Befriend your body Podcast

In Today’s podcast we will talk about the values of community vs individualism. Which is better, to focus our energy on the collective (we) like the Japanese culture? Or, to focus on the individual (me) like our US popular culture seems to suggest?

As with anything, balance is important in this equation. I know people, and I was one of them, who focus so much on the We, there is no room for the Me. No room for self-care or self-identity. Just an almost obsessive focus upon other people. This can lead to burnout. I also know people and see them on TV, people so focused on the Me, that they care little for how their actions impact society and the We.

I am suggesting that better caring for ourselves helps us gain this balance. That a healthy self-love and self-care can help us walk this road with energy and wisdom. It can help us care for the We and the Me! It can also help us know when more energy needs to go to one side or the other. Even Jesus states, “Love your neighbor AS yourself”, so they appear to be connected. 

Notice this week, what is your natural inclination, to care more about the We or the Me? Try focusing a bit more on your less balanced side this week and see what occurs.

What are sensations in our body and why are they important? That is the topic of today’s podcast. And, the answer is simple, our body sensations are the physiological shifts that underly our emotions. Listening to sensations as they occur will help us better deal with our emotions, especially the ones we deem unpleasant.

To help get you better listen to your body’s message, think about sensation as a language to re-learn. As children we spoke the language of sensation so well. As we age it seems we prefer to listen to our racing minds that jump from past to the future. Rather than listening to our bodies sensation messages that are based upon what is occurring right now in the present.

We have included a smattering of sensation words for you to get you started. Take some time this week to listen to your body and the language of sensation. See what you notice.

Today we finally drop Part 2 of this podcast. We continue our exploration of the human body with respect to Feelings/Sensations and Emotions.

To really be able to feel our emotions and deal healthily with the challenges in our lives, we need to experience embodied living. That is, to live and be present in our minds and whole bodies while experiencing each situation in our daily lives. Watch a child really live in his or her body and not in the head like grownups tend to do. Children engage with the world using their bodies, they don’t mind getting dirty and they feel things very deeply. Sometimes they will tantrum or lose it because they feel so much, but have little experience how to deal with big emotions. (Sometimes adults do as well.)

One method I have found that really helps metabolize BIG emotions is to use the 2 E’s. Doing so helps us deal with BIG emotions from a healthy place. The first E is to really Experience the emotion in your mind and body, not ignore it or try to avoid feeling it. Really let yourself be in the experience. Then use the 2nd E, Expression. Take a moment to feel the emotion and decide how best to Express it in that moment. That might mean speaking out loud to another person, or it may be something internally that you do. But you give the Emotion some form of Expression so it stops living inside you. Doing both allows the BIG emotion to break down into a smaller experience that is easier to handle.

One great gift of using the 2 E’s is our emotional range gets expanded and we are able to be with all kinds of different emotions. A painter can make a much more expressive artwork by using many colors rather than just a few primary ones.  So hopefully today’s podcast will be another helpful tool for you to add to your emotional toolbox.

Today is part 1 of To feel or not to feel, and we will talk about the body’s language, sensation and why it matters for your life. In my title, I am borrowing a bit from the famous old Bard here. But to feel or not to feel is almost as important of a question as to be or not to be.  Feelings, sensations, and emotions are an embedded and embodied aspect of our humanness and an outcome of living in a body. So not feeling at all is not an option. But to smother those feelings or to try to ignore them, that for many people is a very popular option. I used to live like that for years. Hiding and smothering any big uncomfortable feelings, sensations or emotions.

But I found hiding from my emotions makes me a little less human. I lose some of the vibrancy of authentic being and life does not feel as good. Most of us hide from our big emotions out of fear. Fear of how bad they feel, fear of what they mean and fear of what they may “make” us do! But the paradoxical reality is that if we allow our feelings to come up and listen to them, they will calm down quickly. Sensations and emotions are just our body trying to talk to us about aspects of our life through its only language. 

The other downside of trying to smother or hide from the “negative” emotions we encounter is that we lose the intensity of the positive emotions. You can’t smother one range and not the other. The repressing works on all our emotions and sensations. So tune in to find out why ALL of your emotions are good and matter to your life.

For some more information and great content go to this video http://theglobalsuccessacademy.com/ted-talks/

And, this article https://thoughtcatalog.com/brianna-wiest/2015/01/what-the-feelings-you-most-suppress-are-trying-to-tell-you/

In Today’s podcast we debunk the myth that Multi-tasking makes people automatically more effective and efficient. When we do more than one thing at a time, our focus is necessarily diluted and often diverted away from what is most important. 

I am suggesting today that staying present and mindful whether you are engaging in tasks, chores, or interactions with other humans, is a superior way to live. Living this way will bring you much more joy and daily pleasure. Thus the title, “In praise of  Uni-tasking.” 

If you are putting out a fire you want all of the water to shoot out the nozzle. You don’t want some of it to leak out other places. Keeping our focus solely on what we are doing or with the person in front of us, allows all of our energy and intention to be available. 

Trying to do a few things at once can actually increase our anxiety levels and cause us to race about and lose our peaceful grounded sensations.  So this week, pick a day and try uni-taking. Keep all of your energy and focus on what is right in front of you at each moment. See what happens.

For a good article from Forbes suggesting you get more done by uni-tasking than multi-tasking go to :

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jacquelynsmith/2013/09/19/quit-multitasking-how-to-unitask-and-get-more-done-2/#46dd2d507d12

Do you remember the fable, “the Tortoise and the Hare”? What does that have to do with our lives? Quite a bit actually. Are you chronically racing about in your daily life or do you have a specific pace that works well for you and helps you feel happy and productive?

