If you REALLY believe mind and body are one: the #IamaBagofChemicals free monthlong challenge

Eleven years ago, I started to dance again, and it changed my entire life. In about six to 9 months it changed EVERYTHING.

After suffering from chronic, absolutely debilitating, and life-threatening depression cycles for over a decade, I suddenly was… not. The second I started to dance, this started to happen.

I was made to dance. We all are. But it was my extra special something. Yours might be hiking or cycling. Whatever it is, if it’s meant to save your brain from itself, it also will often look rather vigorous. 

I was committed once I felt the results, and I worked hard every single day because that’s what it took for me not to hate life to the point of not wanting to live.

Two to 3 hours of vigorous a day was my goal. 

No meds. They’d been awful to me at the onset and I never looked back (until recently but that’s another story).

Just hard work. Harder than most people want it to be, truth be told.

As I was doing this ALL FOR MY BRAIN, my body started to change. Duh.

In that 6 to 9 month period, I dropped about 5 sizes. Yep. That’s what the picture is for. This photo was taken 4 years ago. Around the time I met my now husband. 

By that point in my journey, I was downright HAPPY.

I was FITTER than I’d ever been but more importantly I felt ALIVE and CREATIVE in my body. I felt connected. I felt openhearted.

I felt more human than I ever thought possible.

I felt JOYFUL.

Fast-forward from that photo to about 2 years ago when I was thrown into a serious existential depression about life’s meaning and purpose following a complex set of circumstances including my father having a horrible stroke.

I stopped moving.

My mind got sluggish.

The chemicals started to work against me again.

And as was inevitable, my body started to change.

When it changed the first time around, it was a side effect of doing what needed to be done for my brain.

This time around, it was a side effect of NOT doing what needed to be done for my brain.

See that?

I’ve NEVER EVER used dance to “lose weight” or to “get strong physically” or any other reason totally about the body and aesthetics.

I move because it is a human imperative to move. It’s written into our genes. It’s the action of our entire selves right now to the cells themselves.

If you think you’re happy right now, for example, but you’re NOT moving, I guarantee there are happiness planes you’ve never seen before.

We are built to MOVE.

Period.

Our brain chemistry, our hearts, our lymph systems and on and on… none of it works OPTIMALLY if we aren’t moving. EVERY. DAY.

THIS is the mind body spirit connection that people love to babble on about.

But it’s much more real and more concrete than most like to admit. The spiritual wellness community loves to talk about this in the abstract.

No abstractions here.

MOVE or don’t be the YOU you were BUILT to be.

So for the month of July, every day, I’ll be running a free challenge to help you CHANGE YOUR BRAIN.

YOU are a BAG OF CHEMICALS and in one month, you can experience that like you never have before.

But it’s HARD.

So I need support to get going again. I’ve started a BIT but I need BIG.

If you ask, I’ll add you to a PRIVATE CLOSED Facebook group, where I’ll start two conversation threads a day: one where we can share wins/successes with words, photos, videos and another where we can share challenges/issues with the same.

I’m not there to teach you. I’m there to be in circle with you as we do this together.

I’m HERE on Facebook. Friend me first and then let me know you wanna work in this lab with me and others.

ABC Morning Quickie Yoga Online (Live or Recorded): Awaken & Balance the Chakra Energy Centers

I’m super excited about this SEVEN WEEK/JULY AUGUST yoga session.

ABC YOGA: Awaken and Balance the Chakra Energy Centers will take you on a journey through the different layers of YOU!

Each chakra is a metaphorical and physical space ruled by psychological and physiological realities and we’ll be diving into ALL of that.

Each chakra corresponds to an emotional need AND to an actual glandular activity.

We’ll use breath, movement, and meditation to work on each chakra, one at a time, each week.

By Tuesday morning, I’ll also be posting some questions/ideas around that chakra in our private group. You could use these for journaling for the week or you could just hold the questions/ideas in your mind as we explore that week’s yoga.

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.

MUSIC will be provided in the group prior to the class via Spotify and YouTube lists.

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: $77 for the Seven Weeks
Tuesdays: July 14, 21, 28 and August 4, 11, 18, 25
Thursdays: July 16, 23, 30 and August 6, 13, 20, 27

TIME for LIVE CLASS is 10:30AM

CLICK HERE TO REGISTER

TESTIMONIALS:

For me it is an excellent introduction while still presenting a challenge in the work presented. I have done yoga but not Kundalini before. The class also models how to work towards a daily practice within a doable daily time window. And the themes are a combination of physical and emotional/spiritual which works well in the integrated approach I am trying to take with my daily practices. (JW)

Kundalini yoga isn't, I believe, what most people think of as yoga. There's more effort in many of the moves, which I like a lot; I feel like I've actually MOVED. I learned several practices that I will be incorporating into my life because they address specific physical issues that I've been wrangling for a while. (GJ)

Change is Coming

I’ll be recreating my one on one offerings in the near future, and I have to alert you — if you’ve been putting this off, I will be raising the rates on one on one work. It is life changing. The results and the current rates do NOT match. This will happen in about a month, as a heads up.

You can sign up and take advantage of the old rates by clicking here. I will work with you to schedule our times together to make this as easy as possible.

From a long time student, when I asked her to talk about what it’s like to do this work:

”It’s really difficult to encapsulate one-on-one work with Christine into just a few sentences, because the work is so deep. I am a person who gets caught up in my brain, trying to think my way through things…instead of just breathing them, letting body be.

Working with the body helps me find what I just can’t express in words…or rather, what I just can’t think through, or resolve with thinking. Things trapped, and trapped without me even realizing. It helps me release the hold of those stories that have accumulated on top of my truth, keeping me from remembering myself.

I can’t do that with my brain. I’ve tried for decades, and it just hasn’t worked. We are so disconnected from our bodies. Our current culture encourages this disconnect. I know this intellectually. Yet – there is discomfort in reconnecting. I tend to avoid it.

Christine provides a safe and compassionate space for this difficult work. She is observant… she doesn’t apply a formula to me. Rather she listens, and watches, and draws from a breadth of training and experience in a multitude of somatic therapies to truly individualize the experience. She’s not trying to fit me into a mold, a pre-set recipe for healing. Rather, she observes and then prompts to draw out what is already in me – often able to look through my layers of ick, and see the truth that is in me that I have forgotten.

But…the ick needs dealt with. And that’s the hard work. The uncomfortable work. Sometimes it makes me mad. I don’t like it. Discomfort. But…. I always get to the other side of it. And I am supported in it. And realize I am okay. And that’s the difference in this work with the body, versus talk therapies. I’ve done talk therapy a lot, which rehashes trauma without ever moving it through the body. I can’t think my way through these things. I have not let body care for me through these things… our original knowing.

With knowledge and experience, Christine guides me back to this original knowing; the trust of my body that I have lost. It’s in trusting the body that we find freedom. It’s not easy work. But it’s worth it."

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.