WBF and Yoga Nidra

I find my body seems joyful that it has a chance to be observed in its natural state. It has become so used to being observed that I often do not have to speak or think the process but just let my body know that I am taking time to notice it part by part.

Are we only Wholebody Focusers when we are in partnership with other Wholebody Focusers, or is it a way of life? For me, it is a way of life, a theoretical structure that holds my experiences. The most important concepts are:

Body Wisdom knows what our bodies need.

We hold space for everything we find within us with equal positive regard.

Our bodies only need our awareness to begin and support the healing process.

What happens when we are living our lives? How do these concepts come into play? Do we ignore them? Do we fully enter other worlds and adapt to other ideas? Or do we integrate what we know supports life within us? These are questions I ask myself when I want to participate in other energetic practices.

Yoga Nidra

I became very fond of Yoga Nidra when I worked in NYC public schools. My days were always long and full of demands and challenges. To relax, I would use an audio guide to help me get into the Yoga Nidra state when I returned home from work. I would take 20 minutes to allow my body to recover while my dear husband cooked our dinner. I am not an expert in Yoga nor a scholar of its history. I am approaching this discussion as a student in a yoga class.

Yoga Nidra is the part of a Yoga class when you lay on you back with your arms spread out and palms facing up and legs hip-width apart. The goal is to enter a state somewhere between awareness and sleep. This state is profoundly relaxing and acts like a tonic that recharges your body.

As one listens to the teacher’s guiding words, you notice different body parts. Some teachers might say something like “ask your toes to relax” and proceed through the body from bottom to top asking all areas to relax. I began to wonder if even this small demand on the body was out of step with my Wholebody Focusing practice?

Can I find this place of deep relaxation and apply what I know about WBF? In other words, how can any energetic practice become a Wholebody experience?

I changed this practice to make it more in line with my Wholebody practice by setting a different intention for the Nidra state. Instead of asking my body to do something, I want to give my body a chance to do what it needs to do. By observing a particular body part, it activates in some way. I feel energy churning. I stay with this felt sense until it seems to have found its rhythm. Then, another part becomes activated. I do not move on to another part of my body in a predetermined order but by what appears next. I stay with that new part until it recognizes my awareness.

I find my body seems joyful in that it has a chance to be observed in its natural state. It has become so used to being observed that I often do not have to speak or think the process but just let it know that I am taking time to notice it part by part. I set the intention at the beginning that I am giving my body time to be with itself and it just happens.

I tried to create an audio file to help you experience this, but anything I would say might limit your experience of WBF Nidra.

For me, as my different parts churn away (my energetic experience), I feel a great relief from the need to “be in charge.” My body knows I support its need to create this energetic movement and is happy to have a chance to have the time, space, and support to do what comes naturally.

I have learned something significant over time.  When I first started this practice and felt the energy, I would imagine that I had some illness that needed attention. Once I had a diagnosis, I would begin to create an action plan to treat it. My plans were so detailed on a particular occasion, I was able to observe the nonsense of it and just laughed out loud.

At first I would remind myself that I needed to let go of any ill health diagnosis that might come to mind. Without a diagnosis, there was no need for an action plan. My mantra became, “No diagnosis, No Action Plan.”

In fact, our bodies are constantly seeking stasis, an equilibrium of two opposing forces.  By holding these energy patterns with equal, positive regard, our bodies have a chance to use their innate wisdom to help themselves be the best they can be. I go deeper into my Nidra state and allow my body to have its own time to heal and come back refreshed and anxiety free.

Please try this and see what it feels like. Let us know what your experience is in the comments.
Namaste!

Photo Credit: Swamp Rose Mallow Hibiscus on the East River, Manhattan. Diana Scalera 2009

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Black Lives Matter Mural and Holding Both

I have begun to exit from my total COVID-19 lock down. My husband is a person at high risk for severe complications from COVID-19. We decided to stick to strict social distancing and other recommendations to keep both of us safe. Since New York City has reduced the number of infections significantly to below 1%, I’ve been venturing outside more.

During the height of the virus in New York, there were so many people protesting the death of George Floyd. We watched it from inside. A few days ago, I walked with a friend to Union Square in Manhattan, a central starting point of most demonstrations. There I found a colossal mural supporting Black Lives Matter. I was so moved by it I began filming with my cellphone to get a sense of it. I eventually went back with my video camera to record the experience. Here is what I found.

