Believe

This year I received multiple cards that featured the classic animal rivals, dog, cat and mouse, as all living in harmony.  One was a card I got from my Dad (pictured below); the other was an interactive email card I got from a client where you help these animals build a snowman.

It may very well be that these cards appear every year around the holidays or that animals working together is just a general theme of cards in general. I'm not saying that it is not. But this is the first time I have noticed it and can't help but feel that now more than ever there is this message that we all ned to put down our predatory instincts and just get along.  We need to believe it can happen or else get swallowed in our own fear or someone else's.

---

Note: This is how studying years of literature can affect one's perception of life as it presents itself.

Proof

Maybe instead I should title this post, "Poof!" because that was what it seemed like.

So, it's been a slow month business wise.  I hear I am not the only one, but I also know people that are thriving and so I refuse to get stuck in, "It's the economy..."  Maybe it is partly, but its also me.

I hadn't had bodywork in months, which was ridiculous because I work in the same building with therapists I trade with and had multiple credits with them.  I even had a few gentle nudges to complete the trades because they were ready for more bodywork.  But something was holding me back.

My rationale was that I didn't want to schedule something at a time that a client may then want...sounded reasonable.  Last week I finally got worked on by one of my trade buddies and expressed this to her and she immediately set me straight.

"No, you've got it backwards.  If you take the time out of your schedule to get worked on, then your clients will take time out of their schedule to get worked on.  And they will schedule around your sessions."

Oh yes, that makes since.  If I am not taking out time to get worked on (and when business is slow it is not like I don't have the time), then how do I expect my clients to do the same.

So that night, in a very determined fashion, I scheduled my remaining bodywork credits.  Within a few hours I had a new client on my books for that week. The next day I heard from a few returning clients and had more business call than I had had in a week.

Poof!

Jus' sayin...

Strategizing

I'm starting to get real serious about utilizing the internet for its full networking potential.  I'm posting more frequently on Facebook, started my LinkedIn profile, and even begun tweeting.  And I am not allowing myself to begrudge any of it (at least, not for consecutive moments).  I've started realizing that I better change my attitude if I want to keep my job.

An advertising professor friend of mine sat with me last week and gave me a list of questions to help me better understand how to create a campaign.  I already have a structure to work from but since I branched out a lot this year, creating three distinct companies under the Upward Spiral umbrella (see sidebar links), it was definitely time to regroup and strategize.

In a conversation with another friend of mine probably 6 months ago I was given some great insight into my business that is providing great inspiration for questions like, "What do I stand for?" or "What makes me stand out?" My friend explained to me that I'm not selling bodywork, or healing, or anything like that. I'm selling positivity. People come to see me because they want to feel good, because I help them believe that they can get better.

Since I started this business in 2009, my slogan has been: Embody Your Potential.  I say that I help others be more of who they really are.  But now I see that it is also about learning what we are capable of.  One of the reasons I decided on the name Upward Spiral is because the acronym is US.  I firmly believe that my work helping others to become more is directly related to myself becoming more.  I want my business to be a source of personal growth more me as well.  So far, it has.

And I guess while I am exploring all I am capable of, I might as well pursue my potential at online marketing.

The Game

I follow Seth's Blog and though I don't always read it, I did yesterday.  The title was, "Four stages of the game," and he writes:

• You don't even realize there's a game. (And any contest, market, project or engagement is at some level a game).
• You start getting involved and it feels like a matter of life or death. Every slight cuts deeply, every win feels permanent. "This is the most important meeting of my life..."
• You realize that it's a game and you play it with strategy. There's enough remove for you to realize that winning is important but that continuing to play is more important than that. And playing well is most important.
• You get bored with the game, because you've seen it before. Sometimes people at this stage quit, other times they sabotage their work merely to make the game feel the way it used to.
• And then a new, different game begins.

I love how it is titled "Four stages..." and he has 5 things listed. This connotes the cyclical nature of the game, similarly as explained by explained by Alan Watts in "Game of Black-and-White":

I have this saying, which was surely said by someone else before:

When we are all one, we've all won (the game, that is).  Remember, you must be present to win. 

The Example of Monks

I thought I would close out November with a poem I discovered this month. Oh how I love Billy Collins and his sense of sacred in the everyday.  I feel so light and unconcerned by the end of the poem that the weight of the ending almost goes unnoticed. 

November

 

After three days of steady rain -
over two inches said the radio -
I follow the example of monks
who write by a window, sunlight on the page.

 

Five times this morning,
I loaded a wheelbarrow with wood
and steered it down the hill to the house,
and later I will cut down the dead garden

 

with a clippers and haul the soft pulp
to a grave in the woods,
but now there is only
my sunny page which is like a poem

 

I am covering with another poem
and the dog asleep on the tiles,
her head in her paws,
her hind legs played out like a frog.

 

How foolish it is to long for childhood,
to want to run in circles in the yard again,
arms outstretched,
pretending to be an airplane.

 

How senseless to dread whatever lies before us
when, night and day, the boats,
strong as horses in the wind,
come and go,

 

bringing in the tiny infants
and carrying away the bodies of the dead.

 

-Billy Collins

Live Your Life

A few weeks ago I was driving home listening to the radio and was reminded why I love interviews so much.

This episode of Fresh Air with Terry Gross features Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things Are and many others, and is one of the best radio moments I have heard. The 20 minute interview brings out the ancient wisdom within Sendak as he discusses his life and work. Much of it focuses on his relationships with others. His lover who's crossed over, and more recently, two close friends. He has aged as well and reflects on this experience with awe and delight mixed with deep grief.

At least listen to the last few minutes. There is the purest exchange between Terry and Maurice in which their sincere friendship and love for each other rises up. I could feel it, could you?

Listen Here.

Succinct

A good friend told me that other night that I need to shorten my blog posts; I think he's right.

While I figure out how to make a point with fewer words (you'd think this would be easy for a poet), I will offer this online version of Shel Silverstein's The Missing Piece and the Big O.

http://osorhan.com/bigo/index.php

As my friend who sent me this link said, "This says it all."

On the Other Side

In the workshop we offered on September 10, Embracing the Other,  I was explaining what I mean by "othering" - essentially, the tendency to see that which is outside yourself as absolutely distinctly different and separate from you.  This particular habit we have is completely understandable, and on its own is not a bad thing. It just is.

