[PODCAST] Move Into Coherence LIVE 11-26-23 – Episode 89

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Transcript:

Hello, friends! Welcome to Move Into Coherence. I’m Pamela Stokes. In today’s episode we will be talking about the symptoms that can appear—they don’t always, but they can appear—with both PTSD and CPTSD, and we’ll learn about what defines them and what the differences are between those two. We’ll also be doing a lying-down motion called Lying Arch and Curl. Last week we did sitting or seated Arch and Curl, so we’ll be doing that lying down. So hopefully you have some space where you can find yourself comfortable to do that. So let’s get into it.

We’ll start by doing our three Tibetan bells ringing, and then we’ll do a little Heart Coherence, so that we can all come together in this space. These bells were given to me by Mary Morrissey. I was part of her Brave Thinking Masters group. And I really enjoy the sound that they make. We let them ring until they are complete. (Three bells)

So let’s go ahead and do a little Heart Coherence together. We will bring our awareness to our heart area, and if it helps, you can put your hand there, if that’s comfortable for you. And we will be allowing ourselves to notice the heart first, and then just drop your breath into a little bit slower and a little bit deeper than usual—maybe five or six seconds in/five or six seconds out—and through the nose is ideal. And then we’ll allow ourselves to imagine the breath is flowing in and out through the heart. And I like to think of the heart in three dimensions:  so the top, and the bottom, and the sides, and the back and the front—in and out through the heart. And then please bring to mind something that helps you to feel appreciation or gratitude. I like to think of a scene in nature, like the ocean. So thinking about standing on the sand and feeling the water; hearing the sounds of the waves. And continue breathing through the heart, five or six seconds in, five or six seconds out. (Several minutes of this) And then over the next couple or three breaths, let your hand come to resting, and bring yourself back to your natural breathing. Great.

1. In order for us to feel the learning coming in and for our bodies to be ready for that, let’s go ahead and do our three-part motion called Waking and Shaking. We’re gonna do this so that we can find comfort and ease in the body, so that our brains can take in the new information today. So please come to standing. And thank you for joining in. OK. What we’re doing first is Waking Up. What we’re gonna do is have our feet lined up with our shoulders. And then go ahead and let your knees bend and come in towards one another; your elbows will bend; you’re gonna curl your back—round your back—and drop your head down, and get small. And then s-l-o-w-l-y let the legs get long; let the belly get long; let the arms get long; reach up, tip your head up, look up. And then let your arms float down by your sides, and take a breath/take a break. And we’ll do that one more time. So the knees bend and they come in towards one another; the elbows bend; we curl our back—get round; drop the head down. And then s-l-o-w-l-y let the legs get long; let the belly get long; let the arms get long; reach up; tip your head up; eyes up. And then let your arms float down by your sides, and take a nice breath here. And then we’ll do the Tongue. With the tongue, it’s very simple. You’re going to take the tip of your tongue and press it up gently to the roof of your mouth—right in the center there. And then s-l-o-w-l-y over the course of several seconds, release the tension in the tongue all the way down to the root. Breathe. And you may notice a settling through the digestive tract, because the tongue is connected to all of the rest of it. Alright. And now we’ll do a Quick Shake. With the Quick Shake, we’re going to start by wagging your tail. And this is a silly one, so thanks for joining in. Wiggle your tail; let your arms and legs be loose and wiggly. And we’re gonna get all the blood and lymph fluid moving, and then let that wiggle come all the way up your spine to the crown of your head, and pause there. And then, loose lips: pbbbbbb (motor boat sound or “horsey lips”) And notice how you feel. Thanks for joining in on that. So I like to do that one, like I said, so that we can feel more present in our bodies, and also so that we are in a calm place so that our brains can take in this new information.

