Category: Healing Trauma

A Young Girl’s Sexual Grace

A Wholebody session with a male partner started by discussing sex in general and then the differences between how boys and girls had different experiences. What emerged was a sense of Female Grace in the sexual awaking of young girls.

A Young  Girl’s Sexual Grace?

A WholeBody session created the phrase Sex and Female Grace during a discussion with a male focusing partner of sex in general and the differences between how children may  have different initial experiences of sexual sensations based on their sex. What emerged was a sense of Sex  and Female Grace. We focused on the early recognition of sexual feelings. For people, especially for those of us born in the 1940s and 1950s and earlier, we experienced our early sexual sensations differently.  After listening to my partner’s experience, I came to understand girls’ sexual awakenings were ignored in comparison to what boys experienced.  The phrase that came to me was Sexual Grace because no one worried that girls would masturbate and did nothing to prevent it. Boys often suffered from a form of monitoring.

How Can Sexual Grace help You?

While girls at that time were frequently underserved, we often didn’t have a chance to play sports or ride bicycles for fear we would injure ourselves and inadvertently lose our virginity.  Boys were usually provided with many more opportunities to be active, but they were also under scrutiny by family and Church to prevent them from “self-abuse.” No one ever mentioned masturbating to me or my female classmates.  As part of the Wholebody session, the words Female Grace emerged to separate the differences.  While girls tended to be ignored compared to boys, neither family nor Church seemed to be concerned about preventing girls from having experiences of sexual sensations.  It was the opposite for boys.

When attention interferes with natual experimentation?

My Wholeboby partner described how his Irish Catholic family and his Church were very strict about preventing boys from masturbating. They tried to make sure their boys did not masturbate.  This control was often very suble and communicated via a non-specific verbal code.  My partner shared the impact of this prohibition on himself and other boys.  They would continue to masturbate but go to confession every morning to ask forgiveness for their sin before taking communion. This information wasn’t the first time I heard this story. My experience was that  I never experienced any guilt of fear from the Church or my family.  Instead the lack of attention allowed me to feel  sexual sensations with pleasure. This was my  Female Grace.

My husband, also raised as an Irish Catholic, was taught to remember that he shouldn’t take Holy Communion unless he asked God’s forgiveness for “self-abuse.”  This phrase was whispered to him by one of his Churche’s priests.  My Husband also had difficulty meeting this high level of ignoring his body’s natural, pleasant feelings. He participated in the ritual: masturbate at night, go to 6:00 am confession with the sleepiest priest, and take communion at early Mass each day before school. The Catholic Church and families were highly engaged in this endeavor. The boys, however,  were highly involved in finding an acceptable compromise between the power of the Church and the power of their biological sensations.

How diferent times in our lives are seen as Graceful or dangerous?

In those years, girls didn’t exist the way boys did. Holding space for this disparity brought something new.  Instead of my normal anger at what I missed out on, Wholebody helped me see this lack of attention was a sense of Female Grace. No one was paying attention to how girls reacted to the natural feelings that emerged from our bodies until we were older. We had the opportunity to have this personal experience without all the condemnation. However, the prohibition would become to stay away from boys for fear of out-of-wedlock pregnancy. This prohibition came full force as we entered our teen years. We did, however, have this period in which we were free to invent our reality in regard to the sexual sensations and stimulation.

Children start to feel sexual bodily stimulation from the age of three. Many learn independently to find the pleasure areas through exploring their bodies. Families and religious entities in the mid-1900s were adamant about how boys  responded to these natural sensations our bodies create. Adult attention started earlier in boys’ lives than girls.  For boys, it started early in their lives and was about the prohibition of masturbation. For girls, it started after a girl started to menstruate and boys began to be attracted to girls in their teenage years. While Boys must not masturbate,  Girls had a different set of rules that made them responsible for their “virginity.” These practices had a life-long impact on our relationship to our sexual selves. 

First Memories

My first memories of sexual sensations started with television. I was in early grammar school.  One night, I was lying on the floor, watching TV with my family. A Peter Sellers movie, A Shot in the Dark,  was on TV, and the storyline was that the Sellers’ character happened upon a nudist colony.  Most of the bodies in the scene were covered by bushes and trees.  However, the concept that one would want to be naked in front of other people was  exciting to me.  As I watched the movie, I felt a familar stimulation in my pelvis. Then, I found that if I pressed my pelvis into the floor, the stimulation became stronger.  I was lucky that the rest of the family also was intently  watching the TV.  