The problem is, I believe, this perspective on its own can lead to some serious violence. I'd be willing to bet this is at the core of all violence. If and in those moments when we are able to consider the other side of the truth that all (for real, ALL) those others out there are also extensions of ourself in different forms, then how could we harm them? Well, I guess the other side of that truth is, in the individual sense of self, we all in different ways harm ourselves.  Look at this great situation we've created for ourself. (I have been listening to Alan Watts, The Book, can you tell?)

So, I recently posted about how 9/11 actually had a lot to do with why I became a massage therapist. Beyond that, the memories of being in New York only months after this event with a bunch of massage and aromatherapists who were dispersing all they could from their hands and their hearts still strike me with their sacredness.  I don't think I realized it then, but we were warriors of the spirit. We were light bearers in the City that Never Sleeps darkest nightmare.  As a 17-year-old, this made a permanent impression on my spirit.  Not only have I pursued bodywork as a profession, but I am keenly aware of the relationship between trauma and our bodies and committed to helping others release and move forward.

I was flooded by memories of this experience after I watched a slideshow we made after our trips to NYC.  Check it out if you like:

UAEvideo

More PowerPoint presentations from sylla

I know I am not the only one who's life was permanently affected in a positive way from this event.  There are thousands of these stories.  This is the other side of the pain of the event. It is how the game works.

So, in the workshop, I was also explaining how othering occurs on both small and large scales. I believe 9/11 to be the impetus for the past 10 years of national othering. I also believe that by becoming more aware of our tendency to close ourselves to others is the first step towards healing the space between us.  It starts right here.

Embracing this Moment

This weekend we held the first offering of the workshop, Embracing the Other, which incorporated partner yoga and writing in the exploration of the boundaries of self and other. I can't speak for anyone's experience but my own, but it appeared that the workshop was a positive experience for the attendees. What I love about creating and presenting these workshops is that it tricks me into becoming more aware of my own othering, even if it becomes a bit uncomfortable. Fear of miscommunication, fear of fruitless efforts, fear of my own darkness emerge and I meet them, get to know their face and mannerisms and maybe even gain some insight as to why they are the way they are. 

I have started to see just a little bit more how even the grandest fears are a product of the one side-sided view of things as "this and that" (dualism).  Though distinction is natural and necessary...it's not the whole story.  

Perceiving the self in the other can be quite tricky, but not impossible. When we can embrace what's right in front of us, what's been placed in our bowl*, is when we invite for just one moment to let the lines dissolve.  

*I've been reading Sue Bender's Everyday Sacred.  Simple and Inspiring. 

Babies.

The past few months I have had some quite amazing lessons in birth, with the babies as my teachers. It hard to describe the preparation that goes into an event that by nature is completely out of everyone's control, including the woman whose body is going through the transformation.  The only way to learn to be helpful in the process is to be there a few times. So I am working on that. 

My first was Micah.  Though she was on the later side of 41 weeks, she came right on time, a few days after I experienced my first death.  She ended up being born just a few hours into Easter. She knew.  

I was actually thankful that she waited a few days after we found out my uncle had passed; I had just enough time to recuperate for the long and late Saturday.  Though the birth was planned to be at home, an ultrasound the day before indicated a dissolving placenta and staying at the hospital was necessary.  They tried a topical medication to start dilation of the cervix on Friday and continued with a manual, balloon type of method called a foley bulb in the afternoon on Saturday.  I had showed up Saturday morning, all ready for my first birth experience, and found this whole induction thing to be a very slow to start process, something I was happy about.  I figure it is better to let mom and baby ease into labor, rather than speed up the process.  But it was a lot of waiting.

There was the fear that once we were in the hospital, it wold turn into one of those experiences where a "cascade of interventions" creates a traumatic birth experience for mom and baby. But that's not what happened at all.  Once I got to the hospital I could see how comfortable the mom was.  She had a room overlooking the water (we were at TGH) and had already built rapport with her nurses; she was ready to move forward with the hospital experience.  

It was a tiring day of waiting.  I ended up leaving in the late afternoon for a little bit to rest up and see some family that had come into town to grieve our sudden loss of my uncle.  I remember holding my baby cousin Devin and getting a phone call from J, Micah's mom, saying, "If you could transport yourself here, that would be great!" They had just started her pitocin and the contractions got strong.  Not too long after she called to let me know she was getting the epidural and gave me the option to rest at home for a little while until she was closer.  

So I did. And just the time I was getting up to call her, she called me and said, "I'm 10 cm, they broke my water, want to be here when I have my baby?!" I got my things together and was out the door.  

I got in around 11:30pm.  She was laying on her left side, doing what they called "laboring down," allowing the contractions to move her baby farther down the birth canal. Only a dim light was on. Her mother was at her head, holding her hand and stroking her hair. I was behind her rubbing her back.  We were probably like this for an hour or so, just being with her while she experienced the contractions and her last bit of time in labor.  Around 12:30pm, the nurse came to tick her and said, "We can see the head."  That's when everyone came in. 

The setup seems like such a blur.  Several medical teams rushed in, NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) nurses set up the baby station, the mother's doctor as well as an assistant and supervisor, as well as several other nurses were in place in minutes. Stirupps pulled up. Lights positioned from the ceiling.  Suddenly mom was exposed and instructed on how to push during her next contraction. She was ready. 

It never occurred to me until I saw it happening that pushing is a process.  Even though I have heard about mom's who've "pushed for an hour" or any other length of time, I never really knew that meant that the baby's head could be both inside and outside of the mother's body for minutes or longer. 

I would hold onto her right leg while she pushed, then allow it to rest in the stirrup and tell her what a great job she was doing and that she was so close.  It took about ten pushes or so to get the head out completely. Each time it would emerge a little more, then retreat back in slightly once the contraction was over. With that final push of baby and fluid, Micah turned to her right as she came out and I saw her open her eyes for the first time. What a magical moment, making all the energy of being present and available infinitely worth it. 

A minute or two later we heard the sound of her little cry and mom just laid her head back and said, "Thank you."  That's all she was waiting for.  

I had been working for this mother for months, discussing all the possibilities of what we might do during labor, how it might go, etc. This was the perfect experience to show me that, it never goes like that, and yet, all the work we did together was necessary. 

