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

We AreBeing Ourselves

Bruna Blandino and Rosa Catoio Are Being Themselves. These  Italian Wholebody focusers, met to discuss how Wholebody focusing and Heartfelt Conversation has changed their lives.  Rather than being who society and their families want them to be, Wholebody Focusing and Heartfelt Conversation has given them a mechanism to live more fully in their own truth.  Watch their video to hear how this has come about.

If you are having difficulty seeing this video in full screen, please click on the You Tube link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKpB86qG-PI

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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

The Pine and I

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Photo Credit: Ana Simeon

Maybe it has happened to you, too, that small secret moment of intimacy with a non-human creature. It’s a powerful experience yet easily dismissed by the mind. The one I want to tell you about happened on a trail in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada in northern California. It is a rocky, spare place, steep and windswept and intensely alive. High on a ridge above a mountain lake, the trail weaves among pines and Douglas Fir growing singly or in small groups, huddled around granite boulders. On a hot late September afternoon, their combined scent rose like incense; the air was charged with it. I walked briskly, enjoying the vigorous motion and the give of the trail surface, changing from rock to needles to bare earth to patches of coarse grasses. I became keenly aware of an added dimension, the arrangement of bodies in the middle distance, so often lost in our habitual focus on panoramic views. I mean by that the sense of my body mass relative to trees and boulders, the way trees stood in twos or threes or alone; a pine and boulder together; or the way the boughs formed a screen so that only slivers of blue were visible, and then suddenly parted to allow a full view of distant peaks. My steps slowed to a walk as I absorbed this new pleasure. My hand reached to touch the furry patch of lichen on a granite boulder, the deep furrow of Douglas Fir bark. I put my arms around a Jeffrey Pine, maybe my age in pine years, glowing deep red in the late afternoon light. I laid my cheek against the bark and was enveloped in a light, sweet aroma, like vanilla, very different from the more pungent “conifer” fragrance that rose from the forest as a whole. (I read later that pines, and especially Jeffrey Pines, are unique among North American conifers in distilling this vanilla-like scent.) There we stood for a long while, the pine and I, in a timeless embrace of arms and branches, skin and bark, one breath.

In her book, “The Legacy of Luna”, activist Julia Butterfly Hill describes her relationship with the giant redwood in whose canopy she lived for more than two years in order to save it from being logged. Hill is positive that Luna knew Hill was there to save it, and gave her support in its tree-ish way. Similarly, with my arms around the pine, I felt very strongly, from the tree, a wave of –  encouragement? Support? Was the pine hugging me back? These are human terms and they don’t quite fit. I felt that the pine and the land it sprang from were holding me up, wanted me to continue my work to save the Peace Valley in my home province of British Columbia from being dammed. I was being offered a gift – an experience of joy and unity, and something more: confirmation, confidence and strength to persevere in my work. Joy and gratitude buoyed me as I walked back to the cabin.

Looking back, a year and a half later, I see how this moment marked a turn in my work on the Peace River campaign. I felt invigorated, emboldened and supported. My health and energy improved and I was able to take on tasks that would have daunted me before. At the same time, I remained very much aware that the ultimate outcome is beyond my control. I was not “saving” the Peace – not by myself, not even all of us together. We cannot save anyone or anything. The Peace river has its own path. That path, like the path of other beings, may include wounding and suffering. All any of us can do is allow the land to become alive in us, and then act from that place.

In a culture less rigidly dualistic than the one that dominates our time, I believe experiences like this would be accepted by the society at large as valid and true. I feel gratitude that moments like these are still able to shine through the cultural conditioning that has been instilled in western peoples over generations, dividing nature from spirit and denying spirit to other creatures. What an impoverishment! Experiences like these bring incredible abundance and depth to our lives. They are our true birthright.

@Ana Simeon

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Stop, Wait for More!

Something shifts right now, as I put words to it! A new clarity comes now, not the panicked hurried feeling I know so well. And it feels new, I can feel space inside. I have some room, room to pause, to breath, wait and see with a kind of curiosity…

By Kevin McEvenue

These preambles are all about inviting a direct experience—in words, as they are sounded out, then explored, as you listen to me. This is a mutual, bodily-felt event happening as an experience of me and then a sense of you.

It starts with feeling something inside myself. I pause and I wait for the words to come. For your part, you hear the sound of them. Maybe notice that.

This is an opportunity to create a mutual experiencing with each other in this kind of direct experience. Direct—you and me—two different worlds awaken to one another each in our own way as we speak and listen together.

So, let’s see what comes in this next podcast. It came suddenly in the early morning. I wrote it down immediately, because it needed to be precise: “I know something before I know what it is.”

Those were the very words that excited me. I knew I wanted to spend time with it, companion it as I share this experience with you. Speaking out—aware you are there too. To include another beyond myself seems to benefit the whole experience in its possibilities of revelations.

Again, the podcast speaks for itself. It offers surprises, twists and turns that happen. Full stop!……. it brought me right back to an earliest moment of life. Freshly remembered now; perhaps the first experience of awakening to human consciousness, noticing, something is not right! Followed by an instantaneous response, a loud scream that seems to say, get the fuck off me. That is what it felt like then and now—right now—I feel the force of it!

I was in a baby crib—a few months old—left outside in the early spring. A cat jumped on me, sat on my mouth to feel the warmth from my breath. My response was instantaneous, I can still smell it, its fur on my face. Maybe I felt my breathing blocked. I reacted with force. Get the fuck off me! It got the message and fled. I felt it gone. I felt empowered, it brought relief. In other words, it felt good. It worked and it taught me, I can do it! And I still feel that same powerful reaction inside: Something is not right here!

What was your first reaction to something like that in your life? A moment when it felt life-threatening. What did you perceive? What was your reaction?

For me, I acted with anger and yelled like hell. It was over in a second. But the pattern stuck, maybe because I felt I could! It worked! And I liked it, it felt empowering. I got noticed!

And that is what I want to explore now. It is a pattern that is still there, feels good, but it also causes trouble; it feels conflicted with other parts of me. I seem to react too quickly before taking action! For example, to type a message: so much confusion happens right there as I type. As though I am too much in a hurry. Almost like a panic; I have to do something—do something now!

Back to those opening words that excited me; “I know something before I know what it is.” This time, I pause; I wait for the feel of it to come again. Suddenly I hear Gene’s words—Gene Gendlin saying, with a tone of gentle curiosity: “Oh, so you don’t know! (pause) You don’t know yet!” This feels like heartfelt listening at its best.

Something shifts right now, as I put words to it! A new clarity comes now, not the panicked hurried feeling I know so well. And it feels new, I can feel space inside. I have some room, room to pause, to breath, wait and see with a kind of curiosity…to see what wants to come here. What wants to come next. The pull to act quickly is also here, but the desire to wait and see is even more compelling!

The Olympic diver comes to mind again. How he practices that perfect dive, enjoying the whole event slowly in his wonderful imagining, feeling it all, the whole of it. Waiting for the right moment to happen and then it does. Effortlessly it just flows.

The crowd cheers and so do I. I can do this too. And I want to…….

Photo Credit: McEvenue Archives

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