In our home, there was a severe prohibition to expose part of one’s  body to another family member, so the thought that people might want to be naked in front of others was highly stimulating. That experience led to masturbating most nights before I fell asleep using the idea of wanting to be nude. I This was a private experience that connected me to my body though Female Grace.  I sometimses feared that these sensations might not be what “good girls” do, but, like my male counterparts, the sensations were too pleasurable to stop. Also, no one ever told me to confess this practice.  Raw Desire Awakens to It’s Own Power

The Impact of Church and Family

Neither Church nor family imagined that young girls experienced these feelings.  It wasn’t until I entered high school that my mother gave me a book written by the Catholic Church about the dangers of sexual feelings.  She spiced up her attempts to dissuade me from considering any interaction with boys.  One of my favorites was to tell me that “kissing a boy was like kissing a wall”. Girls don’t experience any sensations from kissing.” I felt sorry for my mother and father if they believed that. National Center on Sexual behavior of Youth

Many years later, I started to watch Italian films and heard one of the characters say those exact words in Italian.  It was a cultural practice to keep young girls away from boys.  I wasn’t particularly attracted to boys nor they to me until I was a sophomore in high school.A popular boy started to pay attention to me.  It was the first time that I experienced that kind of attention.  He invited me to be his date for the school play.  My parents were not particularly happy about that.

My father told me I couldn’t date boys until I was eighteen years old.  We argued, and I won. I went to the school to play with this new friend.  We sat down in the auditorium and waited for the play to start. The young man reached for my hand and held it.  That immediately instigated a recognizable sensation in my pelvis.  It was the first time another person sexually stimulated me.  I couldn’t believe that having someone’s hand in mine could produce that sensation.  I was delighted that it was so easy!

The lack of Abortion Rights is the Loss of Female Sexual Grace

When New York State legalized abortions 1970, I remember sitting in the bleachers in the school’s gymnasium with other girls, talking about how that law changed our lives. Up until then, I was so terrified of any sexual contact. The life-changing possibility of pregnancy terrified me.  Now, there was a safety net.  It was a momentous change.  I had agency and was no longer ruled by the fear of an unwanted pregnancy.  I had already seen the impact of an unwanted pregnancy on a classmate. While I wouldn’t have unprotected sex, I felt like the threat of a pregnancy was gone.  

The removal of abortion rights in the USA is a profound loss for women and girls. It changes their relationship to their sexuality and right to control their bodies.  There is no justification of this loss other than  the STATE’s need to  control female bodies.

 

 

Holding Trauma with Equal Regard

I did have an important ally at the high school: the school’s building. NYC built the impressive building from 1912 to 1915 in the Collegiate Gothic Style, emphasizing education’s grandeur. The auditorium was especially grand. When I first walked in there, I felt the powerful energy of the building’s history, which brought me to tears. When I needed support, I would sit there to catch my breath.

When I am holding trauma with equal regard, I am inviting an expanded understanding of the traumatizing experience. This means one needs to let go of judgments and simply accept the situation for what it is in order to learn the full story.  

I had been waking up in the mornings recently with obsessive thoughts of trauma I had experienced 12 years ago.  Before I retired as a high school administrator, I served as Assistant Principal at a large New York City high school. I was in charge of educating immigrant children.  There were 400 English as a Second Language students at a school known for failing to provide adequate support. I felt I was the right person for the job because of my extensive experience helping other schools improve outcomes for immigrant students. However, all I could do was obsess about the horrible experience I had with the staff during that period.

 When Beliefs Clash

I faced a hostile environment where the teachers and administrators felt their low ratings were unjustified. They believed it was the fault of the “students we are getting now” rather than “the better students we used to have.” That is an ineffective structure for teaching, learning, and excellence. Teachers and administrators have a responsibility to meet all students where they are at and to provide suitable pathways to learning.

