Who New

I wait for a beginning
a new possibility
that I made space for
when what I was blind to
became known.

That instant in time
became light and free
the moment I saw
what I made things to mean.
My rackets aren't me.

What would grow from that space
I couldn't have guessed.
Power.
Freedom.
Pure spirit self expressed.

I am not more or different or changed
like my whole life
trying to mend
but bigger, more whole, from the heart
a transformation in the end.

And now I know with ease
when my power, freedom and peace
are being taken from me
and all I have to do
it seems...

is notice
and remember my oath.
The one I made to myself and the world
for my life and yours
of courage, integrity and love

Letting my actions and words
speak my view
listening to yours too
I find a new voice and a new ear
and I think I like it here.

I'm thinking so will you.

Action Speaks Louder than Resolutions

Many of us will resolve to exercise more in the new year, the ultimate goal being weight loss, or fitness, or just improved health.  What will make us actually exercise?  Well, making the resolution might be a start but if you want to succeed in doing something you know you want to/need to/should do, you must act.  You must act before you think.  You must overcome the inertia of the couch no matter how hard it is sucking you into its cushions and lace up the shoes and walk out the door.  So be present to the voice in your head that is distracting you and helping you put the fifteenth potato chip in your mouth.  Take a deep breath, clear your mind and get up and lace up the shoes.  Other options:  push "play" on the new yoga DVD, or the P90X you got for Christmas, roll out the exercise mat, lie down and start stretching, get on the treadmill or the bike and just start moving.  All the while, the voice might still be there, coaxing you back to the couch or the computer or the bed, but you can multitask!  You can listen and act anyway, before you are knocked unconscious.  Act first, think later.  Once you are moving, stretching, breathing, that force will take over and the voice can chatter all it wants to while you stick your tongue out at it and say "hah!  I am exercising anyway you fool!"  Nike had it right with "just do it"  but the rest of the sentence should have been, "just do it even though the voice says no because if you don't you will be a crotchety old stiff sore immobile lump that can't keep up with the joys of life because the couch has sucked you in!"  So there............make your resolutions, but after you write them down, reach over for your shoes, put them on and go for the walk, NOW!!

Holiday Healing

If there ever was a time to practice slowing down and being in the moment, it would be now, during the holidays.  The problem is that we are all so totally over scheduled that we barely have time to remember to breathe, let alone slow down.  This time of year is the ultimate opportunity for healing if we remember to take advantage of it.  People are triggered in so many different ways at this time of year and it can be stressful and tense to say the least, but what if we made this month our ultimate time to practice, noticing each thought that passes in our head, each bit of muscle tightness, each pang of guilt.  Awareness again is the key.  Once you have awareness you then have a choice to react, respond, do nothing or just feel.  The meaning of any given situation is the one you have given to it.  Start to notice, start to be aware of the thoughts and then the feeling that brings up inside your body.  Try not to label it.  Just feel it, let it be, and let it pass. 
My husband came home from work yesterday and as he walked in the door I could hear him talking on his cell phone.  "Okay mom, bye mom."  "How is your mom?"  I asked.  "What did she have to say?".  "You should have let me deal with the dog issue" my husband replied.  Immediately I felt my stomach get tighter and my shoulders rise into my ears.  This year we are supposed to travel on Christmas to Cleveland to be with Todd's family there, and this year our regular dog sitter was not able to help out.  So because my husband tends to be a procrastinator when it comes to talking with him mom about these things, I decided to write my mother-in-law an email a few days ago explaining our situation and letting her know that we would have to bring the dogs with us for our visit.  Because I already knew this was a sore subject, I expected the worst, but hoped for the best.  So now I knew it was the worst.  My husband explained to me that his mom was "irritated" about us bringing the dogs up.  So I noticed my stomach getting tighter and the desire to scream at my husband, who is actually on my side when it comes to this issue.  I noticed.  I breathed.  I breathed again.  And again.  And then I tried to explain to him how I was feeling, instead of yelling about it.  Turns out he feels the same way and we were able to exchange some words about it that made me feel connected.  Okay, this might be okay.  Right this moment, three weeks before Christmas, I can feel what is going on, breathe, talk about it, and just be with it.  It doesn't have to be solved right this second.  And it would be a waste of my precious December to worry about it for the next three weeks.  I choose awareness and I choose peace.  For now.  Now off to taekwondo class for a little kicking and punching!

