[restabs pills=”nav-pills” responsive=”true” icon=”true” text=”More” tabcolor=”#1e73be” tabheadcolor=”#020202″ seltabcolor=”#68a2c4″ seltabheadcolor=”#020202″ tabhovercolor=”#e2b88e” contentcolor=”#f0f0f0″] [restab title=”WELCOME” active=”active”]

STRESS LESS AND SENSE MORE…

What does this actually mean?

And why the heck would you want to immerse yourself in
sensations?

“It’s not stress that kills us, it is our reaction to it.” ~ Hans Selye

Stress isn’t bad. Yes, I just wrote that.

THE REAL TRUTH IS THIS: How we are wired to handle stress will determine whether or not stress affects us negatively.

FIRST – THE GOOD NEWS: You have the capacity to re-learn and literally re-wire how you, your nervous system, and your brain responds to stress.

This means you can improve your health and your stress responses even if you had a bad start to your life or have suffered from traumatic events, injury and/or abuse.

SECOND – THE BAD NEWS: This re-learning and re-wiring doesn’t happen overnight. It takes time and a desire to really shift and make serious change.

One of the key areas that must be brought to your attention is how you listen to and attend to your own internal world – meaning your senses, or your sensations.

Diving deep and exploring new territory requires courage, some help and, most of all, a commitment to the process. Ready to dive in? Time to figure this stress stuff out!

Let’s get started? >>> Head over to the INTRO tab to get started with my Biology of Stress Video Starter Pack!

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The Pre-Requisites [Video Starter Pack]

Thursday May 1st – Sunday, May 4th

It’s time to get our brains warmed up for what’s ahead!

Over the first 4 days, watch the following 5 videos I’ve put together to give you everything you need to know going into this course. I’ll welcome you to the program and give you a run-down of what to expect over the next 5 weeks, you’ll learn more about me, and I’ll give you some fascinating theory about the biology of stress!

Recommended Reading [With Audio Sample]: “How to Kick Resistance’s Butt” – CLICK HERE

BONUS VIEWING:

A Gazelle Outsmarts a Cheetah & Hyena >> CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Polar Bear in a Freeze Response >> CLICK HERE TO VIEW

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

 

[/restab] [restab title=”LAB 1“]

LAB 1: Sensory Awareness 101

Monday, May 5th – Sunday, May 11th

Welcome to Lab 1! What you’ll learn this week is foundational. This means it is important that you dive in immediately and begin the teachings and exercises.

LAB 1 LESSONS:

Body Scanning & Orienting

Following Your Impulse

Finding Potent Posture

GUEST SPEAKER:

KC Baker on “The Power of Your Voice for Health & Happiness.”

(Baker is the founder of the School for the Well Spoken Women & the Women’s Thought Leadership Society).

 For more about KC, and to access her free training videos, visit her website here: http://kcbaker.com

 

 

 Watch Video Below | Duration – 33:16

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #2: Following Your Impulse.

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #3: Finding Potent Posture.

AUDIO EXERCISES:

“Why Scan?” Listen HERE (Duration – 1:05)

“Why Re-Orient to the Body?” Listen HERE (Duration – 4:09)

“Guided Orientation” Listen HERE (Duration 28:03)

 

 

 

 “That’s the biggest gift I can give anybody: ‘Wake up, be aware of who you are, what you’re doing and what you can do to prevent yourself from becoming ill.’” ~ Maya Angelou

She is so right!

The audio lessons for Body Scanning & Orienting revolve around self-awareness and awareness.

For me, self-awareness is being present to your inner experiences and being able to “scan” and “track” what is going on inside, whereas awareness is having “an awareness of your surroundings” and being present and “orienting” to that which is around us.
Find out what you can do to bring awareness to your body and your surroundings while listening to these tracks – try to bring all attention to the lesson and resist any urge to multi-task (fold laundry, check emails, etc.).

Suggestions for this lesson:

Here is a simple script to bring some self-awareness and awareness to your body and how you sense its contact with your environment:

If you are sitting,

Simply notice your butt on the chair. If your back is against the back of the chair, sense the pressure and contact you make with your back and the seat. There is no need to change how you are sitting, unless of course you sense the need to re-adjust to make yourself more comfortable. Just notice.

