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.)

JoyBody and the values that underlie your embodiment intentions

Whether we’re wanting to create a deeper sense of embodiment or we want to move more and in different ways to experience the expression of this body, it can be a huge help to understand the values underneath your intended actions.

When we understand WHY, we’re less likely to give up on the what and how. When we understand and put the WHY first, we’re more willing to experiment and to see the what and how through a lens of curiosity and playfulness.

When we understand our WHY, we’re also less likely to get caught up in blame and shame or other people’s ideas about what we “should” be doing.

This is important stuff, to say the least, and I think most people don’t spend much, if any, time thinking about it or articulating it for themselves.

I’m going to talk about mine as an example:

Value one: physical strength and flexibility = mental health. The stronger I am physically, the stronger I am mentally. Period. They are inextricably linked.

Value two: creative expression. When I’m moving more, I get more creative with movement, sure, but I get more creative in every area of my life.

Value three: connection. When I’m moving more, I’m more deeply connected to myself and therefore have better connections to others, including healthier boundaries.

When I focus on those values instead of things like “I should exercise more,” then my movement time is more meaningful and I’m better at making the best choices for myself around movement and embodiment.

For example, if I focus on my values, I don’t give up but I also don’t punish myself or forget to nurture myself with appropriate rest, nutrition, and hydration.

Those values are in the driver’s seat.

You might notice, too, that these values are not things that are exclusive to movement but can be applied in every area of my life. That’s when we know we’re at the true core of things.

If you’ve never thought of it this way, just start to take a stab at it for yourself and I’ll help where I can. (Feel free to email, FB message, or write in the Sanctuary about this.)

JoyBody: The Efficacy of Tummy Circles

I’ve had this post in mind for months, but every time I go to write it, I get totally overwhelmed because I think that this topic is rather huge. Like, I could write a short book about tummy circles. They’re that important and that effective.

So today as you read this, imagine I’m just getting started, that this is the tip of the iceberg. Part of the iceberg that’s underwater is all the stories I could tell you about how students’ bodies (and minds and spirits) have changed over time doing tummy circles fairly consistently.

Fairly consistently means many times a week, but it doesn’t necessarily mean a LOT of time. I tell people that even just one minute in each direction will create changes. And that’s the truth.

(Side note: I’m having a bit of anxiety about this even now… I KNOW after I release this out into the world, that I’ll think of tons of things that I missed. AND if you, as a practitioner, think of anything I missed, please let me know!)

I’ll be looking at this from the perspective of three of your main bodies or sheaths: physical, emotional/mental, and spiritual/woo.

The Physical Stuff

To start, tummy circles do all kinds of magic to your physical body.

• Because we do the circles in sync with the breath, they make us immediately aware of how we’ve been breathing and what we need to do to improve our breathing.

• In a more abstract way but still powerfully physical, tummy circles immediately drop us into our bodies. There are days when they actually remind us that we freaking have bodies.

• They’re great for warming up as they create some heat in the torso and get the muscles ready.

• If you have tight hips, over time tummy circles will start to naturally relax and elongate all the muscles creating the tightness. This includes and also goes for your psoas muscles.

• If you’ve never met any of the muscles in your torso (i.e., your “abs”), tummy circles plus focused breath will eventually introduce you.

• They also rock when it comes to helping with healthy digesting. If you’re feeling like you’re in a phase of hyper-digestion (to put it nicely), then simply do them much slower with much more shallow breath.

• And of course, these are great for your spinal health and mobility. In Chinese medicine, they say your true age is equal to your spinal flexibility and strength.

The Emotional/Mental Stuff

How the heck do tummy circles affect our mind and feelings? Well…

• Doing this repetitive movement with the breath quickly clears the mind. Or helps us to notice how messy it actually is up there.

• They always put us in touch with what we’re feeling. This part is extra powerful when we are first starting to do them and when we’re going through something extra challenging and have to do a bit of compartmentalizing to get through our days.

