Cycles of Effort and Recovery

The world around us is cyclic: day follows night, seasons and generations flow one into the next. Plants and animals are born, mature, reproduce, and die. And within us are cycles embedded within cycles: exhalation and inhalation, contraction and relaxation of the heart, the flow of blood and other fluids, sleeping and waking - each with their own rhythm and purpose that supports and makes up who we are.

One set of cycles - both evident and elusive - are our cycle of effort and recovery. In fact, almost all cycles express these qualities. The heart contracts and then relaxes and is filled with blood to pump once again. Fresh, red, oxygenated arterial blood is pumped out throughout the body carrying warmth, nutrience, and potential energy - and returns in swooshing waves of venous blood carrying carbon dioxide, dead cells, and metabolic wastes. We sleep soundly and awaken energized - or at least ideally. Our human ability to disrupt cycles is part of what gives us the space to act with volition and creatively. But often important cycles are disrupted through personal choice, unconscious behaviors, or social pressures. Sitting at desks for hours, doing repetitive tasks, using one mode of thinking for extended periods.... Consciously choosing recuperation patterns allows for more effective and dynamic living.

What are your major activities? What would be an opposite activity?
What are the qualities of your day? Single focused or multi-tasking? High or low intensity? Are you alone or interacting with people? Maybe you will need to do a couple different things to recover from the complex efforts of your day.

As humans we form habit patterns very quickly. One thing to watch out for in choosing recovery activities is - often unconsciously - continuing in an effort that has become habitual. For example: Being under time pressure at work, focusing intensely, looking straight ahead at the screen for hours to meet some deadline - then 'recovering' by going for a run, trying to beat some time goal, pushing hard and focusing, eyes fixed forward... see what I mean? Running is a recovery from sitting but the other efforts are carried through. Maybe a better recovery would be to do short sprints interspersed with walks, looking around at the scenery - along with giving your body a little giggle and shake periodically throughout the day, remembering to blink frequently and looking away from the screen to allow your eyes to focus at a different depth even for a few seconds every minute or so.

On how many levels can you make cycles of conscious recovery part of your lifestyle?

Clearing the Lungs

Autogenic breathing:
a. 1/2 breath in, slow exhale (min 5count) with a wispered 'AAH' repeat x3-5
b. 2/3 breath in, slow - but slightly more forceful exhale (min 5 count) with medium quiet 'AAH', x3-5
c. full breath in, more forceful exhale (min 5 count) with loudish 'AH', x3-5
d. cough thoroughly several times

this progressive technique moves mucus up out of the alviolar sacs (step a) and then progressively up into larger bronchial branches, finally to be coughed up. The initial stages need to be soft because the passages to the alviolar sacs (where gas exchange occurs) are so thin and delicate that they collapse easily and trap both stale air and mucus. Repeat as often as you like.

Something to think about with the lungs is that in Chinese medicine they are associated with the emotions of grief and sadness. As you release the mucus buildup in your lungs, is there anything else that no longer serves you that you have the space to experience and release? Just let yourself cough it out.

Gifts to Self in the Moment

Our body is so precious. Modern society has objectified the body and turned it into merely a mechanism for carrying the brain around - the consciousness in the machine. There is growing awareness that we need to care for our bodies, however, mechanized treatment of the body remains dominant. It gets put on the diet of the moment and 'worked-out' in order to attain some idealized image or standard. When something goes wrong, it gets brought to a specialist to be 'fixed'. Very rarely is the space and time given to truly listen in and hear what our body needs. It needs a balanced, nutritious diet, it needs to be challenged in order to grow and remain well and able, and it needs to be given loving attention and supported in the amazing task of maintaining health and wellness. The evidence for lack of care of the living body in North America is staggering. The estimated annual price-tag on lower-back pain in the US (medical bills, lost work time, ect.) exceeds $100 billion; cardiopulmonary disease is the #1 cause of death; and over 30% of the adult population is obese (C.Ogden etal., 2006). The health crisis in North America has reached epidemic proportions.