If your feet are on the ground, simply pay attention to the pressure of each foot. Notice your breath. Don’t change it – just notice it.

If you are standing,

Bring your attention to your feet. Shift your weight a little bit from the left to right foot. Perhaps even move a few steps forward or to the side, or take a few steps back. Move your toes a little bit.

Maybe even try both body positions, sitting, and then standing.

This simple exercise of paying attention to the physical sense of your body and how it contacts your environment is you orienting to your body and surroundings.

3 Important Senses for Scanning and Orienting:

• Your tactile sense – meaning feeling the surfaces under you, as well as other contact with your skin such as your clothes.

• Your kinesthetic sense – meaning how you sense your body orientation in space.

• Your equilibrioception – meaning how you balance yourself and stay upright.

Recommended Reading:

“How to Cleanse Your Nervous System” Read HERE

If you are someone who lives in a stressful environment and/or you have early childhood trauma (birth trauma, early surgeries, accidents, family stress etc.) I’ll encourage you to take some time to read it.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• Is scanning and pausing to notice yourself something you do on a daily basis or hourly basis, or never? (Be honest!).

• What do you think would happen if you started to find small subtle ways to scan and pause throughout your day?

• Do you think it would be better to wait until you feel really stressed out as a cue to scan and re-orient, or would it help to scan and re-orient when you feel pretty good? Tell me what you think about this.

• How would it feel to give yourself the time to actually take care of yourself this way?

• What is stopping you from doing this? Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers.

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

 

Lesson #2: Following Your Impulse

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“Follow Your Impulse” Listen HERE (Duration – 6:18)

 

 

 

 

“All these primary impulses, not easily described in words, are the springs of man’s actions.” ~ Albert Einstein

I’d like to suggest an addition to Einstein’s words and say that it is also our “inactions” that are the spring of our impulses.

You see, a lot of the stress that we hold in us is due to things we never could do, or never could say.

SOCIETAL DECENCIES:

In my webinar and live seminar called “The Biology of Stress: Fight, Flight, Freeze 101”, I talk about “societal decencies” and how our cultural cages have not allowed us to express various bodily impulses and needs. Crying out when we are hurt, or our spontaneous expression of creativity and imagination is often disregarded by parents as pure silliness. The classic scripts like “children are meant to be seen and not heard” are toxic imprints that leave a little one paralyzed to speak when they feel the impulse to and this can, and often does, seep into adult life as an inability to set good healthy boundaries and fight for our own personal rights.

BETTER OUT THAT IN!

My good friend Nicole is never embarrassed when she needs to burp or pass gas – I love her for that. Her words “better out that in” are like a breath of fresh air when I hear them (and often the  air isn’t too fresh when she says them!). Our basic biological functions (burping, passing gas, sneezing, coughing, etc.) are necessary for our system to keep ticking along nicely. We need to burp and pass gas for our digestive system to flow smoothly and a sneeze or cough is often a sign that a foreign irritant, like dust or a chemical, has entered into our system and we are trying to expel it.

Yet, we follow these basic body functions with words of shame and embarrassment when in public places – “excuse me”, or “sorry about that” are often voiced after we express our bodily functions.

A lot of our basic impulses as children were stopped and this hinders us in adult years and even renders us feeling stuck in many life situations.

Recommended Viewing: 

“Listening to Shame” – Brené Brown’s TED talk – Watch HERE (Duration 20:35)

“It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.”

~ Alexander Lowen, The Voice of the Body

TAKE ACTION NOW! 

• Share with the group some impulses that you remember having when you were young that you had to curb or stop for the sake of being decent, or because your parents or a teacher told you to.

• How about in adulthood? What was something that you wanted to say to someone recently, but you couldn’t – I’ll urge you to report what it was – keep it anonymous, just write out the words.

• What would it be like to start allowing your impulses to flow a little more?

• What challenges come up for you around this topic?

• What did you think of Brené ’s Ted talk? Did it spark up something inside of you – any memories or feelings?

