“Over three decades of systematic studies of the human consciousness have led me to conclusions that many traditional psychiatrists and psychologists might find implausible if not downright incredible. I now firmly believe that consciousness is more than an accidental by-product of the neurophysiological and biochemical processes taking place in the human brain. I see consciousness and the human psyche as expressions and reflections of a cosmic intelligence that permeates the entire universe and all of existence. We are not just highly evolved animals with biological computers embedded inside our skulls; we are also fields of consciousness without limits, transcending time, space, matter, and linear causality.”
-- Stanislav Grof, MD, PhD
Showing posts with label Biology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biology. Show all posts
Sunday, February 24, 2013
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Restor(y)ing the Body!
"You see, somewhere our unconscious becomes material, because the body is the living unit, and our conscious and our unconscious are embedded in it: they contact the body. Somewhere there is a place where the two ends meet and become interlocked. And that is the place where one cannot say whether it is matter, or what one calls psyche." -- Carl Jung
My good friend and collaborative partner, Dana, and I have been working together to create a mind + body integrative healing practice, which we have affectionately named 'Restor(y)ing the Body'. Essentially, we work together to explore the unique ways in which our clients carry their own personal stories in their physical bodies. Much of the work we do reflects the above idea from Carl Jung, as we aim to help people discover the precise places where their ideas about themselves and their physical expressions have become interlocked in symptomatic ways. In our practice and our workshops, we use a variety of methods to help people explore and transform these constricting patterns that exist in both the body and the mind. These methods include (but are not limited to!) body work, shamanic techniques, energy and vibrational medicine interventions, guided meditation, and authentic movement exercises.
We also passionately agree with psychologist and spiritual teacher, Judith Blackstone, when she suggests that "our fixed grasp on ourselves and the world is not just mental but also somatic. There are rigid holding patterns throughout the whole body, limiting our capacity for cognition, emotional responsiveness and physical sensation. Even our sensory perception is limited by the psychologically based constrictions throughout our whole body". The real thrill for us has been watching people rediscover the magic of who they are, by reconnecting with the wisdom that can be found when the mind and body begin to dialogue at the same point of reference.
We LOVE this work, and are so excited to start sharing it with more individuals and groups of people. If you or someone you know would be interested in beginning to learn how to re-write their own "story", whether through a private session or a workshop experience with us, please feel free to message us on our Facebook page: Restor(y)ing the Body, or email us at restoryingthebody@gmail.com!
Namaste,
Whitney & Dana
My good friend and collaborative partner, Dana, and I have been working together to create a mind + body integrative healing practice, which we have affectionately named 'Restor(y)ing the Body'. Essentially, we work together to explore the unique ways in which our clients carry their own personal stories in their physical bodies. Much of the work we do reflects the above idea from Carl Jung, as we aim to help people discover the precise places where their ideas about themselves and their physical expressions have become interlocked in symptomatic ways. In our practice and our workshops, we use a variety of methods to help people explore and transform these constricting patterns that exist in both the body and the mind. These methods include (but are not limited to!) body work, shamanic techniques, energy and vibrational medicine interventions, guided meditation, and authentic movement exercises.
We also passionately agree with psychologist and spiritual teacher, Judith Blackstone, when she suggests that "our fixed grasp on ourselves and the world is not just mental but also somatic. There are rigid holding patterns throughout the whole body, limiting our capacity for cognition, emotional responsiveness and physical sensation. Even our sensory perception is limited by the psychologically based constrictions throughout our whole body". The real thrill for us has been watching people rediscover the magic of who they are, by reconnecting with the wisdom that can be found when the mind and body begin to dialogue at the same point of reference.
We LOVE this work, and are so excited to start sharing it with more individuals and groups of people. If you or someone you know would be interested in beginning to learn how to re-write their own "story", whether through a private session or a workshop experience with us, please feel free to message us on our Facebook page: Restor(y)ing the Body, or email us at restoryingthebody@gmail.com!