A Story about Healing and Horses

I was lucky enough to be able to attend a class called Equine Myofascial Release, given by Cathy Covell who is a JB/MFR physical therapist in Indiana.  JB/MFR stands for John Barnes Myofascial Release.  Myofascial release is a hands on technique used to release restrictions in the body and is one of the best whole body assessment and treatment techniques I have learned as a physical therapist.  Please visit www.myofascialrelease.com and read more.
But my story today is about an amazing experience I had this past weekend learning about horses, and how to treat them using this technique.
My friends Phil and Ann and I travelled to Deleware on Friday night, arriving at the Best Western of Smyrna, DE at eleven p.m. so it was off to bed.  The next day we made the trek over to The Whispering Meadows Stables which was in Clayton, DE about ten minutes away from the hotel.  It was a large farm with three house-like buildings on it and a big stables with many horses.  I learned later that the farm had been purchased by a couple about five years ago and Steve, one of the owners had given up his day job as a lawyer.  The farm is located near a place called Dover Downs which is a big race track.  So several of the horses there were retired race horses.  They were fabulous, big, muscular, beautiful animals and we were about to learn how to treat them!
We arrived and found a little room where our instructor was setting up.  She lectured to us for about 2 hours that first morning about horses, myofascial release, horse anatomy and safety.  The rest of Saturday and Sunday was spent with our hands on the horses.  There were 14 students there, a combination of massage and physical therapists and not any "horse" people.  Each pair of students had a horse.  During the day we would switch both horse and human partners for variety.  Some of the horses were old, some young, some were retired from the track, one came all the way from New Zealand.  We had all the boys first, then in the afternoon, all the ladies.  :)  When one group heard the other group moving through the stables there would be all sorts of wonderful commotion.  The ladies would paw at the ground and whinny, and some would "squirt", as our instructor called it because they were in heat.  LOL.  We met Meagan, Cinnamon, No More Rain, Kahlua, Reese and many others. 
We were taught several of the techniques as Cathy demonstrated on one of the horses as we all watched.  Then we were asked to close our eyes, take a deep breath, open our eyes and see what horse we were drawn to.  They were all tied in the alley way of the stables, butts out. 
The first horse I treated was "No More Rain", a horse they called mean, but really a softy.  I had a great partner, Wayne, a massage therapist from Deleware.  As we practiced the first technique, a transverse plane release, I was starting to cry.  A huge sense of gratitude washed over me.  I thought, " I can feel this stuff".  It is not like I didn't already know that I could feel a tissue release under my hands, gosh I have been doing it for 15 years.  But the horse was telling me, you can feel this, all you have to do is get quiet, and grounded.  I felt a wave of sadness for the abuse that the animal may have been through in the past, and then of overwhelming awestruckness at the healing it was doing, without judgement, without the noisy chatter, without having to analyze it or figure it out.  They can't speak to you but they communicate.  It is up to us to listen, really listen, so that the healing can happen.  They say that the horse is treating you while you are treating the horse.  I know what they are talking about now.  I left that morning with a sense of confidence, of rightness, and of truth, that I could trust myself, and what I feel.  It was a gift beyond words. 
We went through that day and the next practicing new techniques and watched the horses go from fidgeting and pawing and being noisy to literally falling asleep.  Really!  My partner and I worked on Cinnamon the second day.  Her owner was standing by just observing the group.  As we rotated her at the withers (the place just above where the saddle goes on the spine) her head got lower, and lower, and lower, her eyes drooping and closing.  The instructor asked the owner "have you ever seen your horse like this?"  and the owner laughed (like "are you kidding?") and said, "no, never".  What an amazing confirmation it was to hear her say that, and to know that what we had learned in two days could positively affect a 1500 lb animal.  It was a miracle.
Toward the end of Sunday we were supposed to practice the tail pull.  Yes, it is exactly what you think.  The main therapist at that point was to take the upper part of the horses tail about a foot down from where it connects to the animal and gently lean back, like they are water skiing.  We held this position for several minutes and then the second therapist gently released the horse from the base of its neck elongating in the other direction.  Imagine!!  The whole spine being stretched and elongated from head to tail!  How wonderful this must feel for the horse, to have someone listening, following and helping them release.....a back that has had to carry who know how many pounds, that has had to run who knows how many races, and suffer who knows what abuse.  Every horse in that stall was quiet during the tail pull.  Nobody got kicked.  :)  In fact most of them were heads lowering, eyes closing.  You really had to see it to believe it.
What I have learned about my practice with humans is that I should be clearer, softer, lighter and present in the moment.  That if I can do that, they will have an easier chance to heal.  I learned that the patient has to do the healing and that it is my job to be a good facilitator.  I learned that to push or force won't get you anywhere with a horse and probably not very far with people either.  That to be connected is the key.  And that connection I am talking about is bigger than we realize, that it is through every living creature.  It is God.  It is spirit.  It is love at its roots.
So I felt a whole lot of loving this past weekend!
Big love to you all,
Laura