The artists divided the mural into two parts. On Union Square East, there are Black people’s names on grey painted plywood who have been killed by the police in the US and other countries. Feet and legs are moving forward from different cultures and places. It was, at once, a memorial to their lives and a celebration of their spirits. The grey tones also help one’s grief.

Around the corner On East 15th Street was something completely different. There were quotes by leaders of African American rights’ struggle on how to change these unjust situations from various decades. Once again, the plywood was grey, but the messages were is a bold and strong font. Not a scream, but a steady, honorable voice of encouragement to those who will struggle against this gaping in wound our society that has not yet been replaced with equal positive regard for all.

Here is what you will see if you come to New York City and walk around Union Square.

https://vimeo.com/manage/454220287/general

https://vimeo.com/manage/454220287/general

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Embodying the “We Space” On-Line Workshop

On-Line: 16 September 2020

How do we stay present in the  important relationships in our life? How do we stay connected to ourselves in the small and large moments that make up these relationships? What is possible when we slow down and take time to establish these connections in a deep and embodied way?

In this workshop Ruth, Bruna and Julian invite you to explore these questions by embodying  the “We Space.” This is a process of relearning how to be with yourself, with another person and with something that is greater.
It asks us to slow down and come into a deep and embodied connection with ourselves and each other. Once that connection is established we are capable of contacting the collective space in a more meaningful way.

Ruth, Bruna and Julian aim to reawaken the body’s  innate ability to communicate, sense , inform and  intuit.  They are also working towards a deep felt understanding of connection. These are fundamental human faculties. Practicing and relearning them can guide and support us through these chaotic times. They look forward to sharing this experience with you.

About the Facilitators

Ruth Friedman works as a well-being and stress management coach. She is also a Certified Whole Body Focusing Trainer with the Focusing Institute, New York. Ruth’s work is informed by her own life-long journey of self-discovery and awakening. It is the wish to share these gifts that motivates her work. She has been running workshops since 1998.

Bruna Blandino
 is a Certifying Coordinator of Focusing and a Wholebody Focusing Trainer for the Focusing Institute, New York. She works as a Psychosynthesis Counselor and teaches Focusing and Wholebody Focusing in Italy where she lives.

Julian Crotti started his career in Australia as a performing artist working in physical theater, dance and film. Since moving to Germany he has cultivated a practice centered on Whole Body Focusing. He has been studying and applying the technique for five years and it has inspired a new approach to his creativity as well as inspiring a series of workshops he has been offering to his local LGBTQ community.

Payment

Please make payment of €10 via PayPal to https://paypal.me/andyjwhittle. If you do not wish to use Paypal, please let us know when you register and we will send you information for making a bank transfer. Proceeds from the workshop will be donated to charity.

Joining the Workshop

We will use Zoom, the on-line conferencing software, to give this workshop. If you have not already done so, you can download the Zoom app to your computer or telephone free.

A day or two before the workshop, Andy will all paid participants the link for joining the workshop.

Date and Time

When Wednesday, 16 September 2020; Session will start at at 18:55 and the workshop will begin at 19:00 (18:00 BST, 13:00 EDT time). Please log in early.

Want to Attend?

Please reply to your invitation e-mail or follow this link to sign up for for this workshop. Please also make payment via Paypal (see above)

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Sintomi-La chiave di volta per prendere contatto Symptoms-the Key to Making Contact

Sintomi-La chiave di volta per prendere contatto.

Attraverso il Focusing, andremo a scoprire un nuovo approccio per portarci ad ascoltare i Sintomi
che il nostro corpo ci trasmettere quotidianamente a fronte di disagi, malesseri, disturbi.

Andremo ad onorare il Sintomo ospitandolo in uno spazio ampio, inconsueto spesso intangibile.
Il Sintomo è un indice: Segnale di una irregolarità del funzionamento ideale di un organismo, di cui conoscendolo meglio, sarebbe opportuno ascoltarlo al ne di farlo funzionare al meglio.

Non è un segnale da ignorare o pensare di eliminare senza permettergli di esprimere la sua voce.
Patrizia Mataloni, Paola Schiesaro hanno unito le loro esperienze e competenze iniziate nel 2017 per consolidare un approccio strutturato, organizzato e ripetibile,
nell’ambito di alcuni disagi che il nostro corpo aronta ogni giorno.A chi è rivolto?