Namaste,
Whitney & Dana
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Movement Theory!
In this culture, we are typically taught to understand the body as the ultimate biological machine in which the brain functions as a kind of "control" switch board. Over the past decade of my life, I've been questioning this irreverent attitude towards the body in a really persistent and ongoing way. My questions are largely intuitive and typically require more experiential learning than theoretical learning. However, once in a while I have the good fortune to stumble upon some fascinating theoretical information about the body that deepens the way in which I experience my own.
Apparently, there are five basic types of human movement that make up something called "The Satisfaction Cycle": Yielding, Pushing, Reaching, Grasping, and Pulling. All five of these movements are fundamentally important for human survival and interaction. BUT - and here's the amazing teacher within this concept - yielding is the foundation for every other movement possibility in this sequence. In other words: without being able to first yield into something, you cannot push off from it, reach out from there, grasp hold of anything, or pull things back towards yourself.
Why is this so fascinating to me?! Because what's true in the body is also true in the mind and in the heart, of course! See if you can make this analogous connection with me: we must first yield into our own authentic desires if we want to be able to move towards, reach out, grasp hold of, and pull them back into ourselves. I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly got the message from this culture that being soft and open about what I really wanted to experience in my life would make me an easy target for disappointment. In recent years, however, I've been able to slowly (sometimes painfully!) unlearn this defensive habit, and experience many tender and beautiful things as a result. It now absolutely stuns and delights me to discover that the movements of my physical body were there all along, revealing this truer picture of things.
So what is yielding and how do we do it? I imagine we each have to explore this question in our own personal hearts and minds to some degree. Yet, it's equally interesting to note that Merriam-Webster defines yielding as "lacking rigidity or stiffness; flexible", "disposed to submit or comply", or "productive" (as in "high-yielding wheat"). That's right; yielding can mean "productive"! As the cornerstone of all other movement possibilities, this makes perfect sense to me. A seed must be willing to submit to the earth and the rain if it wants to be able to then push, reach, grasp, and pull in all the nourishment it requires to become the fullest (most productive!) expression of itself. We, ourselves, are no different.
Here's how Rumi might also say it: "Let yourself [yield and] be drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray". I wonder if your heart - or mine - is softening into it's own gravitational pull yet?
Apparently, there are five basic types of human movement that make up something called "The Satisfaction Cycle": Yielding, Pushing, Reaching, Grasping, and Pulling. All five of these movements are fundamentally important for human survival and interaction. BUT - and here's the amazing teacher within this concept - yielding is the foundation for every other movement possibility in this sequence. In other words: without being able to first yield into something, you cannot push off from it, reach out from there, grasp hold of anything, or pull things back towards yourself.
Why is this so fascinating to me?! Because what's true in the body is also true in the mind and in the heart, of course! See if you can make this analogous connection with me: we must first yield into our own authentic desires if we want to be able to move towards, reach out, grasp hold of, and pull them back into ourselves. I don't know about the rest of you, but I certainly got the message from this culture that being soft and open about what I really wanted to experience in my life would make me an easy target for disappointment. In recent years, however, I've been able to slowly (sometimes painfully!) unlearn this defensive habit, and experience many tender and beautiful things as a result. It now absolutely stuns and delights me to discover that the movements of my physical body were there all along, revealing this truer picture of things.
So what is yielding and how do we do it? I imagine we each have to explore this question in our own personal hearts and minds to some degree. Yet, it's equally interesting to note that Merriam-Webster defines yielding as "lacking rigidity or stiffness; flexible", "disposed to submit or comply", or "productive" (as in "high-yielding wheat"). That's right; yielding can mean "productive"! As the cornerstone of all other movement possibilities, this makes perfect sense to me. A seed must be willing to submit to the earth and the rain if it wants to be able to then push, reach, grasp, and pull in all the nourishment it requires to become the fullest (most productive!) expression of itself. We, ourselves, are no different.