I don't know anything else in life like this.  But then I also think, what happens when we approach each moment like this?  What happens when we joyfully do our work knowing we may have to change plans at any moment?  There is great wisdom in this approach.  Every moment is subject to change. Babies know how to live, indeed. 

Too Much

I've been having a struggle lately. Okay, well, it's the same struggle as always but it just seems a bit amplified right now.  The struggle is between doing what I know is best for my body, or doing what I desire. Exercise or keep sleeping?  Fruit or pancakes? Salad or cheeseburger? Vacation has produced in me the illusion that I can live my life choosing that which I desire at anytime. As I become aware of this illusion, I am reminded that there is a principle in the spiritual traditions I studied, which takes care of all this. Oh yeah. Discipline.

The first step in changing patterns is recognizing them. I got that one down. So the doing something about it is next. Last night as I fixed a decent meal for myself and began the motions to check out Netlix for what I could watch while I ate.  Even though the desire to tune out was there, I realized that I didn't have to disconnect.  I realized that I had a choice.  How liberating. I had gotten in the habit of watching things at night the past week or so and I felt it was time to really eat my food instead of let it accompany my vegging out.  Time to reintroduce mindful eating.  My local independent radio station, WMNF, was was airing a show focused on the Beatles. I realized I was really enjoying the music so I decided just to keep that going while I ate my dinner.  As soon as I made this decision, the song "It's All Too Much" came on.  As I wrote in a previous post, this song has already played a role in my connection to...ultimate reality. I was immediately thankful I let the radio keep playing.

While listening to this song, I started to think about how I felt that some divine force was communicating to me right then. I don't know how other people experience this but I am someone who pays attention to "signs." The song ends just as I turn into a parking spot, the radio or tv says a random word or phrase that I just said or thought, or as I pick up the phone the friend I was calling is calling me. I feel so affirmed when these things happen.  So when I heard "It's All Too Much" I felt like God or whatever was saying, "Hey, you are making good choices and I support you."

But I have also been watching documentaries about quantum physics lately.  And they make a lot of sense.  However, the concept of a personal god doesn't really hold up in this paradigm.  In quantum physics, or at least my limited version of it, we are all God.  We are all constantly choosing our realities, and I am starting to doubt that any separate entity exists. We are all in this together.

Then I realize something important.  When I think about these ideas my mind expands, sometimes to maximum capacity.  It is difficult to think that we are all designing the reality we share and there is not mass chaos or an omniscient god we all must answer to.  My belief is that we sometimes have to conceptualize a personal God to get around the mental gymnastics (to use a phrase I recently heard from Cole Bellamy).  It's all too much to think about.

My conclusion: It's okay.  I like the idea of a personal god, and it's a natural response to lofty ideas.  It works for me, but I can see that it's not the whole story.

I feel this is what George Harrison might have been getting at in his song. Here are the lyrics:

It's all too much, It's all too much 

When I look into your eyes, your love is there for me
And the more I go inside, the more there is to see 

It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around you
Everywhere, it's what you make
For us to take, it's all too much 

Floating down the stream of time, of life to life with me
Makes no difference where you are or where you'd like to be 

It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around here
All the world's a birthday cake,
So take a piece but not too much 

Set me on a silver sun, for I know that I'm free
Show me that I'm everywhere, and get me home for tea 

It's all to much for me to see
A love that's shining all around here
The more I am, the less I know
And what I do is all too much 

It's all too much for me to take
The love that's shining all around you
Everywhere, it's what you make
For us to take, it's all too much 

It's too much.....It's too much 

New River

This past week I have been gone to North Carolina to bring home my uncle D.  The weekend we spent at D's friend's home in the mountains was such an incredible healing experience that I want to share it. But I know no one else will know, really, how incredible it was, and thus, here is a continuous dilemma I have had for years. I wrote an undergraduate thesis about it. There I called it "Religious Experience" but that will get me on my semantics soapbox and I don't want to go there right now. 

Except to say this: To me, there was this palpable, unspoken, spiritual-ness to the weekend. There we were, in the mountains at this beautiful house that was tucked into the valley and surrounded by christmas trees. Just us, the wind, and the trees. The premise of this meeting was to send my Uncle D on his way down the New River. He passed back in March but we still had not fulfilled his request to be placed in running water. So I traveled with my mom and met with family and friends for a celebration. We shared songs and food, wisdom and wine, and all around had a good time.  Then on Saturday afternoon we caravanned down to New River with D's ashes.  There, again we all sat together and shared stories, writings, songs, memories. We opened with a reading of the Turtle Totem and closed out the sharing with this song about the New River by the son of my uncle's friend who graciously welcomed us into his home. 

The song was written over a year ago but it was so perfect. We then walked over to the river and got in it. The rocks were slippery but we all steadied each other and one-by-one we each let go of a handful into the water and said our goodbyes.  Even one of my uncle's friends, who needed to stand by the banks due to wearing prosthetics, was brought the bag by his wife.  At the end, my mom and Uncle D's daughter emptied the bag.  Just as we were done, 6 beautiful women in bikini's approached the bank. My uncle's friend started to tell them what we were doing and realized D must have set this up, because he would have loved it! 

Once we got back to the house there was a clear change in the energy. It was lighter. Everyone wasn't crying after someone would play a song. That closure that was necessary had occurred.  I heard someone say on the radio years ago that we forget that the funeral isn't for the dead, it's for the living.  I think it is true.  

It was so beautiful to see this celebration unfold because we didn't have any formal plans.  It just evolved as it needed to and when we look back we can see that it is just as D would have wanted it.  Friends and family reunited, hard workers relaxed, artists inspired.  Everyone healing. Not just from D's passing but from lots of things. It's kinda like once you open up the healing space, it all can emerge at once. 

Even myself.  A long and difficult phone conversation with my significant other that weekend turned into the perfect foundation for a wonderful getaway. Following the Memorial Mountain Weekend, we met up in Asheville and visited this place, Mountain Light Sanctuary for a night. A most amazing night. We spent the night next to the bubbling creek and got to listen to the music all the time. The property is right next to a hiking trail so we spent the afternoon exploring. He took my off the path to walk or crawl up the creek, finding the places where the water picks up splashing on rocks and moss.  I started to wonder where all this water comes from.  He told me that rivers are essentially all the rain that the higher elevation gets. It rolls down through tributaries and such until it comes together. 