Part of the issue is that we all need balanced physical activity. There is growing awareness of this and more and more people are looking to take better care of themselves. However the beneficial effects of diet and exercise can be stifled by being purely goal oriented in activities and abandoning our body to unconscious use - objectifying the body and attempting to impose idealized images and expectations. The opposite is also true. Whatever the activity - we can support ourselves, enhance our performance, and feel better by deepening in awareness of our body throughout all activities - allowing quiet moments of self-inquiry to permeate our days. This comes down to taking time to slow down, listen inwards, and learning to act sensitively in cooperation with your whole organism. We cannot 'fix' a living organism - life must be cultivated.

This might seem daunting in the face of the intense pace modern society asks us to maintain. However, softening and creating spacious moments regularly throughout the day can open us to deeper sensations and fuller expressions of support, vitality, balance, and healthy choice making. Like any new skill it takes practice, but the process brings many rewards, empowers us to take responsibility for our health, and enables us to move into more dynamic embodiment of our whole self. The emerging field of holistic health seeks to treat the whole person and help facilitate balance and wellness. Within this, Somatic Movement Therapies have developed to educate and provide individuals with the tools and physical resources they need to care for their bodies in our modern environment. Among these is the Center for Kinesthetic Education in New York which teaches a Dynamic Embodiment (DE-SMT) model for health, wellbeing, and an increased range of functional - and expressive - capacity.


Here is a gift you can give yourself - before getting out of bed, at work, waiting in line, or whenever you think of it. With a little practice it will quickly become a resource available to you at all times. Take some extra care at least the first couple times you do this to really get to know the sensations. If you listen in, an easy rhythm will emerge.

Using this movement regularly will have beneficial affects up through the knees and lower back and increase overall foot health: strength, mobility, and sensitivity for better efficiency in standing, walking, and running. It will relieve strain on the heart by acting as a pump for venous blood-flow, increases lymphatic flow up the legs for immune function and waste removal, and provide access to physical sensations of support and grounding


Mobilizing and Releasing the Feet

a. Draw your toes towards your heels as if you were making fists with your feet - firmly yet without clenching - and release the whole of both feet into the ground. Repeat slowly 3-5 times. Notice any tendency to rush or strain. Notice your breath as you do this.
b. Allow the balls of the feet to become heavier and heavier until they start to push your heels away from the ground firmly - the toes are soft, heavy, and long. Slowly allow your heels to sink into the ground. Repeat 3-5 times. Notice if there seems like there is excess tension in your upper legs, groin, and hips - allow them to be soft and heavy.
c. Combine a & b: making 'fists' with both feet, releasing feet into ground, pressing balls of feet into ground to lift heels, lower heels into ground - relax feet into support of ground. Repeat 3-5 times in a gentle, slow rhythm and find a comfortable way to coordinate these movements with the breath.

In finishing, take a few moments to feel you feet heavy on the ground. Feel the solidness under them. Notice the the support of the ground pushing up on your bones and flowing up through your whole body. Use your breath to draw this support up from the earth. Experiment with pushing your whole feet into the ground a couple times and notice what happens to your head. If possible take a little walk and feel how how the support of the earth transfers all the way to your head.

Doing this regularly will benefit anyone - especially sedentary workers, those who run and walk for health, and anyone suffering from swollen or puffy legs, varicose veins, sore feet, or difficulty in feeling grounded. For added learning - do one foot, take a little walk to feel the difference between the legs, do the other, walk again, and then do both feet together.

Stay tune here for further articles on cultivating awareness and wellness within the body.

A conversation on resilience

J: Question: What makes a person resilient?


eYe: lots of practice playing. enough experience with getting knocked around to get up after a hit. and a willingness to keep playing (making up new rules or changing playmates if desirable).

also an ability to balance effort recovery cycles and express a dynamic range of qualities...

J: your answer parallels my thoughts on this:
What makes a person resilient? 2 things: a strong sense of self and a willingness to feel.

Willingness is key. When we open to feeling, we open to the mystery (which is an essence in play). To try new things, to explore, there is always a risk of falling down. And ALSO the potential of a genius discovery.