So I wanted to begin by defining these diagnoses. The PTSD diagnosis was not actually recognized until 1980, and before that they would call it “shell shock” or “soldier syndrome”. And they noticed it in people who had been to war. Even if they hadn’t fought, they might have some of these symptoms. But we did recognize it in 1980, and from that point forward we had an official name for it—PTSD. Post-traumatic Stress Disorder. And it is recognized in the United States as a diagnosis that is recognized in the DSM, which is a manual that psychologists and psychiatrists use. But it’s mostly for the purpose of getting a diagnosis so that the insurance will pay for the treatments, so it’s really not necessarily scientifically based. It’s more of a noticing—things that are noticeable. And PTSD is something that usually we consider to be occurring in adulthood. Now CPTSD, or complex PTSD, is—I kind of tidy it up by calling it “learned helplessness”—basically what we’ve got is a repeated or recurring event—abuse or neglect—and it’s usually relational:  between a caregiver and a child or maybe even between siblings, and it’s usually in childhood. It is during the time before we really develop a sense of self, so it can be very powerful—make powerful changes—to a person. So the CPTSD, however, is not recognized in the United states as a diagnosis. And the conversation around that is kind of interesting. I had the great good fortune of meeting Bessel Van Der Kolk, who wrote the book The Body Keeps the Score. He did a trauma seminar, and we had to/we got to have lunch together, just him and me. That was pretty cool. He wanted to hear about my projects. And I was talking to him about Mindful Motion because we can use these motions to help ourselves find comfort in the body and to release the trauma reflex. And he thought that was pretty cool. But then, in any case, he talked about CPTSD, as he wanted that to be considered a diagnosis in the DSM. And he talked to the editor. He submitted his findings. He had a lot of brain research that he had done, and he submitted his findings and wrote to the editor of the DSM. And the DSM editor wrote back and basically said oh, if we put this in that we’re going to open up a whole can of worms. That was his response. So that was the defining, unfortunate, occurrence that happened. So CPTSD is not recognized in the DSM. However it is recognized internationally as a diagnosis, so there is something to this. And, unfortunately, it’s not something that the DSM editor wanted to get involved in—whole can of worms he called it. Well, it’s true. It’s a can of worms, ‘cause if we start looking around and seeing how many people have this, we would see that it’s pretty common.

Alright. So I wanted to talk about the in different ways that this can show up in the body. But before we do that, it’s important to find something that can help you to feel a positive sensation, or pleasurable sensation, because when we hear these symptoms— you may recognize them in yourself, you may recognize them in other people—and it could be a little jarring. And some people like to say triggering. I think triggers are important though, because we recognize that we have an opportunity to make a change. So before we do hear these list of symptoms for these two conditions, PTSD and CPTSD, I would like to have you bring to mind, please, something that is/that can create a pleasurable sensation for you. And for me, I like to think about my cat’s face, and/or I think about a scene in nature—something that’s really pleasant. So go ahead and bring that to your mind, and let the thought kind of drip down through your face, and down through your throat, and down into the chest and belly, and just notice what you may be sensing in the body. Maybe there’s some softening. Maybe you feel like your breath is slowing down and being comfortable. Maybe you feel expanded. These are all good places to start. And this is what we would call “resourcing”. So we’re finding our own sensations in the body as resources for helping us to feel OK in this moment.

Alright, so let’s get into the symptomology. PTSD, in order to be diagnosed, there are three basic things that are noticeable. One is that there are intrusions of thoughts and a re-experiencing of the event. And these can be considered to be flashbacks, or they might occur in nightmares. And it could be just that it’s happening right now. And this is one of the qualities of the trauma response, is that our body, since that/it’s contained in the body—the sensations are there—we find that the thought keeps coming up again and again because we’re/it’s right now/it’s happening right now in the body— that’s the interpretation. So even though the event could be long, long ago, it’s still something that is experienced in the body. So these intrusions—these thoughts, these reexperiences—will happen. The second quality is arousal and reactivity. So sometimes we call this hyper-arousal or where we’re in the sympathetic activation. We talked about that last week. The sympathetic activation increases energy, and so you’re feeling maybe too alert, right, you’re hyper-vigilant, you’re watching out for danger. So this arousal and reactivity—so something can really get you going quickly and go from zero to 60 in a few seconds, as they say in car commercials. The third quality of PTSD, in order to be diagnosed, is avoidance. And this is where you might avoid the thoughts about it, or you might avoid talking about it; you might avoid therapy; you may avoid the people or the situation or the location of where this happened. All of those types of avoidance are part of this diagnosis. Alright, so with our PTSD we have those three diagnosis/symptoms of diagnosis.

