Welcome to my blog!

We find ourselves in challenging times. To meet them more easily, I believe involves challenging ourselves to move beyond old, established habits and patterns.

Perhaps I am a bit late fully entering into the 21st century by starting my blog now, in 2010! In that my work and message has so much to do with slowing down and settling into a deeper knowing beyond and prior to our cultural modes, it may be appropriate to step extra slowly into the world of blogging and other cyber realities.

I suspect that, if you are drawn to my blog and the words here, you may also value this slower, deeper state we are all capable of. I invite you to read on and regularly, and hope the words below can support you in enhancing your ability to be, even in the midst of all the doing required in our modern world.

Saturday 21 November 2015

Surprised by Forgiveness



Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

~Thich Nhat Hanh



As I sat the other day to practice metta (loving kindness) meditation, I had a profound experience, which seems worthy of sharing, and hopefully of benefit to others.

Part of my metta practice is to forgive all beings that may have hurt or harmed me in any way. I also request forgiveness of anyone I may have hurt or harmed. To all beings, I wish happiness, peace, and liberation.

I began with sending metta to all those affected by the recent terrorism in Paris, including all of those suffering, sad or afraid.

Then something unusual happened as I intended to forgive anyone who may have hurt or harmed me. My mind returned to the Parisian scene of terror. I found myself thinking of those who bombed, shot and murdered so many people, and planned the attacks. As I considered the possibility of forgiving these intentional killers, I was astonished by a tingly warmth spreading in my heart. I understood suddenly that each of them had been acting according to his beliefs, doing what he believed to be good. This was a shocking thought to me, but my heart warmed with forgiveness.



Then, I thought of those responsible for 9/11, and a similar process occurred. Then came the Nazis! The Nazis? Can we possibly forgive the unforgiveable? Yes, the same warm feeling flowed through my heart. Finally, there were the Cossacks whose Pogroms terrorized my ancestors in Russia, leading them to flee to America.

Eventually, my mind included those responsible for promoting toxic pharmaceuticals, resulting in exacerbated illness and needlessly expensive deaths. Then the American pioneers cold bloodedly destroying the Indians and their land, colonials mistreating aboriginal peoples around the world, slave traders selling human beings for profit, the objectification of women, of children, of anyone who varies from “normal” or isn’t in power…  

Was this different from the terrorist acts this week? Could forgiveness go that far?

The feeling in my heart was undeniable. My intellect needed to catch up.
Forgiveness is quite different from condoning. I do not in any way approve of destructive, violent or disrespectful behavior, and feel it is important to acknowledge what has happened and the pain it has provoked. Yet, without denying or overlooking these acts, I can forgive. I can pardon those who have acted out of their own suffering, ignorance or error.

In the process of being stunned by my own process of forgiveness, I remembered then Thich Nhat Hanh who wrote the following poem, inspired by his own anger about a twelve year old girl, a refugee raped by a sea pirate while escaping across the Gulf of Siam. The girl threw herself into the sea. The wise Vietnamese monk wrote,


“I was very angry, of course. But I could not take sides against the sea pirate. If I could have, it would have been easier, but I couldn't. I realized that if I had been born in his village and had lived a similar life -economic, educational, and so on - it is likely that I would now be that sea pirate. So it is not easy to take sides. Out of suffering, I wrote this poem. It is called "Please Call Me by My True Names," because I have many names, and when you call me by any of them, I have to say, ‘Yes.’”




Please Call Me by My True Names
Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

~Thich Nhat Hanh


And, so, my mind continued on its journey. May I be forgiven by all those I may have hurt or harmed in any way?

Again, I was surprised. Usually, when I practice metta, my
forgiveness is directed to my parents and others who abused me in various ways throughout my life. Today, instead of intending forgiveness towards them, I found myself requesting forgiveness of my parents! I understood that, from their perspective, I hurt them by being whom and how I was, by following my own truth, as well as by my own unconscious, rebellious or defensive reactivity. My very aliveness was a threat to them.

Forgiveness is not easy. It cannot be forced. It seems to arrive when it is ready… or when we are ready. And readiness seems to arrive more easily when we have forgiven ourselves.

Can you forgive?

Please call me by my true names.

Please also consider calling you by your true names.


May all beings be happy. May all beings be peaceful. May all beings be free.