I was not welcome in this school because I represented the change that was needed. Admitting that change was necessary would require undoing deeply held beliefs. Administrators and teachers strongly felt that it was the African American, Latino, immigrant, and special needs students were the ones who made it seem like the staff was ineffective. The administration planned to identify the best-prepared students and provide them with special instruction to raise the graduation rate. This plan was not feasible because a large part of the population was performing below grade level.  

 Being Me

I chose to take this job because the new principal was someone I had worked with for several years. Our shared philosophy was that administrators and teachers need to recognize students’ needs and provide appropriate instruction to meet them.  Unfortunately, we encountered hostile teachers and unmovable colleagues.

After eight months of their failed practices, there was an incident in the principal’s office in which the male assistant principal, Math, attempted to physically attack the principal because she demanded that African American students be allowed in higher-level Math classes. The AP Math was stopped only by my screaming presence in the room. The principal was traumatized by the attempted attack. It was worse for her later, especially after our superiors refused to address not only his attack, but they would not bar him from blocking African American students from second-year math. The principal ended up finding another job.

Finding allies

The hatred toward low-performing students remained around the school. Fortunately, I had a very talented team of bilingual teachers who were excited to use their extensive skills to improve student outcomes.  These teachers helped build a very effective language-learning program. I finally had my dream job: creating a safe, supportive place for English language learners and special-needs students, with a teaching team who shared my belief that our students could become literate in English if we did our best.  I wasn’t going to leave the school with it’s hostle environment outside my department.

As a child of Italian immigrants, I knew how much my parents suffered from inappropriate instruction. They were intelligent people who never fully learned to read and write because they were assigned to classes where little effort was made to help them to read and write in English. That was where Italian speakers belonged in the 1930s.  Eventually, I became a leader in the Bilingual Education Second Language community. I was part of the social and political changes affecting immigrant students.  

When I first started teaching, my colleagues were people who grew up in the 1960’s. They were part of the fight for equal rights of African Americans, Latinos, and against the Vietnam War. Many of them were African American or Latino and shared my commitment to language rights and equal access to a proper education for all.  They were my mentors whose integrity and commitment to improving students’ lives inspired me to be the best at what I do.  

The auditorium 

At my new school, the hostility was constant. I was also shocked by how most members of the faculty did not share the same background that led me to my dedication to immigrant and African American special needs students. It left me depressed and angry that others didn’t feel a connection to the school’s current students.  

An Arabic-speaking student with Autism passed the NYS Exam for competency in the English requirement.
Many languages spoken

I did have an important ally at the high school: the school’s building. NYC built the impressive Collegiate Gothic-style building from 1912 to 1915, emphasizing education’s grandeur. The auditorium was especially grand. When I first walked in there, I felt the powerful energy of the building’s history, which brought me to tears. When I needed support, I would sit there to catch my breath.  I  also brought my student to the auditorium to have some respite.  It was a great place to bring students who met the NY State qualifications for immigrants.  I asked them to share their experiences, and later we enjoyed a meal together and offered them books to keep.

 Equal Regard Is Essential

To address my obsessive thoughts about the difficulty of this period in my life, I began working with Kevin McEvenue using WBF and with Susan McClellium, a Shaman, to connect me to my memories of this experience. One day, Susan suggested that I talk to my obsessive thoughts. She had me move into a different chair as if I were a different person telling my story. What came was utterly different from my obsessive thoughts from this three-year experience. My essence refused to mention the traumatic experiences, but instead reminded me of the joy I experienced by doing what I knew was right.

My Wholebody self started with the beautiful memories of working with immigrant and special needs students. It reminded me of an avalanche of stories about why I had chosen this work. This part of me that remembered more than the trauma was not willing to stop telling its side of the story. Out of this, I realized that, despite the battles I lost and the abuse I witnessed and experienced on a daily basis, my interaction with  teachers, some of the staff, and the students was effective, improved learning, and made me extremely happy. State evaluations verified what I knew was happening.  My department had the best academic improvement among all the other departments.  

Trauma and  Positive Energy Meet

Holding both with equal regard was the key. I fully understood the power of my memories of the trauma. When I experienced obsessive thoughts, I realized that the trauma was still raw and needed attention and acceptance.

