Mind/Body/Spirit

Writing this post, I sense my heart is open, my soul calm, my spirit fulfilled, my being immersed in the gratitude for all that is here and now, in this moment, and for all who have given and continue to give their life, their liberty, their freedom to protect all of us, all over the world.

“Ahhhgh!” Lance moaned as he slouched stiffly on the couch on an airy summer day. He stretched his legs past the edge of the table, rubbed his right thigh. Lance groaned. “I’m a mess. The two little ones were crawling all over me this morning, bumping every inch of me that’s bruised. I had to get up and get all of them breakfast, but my body hurt so bad I wasn’t sure I could even move.” A married father of three and a martial artist in his mid-thirties, Lance is tall, tan and robust looking, an appearance that belies his current physical discomfort. “What’s happened to make you so sore, Lance?” “My physical therapist says its bursitis in my muscles. It’s because of my damn job.” Lance, advertises his frustration with a loud, drawn out ‘jawwwb.’ “They have me blasting in a tube again! No PT is going to help me when I’m getting bashed all the time!” Lance’s well-paying job is rather unusual. Working for a company whose contracted venues mandate sandblasting and painting in spaces where he barely fits, Lance must use Superman strength, Ironman agility and Spiderman courage to keep from being crushed against the walls and wounded by the heavy equipment he carries. Although Lance credits martial arts training for giving him the flexibility to perform this work, invariably he ends up moving around in awkward and uncomfortable positions and coming out hurt.

When daylight hours start to decrease and it gets colder outside many people may find themselves experiencing symptoms resembling depression. For some the symptoms are relatively brief. Tempers may seem shorter for parents stuck inside with cranky or sick children and an increased sense of lethargy is not uncommon on a dreary winter day. For others, however, these symptoms can be quite disabling.

Drawing on fields from epigenetics to past-life regression to standard Western medicine, Dr. Christiane Northrup has distilled her knowledge into a comprehensive user’s guide to a healthy, happy, radiant life as she illuminates the mind, the soul and spirit.

Dr Kelly Flanagan, therapist, author of Loveable: Embracing What Is Truest About You, So You Can Truly Embrace Your Life, is offering a new, year long, weekly Facebook Live podcast experience to increase readers' experience with the intentionality of practicing growth transformation and acceptance of self. Beginning Wednesday, September 27, 2017 at 9 am Chicago time, Dr Flanagan will read a chapter from his book and then talk about his companion book that offers exercises to deepen the practices offered in Loveable and in the digital companion book he wrote.

Worry can plague you. It digs and jabs, disrupts and jumbles: your sense of serenity dislodged. According to Rick Hanson, PhD, anxiety—a form of worry—allowed our ancestors to survive. Being able to sense danger, to determine if it was safe to approach, to avoid or move on allowed our ancestors to see another day. But when we focus on the bad, the good gets left behind. Luckily our brain can be trained . . .

While cognitive, behavioral, and parts-work modalities have validity, reliability and effectiveness, somatic and soul-centered approaches may contain a different type of potency when you clients' complain of feeling stuck.

There are situations and events in the here and now that trigger past memories and our past responses. These memories can be conscious or unconscious. Regardless, people periodically brace (as defined as their muscles tighten) in response to these memories. Or they have enacted this brace reaction for so long, it’s now part of an unconscious habitual lifestyle.

Why, I wonder, is it so important for all of us to immerse ourselves in imagination? To understand our dreams and to see what is reflected back to us for application in the here and now? Whatever the reasons, I do know this: As insights elicited within the unconscious mind are utilized by the conscious mind, and absorbed into the body, a powerful collaboration takes place. When we immerse ourselves in the wise, creative artistry of soma and soul, we can find meaning.

This time of year vibrates with LIGHT & RENEWAL. It speaks directly to what is possible when we successfully lift the shroud of shame and negativity and discover what lies in wait as we gently yet powerfully move through a larger doorway into a world of greater and greater acceptance, belonging, empowerment and worth