Body Presencing™ - Healing the Root of the Matter

I Woke Up To A Red Sun I woke up to a red sun peeking between the trees The change of seasons is palpable There is a sense of foreboding in the air It is almost a quiet before the storm As if the world knows anything can happen and is about to happen The unthinkable is now thinkable as we sit on a precipice  And I sit here entranced by the stillness and change of light and of being My dog companion quietly puts her nose underneath my hand As if to say, there is life and I am here; come back Come back to the present of the red sun peeking between the trees, the stillness in the air, the squirrels gathering their wares Because life does go on My soothing words of wisdom for the week is about your ancestors 🌙🌚

Lately, everywhere I look are platitudes, sayings, and many outward manifestations of achieving peace, harmony, and happiness. Those words are great and hold important ideas and sentiments. However, those words are just words if we don't know how to implement them or how to do the work from the inside out. We look outward for happiness and peace. And actually, it is in a sense easier to look outward for these things rather than to look inward.  It is easy to look at a picture of a forest in the sunshine with a smiling man or woman walking along a path and to say to ourselves, wow isn't that beautiful. It is easy to look at a photo with words about joy and happiness and want that and appreciate it. What those photos and platitudes are missing is the day to day trench work of the work involved. Yes, people post ideas with 4 or 7 steps to happiness or abundance, etc. People post 7 steps to achieving success or joy with proven success. These are enticing. Who doesn't wa

It is a beautiful October afternoon. The sun is shining and the air is soft and slightly cool. Fall's cool transition to winter is a bit soft and slow. The vibe is a bit summery and a bit aloof. As I sit in the glow of the day I think back to a conversation I had with a patient a while ago. The conversation centered on the word confident. This person wanted to feel confident. That word choice leads me to wonder about its root meaning. As I looked it up, it made a great deal of sense to me. The root of the word comes from being loyal and having faith. It makes sense that if one is loyal to oneself and has faith in oneself and in something larger, that would lead to a sense of personal confidence. Usually, when I hear someone described themselves as having confidence it sounds a bit arrogant to me. I really should look up the root of arrogant. Yet as I take in the root meaning, it is far from what I think of as arrogant. Confidence comes from a deep knowledge of and compassion

Many of us consciously and unconsciously look for a miracle pill or thought or idea that will set us free. People I have spoken with have talked about an idiot pill that can keep us, happy idiots. That sounds kind of funny, but if we think about it, many of us would like a pill that makes us happy. Hundreds of thousands of people and more are on anti-depressants to help them to stay more even-keeled. Sometimes in severe depression, it is helpful to take some medical intervention to help us to get through difficult times where we feel we really need the help as we work through our depressive state. It can also be helpful for elderly who have lost so many loved ones to be able to live a more peaceful life. And yet, many of us use these pills in order not to feel bad. Sometimes we are even afraid to feel. In truth, there is no magic pill that can take our pain away or that can make us happy. The only way I know of to live happier and more peaceful lives is to do the painful wor

I recently listened to a story on NPR on a rainy Sunday afternoon. I love the true stories told here. This was a story of a man who was on death row for the murder of 3 children. He was 18 years old when he was accused and was on death row for 18 years total. He didn't commit the murders and there was DNA evidence to support him over many appeals but the same judge heard all the appeals and designated them as not enough for an appeal. Finally, his case was heard in a state supreme court and he was able to be released after 18 years. He lived half his life in jail. He lived many years with out hope and his health failed. But some part of him never gave up. This is certainly a true story and an extreme story of long term abuse and trauma with no end in sight. The truth is, most of us live with some form of long term abuse or trauma of some kind or another. Some of us are more affected by them than others, and some of us are more wounded than others, and some have more ter

In this world today we are so rushed. We rush our breakfasts, if we eat breakfast, we rush to work, we are always on our phones texting or messaging, we rush our lunch and even eat at our desks, we rush home, and so on. In America, if we are lucky we get two weeks off a year for vacation. We rush to finish things, we want to know how things end and we want to rush to the end. What happened to taking the time to smell the flowers? When I look out at the blooming trees as an example, I love to see and appreciate what they look like now and also remember how they looked just yesterday and appreciate the daily changes. If I were rushing in my mind I wouldn't be able to see these subtle changes. This sounds so simple, but if we really think about it, how often do we not take in the new beauty around us, and just see things as they were or as we want them to be? I know I am guilty of this some times.  Another example of this is that I can remember the negative reactions to t

We spend a great deal of our time in life protecting ourselves from perceived hurts from life and from others. Some of us take on the role of being a victim and so we go through life over sharing and being over vulnerable with others, bonding over our wounds and almost unconsciously asking to be hurt again. Others of us take on more of a role of everything being ok, and not easily asking for help and not easily sharing our true and vulnerable, underbelly selves. Neither extreme is one which is helpful to us, and yet we developed those ways of coping from our early life experiences. Which way of coping do you find yourself most resonating with? Both ways actually keep us from being truly vulnerable in a life affirming way. They are defenses built to protect us from hurts. Defenses could also be called fences. These fences keep others out from our hurt selves and keep us in, really not allowing our further growth and expansion. We developed these fences as a way of surviving.