A tutti quei Focalizzatori

attivi che hanno voglia dimettersi in discussione, ascoltare empaticamente e approcciare in un modo strutturato eventuali sintomi che il proprio corpo segnala e che la nostra mente si riuta di ascoltare.

Come e dove s’ impara?

L’apprendimento della metodologia è prettamente esperienziale supportato da alcuni studi nei diversi campi di riferimento e necessita di essere insegnata la tecnica attraverso delle sessioni teorico/pratiche. Al termine di ogni corso verrà rilasciato un attestato di frequenza a completamento del Corso.

L’attestato può essere usato per crediti ECP.

Struttura del Corso e Date:
INCONTRI DI 2 GIORNI
modalità in presenza o anche via SKYPE/ZOOM

In presenza – 16/17 Ottobre 2020 Ore 9:00 -18:00 CEST Rivoli, Italy
OnLine – 07/08 Novembre 2020 Ore 9:30- 18:30 CEST
Min. partecipanti 6 Max 12
Luogo: LA CASA NELLA VIGNA Via Mongioie, 14/13 – Rivoli

Eventuali suggerimenti se necessario per chi volesse
fermarsi a dormire o non arriva da zone connanti.
Le Lezioni non possono essere recuperate frequentando parzialmente

Costo: 160€ se iscrizione eettuata e pagata entro il 30 Settembre 2020
Successivamente Settembre 180€.

Formatrici:
MATALONI PATRIZIA e SCHIESARO PAOLA, TRAINERS CERTIFICATO FOCUSING INSTITUTE NY
schpao@hotmail.it – 335.1247368
prempatma@gmail.com – 339.7439542

 

Through Focusing, we will discover a new approach to lead us to listen to the symptoms
that our body provides to us every day in the face of discomfort, illness, ailments.

We will honor the Symptom by holding them in a large, unusual and often intangible space.

The symptom is an index: A sign of an irregularity in the ideal functioning of an organism, of which knowing it better, it would be helpful to listen to them in order to support our bodies.

It is not a signal to ignore or think about eliminating them without allowing them to express their voice.

Patrizia Mataloni, Paola Schiesaro have combined their experiences and skills started in 2017 to consolidate a structured, organized and reliable approach, in the context of some discomforts that our bodies suffer every day.

Who will benefit from this workshop?

All Focuser who are active people who want to, listen empathically and approach in a structured way any symptoms that their body signals and that our mind sometimes fails to listen.

How and where do you learn?

Learning the methodology is purely experiential supported by some studies in the various fields of reference and needs to be taught the technique through theoretical / practical sessions. At the end of each course, a certificate of attendance will be issued to complete the course.The certificate can be used for ECP credits.

Course Structure and Dates: 2-DAY MEETINGS
in person and also via SKYPE / ZOOM

In attendance – 16/17 October 2020 9:00 am – 6:00 pm CEST (Rivoli, Italy)
OnLine – 07/08 November 2020 9: 30- 18:30
Minimum Participants 6 Maximum 12.
Place: THE HOUSE IN THE VINEYARD Via Mongioie, 14/13 – Rivoli, Italy

Cost: € 160 if registration is completed and paid by 30 September 2020
Subsequently September 180 €.

Teachers:
MATALONI PATRIZIA and SCHIESARO PAOLA, CERTIFIED TRAINERS FOCUSING INSTITUTE NY
schpao@hotmail.it – 335.1247368
prempatma@gmail.com – 339.7439542

 

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Heart Holding Space

Taking the time, allow a fresh momentum 
to assault that crooked door
on rusted hinges.

Resting in the authority of your natural presence
allow yourself to come home,
emerge from this being you.

And yet still there’s that current
shunts you away from this –
a loping grey wolf
in the wilderness of your belonging.

Taking the time, allow a fresh momentum
to assault that crooked door
on rusted hinges,
crack its frozen joints,
charm its forgotten longings.
And let the discovery be enough.

Finding a heart holding space
for these abandoned places
of forest and caves,
the spell of your here & now blooms.
Let it be your home.

In the depth is the direction:
rising like spring waters,
welling up and filling out itself
in unexpected ways,

a new beginning.

 

This poem was a result of a session between barebody&soul and Addie van der Kooy.

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My friend died last week….

Contact with Jose had a richness, an extraordinary arms-flinging-wide open in joy  feel: he had a deep abiding faith in Love that he called God.

by Cathy Rowan

Jose died last week. He died due to the Coronavirus. He lived over 4,500miles away from me and yet he was one of my very closest friends.