What came to me from the positive memories is that “this is the price one pays to do the right thing.” I was experiencing the challenge of fighting the racist behavior of adults as an attack on me.  When connected to body wisdom, I learned that, despite the abuse, I was able to meet the needs of my students. We seldom consider the extent of the antagonism teachers and administrators face because they put all students first.  It is not until now that I can celebrate my ability to be steadfast and successful in the face of this violence. Now I have a deeper appreciation for others who have also fought against racist ideologies on a grander scale and what price they paid.  

N.B.

As I was writing this blog, I wondered if holding space with equal regard might have helped the situation. Wholebody Focusing would have helped teachers and Administrators find their place among the new students being served by the school.  

My Illness is my Reality

Our loved ones seemed to be responding to our disabilities from the point of view of their loss of our presence.

Our Loved Ones’ Needs

“My illness is not a rejection of you. It is simply my reality.” This phrase came to mind when a Focusing friend and I began to see  similar patterns in the behaviors of some of our friends and family member’s relation to our disabilities. Our loved ones seemed to be responding to our disabilities from the point of view of their loss of our presence. They seemed to want us to somehow overcome our limitations so that we all  could return to our pre-disabled selves.

My Reality vs. your Perceptions

My husband and I live isolated lives because of his severe pulmonary disease.  In addition, I had Salivary Cancer in 2017 that was treated with high levels of radiation.  This treatment greatly damaged my immune system. While I am physically able, I also need to keep myself healthy to protect my husband from infection. A friend of mine is regularly insisting that we make an effort to be more available and spend more time doing things that require us to be among a lot of people. She believes that our need to isolate is no longer necessary even though my husband’s prognosis has not improved. 

We are not Rejecting our Loved Ones

A friend has developed a disability that, at this point, has no treatment. In her case, an important person in her life insisted that she learn to overcome her disability because it makes that person not want to be with her.   

My family lives in another state. My husband and I do not go to family parties because driving is out of our range and the family parties include mostly people who have never vaccinated.  I need to remind relatives  each time we are invited  why we cannot participate.  They seldom discuss what they can do to remedy the situation of the loss of contact.

Awareness

We are aware that this problem isn’t only something that my husband and I experience, but seems to be something that other disabled people  experience as well. Knowing this helps us look at the situation from a different perspective.  

I sense a distinct sense of grief among friends and family.  It could be grieving the end of how we interacted in the past  and expecting the disabled person has the power to turn back time.

Recently, I experienced a number of people expressing these sentiments.  After my conversation with my focusing friend I decided to find a way to  help not only my loved ones but also myself to clarify how disability can lead to new lives.  Here is what has helped. 

Acknowledgement of the disability

The nature of each person’s disability is unique and unpredictable.  We need to allow ourselves time to take in what is different, what was lost, and what we might have gained.

Acceptance of this new way of life

Once we identify how we have changed, we can begin to accept our limitations and even be able to see some advantages. For example, certain types of immobility can lead you to find ways of expressing yourself without interacting in person or spending more time being  willing to read, write, and contemplate, the world around us.  My husband, used his time alone to chronicle his life including the time he had dedicated his life to stoping the Vietnam War and fighting racism in our society. I have spent my time helping to extend Wholebody practices to a larger audience.  This blog, for example,  has readers in 60 countries. I also help focusers in different countries to communicate with each other.

Appreciation of the gifts it can bring

I take time to do more things that require that I  have time to think, explore ideas, and write about what I find.  I also spend time learning new ways to manage my digital life that include, films I create with friends and writing letters to government officials regarding responses to laws or lack thereof.

When I was in grammar school my parents realized that I was more advanced than my grade.  They sent me to a tutor.  She was a teacher in a wheelchair.  I went to her home once a week. She asked me what I needed and I told her I wanted to be a writer.  She taught me how to think and write about the things that were important to me.  Without this training I may never have been able to fully enjoy my abilities.  That experience showed me that a disabilty is not the end of life.  Our friends and family members need to appreciate what we are able to do in spite of the things we can’t do.

Allow our  bodies to find their own reality 

My WholeBody practice encourages me to hold space for what is challenging, what needs support and what needs to be celebrated.   We have to help our friends comprehend the complexity of being disabled.  They also need to be aware of their emotional response to the changes in our lives.  If they don’t, it can lead them to demand that we change in impossible ways. It is important to remember that your friends and loved ones have their own reality in response to your illness. Some people will begin to understand your reality on their own and how to support you. Others might need your support.  Most importantly hold space for the love and concern that you know is there.