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

 

Lesson #3: Finding Potent Posture

AUDIO EXERCISES:

“Introduction to Potent Posture” Listen HERE (Duration – 5:45)

“Beginning Body Scan for Potent Posture” Listen HERE (Duration 9:54)

 

 

“Movement is life. Life is a process. Improve the quality of the process and you improve the quality of life itself.” ~ Moshe Feldenkrais

Everyone OBSESSES about their posture. Do you? The trouble is, Western society has some crazy ideas about how to find good posture. It’s a huge problem, actually, because many of those ideas screw us up. In fact, more often than not, they’ll actually make your posture worse, and your daily activities will be inefficient and tiresome.

Move like babies do! Recommended Viewing:

In the audio exercises for this lesson, I talk about babies and how they learn how to move and find their own potent posture. Here are two videos that I produced a while back to demonstrate the early beginnings of movement and how effortless it should be.

“Baby Liv – Rolling” Watch HERE (Duration: 3:21)

“Baby Liv – Crawling” Watch HERE (Duration 2:41)

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• Do you ever remember someone telling you to sit up straight or to not slouch when you were younger?

• Have you been working on finding better posture? If yes, how have you been doing this?

• What did you learn while doing the audio lesson in standing – any discoveries?

• What was it like to watch Baby Liv learn about movement for the very first time?

• Can you imagine what it would be like to take on new tasks with this kind of curiosity?

• Could you actually sense your internal world shift and/or change while watching her move?

• Try and notice how you stand in your day-to-day activities – do you tend to stand too far forward or back?

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

 

[/restab] [restab title=”LAB 2“]

 

The Mind-Body-Environment Connection – LAB 2

Monday, May 12th – Sunday, May 18th

In the second lab, you’ll learn how to cultivate your breath (both your inhale & exhale), how to get more comfortable in your body, and how to gain a deeper awareness into the connection between your mind, body, and environment.

LAB 2 LESSONS:

Seeing the World with Awareness

Breath

Getting Comfortable

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #5 Part A: Breath – The Exhale.

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #5 Part B: Breath – The Inhale.

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #6: Getting Comfortable.

 

AUDIO EXERCISES:

“See the World with Awareness” Listen HERE (Duration – 11:18)

 

 

 

“It’s all a matter of paying attention, being awake in the present moment, and not expecting a huge payoff. The magic in this world seems to work in whispers and small kindnesses.” ~ Charles De Lint

Eyes open or closed?

One of my biggest pet peeves is when I attend an event, such as a workshop or conference, and the course conductor begins the day with a meditation or grounding exercise that immediately starts off by asking the group to close their eyes and take a deep breath.

This isn’t the best way to cultivate sensation and de-stress.

In today’s lesson you’ll be brought to a place of scanning and paying attention to yourself with your eyes open. It is important to build our capacity to have awareness with eyes open because, for the most part, we live in the world with our eyes open. If we only practice self-awareness and awareness exercises with the eyes closed, we will never become fine-tuned to ourselves and our inner world of sensation while in relationship with others and our surroundings. We might get really good at tuning in, de-stressing and calming ourselves down when we are alone, but wouldn’t it be great to be able to do this when you are doing your day-to-day activities?

Recommended Reading:

“Comparing and Contrasting Human Healthcare and Planetary Care.” Read HERE.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• How was this concept of keeping the eyes open? Piece of cake? A little challenging? Maybe it was really challenging?

• Did you find it challenging to tune into your breath and body parts while keeping the eyes open?

• Were you able to bring in elements from Lab 1 into today’s lesson? If yes, what were they?

 

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

Lesson #5 Part A: Breath – The Exhale

 

 

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“Cultivate Your Exhale“ Listen HERE (Duration – 11:04)

 

 

 

“Feelings come and go like clouds in a windy sky. Conscious breathing is my anchor.” ~ Thích Nhất Hạnh

When we take in air and let it out, either involuntarily, or voluntarily, a life sustaining exchange takes place – oxygen is dropped off as a result of our inhale so our cells can keep ticking away and then when we exhale carbon dioxide is shuffled out to release waste products that have formed as a result of our body’s metabolism.