Many of us race through our lives, I call it “waterskiing on the surface of my life”, something I used to do on a regular basis. Moving that quickly helped me feel productive and successful. It also nicely kept me from feeling my deep pains and fears. When you are moving at the speed of light, you can’t feel the depth of your life. Deep feelings take time to unearth and encounter.

This way of living is also problematic for our emotional and physical health. Speeding about causes your body to produce adrenaline too much and too often. This stress hormone is intended to help keep us alive when we are in actual danger. But in big doses it is hard on our cells and tissues.

Slowing down and respecting our limits allow us to live at the right pace for us. This also makes us more productive and better able to focus and succeed. Studies show the most productive people are “on” for 50 minutes and “off” for 10. So slowing down, taking pauses actually improves our productively. So like the peaceful tortoise, remember life is a marathon NOT A SPRINT. The turtle won the race, the harried hare lost it.

For more information, here is a great book on Life Pacing.

https://www.amazon.com/Praise-Slow-Worldwide-Challenging-4-Aug-2005/dp/B011T6VQNI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1532565552&sr=8-2&keywords=in+praise+of+slowness

Today’s podcast is about the evils of perfectionism! Ok maybe trying to be perfect is not evil but when I used to struggle with this habit it made me perfectly miserable about 100% of the time. Perfectionism causes us to miss the good in our lives, focus on what we didn’t do perfectly which is almost everything because, news flash, NO ONE is perfect. Setting an impossible standard to meet sets us up for failure, and feeling terrible about ourselves. It also often blocks us from risking and trying new things.

So instead, I am advocating to shift your intention and focus to full participation. To throw yourselves into your lives fully giving it your all. Trying your best, being yourself and letting the chips fall where they may. You will enjoy life so much more and maybe even learn to feel proud of yourself for “failing” because you were willing to risk and to try your best. Be your best, give your best and let that be enough. And, if anyone in your life demands perfection, send them packing…or at least tell them you are no longer a slave to the idol of perfectionism.

For more information check out this great article from the BBC network

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20180219-toxic-perfectionism-is-on-the-rise

Do you remember the old See Saw’s or Tetter Totter’s from childhood playground days? Well if you are under 35 you may not even know what they are. They used to be a fixture on school playgrounds.  Today’s podcast uses the analogy of a See Saw in relationship to the states of Love and Anxiety. Love and Anxiety are likened to riding a See Saw. We are either in one state or the other.

But we also talk about how these states can work together or against each other. If we can move towards Love when we are feeling anxiety, the See Saw tips back into Love and Safety. But when we feel a bit of Anxiety, this can cause worry, or obsessing etc., about what we fear. When this occurs we lose our connection to Love and safety and the See Saw flips back to anxiety and that is all we experience.

When we fear something more than we desire it, we will move away and not pursue it. But if we desire something more than we fear it, we will move towards it.  It is very hard to fight off fear, especially the fear of a new opportunity, relationships, etc. So an easier way to shift from Anxiety back into Love/Desire is to work on increasing our Desire for this new thing. Meditating on what it will feel like when we get it and believing that our efforts are worth the risk. Love & Desire are strong motivators, but fear “screams loudly” so we tend to focus on that. Its easier to increase the love and desire than to fight fear..

To close the podcast I use a personal example from my own life to explain this See Saw and the balancing act of moving from Fear to Love/Desire.

This man knows a lot about risking and desiring, check out his website or books. 

https://robbell.com

Today’s podcast is about the States of Fixity and Flow. Fixity and Flow in life and in our bodies, and how they engage in life. These states are highly correlated with feelings and sensations of Love and  Anxiety. This podcast will explore these states as well as define the meaings of the terms fixity and flow. 

Body States/ANS

Many of us are familiar with the term flow in relation to creativity. But I will be using these terms in relation to the states of our body. Specifically, the way our physiology (the Autonomic Nervous System)  moves and changes in response to our life circumstances. We will talk about attitudes and how our attitudes about our circumstances impacts whether we stay in flow or get caught in fixity. How we view each situation has everything to do with our response. Our attitude helps to determines if our body goes into a closed negative place or an open, curious, responsive place.

So tune in to today’s podcast about Fixity and Flow and find out what your habitual option tends to be. 

For more information about body states and how our attitudes impact our physiology, check out these websites.

https://www.rickhanson.net

https://www.positivityratio.com

Einstein said, “The most important question a person can ask is, Is the Universe a Friendly place?”  Using the material from our last podcast, we will talk about how Love, Anxiety, and Spirituality interact.  How does the early treatment you receive from your primary caretakers impact your view of the world?

Spirituality

For the podcast today I define Spirituality as a sense of engaging with something/someone larger than ourselves, and something that gives life purpose and brings meaning. Our worldview, the lenses through which we view life, tends to be a part of our sense of our Spirituality. 

Sensations

In this podcast we will discuss how our sensations of Love and sensations of Anxiety impact our Spirituality. Especially in terms of how we view the world and how we believe it works. Is the main force that undergirds the universe Love, or is it danger and chaos? Our early lessons that we receive about Love and nurture, or the lack of those, deeply impact our ability to determine how to connect and live in the world.  In addition, these early lessons set what we believe to be our place in the world.

So enjoy the podcast. For more information on this topic, you can go to this link and read a this blog. It begins with a poem from Rumi. http://wandabrothers.com/2017/03/25/blog-50-what-a-13th-century-poet-knew-about-love-anxiety-2/