Here's how Rumi might also say it: "Let yourself [yield and] be drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray". I wonder if your heart - or mine - is softening into it's own gravitational pull yet?
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Deep Calls Out to Deep.
I had something like an enlightenment experience the other day. I'm choosing the words "enlightenment experience" simply because the light of my own consciousness touched something that was previously unknown to me. The words I've written below are an attempt to describe the revelation within the experience:
A human heart beats to a contracting rhythm of in and out, honoring the pattern of union and separation and union again. Cells do this same dance when they divide from one another, in order to only return to each other again. We remember to let our lungs fill up again with our breath only because we first notice how it has gone out. I marvel at these movements and wonder if this is the whole creative pattern of the Universe.
Love once told me that it disconnects from Itself in order to get an experience of Itself. And of course it would! Love wouldn't be Love if it didn't want to Love itself too. Similarly, John O'Donohue once reminded me that one of the real excitements of being a human is that we are the place where the Universe can become conscious of Itself. The alchemists seemed to understand this when they tried to channel this precise dynamic in order to turn base metals into gold. Plato, too, suggested that a similar psychological movement pattern would increase our own awareness of ourselves. And God told us it was Good when He parted Day from Night. Perhaps Adam and Eve had to experience their own shame in order to encounter their True longings. What then, really, is shame? Perhaps shame is simply BELIEVING that our separateness is fixed instead of mutable.
Maybe we have also been given the same set of initiation rites as our ancestors in Eden. If so, it might be helpful to recall how their redemption arrived through a being that could remember his full Divinity and full humanity too. Perhaps we too must be initiated into our own sense of separateness, experience our deep longing to return, in order to find our own authentic way back to this remembering.
But, why all this trouble? I have no idea. Nonetheless, this experience of disconnection and reconnection appears to be the life-generating movement pattern of the cosmos. Perhaps it's like this: by the time we start remembering our connection, we've already been deeply initiated into the experience of our separateness, which enables us to become powerful messengers of the Truth of both realities. I think John O'Donohue was right about one of the real excitements of being a human. We really can learn how to be the place where the Universe can become conscious of Itself.
A human heart beats to a contracting rhythm of in and out, honoring the pattern of union and separation and union again. Cells do this same dance when they divide from one another, in order to only return to each other again. We remember to let our lungs fill up again with our breath only because we first notice how it has gone out. I marvel at these movements and wonder if this is the whole creative pattern of the Universe.
Love once told me that it disconnects from Itself in order to get an experience of Itself. And of course it would! Love wouldn't be Love if it didn't want to Love itself too. Similarly, John O'Donohue once reminded me that one of the real excitements of being a human is that we are the place where the Universe can become conscious of Itself. The alchemists seemed to understand this when they tried to channel this precise dynamic in order to turn base metals into gold. Plato, too, suggested that a similar psychological movement pattern would increase our own awareness of ourselves. And God told us it was Good when He parted Day from Night. Perhaps Adam and Eve had to experience their own shame in order to encounter their True longings. What then, really, is shame? Perhaps shame is simply BELIEVING that our separateness is fixed instead of mutable.
Maybe we have also been given the same set of initiation rites as our ancestors in Eden. If so, it might be helpful to recall how their redemption arrived through a being that could remember his full Divinity and full humanity too. Perhaps we too must be initiated into our own sense of separateness, experience our deep longing to return, in order to find our own authentic way back to this remembering.
But, why all this trouble? I have no idea. Nonetheless, this experience of disconnection and reconnection appears to be the life-generating movement pattern of the cosmos. Perhaps it's like this: by the time we start remembering our connection, we've already been deeply initiated into the experience of our separateness, which enables us to become powerful messengers of the Truth of both realities. I think John O'Donohue was right about one of the real excitements of being a human. We really can learn how to be the place where the Universe can become conscious of Itself.
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