Inside me is a great big hole of missing him. A sense of both my personal and the world in general being a poorer place with his departing. I know he will have died in peace and his health had become increasingly poor over the last couple of years.

My body now feels him in the wind, sees him in the clouds scudding by, and dancing amongst the stars – probably swinging on the moon because he is now free. He is no longer locked in a prison: he spent in total just 6 months short of 30 years in prison in Texas. And for this I feel a visceral joy for him that he is no longer suffering.

But my heart is so angry with the prison system that did not even give the inmates bars of soap to wash their hands. Alongside this is this huge sadness: what is within me and most striking is just plain old “missing him” being here on the planet with me albeit thousands of miles away.

Yesterday I just sat with myself, just being with all of this and there was also a sense of more wanting to come. Suddenly an unexpectedly profound awareness came: that Donald Trump, for all his wealth, power and “freedom”, was so impoverished compared to Jose. Jose had an inner peace and freedom despite him being locked in a prison for life without parole.

Contact with Jose had a richness, an extraordinary arms-flinging-wide open in joy  feel: he had a deep abiding faith in Love that he called God. He had embodied and lived his life whilst I knew him from this deep faith that flowed through him. He had what I believe all our hearts long for – including President Trump. What came Jose was the one who was and is free, Trump is locked into a unseen cage of his past pain.

Jose wrote to many people over the 30 years including me for 15 of them. I started writing in 2005 – my life then being subsumed in micromanaging my severe chronic pain and vertigo that came from a car accident in 1999. I knew I was writing to a man on Death Row in Texas who was nearing the end of his appeal process and that the expectation by all there was he would be executed.

I wrote because I was lonely and because I missed from my work not getting to know people from very different backgrounds to my own. I even in my arrogance wrote because maybe I saw him as the one needing help. I was all wrong: it was Jose who helped me. Jose who had already in 2002 been just a few hours short of being executed was at peace with death. \jose who recognised what love truly is through his many pen friends and his amazing attorneys Dick and Mandy. And through this he found an acceptance of death and in so doing he embraced life and living.

And so it was Jose who taught me how one might actually more fully live with what cannot be changed. He taught me how one might accept with a glad heart whatever comes as, whatever this is, it is meant to be for now. Our choice is to see the gift within what comes and open to it.

He taught me that prison (and chronic pain) is a mind-set and that within us we can be free whatever our external life situations. He believed if we open our heart to the life-process we are in God will be with us and show us the way. He was a natural Focuser without ever knowing anything at all about Focusing. He knew about Presence, he radiated Presence. I found that in every letter I received from him it was just written from his felt sense supported by a place of Presence. He was so fully human, so alive, and at times got into such messes – death row definitely being the pinnacle of his “messes” list!

Jose gave me the unconditional love my parents could never give. And in July 2008 I realised I had to meet him to thank him, for what he had given me in terms of teaching me how to live positively with my pain, before he was executed. So I carefully booked my flights around treatment I was then having and in accordance with Texan prison visit requirements. And it was all set for me to go in late January 2009: then in October Jose got an execution date of mid-January.

What unfolded next is a long story, too long for a blog post: but suffice to say I so needed to meet this man I lobbied the “great and the powerful” with letters asking for his execution date to be deferred until after my visit.  Then by what Jose termed one of God’s miracles, just a couple of days before his execution date my request was granted. His date was deferred for 90 days in order that I could make my visit. My husband and I went and met him. Afterwards we also met his attorneys, Dick and Mandy, people of immense compassion and dedication.

Out of this meeting, a change in the Federal law and a huge online lobby, of which I was a part, Jose’s sentence, again just days before the execution date in April, was finally quashed. A sentencing retrial was ordered. This was almost unheard of in Texas. I had not realised in my lobbying that no-one else had thought I stood a snowball in hell chance of success. A friend said to me the other day about this – sometimes naivety is an asset!

Finally in 2013 he got a sentence of life without parole. I  had visited him twice prior to the final re-sentencing decision and then was able to visit Jose in 2014 in his new prison. At this meeting there were no bars between us and we actually got to have a hug.

And today my heart needs me, the whole of my body needs me to share with you about this extraordinary human being who has so profoundly changed my life, just as inadvertently I changed and “saved” his. Jose, following his sentencing commutation, spent his life sharing this experience of his life having been saved through love.