• Tummy circles are a great and gentle emotional release valve.

• They bring us right into the now. This is a big part of their magicks.

The Spiritual/Woo Stuff

Tummy circles are simultaneously working on three energy centers/chakras. Well, more like four or… all of them. ((ha))

• First chakra: of course, tummy circles ground us. Connecting us to the energy of earth and self (and when done with others, kinda plugging us into the circle, if you will).

• Second charka: the motion of the tummy circles and the breath are like water, connecting us to our inherent creativity and stirring it up. (I often get ideas during tummy circles.)

• Third chakra: when done correctly, they stoke our inner fire… the fire of will and the fire into which we can throw whatever we no longer need. (You can even imagine throwing crap into that fire as you do these.)

• Fourth chakra: they start to generate energy upward into the heart center.

• Fiftth chakra: audible breath and the motion continue to pull the energy up and into our throats.

• Sixth charka: doing tummy circles with the eyes closed, then allows the energy to be pulled up into our third eye area, stimulating the pituitary and pineal glads because…

• Seventh chakra: finally the energy reaches our crown, driving upward and connecting us to all that is before finally dipping back down into the ground and starting all over again.

The energy of the tummy circles, then, creates a multitude of differently planed spirals. You can visualize yourself sitting in the center of all of that as it emanates out from you in every direction and then gets fed back into you.

Like I said, powerful stuff.

And they are no less powerful if you do them in a chair. Over time, I would encourage you to slowly work your way toward the floor but in the meantime, the chair version is just as good.

The idea, as always, is to do old things in new ways… finding little bits of change to experiment with and to observe.

If you’re not seeing the videos in your email, here is the first and the second.

JoyMusic: For Sinead

It is hard to lose our heroes.

When I got the news that David Bowie had died, I had a powerful and immediate somatic response to that news. I started to shake. It surprised me. I would never have guessed that I’d respond in that way.

Bowie… He’d been in my life for so long. Since I was a very young teen. Since Labyrinth and Let’s Dance. And over the past few years before his death, I had taken a deep dive into his entire catalogue. It was practically the only water I was swimming in when I wasn’t teaching and using other sorts of music.

At one point when Craig and I were very first dating, we were in my car so Bowie was playing. As always. And he finally said, Um… could we listen to something else? We did but as soon as he wasn’t in the car, I changed it back. Over time, I got a little less obsessed but he still remains profoundly important to me. As I sit here writing, there’s a print of his many faces right above my computer.

But Sinead…

When I saw the news she had died, I just went numb. No response. I’m still a bit in that place. It feels unreal and simultaneously, somehow, awfully… inevitable.

I do not remember the moment Sinead entered my life. She felt like air… like she’d always been there until I started to consciously breathe in this life and finally noticed that she’d always been there.

All through college, she was there. I dreamed of shaving my head one day, as I’m sure so many did. It said so much … I will not be what you want and need me to be. I will just be ME.

I finally spent two years with a shaved head, as many of you know, and the second all of my hair was off, I looked in the mirror at the stylist’s and said, “Oh! THERE I AM!”

Last night at the end of class, we played and moved to Mandinka. I couldn’t really move. But I wasn’t really feeling much.

One thing I have been able to do is sing. Which is another thing that has taken me completely by surprise.

When I first started singing lessons and even as recent as a month ago, I tried some of her songs but couldn’t get there.

Yesterday, I put this on and something inside my energetic throat just OPENED.

I’m rambling a bit…

Because I still have not been able to find words. So much of Sinead reflects Gen X back to itself.

The seeking. The anger. The need for something more. The need for the world to just be different… better.

The sense of something being lost and we don’t know what it is so we certainly can’t find it.

The need … the primal need … to be heard and to be seen for ourselves.

Sinead was no victim. There are too many narratives about her being constructed that way. She was powerful and inner directed and fierce. She lived her beliefs. She tried, oh, how she tried.