A Different Kind of Healing

What is the difference between emotional healing and physical healing?  It might be easy to describe physical healing as the actual repair of body tissues back to normal again.  And for emotional healing, one might think about the release of a destructive, patterned way of thinking, or maybe of forgiveness.  Lately I can describe emotional healing as becoming aware of a new possibility for my life that I did not see as a possibility prior to the awareness.  I am thinking a lot lately about how these two types of healing go together in every instance we can think of.  I believe that you can try to separate physical and emotional healing, but that really they are inseparable.  There are thoughts and emotions that go along with every physical encounter.  To heal one, is to affect the other.  Everything is connected in this way. 
John Barnes (www.myofascialrelease.com) talks about each cell in our body having an intelligence.  Emotional healing happens in our bodies and our minds together, inseparable. 
The next time you feel pain in your body, begin to be aware of it, connecting with the physical sensations, and the emotional ones.  It is through this awareness that there can be whole body healing. 
What are your thoughts about the mind-body connection and how you have noticed it in your life?

Unblocking Your Healing Ability

Listen to the constant chatter in your mind one day.  What is it saying to you?  Pay attention to the messages that you are giving yourself each and every day.  Are they positive or negative?  Are they even true?  How do you know if they are true or not and why?  Sometimes we prevent ourselves from achieving our full potential in life and in our own healing by what we think or believe to be true.  What we don't realize is that that thought came from an old "tape" that we have been playing back to ourselves for a long time.  And the tape was recorded based on a meaning we gave to something that happened.  The tape is about the meaning we gave, not necessarily about the actual event that occurred.  Something happens and we think it means this or that.  That belief then runs the way we live. 
The body has an inner wisdom and we are all naturally biased toward health, not disease.  We tend to restrict this natural healing with our negative thoughts and beliefs. 
How do you think about your own body's ability to heal?  Pay attention to what you think and believe and listen for the tapes.  Practice being aware of your thoughts.  Without awareness there is no choice!

Stretching for Muscle Balance

Flexibility is crucial for injury prevention.  Flexibility that is balanced between the right and left sides of the body and the front and back of the body is especially important.  Every human body has asymmetries.  The trick is keeping those asymmetries as small as possible so that the body isn't constantly compensating for a restriction on one side which would possibly lead to pain or injury.  The exercises we do to stretch and strengthen need to be specific to these asymmetries if we want to correct and balance them.  So stretching may need to be done to one side of the body more than the other.  You can get more information about these types of specific corrective exercises from me of course!  www.bodyworksptonline.com  And you may also want to check out www.totalmotionrelease.com for more info on this topic.