My heart feels I owe it to him to do the same now he is no longer here to share his story.

When his letters came I never used to open them immediately: the love emanating out of the writing on the paper was sometimes too intense for me. Often when I read them I skim-read – again too much love for my defended broken heart. And now he is gone: no more letters. Just tears, so many tears, and so much love. I have kept all his letters and when I am ready I will read them again and let them soak in even deeper. Right now my heart is not ready yet for their intensity.

Last Sunday I attended a Zoom meeting in memory of Jose with a whole group of people who also corresponded with him. People were there from around the world: eastern Australia to the Pacific Coast of the USA, from Europe. Not all his friends could make it but what was clear in this wonderful, but so painful-for-me, meeting was how Jose, transformed by love. How through letter-writing and letter receiving in a solitary confinement cage on Death Row, this love was literally spread around the globe.

Jose was not an intellectual, his IQ was 70:  yet he lived what Gene Gendlin taught and wrote about, what the mystics including Rumi writes about. I know he had a dreadful childhood and so I suspect did Donald Trump. However Trump’s was one of white privilege and money whereas Jose’s was from a poverty-stricken Hispanic family. Neither man got the love they needed: and yet somehow Jose found a way to an all-encompassing sense of love within and the richness and peace that comes with it.

Maybe Jose found Love despite his circumstances or perhaps it was because of them? I feel Jose has much to teach us all about how our chase after money and power can so damage us  and get in the way of what is truly important, what life is really all about.

I am finishing this post with a slightly paraphrased form of how Jose started all his letters to me and to all the people he wrote to:

Dear Reader, hello my precious friend, how are you and your loved ones doing? May this post find you all only in GODS hands as it leaves me. Thanks to our LORD  and SAVIOUR JESUS CHRIST!

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“I’ll Meet You There..”

“Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. And when our souls lie down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.” – Rumi.

This poem very well captures the essence of the monthly on-line Pause for Presence gatherings which is all about bringing people together to experience the “underlying field of living Presence” – a sense of the aliveness felt within the body and felt around you as an aliveness that holds and nourishes you.  And then to simply “lie down in that grass” and rest there, letting yourself be nourished and resourced by this dimension within you that is completely unperturbed by all that is going on within and around you.

Being together in this way also generates a palpable energy field of group Presence, which allows you to experience Presence in a much deeper way than would be possible if you were on your own.  These monthly gatherings also aim to be “an oasis amidst all the world chaos of this present time”, as a recent participant described it.

So far, we have had 3 gatherings in which, after some brief guidance into Presence, we simply rested in this underlying field of Presence, embracing the silence (interspersed with times for sharing) and “letting ourselves just be”.  And indeed at the end of each gathering, “the world was too full to talk about”.  Words felt wholly inadequate to say farewell, so we just raised our hands – paws up for Presence! – as a way of appreciating our full experience together.

We have planned our next get-together for Saturday 15th August, so if you sense a “yes” inside you to join in, then you are warmly welcome!  You can also already register for the one after that, which is on Saturday October 17th.

The details:

  • Time and date: Saturday 15th August from 4 pm to 5.15 pm BST (British Summer Time).  The next gathering is on Saturday 17th October from 4pm to 5.15 pm BST.
  • Venue: Zoom video conferencing platform. If you have no experience with Zoom, please let Cecelia know for necessary guidance.
  • Fee: £10 (by bank transfer) or £11 (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.

If you just would like to be kept informed of further future gatherings, let Cecelia know and she will include you in our mailing list.

So if you are Paws up for Presence, we’d love to see you!

UK Wholebody Focusing trainers Addie van der Kooy and Cecelia Clegg.

Photo Credit: Michael Lux Yosemite, California 2015

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Finding my Unique Shape of Being

Suddenly I realised that I had a sense that my essence was around in me but was hiding! Like a baby deer hiding in the trees and it was watching me.

This Whole-body Focusing training session began with discovering a new embodying experience within me as I slowed down and connected to my body and presence. I found a deepening body-trusting that the environment will support and hold me, a sense of letting go into gravity and being able to be. 