And then in order to be diagnosed with CPTSD—they don’t do this in the US, but internationally—you have to have those three plus there are three more. And the three from CPTSD are disruptions—they’re all disruptions. They’re disruptions in the sense of self, and like I said, this usually happens during childhood, so it’s before we really develop our sense of self. So this can be kind of a lost piece—sense of self. Who am I? Do I exist? Should I exist? All of those questions. The second quality is the disruption in the ability to regulate one’s emotions. And part of why I developed Mindful Motion was simply to help this process especially for children. When you feel a little bit tense, you know we can do a quick shake and shake it out—get all that tension kind of moving. If you’re feeling a little dropped down, you might want to do an activation. If you’re feeling a little too activated, you can try some of the techniques that help to calm you. And we will be learning more and more of those as we go through these podcast episodes. And the third disruption that helps us to understand that someone has CPTSD is that there is a disruption in social relationships. So this could be social anxiety. It could be that you just don’t really see the other person, and it’s difficult to value another person. I have a little thing—a little magnet—on my refrigerator, and it says, “Never underestimate the impact you have upon others.” And this could be that you don’t even realize that what you’re saying or doing has any effect on anyone else. And this is important to recognize. So we do have a disruption in social relationships with CPTSD. However, there are treatments. And we will be doing a motion today that is helpful for both of these diagnoses, alright.

When we do the somatic type of movements and body awareness, we’re noticing sensations, that’s when we can really get at it, and we can really clear it out. And what’s beautiful is we don’t need to go back into the story. So some of the techniques that people use to help heal PTSD, might be wanting to bring back the episode and the story, and have someone sort of talk about that again and again. And it’s not great. That’s not helpful. What we really need to do is to notice where it’s in the body, and then find ways to release that from the body, and the story’s not really that important.

OK, so the symptoms—there are many—and I’m just gonna read them off on the list. I have a PDF file that I will—not sure how I can do this, but I’ll figure out a way that I can have this available for people to see. Probably in the show notes. Yeah, that’s where I’m going to put it. So this is not meant to say that all of these exist or even most of them. There could be one that exists for you or someone that you know, but let’s go through these here. So the Early Symptoms. I have a list here I’m looking at. This would be immediately following the event or shortly afterwards. And again it’s kind of personalized, right? Not everybody experiences trauma the same way. This is why we call it a perceived threat. Is it in your perception that this is the threat? For a child/for a baby, it’s very different from an adult. And/or if you’ve had a lot of traumatic experiences, maybe it doesn’t feel like a threat to you as much as it might for someone who hasn’t had a lot. So these early symptoms include increased heart rate, sweating, difficulty breathing—which would be rapid breathing or shallow breathing or even panting—cold sweats, tingling, muscular tension, repetitious thoughts, racing mind, worry, dissociation, denial, feeling helpless, immobilized, collapsed, hypervigilance—which is being “on guard”— flashbacks or intrusive imagery, sensitivity to light and sound, hyperactivity, exaggerated emotional and startle responses, nightmares or night terrors, abrupt mood swings, shame, lack of self-worth, easily stressed-out, difficulty sleeping, digestive issues, numbness, and shut down. That’s a big, long list, so let’s take a moment here. Come back into the thought that helped you to feel some pleasurable sensations. Come back to that place. Let the thought kind of drop down into your body. Maybe you notice it in your chest or your belly. (pause here to notice) There we go. So as we do this for ourselves, as we bring ourselves back to something that is pleasurable, it’s not bypassing. It’s not bypassing the situation at all. What we’re doing is we’re telling the nervous system in that moment, everything’s OK in this moment. And it’s really important for our bodies to know that, so that we don’t continue with this response. So every time you have a trigger, use it as an opportunity to bring something to mind that helps you feel OK. Alright.