Right now, the thing I think I can do in honor of her is to keep on with that trying. To not allow my despair to make me incapable of action. To believe with all my soul and self that better is possible. To keep going… no matter what.

And here’s another favorite.

JoyList: Interesting research and other schtuff

I have a bunch of tabs open with research so here we go…

FIRST I will start with a request: any time you come across any kind of research or anything interesting about the body and movement, can you please email me a link? THANK YOU!

They’ve created vibrating haptic suits for deaf people to experience music on a new level, but I also want to try these! How amazing.

You know how I feel about the word exercise, but this article is certainly worth a read. Replace “exercise” with movement or play, and I think it makes the findings even more DUH. And I sure love the name they’ve given myokines — “hope molecules.” Perfect.

This study shows even more clearly that muscle weakness as we age is associated with all cause mortality. And they observed 1200 individuals over an 8 to 10 year period.

Remember that to get really strong you don’t need weights. You just need to use your own body weight really well, considering alignment, mobility, and chageability of task. (Which is a lot of what floor work is about in Peony Method classes.)

And this study looked at 80,000 people (yep… 80,000) and it shows that strength training is more effective than cardio in terms of cancer prevention.

If you’re not yet clear on this, the new Barbie film is not just some fluff piece but rather a strong feminist film. So maybe, if you’re thinking NAH…, consider going. In the meantime, the music lists are super fun. Here’s one.

An 11 minute butoh video that is recent. I think if you just jump around in this randomly, you’ll come upon some idea to work with in your own body.

This article about the neuroscience of dance is filled with links to other studies. This is a field that is not new to me and my students, but it’s finally getting the serious research it deserves.

Joy and Grief Live Side by Side in Memory

We had a beautiful wedding to attend this past Saturday in Erie, and I also made sure that our schedule allowed for a couple of hours at the beach, rather than the five minutes that that important part of myself usually gets allotted.

Craig went running with his brother, and so I had about 45 minutes of that time just for me, my iced latte, chocolate croissant, and a bit of journaling and reading.

I started to read a Virginia Woolf I’ve somehow not read (Between the Acts), and the morning was perfection. There’s something about me and Woolf and water. When I first moved to Chicago for grad school at the age of 23, I sat on the edge of that lake and read Mrs. Dalloway and that memory will forever beckon me.

That memory will forever beckon me… That sentence is filled with nostalgia and sentimentality and joy and grief, isn’t it?

When we left Erie, I, as usual, felt a mixture of sadness and anger. I love that lake and am linked to it forever. And yet that town, that small city, does not seem to be able to recover itself from its identity of “GE town,” and I fear that that inability to move on will be its death. Every time we go home, it seems a little more critical in terms of its health.

Remember I lived in the actual CITY — not out in some suburb — for well over 20 years. I lived in a realm of hope that turned into delusion that turned into bitterness, until I realized that I was becoming some sort of toxic version of myself and needed to move on… needed to MOVE, period. I could no longer tolerate the constant talk of “any day now” for which there was never any real evidence. (Entrenched politicians are greatly to blame for what’s happening in Erie but that’s another blog post and not my point here.)

I was born on the edge of the bay in the old Hamot Hospital.

We soon moved away and then moved back. My entire childhood would be a series of moving away and returning, over and over, as my father pursued higher and higher education.

Every time we moved away, we knew it was temporary. We would lament not being in Erie. We would look forward to the year or month or day that we got to move back.

In every school I went to in all the different places we lived, I would be that little girl, red in the face, defending her beloved home against the taunts of “dreary Erie, the mistake on the lake.”

The ache for a return to Erie was born and bred into me.

I myself have tried to move away a few times, and each time, like some migrating bird, I end up back there, unable to resist the pull… the very magnetism of that lake, my true north.

But this time is different.

We are in Columbus, and though I love it here and I love our house, this too might not be permanent. I don’t think I can live the rest of my life without big water, but I will not return to Erie.