Breath is one of those body functions that occurs whether we like it or not, meaning it occurs involuntarily. It also is one of the very few functions in the body that is governed by our autonomic nervous system (autonomic meaning automatic), AND is also under voluntarily control. Sometimes this voluntary control, or conscious control helps soothe and settle us.

When we are stressed there is a classic adage that people often say – “just take a deep breath and calm down” – but the trouble with this is that this doesn’t always work.

Recommended Viewing:

“Did you know that taking a deep breath to relax is actually counter- productive?”– Read HERE

When our system is a bit (or maybe a lot) frazzled as a result of accumulated stress or held survival energies of fight, flight and freeze, we might start to notice irregularity in our breathing patterns. This “noticing” can lead to what some might call an anxiety or panic attack, you might hear people say “I can’t take a full breath – I feel like I’m suffocating.”

Conscious breathing that focuses on guiding the breath gently and without force, can be a very useful tool for helping us regulate and decrease our stress levels.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• What did you learn in the article?

• Do you know what your habits are in relationship to your breath when you are stressed out?

• Have you ever done a breathing exercise that focuses on the exhale?

• What was it like to have this specific focus – did it calm you, or was it hard to focus?

• Did you remember to orient to your surroundings and be present with yourself while getting settled to do the lesson?

 

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

Lesson #5 Part B: Breath – The Inhale

 

 

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“Cultivate Your Inhale” Listen HERE (Duration – 16:34)

 

 

“We too should make ourselves empty, that the great soul of the universe may fill us with its breath.” ~ Lawrence Binyon

Having the ability to take in breath and the oxygen that goes with it is essential for good health, yet many of us don’t breathe to our fullest capacity. One of the reasons our breath becomes shallow and limited is because the structures that hold our lungs, namely our chest bone (or sternum), our ribs and spine may be inflexible. It is shame we call our ribcage a ribcage because it makes it sound like this area should be rigid and immovable. The more we begin to move and find relaxation and ease in this part of our body the easier breath will become.

The other key part of breathing is our diaphragm. Our diaphragm is a large sheath of tissue that sits below our ribs and moves in relationship to our inhalation and exhalation. When we inhale it should drop down towards our belly and when we exhale it should flutter back up towards our chest. What often happens though, is our diaphragm gets stuck as a result of trauma and yes, you guessed it, STRESS!

This audio lesson will help you get back some movement in these key areas of your chest cavity and it will help free up your diaphragm.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• Have you ever done specific breathing or breath exercises before this course?

• If yes, how was this one different?

• If no, how was this lesson for you?

• What did it feel like to stand up at the end of the lesson?

• Why would having a larger capacity for breath and breathing be important?

 

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

Lesson #6: Getting Comfortable

A little extra scanning and getting comfortable – it’s OK you are allowed!

 

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“Scanning & Getting Comfortable” Listen HERE (Duration – 11:42)

 

 

 

The mind can be a busy place in which we continually make lists of things we need to do, things we haven’t done, people we need to call, or maybe people we don’t want to call (so often the case!).

When I teach classes or work with people privately, I can tell if a person is immersed in random thoughts that have nothing to do with what we are doing by how their eyes have shifted and the tension that surrounds their faces. They might be going through the motions of the movement lessons but they look kind of robotic and preoccupied – this preoccupation that is taking us out of our physical and emotional states is killing us! It is a big problem in our world.

Not being present and connected with ourselves and our surroundings can lead to so many troubles! Troubles with relationships and also troubles with being attuned to our environment and to any warning signals that our body may be screaming out at us, which can lead to accidents that can cause injury or even death.

Quieting the monkey mind and bringing your attention back to your physical and emotional sensations is like a muscle – if this skill isn’t exercised daily it will never strengthen. Go into today’s lesson without any need to cleanse out all your thoughts and be all Zen – just start to notice how you bring attention to yourself and give yourself the permission to veer off track. Make mistakes!

The real practice is the noticing of what you do and then watching and feeling how you bring yourself back.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• How did you find today’s lesson? Was it easy or challenging?

• Did your thoughts keeps wandering into the future or the past?