So now I can see how this works as a metaphor for our beliefs of the unseen. We don't know what is true in terms of Ultimate Reality, but we all think we want to know. I will propose that when we can put down our own particulars, get in the flow of just being who we are, and be present for others, we can create a new river in which to float down together. How many times have I heard, "They all mean the same thing"? Why do we still struggle with this?

I decided to write my own poem about New River and for Uncle D. Here it is:

New River

I will wade in the New River

and let your ashes drift out my hand. 

This land knows you and you know me

and I am so glad to set you free. 

I will see you at the New River

the next time that the sun sets.

I know I need to know the dark of this town

if I want to see the sun again. 

So, follow me to New River, 

where the laughs out last the mourning, 

where the women and bees, the songs and the trees

sing to us all, Welcome Home. 

Into the Light

The past month has taught me nothing except, you never know what's going to happen.  My first birth experience was prefaced by my first close family death experience.   I decided to include here the narrative I shared at Uncle D's memorial last week. 

***

The last time I saw my uncle D was my cousin Mae’s baby shower. He rode with my mom and I over to Cocoa, the east coast of Florida, and we stayed there longer than we had planned because he was getting lots of attention from a friend of my cousin’s. I don’t think that he had been doted on my a woman in a some time and we didn’t want to interrupt the attention. It was good to see Uncle D being loved on, though he was loved deeply by many, he also kept to himself enough that these opportunities were not always present. When we were riding back to Tampa, I was sharing with my mom my plans to sometime soon get a larger bed. She remembered that the bed frame I currently have was made by D, originally for his bed. He had measured it out and had plans to create drawers underneath to maximize space in his loft bedroom. Years ago when I was desiring a bed frame for my futon and my mom asked D to help us make one. Instead, he disassembled and reassembled his bed frame at my house for me. Never made himself a new one. When we were talking on the way home from Cocoa, we asked D if he would like to have his bed frame back once I get a larger bed and planned to move it back to his house in the future. I still have it. 

My last interaction with D was in an email, about a month before he passed. I had closed a second location of my business and ended up with an extra 3-way lamp. I had thought of D and wondered if he might need it. The past couple of months I was trying to be in better contact with him. We lived fairly close to one another and occasionally I would bring by some food for him when we had too much, like when we made a bunch of lasagna and our freezer didn’t have enough room for it all. I have been blessed with a life of little struggle when it comes to having money for food and necessities, and I knew his life was a bit different. I have been so motivated to help others who are not as fortunate as me, but I have started to realize that I hadn’t always been this way towards my uncle.  For various reasons, there were some things in my way but I became ready to remove those walls and reach out. So I wrote uncle D an email with a picture of the lamp and asking him if he wanted or needed it. I consciously signed the email, “Love, Nyssa,” not knowing it would be the last time I told him I loved him.  He wrote back saying that he would take it and if he didn’t have a place for it he would find someone who did. He signed it, “Love, D.”  I realize now that this exchange showed the love that was always there, though may not have always been spoken.  I wanted to bring him light, and in some ways he ended up bringing it to me. 

The night that I found out about my uncle’s passing I was in a birthing class. I have recently taken on the process of becoming a doula, a childbirth labor companion. That Tuesday night I was with one of the mom’s I was working with and we had just done a fear release exercise.  I was actually on call for my first birth, but had silenced my phone while we did the exercise. When we got up, I got the news from my mom about finding her brother. Talk about biggest fears! I drove home in shock, having never experienced death so close. It was like an expected visit from a strange guest you have no choice to let in. I kept remembering a line from a poem by Greg Byrd, “The Unluckiest Squirrel in the World” that I used in a poem of my own in high school: “Death comes at us like squirrels, fathers, friends with shotguns and cocaine...” I knew now much more clearly of what this poet meant. 

When I arrived at my home that night, there was a small box on the porch. I had ordered postcards for my workshop coming up in June and though I knew what they looked like I was almost stunned to open the box and see this gorgeous scene of someone in the woods looking up a the light with the title of the workshop “Into the Light,” at the bottom. I felt this was a message from D to say that he is alright. It was surely divine timing. I am dedicating this workshop to his memory. 

I remembered our last email interaction and light was there too.  I still had that lamp sitting by my front door and had even thought about bringing it over the previous sunday. Had I gone over, I would have found him.  I was actually thinking of him a lot that day, when I was making my bed I was remembering what my mom had said about giving me his bed frame - I didn’t know this until we had talked about it in the car that he had originally made it for himself. I started to realize what all he had sacrificed for me, how he was willing to give up something that he had put work into. What self-less love can come from someone whose biggest struggle was loving himself. 

It was hard after he passed to not feel guilty about putting off reaching out to him, but I started to hear him in my head saying, “I understand now. I can see it all from this (big-picture) perspective and I know you love me in your heart. I forgive you.” A few days after he passed, my mom told me how along time ago he told her that he and I “have an understanding.” I see now so clearly that we do and always have. D knows better than I do about what was in my way, and has been sending nothing but love my way and to all of us now that he has crossed over. We hope that this will help all of us to live in the light here until we too absolve in the oneness of light that eventually engulfs us all.

Breaking

I have this saying: the bigger the resistance, the bigger the breakthrough.

The thing is, I didn't really feel the resistance so the breakthrough caught me a bit off guard. But I have seen this many times in bodywork, where the client (sometimes myself) isn't even aware of what they are holding or that they are holding at all. When we are able to break through the armor they are usually surprised and sometimes overwhelmed.

I had this experience last week but the treatment was not primarily physical. It was sound. I will never again underestimate the power of vibrational healing.

Starting in 2011, we have someone that coming to Living Harmony that does a sound journey once a month. Scott really knows what he is doing. He brings in a variety of instruments, most of which are tibetan metal bowls, but also including drums, Native American flute, and even his guitar. He plays for about an hour and really does take us on a journey. 

The first time I participated in this event last January I felt very relaxed afterward. I don't remember being deeply affected like I was this time, but I do remember being highly impressed. We've hosted a similar event before with crystal bowls, which were also enjoyable, but there was something different with Scott's journey. Maybe the variety. Maybe the intention. Maybe the right place at the right time. Hard to tell, but I will say this...