Isn't that how life evolves?

eYe: exactly - also as something more concrete in the moment when we are in need of some resiliency:
Jiggling!
free flow, light, quick wiggles through all the many joints in the body - from between the vertebrae, to the limb joints to all the little ones in our wrists and feet and the joints of the ribs
giggling and laughing also help - even if you don't feel like it.

All this stimulates the production of synovial fluid which has the double purpose of lubrication and shock absorption (- and nourishing the joints) exactly the qualities we need to be supported in resiliency.

Connection to support and the earth through gravity are also key... send your weight into the earth and feel it respond with an endless flow of support up into your skeleton!

A Heart Story

Imagine for a moment - coming home after a long journey.

Venous blood (blue - rich in carbon dioxide and low in O2) arrives in the right atrium of the heart via the inferior (from the lower body) or superior (from the upper body) vena cava. It is then pumped through the atreoventricular (tricuspid) valve into the right ventricle. This valve has strong ligaments attached to it inside the ventricle that prevents the flaps from caving in against the pressure of the ventricular contraction - this holds true for the mitral valve in the left ventricle as well. The right ventricle pumps the venous blood through the pulmonary semilunar valve into the pulmonary artery (this is the only artery to carry deoxygenated blood) and to the lungs. The artery branches off into arterioles and then into capillaries where they interface with the alveolar sacs of the lungs - there is gas diffusion across a distance only two cells thick. The diffusion is a passive process based on relative concentrations of gasses across a mucosal layer. The newly oxygenated (red) blood recollects in the pulmonary veins and enters the left atrium of the heart where it is pumped through the mitral valve into the left ventricle. The atriums are on the top third of the heart and have thinner muscle walls than do the ventricles as their purpose is to load the ventricles with blood and stretch-prime them for contraction. The left ventricle pumps blood into the aorta and from there into all the arteries of the body. Two arteries leave the aorta right above the aortic valve - these are the left and right coronary arteries - they have the important duty of supplying the heart tissue itself with blood. The heart baths itself first in its rhythmic nurturing warmth.


The aorta has a significant amount of stretch. This buffers the circulatory system from the powerful blast of blood erupting from the heart and extends that force over a longer duration with its elastic muscular recoil pushing arterial blood through the body. This muscular contraction extends through the major arteries assisting the heart in the process of distributing warm pulsations of oxygen and nutrient rich blood. The vessels are also capable of vasoconstriction and vasodilation - this is how the body is able to regulate where blood resources are directed based upon tissue needs and sympathetic / parasympathetic stimulation. Passing down from arterioles to capillaries, nutrients, oxygen and other gasses pass out of the blood into the interstitial fluid and from there pass through the cellular membranes into the cells themselves.
Cellular respiration!
The cells expel CO2 and other metabolic waste much of which returns to the bloodstream via the interstitial fluid on the venous side of the capillary isorings, then venules, veins, and eventually the vena cava and the right atrium of the heart. The veins are not heavily muscled like the arteries and depend a great deal on movement and skeletal muscles to act as a secondary pump to assist venous flow. Throughout the veins are valves which prevent venous blood from flowing back into the system due to gravity. The venous blood has a swooshing quality like waves lapping at the shore endlessly with a nurturing and self-nourishment quality of returning to the center for replenishment. It is warm and earthy and nurturing in contrast to the strong rhythmic arterial pulsations of nourishment outward.

Blood also passes glands to pick up endocrine messages for general distribution; through the gut to retrieve nutrients and fluid to pass along to the liver which filters toxins and transforms, stores, and distributes nutrients; through the kidneys to filter urea...

Breath is also involved in circulation by decreasing the pressure in the thoracic cavity and sucking venous blood towards the center. By virtue of the pericardial sack being attached to the diaphragm and the posterior sternum, breath creates space for increased stroke volume.


blood is a living fluid organ.
bathing you endlessly.
from the heart.
and returning to the center.


for a soundtrack:
A Soothing Edge

Play is for Serious

Play:
A state of total absorption in which creative expression of a life-form's intelligences and skill-sets self-propagates.
Play exercises meta-intelligence and assists in accessing both physical pleasure and personal genius.