• Were you gentle on yourself if your thoughts did wander – or did you berate
  yourself and feel like a failure? (I say this because so often we punish ourselves with our own thoughts and this can be incredibly toxic – I’ll encourage you to be kinder and gentler on yourself.)

• Has anyone here gotten better at slowing down their thoughts and being more patient when thoughts do arise in a movement or meditation practice? If yes, please share your experiences, discoveries and challenges.

 

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

[/restab] [restab title=”CATCH-UP WEEK“]

[Catch-up Week] Reading Break with Special Guest Interviews.

Monday, May 19th – Sunday, May 25th:

Enjoy catch up week! Take this week to catch up on any lessons in Lab 1 & Lab 2 that you haven’t got to yet.

Already completed all the videos/audios/readings from the course so far? Firstly – that’s awesome! Secondly – take this week to re-visit any content that you feel you need to re-visit. Getting into the habit of integrating these lessons into your daily life is the key here – repeat, repeat, repeat!

GUEST SPEAKER:

Anthony “Twig” Wheeler on “A Thing Called Neuroception”

Wheeler is a Somatic Experiencing practitioner, a cultural animator, and founder of Liberation is Possible.

Check out Twig’s website “Liberation is Possible” here: https://www.liberationispossible.org

 

 

Watch Video Below | Duration: 46:56

 

SOME TIPS FOR CATCHING-UP:

1. Head over to the Facebook Forum HERE.
   

2. You’ll see that I have a “Pinned Post” at the top of our page for **Catch-Up Communications.**

3. Post a comment WITHIN this thread saying, “I’m looking for a Facebook Buddy to hold me accountable for my catch-up week” – or something like that, be creative.

4. In the SAME COMMENT – write out what you need to catch-up on. Keep it simple and to the point.

5. Tell them THE DAY and TIME you plan to have this task completed by.

6. Provide the same service FOR THEM if they need it. If they don’t need to catch-up, RETURN the FAVOUR to someone else in the group.

7. Don’t spread yourself too thin. Meaning, try to only have one buddy.

[/restab]

[restab title=”LAB 3“]

LAB 3: Movement & Safety

Monday, May 26th – Sunday, June 1st

LAB 3 LESSONS:

Relaxing the Back

Waking Up the Senses and Finding Safety

Tense and Relax

GUEST SPEAKER:

Elinor Silverstein on “The Gut-Brain Connection”

Silverstein is a Feldenkrais practitioner, and the author/founder of the blog On Sticky Topics.

To learn more about Elinor’s work, visit her amazing blog HERE.

For all of her videos, visit her YouTube channel HERE.

.

 

 

 

Watch Video Below | Duration – 41:47

 

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #8: Waking Up the Senses and Finding Safety.

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #9: Tense and Relax.

Wake up the pelvis, spine, and head connections.

AUDIO EXERCISES:

“Connecting the Head and Pelvis with Breath” LISTEN HERE (Duration – 13:17)

“Balance the Back” LISTEN HERE (Duration – 27:10)

 

 

 

“Aesthetically pleasing bodies, praise and achievement via sanctioned sporting events, not to mention the plethora of addictions and disorders that use exercise as a form of control – these are many of the motivations for activity today, a far cry from human movement that once had a healthy purpose grounded in functionality and play.” ~ An excerpt from today’s reading suggestions.

Back pain, especially lower back pain, is an epidemic in our culture.

One of the primary reasons we have so much collective back pain is because our movement capacity sucks! We go from the house to the car to the parking lot to the elevator to the office and then back again. Sure we might go for a walk at lunch, or even a run at the gym or at the park, but the motions of squatting and rolling and twisting and turning and crouching are not everyday movement fare for the majority of us Westerners. Yes, I generalize here, but for the most part we’ve really lost touch with our movement capacity and when this happens, we get stiff and sore.

For today’s lesson you will be guided through some very simple, yet critical, connections of the pelvis, spine and head. Baby steps first.

Recommended Reading:

“Why back pain never goes away: physical rehabilitation that does more harm than good.” Read HERE

“The biggest reason we are struggling as a species and how I believe we can change this.” Read HERE

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• Do you suffer from back pain? (this would include neck pain too!)