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Doing Nothing is Doing Something

Why do we feel like we have to be doing something all the time, to the point of feeling guilty if we don't?  I am trying to embrace the art of doing nothing.  If you saw the movie "Eat Pray Love" recently, you might remember the scene in the barber shop where Luca Spaghetti is talking about Americans not knowing how to relax.  Many of the people I see have difficulty doing nothing to the point of having chronic muscle tension in their body.  And by doing nothing I mean slowing down, clearing the mind,  taking a breath, meditating, relaxing and generally listening to the rhythms of our body.  Instead they feel anxious, guilty or bored when they are doing nothing.  The most common responses I hear when I begin to talk to people about this are, "I am just a tense person", "I have always been this way", " I don't know how to relax", "meditation is boring", "I don't have time to slow down". 
My taekwondo master has a saying, "discipline the mind, the body will follow".  We must first clear and focus our minds enough to be able to let go, do nothing, and let the body be our guide.  This is a skill that will help you heal yourself.  It is worth the practice, the effort and the struggle.  In fact it can be the door that opens inward to discover peace, happiness and improved health.  Doing nothing is doing something! 

Dehydration

I am embarassed to say that I suffered a mild case of dehydration this week.  Symptoms were flu-like.  Achy all over, very tired and queasy.  I had run in a 10 mile race on Sunday, finished and had been drinking during the race, but it was obviously not enough.  Over the next 24 hours I started to feel like I had the flu, without all the other normal flu symptoms.  And sorry to be graphic, but my urine was dark in color, one of the tell tale signs.  Looking back I think it caught up with me without me being aware.  I was drinking during the race, so I thought I was okay.  But I did not replenish during the rest of the day or the next day even.  And because being dehydrated can make you feel the opposite of thirsty, this can be tricky. 
So my thought for today is "drink more water" especially when exercising, and even afterward when you are finished.  I will be paying more attention from here on out!

More about fascia

One way to understand how the fascial system works and how it gets restricted is to think of a spider web.
Think about one of those big beautiful newly made webs with the rings.  Now here comes the fly, straight into
the top right corner of the web.  It gets caught and messes up the web into a little tangled ball in that top right corner.  The rest of the web that was once perfectly balanced now has a pull or a tug in all of its other corners thanks to the fly. 
Now think about a body with its head to toe fascial system.  This body has a history of a bad fall 10 years ago, onto his back, badly bruised and inflammed.  It got better on its own and was never treated, or the doctor gave the patient some antinflammitories and sent them on their way.  Now fast forward to present day.  The same patient is showing up at the clinic with increasing head aches.  He can't figure out why.  The therapist treats the neck muscles and head with modalities and massage and teaches the patient stretching exercises and the headaches get better, but only for a day or so.  What the therapist is missing is the "fly".  Old trauma or injury can result in a restriction in the system that can over time develop into symptoms that end up at the other end of the body (the web connections).  When the patient gets a treatment that incorporates the whole system (a release for the old back injury area) the headaches disappear "magically". 
We need to look at the whole system for deeper healing.

What is fascia and why is it important?

I use a technique called myofascial release to address restrictions in the fascial (pronounced fashial) system.  The fascia is a head to toe system of connective tissue that supports every cell in our body, every muscle, every organ, every bone, etc.....  This system of connective tissue can be restricted from trauma, inflammation, poor posture or injury.  A skilled therpist can release these restrictions and allow a permanent elongation of the tissues.  This technique is different from traditional massage or stretching and is usually more effective because it addresses the collagenous component of the fascial tissue, not just the elastic component.
When you look at the whole body for healing, you must include this wonderful fluid system.  It can be the key to significant pain relief for some people.

Speedy Recovery

I was in taekwondo class this morning and it was a tough welcome back workout.
I was tired toward the end and then we had to spar.  I got kicked in the lower leg and could feel that it might be a bad one.
So how am I walking around like nothing happened a few hours later?  Mostly because I pay immediate attention to an injury.  I ice, elevate and use some of the antinflammitory cream.  I gently stretch and keep moving gently in the hours after that.
You can prevent a small thing from becoming a big thing by giving your small thing some immediate TLC!

Just remember

to breathe and smile!

You can heal

I would like to get a conversation going about healing.  Specifically how we can learn to help ourselves heal.
There are so many resources available to us.  What are your thoughts or questions about healing?