How to help your disabled friend?

What is Alive in Me Right Now

Recovery Self-Awareness

Each time I treated my suffering part as an entity unto itself, I had room to manage my medical experience better because I wasn’t occupied by worry and fear. 

Part II Recovery

Self-Awareness comes in different ways.  As a young woman, I knew I wanted to work in  education.  I also had a great desire to become a filmmaker. Inspired by my work with students in my school’s TV studio, I realized that I needed more training.  I began studying Method acting with a teacher trained by the “father of Method Acting”, Lee Strasberg.  This is one of the benefits of living in NYC. The basis of Method acting teaches the practioner to develop a very deep level of self-awareness.   We were taught to use our imagination to invoke the emotional state of the characterwe would become. For example, one connects to  a particular emotional state in one’s life that resembles the character’s emotional state and uses it to become the character. It is a different and potent pathway to the felt sense.

Self-Awareness

Method Acting  helped me  learn how to  access emotions, and their physical manifestations (change in heart rate, sweating, etc) and. For a focuser one can access the emotional state of a part of the body. The Method practice can  help a focuser to become aware of one’s capacity to connect to any part of one’s body that needs your attention. When I began studying Focusing, these method skills were very valuable.  Only this time I was connecting to my body parts’ experienceto learn more about them instead of using them to become somone else.

Recovery Self-Awareness

Kevin and I continued to work together helping me to hold space for the suffering of the parts of my body that would need to be removed.  As we continued our investigation into my body’s experience of itself I learned to be more compassionate of the effected parts of my body and less anxious about “future scenarios” that had been occupying my thoughts since the decision to go forward with the surgery to remove the right salivary gland.   

Time  to create a plan of action to get me through this experience began to take form.  Living in NYC gives you access to high quality medical care but, it makes getting family and friends together to coordinate care needs from their vastly differing locations.  I created a system on my cell phone that would support everyone wanting information about the progress of the surgery and the  recovery.  I taught a friend who would be at the hospital with me to be in charge of the cell phone. It was a simple system to able to communicate with me and family and friends on the day of the surgery and notify various groups who wanted to be part of my support community support.  

Missing Parts Self-Awareness

When I returned home, had nerve damage that limited the functioning of my mouth, I was in the state of shock. I had very little control food in my mouth and I kept biting my numb lip. There also was massive swelling.  It felt like I had been beaten up..  My first salivary gland extraction had none of the symptoms.  Rage was my main emotion.  I wondered if I had had an incompetent surgeon. With the help of Chinese herbs, Acupuncture and homeopathis remedies for pain and nerve damage, the new changes in my body started to more closely function in ways that helped me function.  

Making space for the missing parts helped me to have room to remember that I am not alone and that I have access to an a vast network of alternative options to help my recover. I began to take advantage of those resources. This put the control of my outcomes back in my hands

Recovery

Each time I treated my suffering part as an entity unto itself, I created room to manage my medical experience. It helped reduce my worry and fear.  Recovery Self-Awareness helped me remember that even I had no viable alternative to the surgery. I did have the resources to manage the effects of the surgery.  In addition, I had to wait more than three weeks to get the final “no cancer” results.  The lesion I had was rare, which made the process longer than usual. I asked the affected area if there was any cancer.  It told me, “No!” It helped me let go of the importance of the biopsy report. I eventually received the report ‘no further treatment was needed.’  It was essential to get the medical results, but my connection with the surgical site helped me to get through the waiting.

WFB allows us to short circut the negative throughts that can overwhelm us as we go through necessary medical procedures.  We can fill that space with a connection to the part of us that needs treatment, will be removed, or will take curative medications that can have strong side effects.  By becoming aware of its suffering, acknowledge the ill part’s  existance, show it compassion and kindness, we can have a direct experience of healing.

Method Acting

Loving Kindness Changes the World

 

Disclaimer:  This article is a guide to using Wholebody Focusing as a guide to emotional, and spiritual support when one is experiencing a medical condition.  It does not claim to have curative powers.

WBF for Body Self-Awareness

This post is Part I of a journey of self-awaress using Wholebody Focusing to suport oneself through a medical challenge. This experience helped the writer to approach the illness in a new way that included an awareness of the illness itslef.