Now we’ll move on into the Delayed Symptoms. These can happen years or even decades later. And again, like I said, sometimes you might have an early symptom later or a later symptom earlier. But these are sort of generally true. Delayed symptoms include:  anxiety, panic attacks, phobias, mental blankness or “spaced out” feelings, avoidance behaviors, addictive behaviors, attraction to dangerous situations, exaggerated or diminished sexual activity, amnesia or forgetfulness, inability to love, nurture, or bond with others, a fear of dying or shortened life, self-harm, loss of sustaining beliefs. Alright let’s take a breath here. And bring that pleasant thought to your mind again, and let yourself feel the pleasant sensations. (Pause to notice)

So you may have recognized some of those for yourself or for other people that you know. And this is important for us to understand so that we are not just passive in our own lives. If we understand it, then we can address it. If we know that this is going on for us, we at least have an explanation. It wasn’t your fault. Your body responded to the perceived threat, and you got stuck somewhere. This is all fixable. We can reduce our symptoms, and we can find freedom, and it can happen very quickly. Just a note on one of my recent clients, I just love this. She said, before we began, I said well, you know typically about six sessions is kind of all we need. And some people use a little less; some people use a little more, depending on where we want to go with it. And she thought in her mind, she said, yeah, I thought it would probably take at least 20. And she had been to therapy for years/decades. And we worked on a few things. One of the things was some brain trauma that she had had, and so we did some things with that—with the concussion work. She had some childhood things, etc. And within the first two sessions she just was amazed. She said I can’t believe how fast this is working. And by the 6th session…it took us a while to go through the six sessions because she needed time to integrate. And that’s what’s beautiful about this work, too. It’s something that you can recognize for yourself, oh I’m ready for the next one. And by the 6th session, she felt complete. So this is really/that’s how fast it works. And I just I love it. It’s very rewarding for me to hear the people changing like this so rapidly.

Alright we have another set of symptoms. And go ahead and bring yourself to a pleasant thought again, and just let your body find that/feel that, and then we’ll talk about the further delayed symptoms. (Pause to notice) So we talked about the initial or early symptoms, then we had the delayed symptoms. Now we’re looking at the further-delayed symptoms. They may follow the other ones, but there’s no definite/there’s no guideline that can predict if they will appear or even when they will appear. So here’s the list:  excessive shyness, diminished emotional responses, inability to make commitments, chronic fatigue or very low physical energy, immune system problems, and we’re going to talk a lot about the immune system in another episode, headaches, migraines, neck and back problems, chronic pain, fibromyalgia—that was what I was diagnosed with back in the 90s—and asthma, skin disorders, digestive problems, severe premenstrual syndrome, depression, reduced ability to formulate plans, feelings of detachment, alienation, or isolation, dementia, tendency to repeat the traumatic event. And let’s pause here; take a nice breath. Remember the pleasurable sensations? Just noticing that for yourself. (Pause to notice) Again, that’s not a bypass. We’re not just pretending it doesn’t exist. What we’re doing is we’re sending another piece of information for the nervous system to have, so that we don’t come into the full trauma reflex/response.