After this past week's journey, I went home afterward and experienced a spiritual breakthrough like nothing I have yet experienced. I might say that in ways it was similar to breathwork sessions I have done, but it felt unique.

Scott began the session by setting the intention of self-liberation. This struck me immediately as something I needed to pay attention to. There are areas in my life that I have felt keep me in bondage and part of me asked to release this. When we ask for something like this, we have to really want it because getting it may require shifts. Sometimes massive shifts. I know someone who says "Transformation requires sacrifice." And it does.

So as the sound journey began, I reveled in the ethereal sounds of the bowls and the rhythms and tones Scott would create with them. For most of it I felt wonderfully relaxed, my thoughts drifted here and there, but generally I was happy to be where I was. At one point, Scott comes around with this clear crystal "challis," which is played and produces the most incredible sound. It has a handle and he plays it over everyone's body. When he came over, I felt a light stream of cool air and thought to myself, "It's the breath of spirit!" I welcomed the vibrations and called for spirit to speak to me.

I recently watched another amazing video on TED.com by Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love. She is talking about working through the creative life after her "freakish success" (her words), and presents some thought-provoking ideas about creativity. I won't recap her talk since you can just go HERE and watch it, but she reminded me of the truth that our creations come from outside us and in a lot of ways are out of our control. I have been desiring to create more and used this experience with the sound journey to try to open me up. It worked, but not how I expected.

Spirituality is something that is present for me almost all the time. It is what drew me to study religion and drives almost everything that I do.  But because I don't subscribe to a specific community that meets regularly, there is this sense of aloneness that lingers often. When I returned home after the sound journey, I felt enveloped in spirit, content and calm. This tranferred into a feeling of sensual alertness, kinda like following a yoga class or something where we feel relaxed but alive.  

This feeling became a deep despair once I started to get ready for bed.  Alexander Lowen talks about how we have a fear of falling that manifests as a fear to fall asleep (or in love).  In order to fall, we must give ourselves up to an unknown force that will take us places we can not predict. I don't know if that fear came into play but all I know is that I couldn't help crying for a while. 

I was finally able to identify that my despair was linked to my longing for God. I know INTELLECTUALLY that I am not separate from spirit, but that doesn't erase the continual feeling of the abyss between myself and the great spirit. I had not felt that deep longing for a long time, but the journey allowed me to go deeper into myself and uncover these dark feelings. 

In the morning, I remembered this Dali painting that I always loved. My senior year in high school, I strangely identified with this image.  I felt like I was breaking out of shell of my old self and becoming something new, which both excited and terrified me. As I write this I am reminded of perhaps my favorite theory in Religious Studies from Rudolf Otto who wrote about the religious experience. He siad that our encounter with "the Holy" is both terrifying yet mysteriously facinating. We can't look away even though the vision of the Holy Other frightens us to pieces. Maybe because it reminds us of how small we are. It is like a car accident. Our curiousity leds us to acknowledge our mortality. 

Recognizing my longing for the Lord, I started to think of the song by George Harrison, "My Sweet Lord." I have always felt connected to this song. Or rather, felt like this song helped me to connect. The last time I heard it on the radio, it was a beautiful day out and we were riding through a rural area north of Tampa. I listened to the longing in George's voice and thought that I was happy that he had past on and has merged with the Lord. At least, I am assuming. 

When I went to open mic that night, the first person that went up played this great song on the guitar. The words he sang characterized my feelings from the morning. Finally, I felt like I had found my community. even though I know I am at home there, hearing these words from another was an affirmation. When he got done, the performer said that what he shared was a song by George Harrison called, "It's All Too Much." I almost burst into tears. 

Since this episode, I have felt clearer and more grounded. I am trying to recognize the divine in the everyday, which makes every day its own journey. Though it is wonderful to connect with others that share this longing, I believe it is important for us to recognize that our experiences are our own.  But it is always nice to share, which is why I am commited to opening. Still. Opening.

Getting the Call, part 3

The Monday morning following my intense weekend of emotional release through bodywork (Spontaneous Shedding), I woke up renewed and recovered. I had plans to reconnect with a good friend of mine over tea and I decided to show up at the lounge early and do some work.

I opened my email and found a note from someone I never met before. She was a woman in Seattle who was several months pregnant and moving to Tampa to co-parent with her mom. Somehow she came found me through looking up open mics and came across my business website. She was also looking for someone that does energy work to be at her birth and wanted to know if I was interested.

It took me a minute to soak in the implications of this email.  Only five days earlier I had my first experience at a birth center and my first experience of being with a family immediately after a birth, which left me with an intense desire to seek more experiences like that. It was all a little weird. How did this woman, on the complete opposite side of the country, contact me of all other energy workers in this area?  This is all immediately following one of the most intense and emotionally draining and clearing weekends of my life. I had finally returned back to "feeling like myself" and I was greeted with an invitation to attend and assist in a birth for someone I had never even spoken to.

Immediately I rose to the challenge. I wrote Sara back and explained my recent experience at the birth center and what I can offer with the cranial work that I practice as well as the ability to use Reiki energy.  Reiki is a simple, yet powerful form of energy work, usually described as the "laying on of hands."  In my head I was thinking, it sounds like she is looking for a doula.

After some positive correspondences, we decided to meet once she arrived in Tampa in December.  Even after our first emails I could feel a great rapport building between us and I looked forward to getting to support someone through this life-changing experience.  I also started to look into what exactly a doula is and how one goes about becoming one.

I remembered the first time I heard the word doula was in massage school. My friend in class was looking through a massage magazine and saw on article on massage therapists who are also doulas. "What's a doula?" I remember inquiring, and she explained to me that it is a woman who helps with childbirth, massaging, comforting and supporting the mother.

"Wouldn't that be amazing?" she asked me. I thought, "Yeah, if you want a super high-stress job...I think I would rather become a yoga instructor."  Haha.

Before all of this I really new nothing about childbirth. Nothing. I have been too busy learning about bodies in general, that gendered bodies seemed too complicated.  But almost suddenly this all shifted. The more I corresponded with Sara, the more interested I became in actually doing this work. Even before we met in December I had already silently committed to her birth and started to learn a little about what happens in labor. I was still working on the last semester of my Master's program at USF but dreams of becoming a doula started to creep in. I had started to consider how this profession would reshape my life and wondered if it was really for me.