Part I

Self-Awareness was lacking one morning when I woke up  in February noticing that the area under my right ear felt different.  As sleep slipped away, I put my hand over the area and I seemed to find a lump. I immediately moved my hand away thinking it was part of a dream. I didn’t touch that area again until later in the day and found, in fact, there was a lump there that wasn’t there the night before. Something had grown in this area over night. Once again, I decided to leave it alone. Seven years ago I had stage three Salivary Gland Cancer on the left side. I wasn’t able to process something like this happening to me again.

Avoidance Self-Awareness

I had had many MRIs in this area as part of the follow-up to successful cancer treatmenton the left side. The MRIs would show that I had a something on the right side that was of no significance. Now it decided to grow into a noticeable size for no particular reason. I decided to wait to see if it would reduce in size for no particular reason.   

After six weeks, I called my surgeon and scheduled a MRI. This time, the MRI indicated this growth was a lesion attached to my right salivary gland. Now it seemed  to be a possible repeat that could be cancer. Biopsies were done that showed no cancer. These biopsies, however, were such that they showed that the small area of the samples taken did not have cancer, not that I was certifiably cancer free. I waited another three months. The Doctor said the only way to ensure the lesion was not cancer would be to remove it and I agreed.

Denial Self-Awareness

I realized that I responded  to this very scary situation with avoidance. For example, I assumed that it was not cancer and didn’t tell anyone about the lump. That gave me the ability to deny its existence. The second MRI showed a small amount of growth and I could no longer deny its existence.

Magical Thinking Self-Awareness

Finally, I tried Magical Thinking. My closest friends and I tried Reiki to make the lesion go away but this lesion was not having it. When I asked the lesion if Reiki could help, I learned it couldn’t. In my Reiki group of practicioners, we had had some possitive healing experiences.  At this point I was hoping to help myself make space for this new event and open pathways to draw to me the resources I would need.  Realizing that I wasn’t addressing the situation emotionally or spiritually, I asked Kevin McEvenue, my WBF mentor, to help me connect to this lesion. 

In our first session, what came to me in grounded presence was a need to fully acknowledge that lesion existed separate and apart from me. Ithad its own story. I allowed automatic movements to guide my interaction with the lesion. As my hands and arms moved in their own way, I learned that lesion did not want to be touched.  However, the lesion did want to be fully acknowledged and left alone.  As my body moved, I held space for the lesion just the way it was, without judgement of its purpose, or the direction to not touch it.  

Awareness of the Lump as it’s own Entity

After that session, I lost my fear of telling people I had this problem and the implications of the situation i.e a possibility of a recurrence of cancer, surgery, including the increased loss of functionality of my mouth. 

The gift, after this session was that my friends and family let me know they would be with me though this experience and would provide whatever help I needed. They helped me face this new reality. I had the help I needed without rejection or shame. When I stopped lying to my body about the significance of my lesion, the help I needed showed up without asking.  

Appreciation Awareness

In a second session with Kevin, what came to me was appreciation. When I was holding grounded presence, I began to understand how difficult this salivary gland’s experience was since the demise of the left salivary gland.  Part of the MRI report said the gland had begun to undergo atrophy. This salivary gland was working double time to provide my mouth with the saliva it needed. I felt appreciation for its valor to take on this task. It also made me aware of its inability to continue this task. I held space for the seven years it had played this role and how that helped me recover from my previous surgery.  It also occurred to me that this gland needed compassion for its struggle, something that felt quite natural to the healing process. This session helped me connect to these parts of my body in a way I have never felt before. Rather than being frighten by the coming events, I began to hold space for all the unknown changes that were coming our way.  

Ponte Madonna della Stella, Gravina, Puglia, Italy

Continue reading “WBF for Body Self-Awareness”

Standing Like a Tree

Standing Like a Tree  or Zhan Zhuang is a type of Tai Chi that uses silent non-movement to open pathways to what wants your attention.