So one of the things that I think is helpful to know in these lists is the tendency to repeat, or not really knowing the difference between safe and dangerous. So these are two pieces that come up a lot with people they’ll say I’ve had three car accidents. I’ve had three of the same kind of falls. I’ve broken my toe three times—different things repeating. The body—this is what’s interesting—the body in the initial response made some kind of effort to get you out of there:   fight, flight, or withdraw. And you got stuck there. Now the body would like to resolve the trauma. The body would really like to be free of this so that it can function optimally. Once we’re out of the trauma reflex, now we can go into what’s called homeostasis, which is our body’s ability to regulate itself; to carry out all the functions that it does automatically, without us even trying. It’s pretty great that we have this. Thank you, body, for doing this. But if you’re stuck in the trauma reflex, the body will help you to find ways to repeat that trauma, so that there’s the opportunity to resolve it. So if you’re finding yourself gosh, I’ve had three head injuries. And I’m using the number three, but it could be more or less/fewer, but you may notice that there’s a repeat of a traumatic event. And I like to think of this as, again, the body is saying I would like to help you. Let’s get resolved here. Let’s throw one more event at you so that you can face into this and be free, because ultimately, we would love to have our bodies work optimally, and where we get along with people, and we feel safe in the world. We feel that we have a value here. And I’m here to tell you, you do. In the terms of the physical aspect—in the realm of the energetics of you. Everybody’s got their own vibrational frequency–it’s identifiable. For you, for every object, it has a frequency. And by having all of these frequencies together, we create our world. We create a harmonious world. And so without you having your own personalized frequency in a nice regulated place and working optimally, that can make a disruption in the whole system. So you are important. You’re valuable. We need you. And we need you to be in the vibration that’s yours. That’s your sovereignty. Everyone has their own. No one can take that away from you. That’s yours. So I would love for all of us to bring that in so that we can harmonize together and make this world what we’d like it to be, which I think, at least most people, want to have ease and comfort and peace and calm. Freedom. That’s important to recognize that we have this tendency to repeat these traumatic events.

And the understanding, too, that we get confused about what is safe and what is not safe. So we can be attracted to dangerous situations for the same reason that our body’s trying to resolve the trauma reflex, but we also can get confused, because it may feel familiar. So if you’ve been neglected or abused as a child, it may feel familiar to you to find, let’s say, a primary relationship where you’re not getting your needs fulfilled—your basic human needs of safety, satisfaction, and connection. They’re not being met, but that’s familiar, and so it feels normal. And we might be repeating that so that it feels more natural to us. But as we do these kinds of motions and really get clear about what is happening in the trauma reflex, we can find what ease feels like/what comfort feels like. And we talked about this last week. In Feldenkrais and Hanna Somatics, the thing that Feldenkrais said, and I love this. I’m going to bring this quote back in here. “We’re attempting to put pleasure and pain in their rightful places as behavior modifiers.”  That’s from Moshe Feldenkrais. So knowing what feels good, what feels easy, what feels comfortable. It may feel unfamiliar, and it may be something that we’re not used to, and that doesn’t mean it’s bad. Letting those things happen for us. Because the body is in response to the way we feel what we’re sensing. Are we sensing ease? Are we sensing comfort? Or are we sensing tightness, tension, pain? Those are messages. And I said last time, 80% of the information goes up, so that information is more valuable than the brain controlling the body. The information traveling up tells the nervous system either it’s OK everything’s OK right now in this moment, or there’s a problem. So all of the symptoms that we talked about:  muscular tension, repetitious thoughts, forgetfulness—those kinds of things—those are messages that the brain is getting/the nervous system is receiving. And it’s constantly asking the question is everything OK? And when it gets that information/the answer’s no, it’s not OK, so then more of this activation or deactivation can happen. So what we’re doing by increasing our ability to receive pleasure—and Receiving Hands is something that I taught on the first episode. This is important I’m going to teach this again—this allows in the good feelings even though they may feel unfamiliar and maybe even uncomfortable to feel OK. Is it OK to feel OK? The answer is, yes, it’s important—it’s vitally important—for us to feel OK, as often as we can. It’s not a bypass. It’s information that we’re sending to the nervous system.

So here’s the Receiving Hands. All you’re doing is closing your hands into soft fists, but you’re starting with your pinky first:  so, pinky, ring, middle, index, and you can just relax your thumb against your index finger, and just hold that there. And you may notice that your pelvic floor starts to soften. So we’re doing Receiving Hands to allow in any good information that might be coming in.  (pause to notice) Receiving Hands tells us I’m safe, I’m satisfied, and I’m connected—our three basic human needs are met.