It was at this time that I finally started to recognize that I was being called to do this work. Thoughts of being a doula were at times more present than the last term paper I had to write. It felt right. 

There was one final conversation that solidified this choice for me. A few weeks later at the same tea lounge I met with some friends I had not seen in a while. One was a midwife and I started asking her some questions about the process and she mentioned that she was a doula before she was a midwife. She explained that the process of training for a doula wasn't nearly as strenuous as for a midwife and that you just start with a workshop. 

If you've invited me to any event on a weekend, there is a good chance you may have heard me decline because "I have a workshop." In a variety of capacities, workshops are a frequent part of my work or school experience. A workshop is very doable for me, and after talking with my friend I started to look into local doula workshops. 

As it turns out, the only tampa doula workshop is literally blocks from my house. It couldn't get any easier for me. I felt like that was the universe making the choice obvious. 

So tomorrow is the first day of my three-day doula workshop and after that I will be "trained."  I have been blessed to very quickly find several births to attend so in a few months I will have some real experience. 

A world beyond what had become ordinary has really started to open up. I have devored all sorts of literature on prenancy, labor, birth, and motherhood. A whole community of childbirth professionals has started to reveal itself to me. I am even in the process of starting a collective with several other doulas and we have big dreams of what we can create here on a local level. Everyone that I have told about this decision has been greatly supportive, most confirmming for me that I was made to do this work. I realize this is only the beginning. 

I am so thankful I was able to recognize the sound of the call and that I was able to muster up the courage to answer.

Vulnerability and Connection

I recently watched this video on Ted.com, which is actually the first video I have watched on this site. This is a great place for quality, free, online videos.

My co-founder of Door Stop Productions posted this because it is very true with respect to what we do at open mic. When people get up and share their stories through art, they simultaneously become vulnerable and more open to connect.  It makes sense. We shut down our openness to the world often because we've experienced vulnerability and want to keep that from happening again. But if we want to connect with others, which is really the reason we are here when it comes down to it, we have to open up and admit our vulnerability. I say why not celebrate it.

I was reminded of this as I finished the last post. The state I was in while my body was releasing all that trapped emotion (energy in motion) was incredibly vulnerable. I wasn't hiding who I was anymore, who at that time, was someone feeling a bunch of unpleasant stuff. Not only that, but I was allowing another person to see it. Even more scary.  However, it was the moving through all of it that is allowing me to proceed in my lifetime process of opening. Sharing my journey and helping to guide others in their journeys is really why I do what I do.

Here is the video:

Spontaneous Shedding (Interlude)

It is time that I write about this experience. It is amazing when I look back at the timeline of events. It is fair to say that the beginning of November 2010 changed my life.  Mid-week, I had the experience I wrote about in the last post, which was the beginning of me recognizing that I was receiving a call. Then several events that followed over the next few days, amplified the message, though it did not become clear for a few more weeks.

On Wednesday, I had the honor of providing a cranial treatment to a friend right after childbirth. This opened my eyes to a world outside of time, where life happens. Experiences like this can't help but bring us closer to center (well, it is either that or they throw us completely out into the tumultuous perimeter of a whirlpool where we can't grab a hold of center if we tried).  On Thursday, my open mic gave me some lessons as well and I will elaborate in a forthcoming post. On Friday, I got to reconnect with a dear friend that I had lost touch with for a while. Part of the reason involved the birth of a child and I got to hear about adventures in a daughter's first year. Timely.

On Friday afternoon I went hiking with my partner. He has spent a lot of time in the trails around here and took me to some of his favorite spots. We admired an old cypress, the wisdom of these trees is palpable. Checked out an unknown spring, which he had long ago named after himself, briefly saw some deer, and followed the trail of a dry tributary. I got to see how refreshing it is to be out in the land, especially the land of my home, which deserves more connection. This is one of my many churches.

On the way back, we found our way through leaves and cypress knees and I suddenly felt a sharp, stinging pain in my right inner ankle. I have never felt a pain like that; it was as if a large needle had just punctured the bone. I lifted up my sock to see if maybe it had a thorn in it or something, but there was no mark at all. I realized that in maneuvering through the woods, my left foot had kicked the right ankle. It was one of those things where I kept thinking, "Why would my body do that!?"

I was able to make it back to the car, it was only later that I realized that it was really hurt. It had started to swell during the night and I was very aware of it while sleeping. By morning, I was limping and worried that I had chipped the bone I had to get up very early to go to the second to last workshop in the SET training I was assisting in. These classes consist of 12 weekend workshops, completed in about a year's time.  As an assistant, it is quite the time commitment and though the educational benefit is worth it, I was looking forward to the training completion.  Even with a hurt ankle, I knew I would be surrounded by healers and may get some insight into what happened to my body.

Part of the role as assistant is to fill in "on the table" when there is an odd number in the class. Ideally the class has an even number so that partnering up to give and receive the bodywork pattern being taught that weekend evens out. Occasionally someone is sick or has to miss class, so the assistant fills in the gap.

This particular weekend the students were learning arm and hand work, how to release nerve entrapment issues (like carpel tunnel). I was watching the demo in the morning and commented to one of the students, "of all weekends to have an even number!" The arm work looked really great and just what I needed.

Well, sure enough, once we got back from lunch, one of the students became ill. The student I had commented to looked at me and said, "Well, you manifested that one for yourself, didn't you?" I hadn't meant for anyone to get sick, but it funny how quickly the energy we put out there comes back to us.

As I got on the table, I had let the student know that I am really sensitive in the arm pit. When I went through this particular weekend in my training, I was amazed at how vulnerable the armpit work can feel. I wasn't sure what had possessed me to say this to this student, but I though they should know.

Fairly early one in the bodywork pattern, my teacher comes over to show the student how to release the lower attachments of the pectoralis minor. My teacher has big energy. Sometimes I wonder if it is bigger than he even realizes. as his hand gently eased along the side of the ribcage, I could feel my body start to vibrate and started to say, "Slow! Slow! Slow!" but then I popped.