I sat with my breath just “doing its thing” when I was suddenly struck by how the breath in me awakens my unique conscious aliveness. My breath was “switching on” my Cathy aliveness–a shaping movement in my hand came under my diaphragm. With it came a sense of trying to find the shape of my aliveness. It was similar to the sense of awe and wonder I had felt at the birth of my daughters and on first meeting my new-born grandchildren. It was beyond words, a heart-felt “wow” at the creation of this particular utterly new unique and individual life energy, this new little human being and the excitement of who are they? Who will they become?  

My body remembered how with my daughters this felt sense of their own energy was there even in the womb. Connecting with these body memories, I felt the unique patterns of their energy shapes, their particular form of aliveness. I suddenly recognised that I know the contours of their life energy far better than I knew my own. A familiar pattern for me – being more aware of the felt sense of the other person than of my own aliveness and sense of self. This pattern was a well-established survival pattern. 

My hand continued the arced shaping movement, feeling for the shape of my aliveness: searching for the feeling of me-ness. The felt senses of my two grandchildren came: Meg all pink and sparkly, darting all over the place, an exploding dazzling firework of creative energy. Ethan very different – softer and flowing, leaning into, cuddling up, deep focused concentration and sensitivity, a broad connecting smile. 

Addie invited me to sense into myself to find my shape, my energetic movement pattern: this was far more elusive, the old familiar survival pattern at work. Addie encouraged me: a reminding me that I was here with my breath awakening my aliveness.

My Trauma is Not my Shape

Suddenly a light bulb moment happened: a new awareness that for decades I had been “working on” the shape of how multiple traumas had impacted on me and in many senses “shaped” me. But this was not the same thing as the unique “within-me-from-creation” sense of my essence – this was my true shape. 

Addie mirrored back to me, both in copying the shaping gesture of my hands and with these words, “This is the shape of your unique aliveness which is the essence of you that is untouched no matter what happens in life in terms of trauma”. 

The words and the movement together sank into me. My body was absorbing this new discovery in a way that felt akin to the action of the yeast fermentation process in the bread-dough. “To begin to know the essence of you,” Addie reflected back to me. 

 A sense of expansion gently occurred within my whole body with this new awareness. And then a mental recognition that this is what I needed to discover and take into myself to be able to differentiate myself from others.  

Then I noticed, as I sat with all of this, was how patterns of tightening in my body came, as they so often did. They were old trauma-shape models and I could now “mark and park” them with ease, to use Addie’s phrase. I was able to let them go rather than pursuing them and their paths. I now felt in my body that what would help me more would be if I could connect with the essence of myself untouched by my traumatic past. 

Suddenly I realised that I had a sense that my essence was around in me but was hiding! Like a baby deer hiding in the trees and it was watching me. I could feel that this little fawn needed me to be very still and not to startle it, that the fawn was shy and not used to the attention. My hand started moving up and down – a gesture showing me that this place was needing stillness and silence.

In the quiet, I began to feel more of a sense of my shape: not as energetic as star-burst Meg and yet I had her colourfulness and independence. I also had the more muted nature colours of Ethan and his sense of flow and sensitivity – this was the shyness of the fawn. 

What is My Shape?

My hands started doing a grasping movement as if trying to capture something that was ephemeral: a curiosity came to do with this fleeting feeling. Was it that this was something more trying to come? Or was it that by my very nature, in my essence I have a sense of the ephemeral? Then the energy of my younger daughter comes: she is an engineer, always has a clear understanding of direction and purpose, and there is nothing ephemeral about her! And in connecting with this, my whole body shifted as it owned that ephemeral-ness was and is part of my intrinsic shape. 

A tightness came around my head and the image of trying to fit a round peg into a square hole: my bodily experience of how this being ephemeral can mean I often feel somewhat out of kilter with our external world of left-brain planning and organising. Suddenly something came – this ephemerality of mine it is Gene Gendlin’s “fuzzy edge”. A sense of something not yet entirely known and again on the verge of conscious becoming. Addie invited me to allow all that had come to be here. “The all that had come” sank into my body with each breath. 

Suddenly my breath shifted gear, and more came: I had been in a fuzzy edge about my intrinsic fuzzy-edged-ness! My intrinsic ephemerality is the language of my body, and when I sense into and listen to it, then I am in step with myself. That being a fuzzy-edged person is not a “psychological issue” as I had always previously thought, it is not some trauma-derived problem, but it is part of the intrinsic nature of who I am. 

For me then, to be in step with myself, I need to invite and be with my fuzzy-edged-ness that this is the healthy way forward for my aliveness and also for healing the residual trauma still within me. 

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