In My Language

As you watch this video consider how many languages we actually speak, but yet are culturally cut off from and thus have forgotten. This is a profound insight into the nature of "Ways of Being", consider how many marginalized voices there are in the world and even in our bodies. Our ideas and notions are being challenged and thus we can invite this challenge and open to a range of experience and possibilities that perhaps were previously deemed by consensus reality as "not right". Perhaps in light of this video, many assumptions about our experience of this reality are false and must be explored through new lenses.
So much in our virtual world is being communicated, that opens my heart to the beauty of being human, being perceptive, and listening. This video speaks volumes to the intelligence inherent in all things and all beings. Please post comments! And definitely watch the whole video! and SHARE!
Enjoy
Scot

Somatic Coherence Practices

http://download.yousendit.com/03B3C8A93146087A

Hello All,

This link is for some exercises that I have put together for my somatic small groups that are a 10 week seminar called "Embodied Belonging". Feel free to try out some of these practices I have developed. Any feedback?
Thanks
Scot

Polyvagal Theory

http://www.stressrelease.info/overheads/Copenhagen_May_2003_I.pdf.


Download this PDF on Stephen Porges "Polyvagal Theroy"

Overview: The Polyvagal Theory
1. Evolutionprovides an organizing principleto understand
neural regulation of the human autonomic nervous
system.
2. Three neural circuits form a phylogenetically-ordered
response hierarchy that regulate behavioral and
physiological adaptationto safe, dangerous, and life
threatening environments.
3. “Neuroception” of danger or safety or life threat trigger
these adaptive neural circuits.
4. New models relating neural regulation to health, learning,
and social behavior may be reversed-engineeredinto
treatments.

Suffering is Optional Article

Suffering is optional

How I learned to stop arguing with reality and leave my children's socks on the floor.
Byron Katie | March 2008 issue

Before I woke up to reality, I had a symbol for all my frustration: my children’s socks. Every morning they’d be on the floor, and ­­every morning I’d think, “My children should pick up their socks.” It was my religion. You could say my world was accelerating out of control—because in my mind, there were socks everywhere. And I’d be filled with rage and depression because I believed these socks didn’t belong on the floor, even though, morning after morning, that’s where they were. I believed it was my children’s job to pick them up, even though, morning after morning, they didn’t.

for more of this article go to:

http://www.odemagazine.com/doc/51/suffering-is-optional

Somatics

From: http://workfromwithin.typepad.com/weblog/2005/05/what_is_somatic.html

What is Somatic Psychology and how does it relate to the world of work?

Somatic Psychology has actually been around for at least 50 years, if not more like a century. It is also known as body psychology, or body-centered psychology.

I like to think of 'traditional' psychology as addressing people at a 'neck-up' level, where you really do a lot of talking. The problem with that? We are not just brains. We have hearts and guts and whole bodies that move. And, as I've heard it said, "the issues are in the tissues." Our history resides in our muscles and bones, our tissues, our cells.

Somatic psychology takes into account the whole person. It recognizes the unity of body, mind, and spirit.

As I understand it, the term 'soma' refers to the body experienced from the inside. Thomas Hanna described it as "the body as perceived from within by first-person perception." To me, our own self-perception includes thoughts, emotions, and sensations.

In somatic psychology, a client would be encouraged to experience his or her body as a resource. In a session, being 'in the moment' is vital, and by attending to what is happening moment-to-moment, a client gains awareness of his or her own experience. The body tells the truth, and by focusing on sensations, tensions, finding relaxation, using breath, a movement, inner wisdom can come to the surface.

I think the European Association of Body Psychotherapy does a nice job of explaining this concept behind Somatic Psychology, even though they call it something a bit different.

So...how does somatic psychology relate to the world of work?

For me, it's all about some core beliefs that the field has helped me to realize:

1. When we move, we change.
2. Paying attention to our bodies helps bring us into the present moment.
3. Being present feels good -- and we deserve to feel that way at work!
4. Our aliveness and alignment resides in the body -- when we attune to our body, we can feel alive and aligned in work, in play, in relationships, and in all aspects of our lives.
5. When we are dissatisfied with our work, we can turn inwards and trust that our body will give us the messages we need about how to change.
6. Our gut and our heart both have vital messages, if we can learn to listen to them.
7. To inform any change, we can pay attention to our emotions as well as to how our energy feels. Simply put, we can ask: "Does this feel good to me?"

Lots more to come on the topic of body and work. I believe it's vital to embody the work you love, the work that expresses who you are.

And, I'm committed to teaching others how to do it. That's part of who I am.

Deep breath.