What occurred next might be difficult to understand if one has not ever had a similar experience. I would explain "popped" like a jack-in-the-box. The box is the body, the spring is the energy. The body contains within it different pockets of stored energy, which seems at time to come out in spirals. When we receive bodywork, the box can unlatch and suddenly out springs this intense energy that can be startling. The releasing of this energy is what allows us to release chronically tightened tissue, which overtime can cause some serious pain. The "jack" may be whatever we attach to the energy: Memories, traumas, distinct emotions, held back expressions, etc. Though the process of releasing can get intense, the end result is a person who is more connected, integrated, and healthy. Knowing this end result is what got me through this particular release.

Before my teacher was done with the stroke into my armpit, I was starting to shake and convulse. I immediately wanted to blame him, to say, You did this to me. I turned my head once I mustered up the strength to speak and said sternly, "When I say slow, you need to go slow! This is not the first time I have felt this way and I know I am not the only one." My voice was a half-yell, half-whisper, and that was all I could get out, while still shaking uncontrollably. Without emotionally engaging in that comment, my teacher just looked at me and calm said, "We need you to release this now."

I lost it. I started breathing like I knew from the breathwork (EERT), while being couched by the therapist who was working on me. For the next hour and a half, I was breathing, crying, yelling, hitting the table, and trying to just get at the end of it all. So many layers came off that day, or at least started to peel away.  Issues of belonging, of purpose, of voice all came up.  I just kept breathing and every time I thought I was done, something would trigger me and more vibrations and expressions of emotions would release. At one time, the therapist working on me said, "I just want to feel loved and supported" and I lost it again. It was amazing how difficult of a statement that was to hear. It made me realize all these deep feelings of unworthiness. Though I consciously believe that I am worthy of love, I have not always felt this way and even when I do, it is not always in totality.

Afterward, I was able to piece together where some of this came from. Part of it had to do with an experience I had right after high school. I had a sebaceous cyst on the right side of my back, midway between the hip and the ribcage. It had become infected and heeded to be removed. This is usually an out-patient procedure done with local anesthetic. When we showed up at the doctor's office they had double-booked our appointment but decided to squeeze us in anyway. I don't know if that was why things were hurried or if the anesthesia really didn't work, but it turned out to be an extremely traumatic experience. I was laying on my left side with my right arm above my head. They gave me a shot to numb the area and then started slicing into my skin. I could feel everything. The scalpel, the blood running down my back, the squeezing and the pus following.  My mom is yelling at the doctors to give me more anesthesia while I bawl and the doctors just trying to finish up.  It took me the rest of the week to recover from this experience.

While in massage school, I was the model when we were learning side-lying massage.  My teacher started to work around the scar and I could feel the tears come up as I started to on-some level reexperiences that trauma. It turned out to be a valuable lesson for the class about holding emotion in our bodies and I got to release some of it.

I do feel like that experience was some of what I released that day in the training room. There were other layers of frustrations with situations in my life, and more general feelings of being insecure about my place in the world.

It took me another day to recover from this release. My emotions were all over the place and it was difficult for me to connect with others. However, once this passed and some realizations formed in my consciousness, I became able to connect more deeply with those around me. I believe that it also made some room for the changes in my life that followed, including the decision to become a doula. In the next post I will write about my messenger who made it more obvious that a career path in birth services was coming soon in my future.

Getting the Call, part 2

Last Spring, I good friend of mine shared that she was pregnant. I haven't had many friends that I am close to get to this point in their lives (though I am sure this is going to be happening more and more often), and was very excited to hear that the following fall we will be celebrating the birth of her first baby. I had told this friend early on that I would be more happy to come after the birth and do some cranial releases for her.

The cranial work that I do, called Cranial/Structural, releases restrictions in the soft tissue surrounding the cranium bones affecting the structure of the rest of the body. The cranium is a mirror for the rest of the body and we can affect the pelvis by releasing the cranium. The main release that we do for the cranium in SET is called the Core Distortion Release. This release changes the relationship of the pelvis and the sacrum allowing those bones to move into a more balanced state.

Following childbirth, the hormones secreted to relax the ligaments, tendons, and muscles so that the pelvis can open for delivery are affected the soft tissue of the whole body. When the Cranial/Structural Core Distortion Release is applied at this time, we often get more movement out of the release because everything is already loose and we help the mother's pelvis to return to a more balanced state which is invaluable to healing from such a dramatic experience. Not only is her pelvis healing from delivery (if it was a vaginal delivery) but it is also healing from at least 6 months of carrying around extra weight in the front of the body. Mothers often suffer from back pain during pregnancy and after, so this is my gift to hopefully decrease the discomfort and help her to recover and begin her new life with her baby.

My friend, who I will call Lynn, is the first person that I was blessed to have this experience with. Lynn expressed interest in this treatment and asked when it was best to do it. I told her that we can do it as early as when the placenta comes out and ideally within 24 hours of the birth. I told her and her husband that they can call me at anytime and I would be there as soon as I could; the release would only take about 30 minutes at the most so Lynn wouldn't have to be worried about being away from her baby for too long.

When we were approaching her due date I received an email from Lynn letting me know that the time was near. Her daughter might arrive as early as two weeks before the due date or as late as two weeks after.  They had decided to have the birth at a local birthing center called Labor of Love, which was ironically, less than a mile from my North Tampa office.  Lynn and her husband had decided to not have anyone at their birth besides the midwife and assistant, so I was to be the first friend/family member to see the baby. I felt honored to be included in this inner circle, which was my first introduction to many more intimate birth experiences to come.

On a Wednesday night in November I got the call.  Luckily, it was early in the evening and I had the night off.  When I answered, I could hear Lynn's husband on the line saying, "She's here, our daughter is here."  His joy was palpable.  They were ready for me to come and see Lynn and I said I would be there shortly.

Stopping at my office on the way to pick up some supplies, I made it to the birthing center brimming with excitement.  I had never been to such a place before and it was beautiful. The center is in a business complex that looks like a bunch of cabins tucked away behind some trees. You would really have to know that it is there to find it. The complex was empty with only a few shaded windows lit up; it really just looked like someone's home. There was a wrap around porch encircling the entire building and the energy was calm and comforting; what a great place to be born. The inside matched the energy exactly.

When I walked in it was like I was walking into a well-loved apartment. There was a lovely living area, kitchen, two bathrooms, one with a shower the other with a huge bathtub, and two bedrooms. Lynn was still in the bed, nursing her very hungry newborn. Apparently, her daughter had been feeding for the last 40 minutes with no sign of stopping. I told her to take her time; I had no place to go and was just reveling in the amazing energy of a birthing space.

