movement, breath, mindfulness

Clare,

It's an interesting topic about where the hurt or emotions are held in the body. I'm just reading The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk. I'm reading the chapter about how to heal trauma. He specifically writes about 3 processes that have to happen to heal trauma…
1. establish safety- finding a way to calm and focus the body…
2. accessing the memories while maintaining that calm…
3. finding a way to be fully alive in the present and engaged with people around you.
The road to healing is through the body…
deep breathing, yoga, dance, drumming, tai chi, etc.

Wherever the emotions are held they can be released through breath and movement.

Several Saturdays ago I was doing a Yin Yoga class- long, deep holding of postures.
We were in Pigeon…
lying on the floor, belly down, one leg bent under your chest while the other is outstretched underhand behind you…
it opens the hips tremendously…
hips are areas of holding negative emotions.
As I worked this posture, I had a clear flashback to when I was a teenaged girl. I had borrowed a 10 speed bike from my older friend to ride home one evening from her house. I parked the bike in our yard and when I went out the next day to return it It had vanished. My flashback was the realization that B#2 had stolen the bike, probably for drug money, and I sensed the shame of having to tell my friend that I could not return her bike, that it had been stolen. The interesting thing is that I was able to release that sense of shame during this posture.
I've never had such a visual release before or after that experience. It is amazing how those fragments of memory are accessible if we connect our breath, clear mind, and body.

I am very tired tonight. It's not even 8 pm and I am sleepy. I hope bed is early tonight. I think I'm having a very quiet weekend. Husband is on call tomorrow and going to NYC on Sunday…
that means quiet time for me!

Love and Light beautiful sister,
Maggie