How do we honor being in the body on a daily basis? Can we live continuously in the present….aware of the miracle of our own physical existence, and that of everyone around us?
Are we inhabiting our bodies as these marvelous garments of flesh and bone, that give us the physicality necessary to engage in lives of love, creative fulfillment and contribution?
Do we truly dwell in the House of Being?
Or are we dragging through our lives like one long “to do” list, putting up with discomforts, ignoring our bodies’ messages, as though we can reschedule Life to a more convenient time?
Where we run into trouble on a daily basis is that we mistakenly think we can live in the house of our minds. What seems to work, is to create ongoing practices that allow us to restore ourselves to the full awareness of this present moment, and how precious it is just to have the opportunity of embodiment… to be alive in this place, this time, even to the moments of upset.
What I love about the Trager® approach to discomfort, is that it addresses the whole Being. Dr. Trager said that “For every physical manifestation, there is an underlying psychological condition.”
Trager® allows one to re-enter the House of Being in an entirely comfortable way. In the restorative movements and gentle, sensitive touch , deep work is done below the threshold of consciousness, allowing the body to release accumulated tensions and enter into a deeply integrated state.
Mental images of past events and stressors, simply collapse and evaporate as some of the
energy patterns stored in the connective tissue and neuromuscular pathways are released.
Trager® sessions are similar to oil free massage, but incorporate more motion than most other forms of body work. Every movement is done inside the individual’s “Circle of Safety”…so there is no motion to cause pain or activate the body’s alarm system.
The practitioner engages your body in gentle, rhythmic rocking; stretching, pain free motions that unfold your cramped musculature, and ease tight joints into spacious freedom, while gently relaxing your consciousness
Our bodies are alive only in this present moment. There is no past, here. Nor is there any future. Show me your precious past breath…. can you do this? Of course not. The notions of past and future live only in your mental processing, an artifact of the mind.
The mind is a great place to visit, but you definitely don’t want to live there.
It is a very colorful and inventive world, but there are no truly nourishing elements such as oxygen, water, green and growing plants to feed us life energy… nor do we have contact with the sky, ocean, earth or other living beings inside the multidimensional, fantastic world of our own creation.
The majority of our stressors come from our own mental processing, and our interactions with the artifacts of mental processing. Artificial light and time zones, the electronic world of communication, (which allows visual and auditory data to come flowing toward us at rates unacceptable to our own natural rhythms), and global relationships all cause us to attempt to live outside our normal boundaries… outside our physical body limits.
While what we commonly refer to as “the mind” can attempt to juggle all this data, it comes at a very high price. Not just the price of the money that must be generated in order to accumulate the “toys” that create all the interconnected and wireless relationships, but also the high toll it takes on our systems to try and live outside the present moment.
Every thought form has an electrochemical signal that is translated throughout the entire neuro-chemical field of the body. Each new piece of information causes musculoskeletal reactions…even though some of them are very tiny, and may occur below the threshold of our conscious awareness.
So every time we interact with new information, whether it is the internet we choose, the multi-sensorial , multi-channel noise of commercial shopping environments, or world events being forced upon us in multi-channel split screen formats, (which thereby split our attention, ) our whole system has to react and adapt.
We think we are “tuning out” distracting noise and information overload. But we aren’t.
We are learning to shut down our senses, to limit our capacities in order to survive in the world we have created. Shutting down comes at great cost, because as we become less and less sensitive to what is irritating or painful, we begin to damage ourselves.
In returning to our body, to our present breath, our present state of tension or relaxation, of Awareness or distraction…..we are restored to life once more. The Life is in the body, which is where we live and dwell and source our Being…. not in the empty shell of the mind.
In working with my clients of every nationality, every walk of life, the response to Trager® neuromuscular sessions is the same… huge smiles, lots of stretching and wiggling, and the comment, “I feel so good, so peaceful. I remember I used to feel like this”. To which I respond, “Welcome home. You are restored to the Present”.
In returning to the Present, again and again, through our work, our love, our worship, yoga, meditation, activities in the outdoor world of Kaua’i or wherever you live, appreciating Nature, devoted care for family members , pets, or our gardens… In all these things, we are returning Home to Life. And it is good.
All love, joy and creativity live in this Present moment with you. May the Blessings Be.
Virginia Beck, CNP, is a Certified Trager® Practitioner. 635-5618
She is also a Women’s Health Nurse Practitioner for West Kauai Clinic, 335-0579
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