What are your earliest play memories as a young child? What are different ways you played? Did you make up stories or create a magical universe for yourself? Did you run and jump and tumble? Did you dance or swim or build things? Did you play games with other children or make art? Did you do something else? What was your favorite-ist?
Remembering these activities and the physical sensations can act as a key to re-accessing this non-ordinary state of consciousness.
Would you like to share a story about how you as a child played?
Love,
eYe

Mental Balancing

For helping with the integration of information and balancing communication between hemispheres of the brain - essential when doing any activity intensely for a long period of time (ie: studying):
("brain button")

Position 1 - index finger and thumb of one hand just underneath the collar bones to either side of sternum

Position 2 - all 5 digits of other hand in/around belly button

Deep exhalations and scan your eyes back and forth Slowly across the horizon. 2 minutes.

Near bottom of exhalation, clavicles (collar bones) and sternum (breastbone) should sink and flatten in slightly. Wait - gently drifting towards empty - until your body inspires spontaneously - Sternum lifting and Clavicles rolling up and back.

Hands in both positions 1 & 2 are soft and sensitive. Pressure and quality of touch varying as you listen in and follow what feels good.

Connect with softness to the rhythm of bulging and hollowing, opening and closing, through your soft belly and mobile upper chest. This provides rich sensory information about your mid line and the relationship between two important organizational centers in the body.

Notice as you scan your eyes Left to Right and Right to Left across a horizon line:
- are there places your eyes tend to jump?
- do you notice yourself looking up or down?
- notice when your gaze is approaching the center and how that transitions to leaving the center

Are you holding your breath?
Commit to surrendering deeply into the space.

small reminder

feeling the ground beneath

surrendering *breath* deeply

&

*breath* pouring up from the earth
filling this container
bottom to top



may and those around you feel supported by their ground.


eYe

Recess - a Soma Break

How many of us can remember being told: "Sit still! Don't fidget!
How many of us are still startled and frightened into frozen stillness?

Listen and let yourself fidget! Squirm and rock and wobble!
Have you ever seen a 2year old sit still? how does your inner toddler want to move?!
Have Fun!

recess mix

take your time with explorations... feel where your body wants to go. start slow.

in starting this session, the initial movements are gentle nods:
yes - nose goes up&down / back of head goes down&up
no - nose goes one way / back of head goes the other
maybe - forehead goes one way / chin the other
--> a 3D set of axis: breath soft spaciousness into the center

from there this mix is all about weight-sensing (feeling weight on earth) and undulating.
- as you shift and move feel the weight shifting between sitz bones and or feet - feel the earth pushing up on you!
- undulations can arise from a yield and push on the ground to initiate from the foundation *or* as rhythmic pulls from higher in the body

ie: reaching the tip of one shoulder into space and then the other.
reaching though the top of the head to draw on roof
perhaps finding reaches through the fingertips - undulating with articulate collarbones...
let your body Be Moved!
let it shake off the holding
learn to return to center by gently leaving it...
where is play for you here?
look into your body
what do you see?

Cyclic Blissings

May you feel the support of Earth welling up and pushing on your bones.
Providing structure and stability - spiral crystalline mineral sculptures - earth-within-us.
May you Yield fully into Her support - that She might Push up on you
Force from the center of our Mother - meeting your surrender and trust
with the gift of infinite equanimity and support.

May this spread out in a plane all around you
- ready to offer support in any direction you may flow.
Stepping into each new moment and cycle.
Support providing the basis for mobility and actualization.
As well as a resting place in the Here and Now.

May you Reach out into the world through your Heart
Pulling in and integrating into your Self only what is nourishing.

May cycles and rhythms sing to you:
Yield into Push
Reach into Pull
Closing into Opening

Structured Patterns
Fluid Pulsations
Surrender and Inspiration

Space caressing our cell(ve)s

Thank you for touching my life.
In this Rebirth of Light - blessed Initiations.
______