So when something feels good, let yourself receive it. Let yourself bring that into the body. This is really vitally important. We’re putting pain and pleasure in their rightful places as behavior modifiers. So when we notice something is painful when we do a motion, we stop doing that. We change body positions. We try something different. We give it a new opportunity to move in a different way, and this can be how we find more ease in the body and more comfort. It’s a feedback loop. We’re sending out information—we’re doing a motion—and the information that’s coming back is either saying yes, this is good. This feels good. I feel great. Or it’s coming back and it’s saying yeah, that’s not so good. So we want to be able to use that information. And by doing that, we’re increasing what’s called the window of tolerance too. When we know that we can come out of a painful situation into an easeful situation, we’re increasing our ability to change from something that was maybe part of the trauma reflex, and we can come out of that. And we call this ability to change that, resilience, where something bad happens, we might perceive it as a threat, but we know how to resolve that. We know how to feel OK. We can think a pleasant thought; we can feel the pleasant sensations; do something that helps us feel good, and we can move out of that again. So this is the ability to come out of a trauma reflex is what resilience is. Alright. When we have the practices of mindfulness and awareness, we become more aware of what’s happening in the body through these motions. And we’re going to get to the motion pretty soon here. When we have the awareness that this is something that is happening for me. I’m doing this for myself. I’m feeling safe in this moment. I can receive the goodness. All of these are sending messages that we’re OK in this moment, and we can actually renegotiate in our body what is happening with all those symptoms that we talked about earlier. Alright. Mindfully meditating, paying attention, noticing, becoming more aware, that is really the key to understanding the shift out of the PTSD symptoms into a more regulated state. Alright, what else do I want to talk about here?

OK, well one of the things I think that’s important to know, too—and we’ll talk about this more probably next week—is that there’s something called Post-traumatic Growth. Who knew? I did. (laugh) Well, Post-traumatic Growth is our ability to take what happened—to use what happened—and to come out of it better than before. It actually does happen a lot. So, what I ask for people to imagine before we begin the work is what does your life look like on the other end? Let’s say we’ve done all of our sessions together, and now you’re clear, and you’ve got all these looser places, or more balanced places in the body and the mind, what do you see for yourself? How do you see yourself there in the future? (Pause to notice) That vision or that knowing oh, I would love to have a body that moves easily. I would love to have success in my business. I would love to have relationships that are valuable, where I feel loved and I love. I feel love. And maybe you’d like to have more free time, more freedom. Maybe you’d like to have a better outlook on what the future holds. So seeing yourself on the other side, having a vision of what that looks like for you, and what that could feel like for you. Letting yourself feel what that feels like. And, like I said, we’ll talk about more about that another time. But this is Post-traumatic Growth.

And what is beautiful about doing the work that I do, I feel when someone else finds themselves again. They come back, and they’re home, back in their body. It feels good. They’ve released a lot of the symptomology and/or maybe all of it, and they’re ready to do more. They’re motivated to do more in life and really contribute to our world. Well, I feel that, so it’s vicarious. And I really feel accomplished. I feel proud of myself. I feel happy for them. I feel that there’s more resonance that’s getting created on our earth that is contributing to coherence, right. We’re calling that coherence when we have harmonious experience. That’s coherence. We can have it within the body; we can also have it outside of the body, with all of us together. I feel that this is happening faster and faster and faster, and it’s very enlivening for me to be part of that. I’m also training some people right now. I’ve got some apprentices that are learning these techniques so that they can bring that to others as well, and I’d love to do more of that—apprenticing—and working with people in that way.

