dive into more, etc.

"the hardest part about processing this epidemic and how the social dialogue unfolds, and the thing i most hope people take with them if they just take one thing from this writing, is that if you carry a lot of unearned privilege and are therefore relatively free from oppression sickness (also called asthma, diabetes, addiction, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, hiv, etc, etc, etc) you will probably be fine if you get this thing...

...the “plandemic” bullshit comes in like this and convinces you of your righteousness, and of course it does: you want a way to have it not be your fault. you want to shirk privilege. you want to have your “spiritual but not religious” cake and eat it too. you want your mishmash of borrowed (oft stolen) traditions that you can practice on the weekend but in such a way that it never disrupts your social life or your participation in the economy. you want other oppressors to be at fault. you don’t want to be to blame for this."

READ the whole thing HERE. DO IT.