Though I had never seen a baby so fresh before and was excited to meet their daughter, I was very conscious of my energy. I was there for a very specific reason and I wanted to make sure that I maintained the sacredness of the experience for Lynn and her family without getting in the way. 

While Lynn was resting and feeding her daughter, her husband filled me in with the events of the past few days.  She had been in labor for four days, going back and forth between her home and birthing center, and it had become pretty tiring. It seemed like it was hard for the husband to see his love go through so much pain for so long. But as he told me all of this, you could see he had been deeply affected by the experience. He was amazed at her incredible strength to make it through all of it, and now they had their beautiful daughter here with them. In a way, it made him stronger.

The energy of the birthing center was in stark contrast to what had previously occurred. The struggle, pain, and frustration had faded away and all that was left was this calm and patient love. The lights were low, the place was relatively quiet. The midwives where mostly in an attached office, though they would come in from often to check on things or perform the tasks they needed to. They would answer Lynn and her husband's questions, affirm that it great she was still feeding, and made sure that Lynn had everything she needed. I was waiting for a while until the baby was done feeding, soaking in this calm and healing place and thinking, "This is where I would want to come into the world."  I had come with the intention of bringing more experiences like this in my life. I had no idea at the time how profoundly life changing this intention would be. 

Once Lynn handed off the baby for daddy-bonding time and had taken a shower, I had her lay down on the bed so I could do what I came there to do. The midwives decided that this would be a good time to do the examination, which actually took place on the same bed that Lynn was on. While they took measurements and checked range-of-motion, I held onto Lynn's cranium and began the subtle release. 

Very quickly Lynn relaxed and took a quick nap. Her cranium released so easily, my pressure and intention just barely guiding the movements, it was like they knew already where to go.  It was amazing to feel her head relax into my hands and again I felt so grateful to be there with her and have this experience. Lynn is someone who is always on the go, so I was happy to give her a little bit of time that was just for her. And after all of that hard work, she needed it.

Shortly after, Lynn came back to life refreshed. Her daughter was already hungry again and so they set to feeding again, a routine they've come to know very well by now. With my job done, I said my goodbyes and left the birthing center. I remember hoping that I would be back there someday to share in the amazing experience of life. Little did I know, the universe's message was to get a lot louder in the next few days.
Read Part 3

Getting the Call, part 1

The summer after high school I read Joseph Campbell's Hero with a Thousand Faces and was completely enthralled by this idea of the mythic process. Campbell outlines this process through comparing myths from various cultures to show that they all follow an almost predictable formula. His work has since been met with plenty of criticism, but for me it was like reading a sacred text about how to live our lives to the fullest, like the twentieth century, Western Daodeching or something. I remember even trying to find local Joseph Campbell fans to share in my intellectual reveling, though no community emerged. I have seen learned that even with community the journey is ever more inward. 

The first step in the mythic journey is what he calls the "call to adventure."  This is where the hero is summoned to walk a different path than they have been on or what is dictated by their present community.  A world beyond what had become ordinary starts to open up and reveal itself. Sometimes it is through a chance event that this occurs.  The princess loses her golden ball down a well. Siddhartha decides to journey outside his palace walls and discovers a world unknown to him. Frodo inherits a ring. Even in our own lives this happens. It is amazing to look back at the seeming mundane events to see that they were our messages that life change is near. 

I do feel that I have been called by the universe to become a doula, and now that some time has passed I can see how this worked.  For those unfamiliar with the term, a doula is a non-medical childbirth assistant that provides emotional, physical, and informational support to a mother before, during, and after labor. 

The first event that primed me for everything else was watching a documentary called The Business of Being Born. This was something that I had seen on Netflix for a while and never even thought to watch because, well, it didn't sound like a fun one and I wasn't very interested in learning about how messed up delivery practices were. I took enough women's studies classes in college that I am mildly aware of terms like "the medicalization of birth" and for a long time that was enough for me. Birth just seemed scary and not something that I even needed to think about. 

Back in the fall, I was invited to dinner at the home of long-time friends of my boyfriend. Though we've been dating since last spring I had not yet met these friends, partly because they are a couple with a 13-month-old and that doesn't leave much time for hanging out. It was a wonderful evening, the food was superb. I am totally impressed by a woman who works all-day, comes home to a small child and is still able to make an incredible meal for four people. The husband helped, especially with distracting the child, but the wife was definitely running the kitchen. 

I chatted with her a bunch and the conversation eventually got to talking about her birth experience.  Since then, I have learned that their experience was similar to many women's experiences today. Her labor was induced with pitocin which initiated a cascade of other interventions that made the process scarier and even more difficult. Nurses were coming in and out, giving more pitocin or epidural without consent, and mom or dad were both displeased with many elements of their experience.  In the end, thankfully, things turned out okay and they have a happy and beautiful daughter. 

One thing the mom said really stuck out to me. She had considered a home and/or natural birth and someone recommended she watched this movie, The Business of Being Born. After watching five minutes of it, she decided that the hospital was where she wanted to give birth. (Now she says that if there is a next time, she will seriously consider a home birth to avoid the trauma of the hospital birth.)

I was intrigued. Five minutes of this documentary biased against hospital births and she was convinced that this was the way for her?!? I had to check it out at least to figure out what five minutes she must have watched.  This never became clear to me.

Though I am not planning on giving birth soon, I certainly felt the exact opposite after viewing this film. I was actually very angry the day after I saw the movie. I couldn't believe some of the practices that they showed or that lots of women think that it is normal and okay. 

Since then, I have started to accept that hospitals or obstetricians are not evil and certainly some are better than others. As a doula, I will most likely be present for many hospital births, and it is important to work with the hospital staff and not see them as enemies. Besides, the birth is all about mom and baby, and they get my support now matter what choices are made, even if they don't match up with what I may personally choose. 

This was a start of my education and the constructuve side of anger is that it motivates us.  I was not aware of this then, but the feelings of "Women need to know this information!" was the beginning of this new passion of mine. I am so thankful for that dinner and conversation that led me to begin my education of childbirth. Though there were several other events that helped me to recognize that I was recieving a call, this was the first ring.


Read Part 2