 Standing Like a Tree ( Part 1)

Standing Like a Tree  or Zhan Zhuang is a type of Tai Chi that opens pathways to what wants your attention.  It is a simple yet powerful exercise to enhance energy, mental clarity. It helps you create a connection to your inner self without re-traumatizing oneself. It’s an excellent standing meditation to bring more movement and aliveness to everything you do. This meditation can eventually help to unleash deeply held trauma that can be relieved by our recognition of its pain as part of your Wholebody practice.   

Standing Silently Connects Us to Our Bodies

Wholebody Focusing includes a movement-based language with which we can silently communicate with whatever emotions our bodies hold.  Standing like a Tree offers many ways we can enter this subconscious world to help balance whatever we are conscious of with all that our body holds and uses to react from a perspective that includes all we have ever experienced. This practice also holds a pathway to clear whatever is no longer needed. In addition, It holds on to the essential lessons that guide our lives.

First and foremost, we communicate with our bodies through Grounded Presence. Grounded Presence is merely putting time aside to recognize our body and its relationship to the Earth, Air, and the Universe. Connecting to these energies opens a communication pathway from our bodies to our consciousness, starting with whatever wants our attention. We must be patient, open, and concentrate on what is happening in and around our bodies. In this state, our consciousness often opens up and shares whatever insight is ready to reveal itself.

Benefits of Standing  Like a Tree Meditation

For example, one day, I was holding Grounded Presence quietly standing in my Den, feeling a sense of comfort and lack of anxiety.  Suddenly, a wave of anxiety arose and took over.  I asked what caused this wave to show up.  What came for me was the memory of what it was like to live with my family as a young girl. There was fear, danger, and a lack of care. What That part of me was letting me know that its experience was trapped inside that childhood moment. The trauma of the experience froze and split off from my consciousness.

This part of me did not know that we were no longer five years old and no longer lived with my family of birth. I told this part, “We live in a different state with our loving husband. The danger is no longer present. We were now 59 years old and far away from the anxiety-creating circumstance.  While it seemed incredible to the traumatized part that the danger no longer existed, it was happy to have connected with me.  That part of me has revisited over time to make sure that the trauma had not returned nor were we still living in the original place of trauma.  

Awareness of Trauma+Compassion=Healing

The silent meditation that involved my body was what led me to this experience. Holding still in Grounded Presence gave an opening to a struggling part to share its trauma with  my consciousness. My new awareness of this trauma, helped me comfort this deeply held pain, anxiety, and loss of our connection to my Whole Body. I would never have remembered that feeling without Grounded Presence and Standing Like a Tree. However, I knew immediately that that the experience was true.  

Learn from Standing Like a Tree

I find I make the biggest leaps in reconnecting with parts of me that hold unknown, trauma, joy, ancient truths when I connect to my body in this manner: Standing, Recognizing my whole body, waiting, for whatever needs my attention to awake my consciousness. 

The Link below describes the Standing Like a Tree Tai Chi practice.  The next post to the blog will be how to  it can be used to strengthen our WBF practice.

Standing Like a Tree

Standing like a Tree  is a very simple practice that takes 30-40 minutes.Click on the link below to get more information.

  • Stand in a comfortable place
    • For best results keep your body weight on the front or middle part of the feet. 
    • Your arms should be at your side imaging that there is a pea under your arms so they are extended a tiny bit with hands faced toward the body.  
    • Bend your knees slightly. 
    • Lower your chin towards your throat. 
    • Draw your upper pelvis inward.   
    • One of the body’s energy centers is just below the navel.  Hold this space in your consciousness. 
    • Become aware of what your body is experiencing.  The longer you hold this position in grounded presence, the higher the likelihood that automatic movements will show up. They can lead to new parts of yourself coming into consciousness.  Start with 10 minutes and bring your practice up to 30-40 minutes.  Whatever shows up, welcome it, accept what it is and show compassion for its experience.  No more is needed.    

See the link above  to more information about the physical practice of Standing Like a Tree.  

 

Diana Scalera

The Disturbelence of Feeling Terror

Presence is the goodness of Life that underlies all “good” and “bad.”

When I was a young boy, about 4/5  years old, I would sometimes sit with my father in the garden after he had come home from work. I would sit in my little red wooden chair beside him. I don’t think we said much, but I remember feeling so proud of myself for sitting beside him.

