Natural impulses to heal

Natural impulses to heal

Let´s have a look at our brain´s agenda

In the former blog I wrote about the importance of a sustainable energy budget for healthy emotional, mental, and physical being.

Maintaining a sustainable energy budget is one of our brain’s priorities. It is constantly adapting to the environment in the most economical way to keep the system in a dynamic balance (homeostasis) with minimal impact on the energy budget.
By natural design, it does so by mapping itself into the here-and-now environment through the senses. Then the brain asks the somatic communication channels emotion, sensation, image, and meaning about ´how the information that the senses bring in feels. Our brains then can get to the task of predicting how best to adapt to the environment based on the maps that it has created. That is, maintain a dynamic balance in the system without using precious energy when it is not needed.

But what if our past gets in the way?

Painful past experiences, and associated attention habits, movement- and postural patterns, limiting beliefs, negative self-image, and intense feeling states such as excessive worrying, anxiety, sadness, anger, or shame disrupt the spontaneous in-the-moment flow of information through the somatic channels of sensation, emotion, meaning, and image.

Rather than commenting on the input of the senses those channels then send signals related to these painful inner experiences to the brain. As a result,  your system stays stuck in a self-repeating cycle of rapidly building intensity, over-arousal, and collapsing that demands more energy from the energy faculties in your system than is available.  Instead of the brain making accurate predictions based on its maps of the present moment, the predictions come from intense inner experiences that push the system over and over again into high energy-cost survival strategies such as fight, flight, and freeze.

As you can imagine, this erodes your energy capacity which then leads to even more stress, overwhelm, anxiety, and exhaustion, risking serious long-term chronic health issues.  So it is important to break this cycle to allow the brain to get back to doing what it is meant to do so that your system can function optimally and you can dance through your life in healthier, resilient, and joyful ways.

Addictive patterns in attention

Yet over time, many of us have quietly become addicted to attention habits rooted in the idea that something is wrong and that life is supposed to feel like a struggle. Ideas like “You have to feel worse first to feel better” or “No pain, no gain” still underlie most forms of therapy, coaching, and movement education. Many of us have been taught that we must attend to our painful experiences to heal, or push our bodies and minds to grow.
But rather than leading to healing and growth, these ways reinforce the hypervigilant, painful trauma patterns that underlie the ´What is wrong´ attention and belief that we have to be hard on ourselves or struggle.

The first step to breaking the cycle of stress, overwhelm, anxiety, and exhaustion is to follow the natural impulse of your system. 

Our organic intelligent system teaches us that living and feeling in the present moment is a much more rewarding, healing, and economical way to recover from our trauma and maintain vitality, joy, and resilience. It restores our energy budget, giving our brain the energy and capacity to process life better.

When you learn to eliminate this parasitic attraction to inner disturbing, very intense signals, your movements, thoughts, feelings, and life choices become more coherent. You then no longer fight against yourself, and the living system that you are. Rather you begin to collaborate with your system’s self-healing impulses and potential. You will find that this gives you the energy, peace of mind, and space to create a meaningful, authentic life in a fluid and sustainable way. And you will start to feel better in your body, mind, and emotional faculties as well.

Unlike what you may have learned so far, you then don´t attend to the inside voices that tell you that something is wrong. Instead you let your senses freely roam in your immediate environment and receive what is here and now. And this sensory orientation to the present moment helps your brain make a renewed prediction of what might happen next. And that will most likely be much more neutral, and positive than letting your anxious inner experiences create a future that is reliving your past wounding.

The neural programs that result from this sensory orientation are attuned to what is needed for the system to effortlessly, and economically keep a dynamic balance while dancing with the constantly changing environment. It is a systemic form of energy efficiency and automatic regulation that sets you up for ease and growth and allows your body systems to function optimally. This creates the space to be creative, find solutions, enjoy inner peace, and live life with more lightness and equanimity.

I have two reflective questions for you:

  1. How often do you turn your attention to pleasurable sensations and thoughts as you move, talk, work, cook, think, feel, or do nothing?.
  2. How often do you see, hear, smell, taste, and feel the immediate world around you?

Are you curious to learn more about restoring your internal energy budget? Learn more about this in the Retreat ´Somatic Movement Journey from Freeze to Flow´

Every door that closes opens another door

Every door that closes opens another door

Closing some doors so that other doors can open. Ending a chapter writing a new one…

Closing 2024 for 2025 to open. Saying goodbye to habits, stories, and beliefs that don’t serve anymore and welcoming other parts of ourselves.

The last two years have been challenging, yet inspiring years for me. I have met parts of myself that I have learned to embrace with initial resistance, I have met parts of myself that rock and fill me with pride…  I have done things I never thought I would have the courage to do, pushed my limits, and set some firm boundaries.

I have lost friends and found new ones. I have said goodbye to stubborn beliefs and welcomed new insights. I discovered the power of wonderment as I explored uncharted areas of my heart.

I start this year with a heart that slowly dares to open to what was once frightening.

A delicate dance between inward and outward, old and new, closed and open, tight and loose.

Which chapters will you close? Which doors will you open?

What uncharted areas of your heart are waiting to be explored?

Let us take root in the here-and-now of our sentient, sensuous bodies and soar courageously and free with the winds of 2025. May we boldly invite the unknown that unfolds behind the door that opens and receive its surprise with curiosity and wonder.

 

Where do you focus?

Where do you focus?

“Focus on your difficulties and you have difficulties for life.” (Moshe Feldenkrais)

Yesterday I prepared a Feldenkrais awareness through movement explorations for a little group of people of all leaps of life. An exploration to release tension in the neck and shoulders and free the head and spine.
Tension and blockages in the body often are good companions of thinking in difficulties. They are very attracted to each other. If they didn’t think and act the way they do, they would probably dance a very passionate tango.

I have this little exploration of 1 minute to think about something that is fairly unknown to you. Maybe you have a dream you want to realize… What are the first things that come up when you think of the possibility that your dream could be a reality?

Are you thinking:

  • I think I can’t do it.
  • What happens if it goes wrong?
  • I think I am not good enough.
  • It is too difficult, there are only challenges because of this and that, etc

Or are you thinking:

  • What is all possible?
  • I am going to sort this and that out.
  • I am going to learn this, discover that…etc
  • How can I connect the dots?
  • I have never done this before so I think I can do it

And feel in your body (whatever way you think) what happens. What do you feel in your belly, your jaw, your neck, and shoulders?  Your lower back, and the connection of your feet with the ground? Just experiment with different thoughts…

Feldenkrais explorations are designed to help the nervous system create new possibilities and connections. The nervous system has the ability to create endlessly when we bring the right input: creativity, curiosity, quantity, quality, variation, and quality. And when this happens we move on a highway towards unlocking our full potential.

My inner sparkle feeds on dancing the highway of my potential and so I pay close attention to what I feed my mind with.

Where do you focus on today?