Friday 30 October 2015

Where Do I Begin?



Where do I begin? A single cell begins my life as a unique individual. Two cells, sperm and egg, meet to ignite this process. Knowing by mysterious bio-intelligence and millions of years of experience to let go of what is no longer needed and combine what is. We begin with the essentials of life.

How do I begin? Am I just a cell? The cell that begins me emerges complete with its experience from within mother, father, and cosmos. We might say that three sets of consciousness come together at the moment of conception: maternal, paternal, and whoever/whatever I may have been or experienced before. Call it karma, destiny, fate, miracle or just plain mystery. I am here. Can I celebrate this truth? Can I even acknowledge it?

We know from research in the field of prenatal and birth psychology that the conditions of our conception may affect our ability to embrace our lives, and new life, as it emerges. Our first transition is the transition into life, beginning with conception, reinforced by birth and later events.

Who am I? We may spend the first years of our lives trying to be like our parents and the remaining years attempting to be different. In the midst of that, who are we? Are we ever ourselves? What did I bring with me into this life? The question emerges again: nature vs. nurture. Obviously, both are important.

Watching a fascinating TED talk recently by medical doctor Siddhartha Mukerjee, I am reminded of the importance of both our beginnings as a cell and the environment we find ourselves in. Mukerjee points out that medicine has been influenced by the discovery of antibiotics 100 years ago to focus on finding a medicine to cure dis-ease. Sometimes that works and often it doesn’t. More recently he notes medicine has shifted its attention to the immune system as an important factor in dealing with illness. A step further takes medicine to concentrate on the cell and its environment. Returning to our source.

Returning home to our beginnings. We are cells. Communities of cells that have grown from the one cell which began us, within the environment it began in.

I am touched by this talk because it underlines the intentions of all the work I so passionately engage in: Continuum Movement, Craniosacral Biodynamics, Prenatal and Birth Therapy, Somatic Mindfulness…

My mentor, Emilie Conrad, founder of Continuum Movement, spoke of “moving medicine.” A primary intention of Continuum as I understand it is to support movement in creating a different environment, a medicine involving a different context, for our growth and development. We use breaths, vocal sounding, fluid movement and mindful awareness to inquire into what might lie beyond our patterns and habits. How can we let go of whom we think we are, how we have always functioned, our habitual behavior, allowing something else to emerge?  How can we soften the inhibitors we have developed through our life experiences, returning to our essential fluid nature and its inherent resilience?

Altering our cellular environment for health. This could describe both Continuum and Craniosacral Biodynamics. Biodynamics is a gentle hands-on therapy derived from osteopathy, designed to facilitate slowing down, deepening under the conditioning of our lives, and returning to our slow, essential subtle energetic pulsings of life. The Breath of Life. Again, as we support clients settling under their reactions to the speed and stresses of life and past traumas, the context or environment within which their cells are suspended begins to change. Instead of growing in relation to conditions, cells and tissues can re-orient to the original universal or “Biodynamic” forces, which guide our early formation as little embryos in the womb, providing an ongoing energetic map beyond and prior to the conditions of our lives. Melting on the treatment table or through Continuum loosens the hold on us of the forces of our history, traumatic memories, deviations from our essential nature.

The awareness developed through Prenatal and Birth Psychology and the holding field of prenatal and birth therapies can also create a new, healthy context in which to dissolve and re-form. Therapy can be a form of re-parenting. As well as developing insight as to the early origins of our issues, we can shift our relationship to those primal conditions in which we formed. Guided in therapy to slow down, orient to resource, and attend to our current, more supportive environment, the overpowering effects of our past begin to diminish. We return to the love and intention we came in with, letting go of our attachment to what may have occluded them along the way. Our cells can shine again as we embrace life anew.

Where do we begin? Where do we begin this time?






Wednesday 5 August 2015

What Else? Addressing Trauma with Continuum Movement


I have been inspired lately reading Bessel van der Kolk’s recently published book, The Body Keeps the Score. Highly readable, this specialist in working with trauma describes his journey involving surprising discoveries and research into the neurobiology of trauma and how to effectively work with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). One of the chapters most fascinating to me is on how profoundly helpful yoga can be for those suffering from PTSD. I would love to see similar research done with Continuum Movement. 