Feeling Terror

Just over 60 years later, I am sitting in an imaginary Focusing chair next to a terrified toddler in an imaginary red chair. The terror felt in my belly feels very real. It’s a deeply embodied terror of other people rejecting and abandoning me.

It is not a word you will find in the dictionary, but the word disturbelence fits well.It captures the intense disturbance and discord the terror energy creates throughout the body and it also feeds into the the immense amount of energy that feels held within that terror.

Sitting Beside the Terror

It feels freeing to be able to sit beside the terror with its furiously fast and shuttering (a mixture of fluttering and shaking) in the belly. I can now be the father’s presence for the terrified toddler and sit beside him, just like my father sat calmly beside me in these early days.

Letting  Terror  Transform

The terrified toddler let me know that it likes me to feel the much slower, steady frequency of the energy circuit between my feet and the ground. And when I do, the terror energy calms down a little, and the energy trapped in the terror slowly releases as tiny shivers through my arms and legs. It feels so good for this energy to move and unwind.  It seems to know exactly how to do this, and as each day goes by, it loses its resonance with the “terror,” and what’s left is just fast shuttering energy in the belly. And as it releases bit by bit, I am feeling more and more alive and expansive – trapped energy releasing and joining the river of Life flowing through my body.

The Body Knows the WayForward, I Don’t

Eugene Gendlin’s quote speaks so well of this natural forward movement of Life’s energy: ” Every bad feeling is potential energy toward a more right way of being if you give it space to move forward to its rightness.. .. The feelings of “bad” or “wrong” inside you, in effect, your body’s measurement of the distance between its rightness and the way it actually feels. It knows the direction. It knows this just as much as you know which way to move a crooked picture.”

What my mind may easily label as “bad” or “wrong” inside is, in fact, the potential energy that can alchemize into the gold of Presence. Presence is the goodness of Life that underlies all “good” and “bad.”

Biography of Addie van der Kooy

Conversation with Addie van der Kooy and Kevin McEvenue

Letting In The Sunlight of Being

To sense the vitality of Presence within and without recharges our body and mind and resources us in ways nothing else can.

It is a real pleasure to welcome you to our next monthly Pause for Presence gathering on Saturday February 27th.  Life in lockdown during these dark, cold and sun-starved winter months (at least here in the northern hemisphere) is a perfect time to pause and let in the “sunlight of Being”.  To sense the vitality of Presence within and without recharges our body and mind and resources us in ways nothing else can.

Letting in the Sunlight–Addie van der Kooy

In one of our last gatherings the image of the ocean floor emerged with a sense of its deep vibrantly alive stillness, unperturbed by but not separate from the wind-swept waves and cross currents on its surface.  This felt image speaks beautifully of the dimension of Presence that can be felt inside us as “an underlying energy field of living Presence”, always alive, at peace and undisturbed by the waves of thoughts, emotions and physical discomforts you may experience on the surface.

Letting in the Sunlight–Cecelia Clegg

The idea of these monthly 90-minutes gatherings is to come to rest in this underlying energy field of Presence – a sense of the aliveness felt within the body and around us as a nourishing Presence that holds and constantly resources us: to rest and be nourished by the aliveness of “just being” and allowing the surface to be as it is.  Being together in this way creates a palpable energy field of group Presence which allows you to experience Presence in a much deeper way than if you were on your own.

The format of our gathering is simple.  After a brief guidance into Presence (for those who need it), we silently come to rest in “this underlying energy field of Presence”. There will also be time for any heartfelt sharing that wants to happen.

The details:

  • Time and date: Saturday 27th February from 4 pm to 5.30 pm GMT.
  • Venue: Zoom video conferencing platform. If you have no experience with Zoom, please let Cecelia know for necessary guidance.
  • Fee: £15 (by bank transfer) or £16 (by Paypal which includes £1 Paypal fee). It includes a free audio-recording of the guided sessions.
  • Email Cecelia Clegg at ceceliaclegg44@gmail.com to register.

If you are unable to attend, you can still register to receive an audio-recording of the guided sessions for a £5 fee.

See you then!

Addie van der Kooy and Cecelia Clegg

UK Wholebody Focusing Trainers

Previous workshops:
Pause for Presence

Welcome to the Depths of the Ocean

Photo Credit: Diana Scalera Labyrinth at Kripalu. Stockbridge, MA