We will find a place to put roots that has big water but that does not break my heart with its stilted ways and cliquey groups of humans that seem to be stuck in high school concepts of relationship. (I think that’s an inevitable sort of outcome in a very small city where people can’t let go of the ideas that they have of others from when they were teenagers.)

Where we are right now is growing, and that matters… An environment of growth and change that is future oriented allows for humans to grow and change and evolve into new and exciting versions of themselves.

But with all of the good of this place, it is not the place to which I am tethered. The sense of tugging can be very subtle most days and other days it’s quite painful. Visiting Erie brings all of this up for me every single time, and for many days after, the pain of the loss returns full force.

Home is where the heart is and yet sometimes home is where there is too much pain so we must do our best and find new, fertile ground (and water) that allows our hearts to heal and expand.

Not Joy: a brief time at the hospital

Sunday morning I woke up feeling perfectly normal. I was lying in bed with Begonia and my phone and just lazing, when suddenly I was in more pain than I’ve ever experienced in my life. Eventually, we ended up at the ER. Eventually, I got serious pain meds, and eventually, we learned it was a kidney stone. They kept me over night for pain management (because it was that bad). By that evening, though, it was subsiding, and by the next morning’s 2nd CT, they could see it had shrunk a bit, so now I’m at home with some meds and basically waiting for this to be done.

Spending 30 hours in the hospital was not something I saw coming. And I’m still reeling a bit from how FAST something like that can happen. You know it intellectually and maybe you’ve experienced it via a loved one, but until it happens in your own body, it’s still very… abstract.

I’m thinking a lot about people who have to spend longer in the hospital; I’m thinking about people who are constantly battling a day to day chronic disease or illness that includes severe pain, which means exhaustion; I’m thinking about these bodies and how very fragile we all really are.

I wanted to share some things I observed at the hospital about medical care and myself:

Firstly, we often only hear about how horrible medical care is now. How there are too few good nurses and docs. But the hospital I went to was amazing, and I had a string of nurses and doctors that were compassionate, listened well, and just made me feel really well taken care of.

Secondly, something I noticed about myself… even in the midst of having extreme pain, I was worried about what was happening with other people around me. What?! People pleasing is deeply engrained and it kept taking me by surprise throughout this whole experience.

And finally, as we were leaving, I said to Craig, “No food tastes better than staying out of the hospital…”

I had been reading about kidney stones, and how once you have one, you’re more likely to have more. But the reason? Because only about 40% of people follow doctor’s orders or change their diets after that first one.

It reminds me of another stat: that after a heart attack, only ONE IN SEVEN people make changes that would help.

Surprises can happen. Shit happens. But there’s a space in all of this where we can make a difference for ourselves. It might be that what we do can only bring a bit of energy and comfort because whatever’s wrong isn’t going anywhere, but if we’re lucky, things we do can actually decrease our chances of these shitty surprises and even increase our health.

By “health” I mean our vitality… our ability to fully engage in our lives.

So yeah… there’s no food I wouldn’t get rid of or add in order to avoid a kidney stone again. And there’s no way I’m skipping out on movement because movement always matters; it keeps things flowing… literally.

I’m exhausted from the pain and the big time narcotics they (thankfully) pushed into my system, but I’m resting and then GAME ON. Again.

JoyMusic: Something to move to and something to sing with

Last week, at some point, I shared about a list of women only artists that I made on Spotify. I embedded the player. Which was cool. Until it didn’t show up in the email version of this that a lot of you are reading. GRRR! So here’s the list. Just click. From now on, I’ll embed (cause cool) AND share a link the old school way.

A student/friend (Linda Soto for those of you who know her) sent me this song the other day and it was an instant love. SO FUN.

My favorite song for vocal warmup right now is this older Peter Gabriel (and my warmups are usually him… he gets everything going with putting strain).

I would LOVE to hear what is really moving YOU right now! You know I am always looking for new stuff.