OK, so I think it’s time to learn about the motion that we’re doing today. Thanks for listening to all the information and all the learning. This motion is called Lying Arch and Curl. We’re gonna be doing it lying down. Ideally you’re doing it on a carpet or a yoga mat on a hard floor and not something too squishy, like a bed, unless of course that’s where you are, and you don’t have an option of lying on the floor, but I’m gonna be lying on the floor today. We are going to be lying on the floor today to do this motion. It’s very similar to what we did last week where we’re going into an arch and then we’re going to come back down to flat and then we’re going to go into a curl and we’re going to come back to flat. So we’re doing this very slowly, and we’re doing it very mindfully. Now some of the things that might happen while you’re doing these motions, because we’re releasing the digestive tract; we’re releasing muscle tension, you may notice softening; you may notice gurgling—your digestive system starting to move. So all of those things are fine. You may notice yourself yawning. This is very common. And the yawn is a great reflex that happens for us to allow our bodies to really stretch the jaws, and the diaphragm moves and all of those things. It’s a great pandiculation that our body naturally does to help release some of the tension. So yawning may happen. You may sneeze. You may burp. A lot of things. I like to tell people when I hear gurgles, I’m like thumbs up! that’s great! So that may happen for you. So what we’re going to do is we’re going to lie down. We’re going to take a note first. We’re going to notice:  what does my body feel like right now? before we begin. We’ll take a kind of a interoception:  looking at the inside, and what we’re noticing in the symptoms and the tension, and it’s what’s going on in the body, and then we’ll do the motion. We’ll go through it three times. We’ll do an Arch and a flatten, and then a curl and flatten. We’ll do that—three sets of those. So the Arch:  what we’re thinking about is we’re thinking about the pelvis moving forward so that it’s kind of like the pubis, which is the front of the pelvis, that’s going towards the floor. And so you may have a little lift in the low back. And then when we come to flatten, just let yourself drop s-l-o-w-l-y down. And the slow is important. Remember, when we do these, we’re trying to slow it down, because the cortex—coming out of the vortex going into the cortex—the cortex is slow. It’s a billion times slower than the hind brain, which is controlling the sensations or sensing the sensations. So we need to slow it down on that release—on the undoing of the motion—so that we can notice what’s letting go?. Where can I find some ease and comfort? So the slow undoing. And then we’ll take a pause between each half, so that we can take a breath, and take a break, and turn off all efforts. So we want to come back to 0. And then we’ll go into the Curl. And with the Curl, it’s kind of like a pelvic tilt. What you’re doing now is the pubic bone is coming up away from the floor. Or you can think about the tailbone dropping down to the floor. We’re not trying to lift our buttocks off the floor, but just drop down. So we’re getting curled. Simultaneously with that part of the spine curling, you’re also going to roll your arms in from your shoulders. You’re also going to bring your knees in toward one another. And you’ll lift your face up off the floor, straight up towards the ceiling. So remember last time when we did the Curl, our face came out this way—straight out from our shoulders—not dropping the chin down, but straight out. And so when we’re lying, that face is going to come straight up towards the ceiling. Alright so let’s go ahead and try this together.

Please come to the floor. Come to lying. And I’m gonna tilt my camera down so you can see me here. Alright. So the first thing we’re going to do is to come into lying. And just noticing what sensations we notice are here at the beginning. OK. So bringing yourself down to the floor. OK and then just noticing your body here; noticing your legs, your pelvis, your spine, your shoulder blades, your arms, and your head. Just notice how they’re feeling right now and any sensations. And you may notice there’s a difference between the right and the left sides. That’s OK. Alright. And now we’re going to bring the knees to bent and with the feet flat. So let’s bring that one leg at a time. Let your knee kind of move out away from center and then slide your foot up. And again let your leg roll out and slide your foot up.So now we have our feet flat, and the knees are bent. And we’ll go into the Arch first, and this happens on an inhale. So the pelvic/pubic bone is dropping down towards the floor. We’re getting some space under the low back. And then s-l-o-w-l-y, over about five or six seconds, s-l-o-w-l-y release yourself back down to the floor. And then turn off your efforts and breathe. And then we’ll do the Curl. On this we’re going to make the pubic bone go up, away from the floor, towards your face, dropping the low back to the floor. We’ll roll the arms in, bring the knees in, and lift the face up just a little towards the ceiling. And then again, over about five or six seconds, s-l-o-w-l-y let the arms undo, the knees, the back, the head, and everything comes back down to the floor. And we turn off our efforts and breathe. And then we’ll go into the Arch again. You don’t have to go as far. We can try it just a little bit. Tipping your tailbone away from the floor, tipping your pubic bone towards the floor, low back is arched. And then slowly, slowly, slowly bringing that down, noticing what’s letting go, even as you just are moving your pelvis, maybe you notice your shoulders are changing, or your jaw, or even your toes. And turn off your efforts and take a breath here. And then we’ll do the Curl. So this time again the pelvis is going to tilt up so that your low back drops down. Roll the arms in, the knees come in, and the face lifts straight up. And then trying to bring all four parts back down at the same time:  knees, arms, head, and back. Turn off your efforts and breathe. And we’ll do that set one more time. We’ll go into the Arch. And you can just do a little one here. We’re going as far as is comfortable, but yeah, staying away from pain and stretch. And then s-l-o-w-l-y releasing that down, and again noticing what’s letting go?As I release, do I feel this in my ribs? can I feel my shoulder blades changing? And then we’ll pause here. Take a break, take a breath. And we’ll do one more Curl, so now the pelvis is gonna tilt towards you. Low back drops down, the knees come in, the arms roll in, the face lifts up. And then we undo all these parts together:  the arms, the knees, the head, back, softening, releasing. And then turn off all your efforts and breathe. And now, letting the legs get long. We’re gonna let the knee fall away from center, the leg goes long. The other knee falls away from center and the leg goes long. And now we’re back in that original position and just noticing what’s different. Maybe the position of your feet is different. Maybe more of your legs are touching. Maybe they feel more balanced. Perhaps your pelvis feels more balanced, right to left. Maybe you feel shoulder blades soft, and maybe your chest feels more open. Maybe your arms rolled out so that you’re more on the sides or the backs of your hands. Maybe you feel it in your neck, or your face, your throat. OK and then we’re going to go ahead and come rolling over to one side. And you can bring one leg up, push with that foot, roll to the side, and using your arms push yourself up to sitting. And then we’ll come back to talking together.