I have been consistently impressed by how valuable Continuum can be as part of one’s journey in healing trauma, both in classes and, perhaps more surprisingly, in Skype sessions. In my workshops and classes, I am touched by how participants begin to relate to their experience differently once they’ve had a chance to deepen into the practice of Continuum. For example, they might comment on how the old familiar fear or pain came up but, instead of being overwhelmed by it, they were able to acknowledge it was there, remember an important question in Continuum of ”What else?” meaning “What else is possible here?” Being in the slow, fluid pace of Continuum, with enhanced space around their experience, they were more in a witness state, and were at choice about how to interact with their experience. They could then remember and try some of the breaths and sounds of Continuum that are particularly useful in shifting patterns and habits.

This freedom of choice is a key aspect of healing our trauma. Whatever happened to us happened. We cannot change that. We all have the history we have. It has influenced us and will continue to be available to us as part of our perspective and understanding of life. We do not however, need to be at the mercy of our history. Our trauma doesn’t need to rule us. Once we begin to create space around it, our relationship with it can begin to change.

This is where a mindfulness approach is so helpful in working with trauma. Research shows how mindful observation changes our neurobiology. Trauma often leaves us with an over-active amygdala. This important part of the limbic brain acts like a sentry, always on guard for any hints of the next attack or threat. When it detects danger, it signals other parts of the nervous system to prepare, setting off a stress response. Our sympathetic, fight flight system is activated, ready for the worst.


Image by BruceBlaus. Blausen.com staff. "Blausen gallery 2014". Wikiversity Journal of Medicine. DOI:10.15347/wjm/2014.010. ISSN 20018762. (Own work) [CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

This reaction is of course useful when there is actually danger present. The problem occurs when the amygdala and associated sympathetic nervous system are repeatedly or continuously activated, so that the person is hyper-vigilant and unable to relax. With this defensive system active, it becomes difficult to accurately perceive friendly social impulses. For example, a child I treat immediately reacts violently if another child accidentally brushes her shoulder. Once she has recovered, she feels ashamed of her outburst. In that activated state, she is unable to differentiate between friendly or accidental gestures and actual hostility or threat. This requires a different part of the brain, the pre-frontal cortex, which can calm fear, regulate emotions, and stimulate the social engagement nervous system. Without its support, it becomes almost impossible to have friends.

Mindfulness has been noted to settle the amygdala and activate the pre-frontal cortex. This effectively brings the person more fully into present time, where it is possible to accurately access friendly vs. threatening approaches.



I consider Continuum to be a mindfulness practice. We begin each session with some time in a “baseline,” where we observe our starting point in relation to our breath and ground. We note the qualities of the breath, where it moves in the body, how easily our tissues move with the breath. We also attend to the places where our bodies make contact with the surface we are on. To what extent are we able to rest or yield into the support of gravity, or do we resist and pull away from that support? How much of the body is resting or making contact? This quality of mindful observation can shift our neurobiology.

This, however, is just our beginning. We then enquire with various breaths, sounds and movement, practicing being aware of the sensations they invoke in our bodies as we explore with them. Can we sense the vibrations of an “O” sound, for example? Where do we sense it? How much of the body is resonating with it? This is an indication of how fluid or densified the tissues are. After practicing, we return to our baseline to check how things may have changed. Often, we find our tissues have softened. We have melted more into the floor. Our breath is slower, easier and fuller. We feel remarkably alive, refreshed and relaxed.

Our practice of Continuum has a major effect of slowing us down. When we are drawn into our trauma patterns, we tend to accelerate. Peter Levine, founder of Somatic Experiencing, has referred to the “trauma vortex,” where we are pulled into the trauma history or pattern quickly, often before we even realize it is happening. Slowing down can help us to be more at choice in this process. Our perception widens. We can remember what supports or resources us in the midst of our conditions. In Continuum classes, I advise participants to notice when their movement speeds up or is familiar or repetitive. These are times to intentionally slow down, ask “What else?” and apply certain sounds, breaths and movements that can interrupt the pattern.

These kinds of tools can be empowering. Not only do we come more into presence and present time as we mindfully observe our experience; we also can operate less on automatic and habit. We have more freedom to make different choices, which can lead to different outcomes. The result includes changes in not only the nervous system, but also our tissues and our lives.

Emilie Conrad, Founder of Continuum Movement
Photo by Cherionna Menzam-Sills