Alright, so I would love to hear in the chat, if you’d like to tell me what you noticed changing for you. There were a lot of possibilities for what you may have noticed. So please put that in the chat, if you care to share, so that we can see/we can compare what’s happening for you and what do you notice. So this motion comes from both the Feldenkrais Method and Hanna Somatics. Remember, Hannah Somatics is an offshoot of Feldenkrais, and he learned a lot from Feldenkrais, and then kind of created his own motions, or similar ones, and made it a little simpler for people. So I’m waiting for people to tell me what they notice what might be different before and after. We might notice some softening. We might notice some/any kinds of changes that you see. And I’d also like to know if there’s any questions,  if anyone has a question.

I feel a lot more space in my… I’m not seeing that word there. For some reason I can’t see that because there’s a symbol. …in my belly. I think that’s what it says there. Thanks for sharing that with us today. Feeling a lot more space in my belly. That’s great. And then also wondering if there’s any questions. We can do a little Q&A here—just the last little bits of time together. Any questions that you might have. Oh …in my being. OK. I feel a lot more space in my being. It’s different than belly, but similar. And, great. Thanks for sharing that with us. Yeah, space. We talked about expansion. Expansion is a signal that our nervous system loves to receive. Expansion tells the nervous system everything’s OK. I can expand. I can be bigger. And then also on the level of the ambient energy that’s around us, and that makes us up, and that everything is created from—when there’s expansion there’s more ability to create. So feeling that space inside is really good. Thumbs up on that one.

Alright, well… I thank you for sharing with me today—sharing your time with me. Knowing that this is something that I have decided that I think all of us really need is to have a community where we can feel right where we can feel connected, where we can feel we’re part of something, we belong, right. We have three basic human rights:  Being, Becoming, and Belonging. And my hope is that that’s what we’re getting to do here in this live together.

Another comment came in. Feeling open, and elongated, and awake. Yeah. These are all wonderful feelings, so really let yourself feel those good feelings. Take your receiving hands/do your receiving hands, and let those good sensations come in. This is important information for the nervous system. Yeah, thank you. Thank you for being here and for sharing with us.

OK, so what I’d like to do now, as we exit,–I had a quick sign off last time. I won’t do that again. I apologize. I had a cough, and I decided I’m just gonna turn it off. So I’m not doing that today. We’re gonna do a three-bell ring, and then we will see each other next time. Thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate you. Thanks for joining in. This has been Move Into Coherence. I’m Pamela Stokes. Take it easy. And we’ll do our three bells. (bell sounds)