• If yes, how does it affect your life and what have you been able to do to help relieve it – if anything at all?

• Have you stopped doing activities and movements that you once loved to do? What would it be like to get those movements back into your life?

• Have you improved your back pain? What helped? What made it worse?

• How did you find the audio lesson today? Did you learn anything new?

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

 

Lesson #8: Waking Up Your Senses and Finding Safety

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“Waking Up Your Senses” Listen HERE (Duration – 13:58)

 

 

 

 

“Waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness, it is a revolutionary stance, from the inside out, for the benefit of all beings in existence.” ~ Noah Levine

Can you name your five basic senses?

In this audio I guide you through a scanning exercise that brings in the basic senses of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and tactile sensation, and I also introduce you to the very important sense of “Neuroception.”

Neuroception has to do with our sense of safety – feeling safe, knowing we are in a safe place, etc. We use it every single day, even when we are sleeping. It is that gut sense or that sixth sense that folks often talk about.

Safety and this concept of neuroception is a sticky and tricky topic because for every single person, their nervous system and neuroception will be wired to sense safety based on past events, traumas, accidents, injuries etc. Today’s lesson is an introduction to this concept and a starting point for you to ask yourself the question – “when do I feel safe?” It isn’t always an easy one to answer.

A special note:

If you are reading this and you have suffered early childhood trauma (early being under the age of 3 – things like surgeries, premature birth, being in an incubator, stressful home, parents that aren’t emotionally present, neglect etc.), it might be that you find it challenging to find places in this world in which you feel safe. Is this true? If it is, please send me an email (irene@irenelyon.com). When we’ve survived early trauma, finding safety isn’t easy. I want to make sure you get some support. Just so you know, making affirmations about “being safe” and going to your happy place won’t work when you’ve survived this kind of early trauma. The residue sits in your body and it is pre-verbal – so trying to make meaning and talk yourself through it won’t be successful. I don’t write this to discourage you, but to say “you aren’t broken!” – you just need another pathway to health. There is a good chance you never experienced what a happy place feels like and if this is the case, it is important to know the tools YOU need to get safety under your belt.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• When do you feel most safe? Can you describe this in relationship to how you feel in your body, or is being safe for you being in a certain place or with a specific friend or person?

• What do you think happens when the body doesn’t feel safe? How would this affect your body and biology? Take a guess!

• What was it like to explore your senses and be guided through them?

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

 

Lesson #9: Tense and Relax

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“In Sitting – Tense and Relax” Listen HERE (Duration – 8:56)

 

 

 

 

 

“Tension is the great integrity.” ~ R. Buckminster Fuller

Tension in life is inevitable. The key is not keeping it when it is no longer needed.

Whenever a stressful event occurs in our day the body mounts a reaction to this stress; our blood pressure goes up, the heart rate spikes and blood floods over to the muscles to prepare for action, and if we don’t need to act, fight or flee we would hope that our system goes back to a resting state. The trouble is that this isn’t always the case, and we tend to stay in high alert mode with our fists and legs ready to give that punch or kick!

When we maintain this high-energy state with muscles tensed and ready to go, any more stress that gets added to our body just piles up and before we know it we have a body that is a big ball of tension. At this point in the game we start to feel overwhelmed because there is simply no flow or resilience left in the system.

This is not a good place to be in.

To shift such large reservoirs of tension it helps to actually tap into this tension first.

Before you dive into this lesson take some time to tune into your current body state and notice if there are any areas that are already tight or tense. Can you notice any before we begin?

I’d love to give you the reminder that your body wants to release tension and find relaxation – it just takes a little nudging to remind it how.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• How do you typically feel tension in your body? (Tight muscles? Headaches? Jaw tension?)

• What is your immediate response when you feel tension?

• Do you know if certain things in your life bring you more tension than others?

• How do you like to relax? Or is this a foreign concept to you?

• How important is it that you find time in your day to relax and unwind?

• What will be the consequences if you don’t commit to finding ways to relax this

  year?

• Is there someone who can make you accountable towards this commitment?

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

 

 

[/restab][restab title=”LAB 4“]

[LAB 4] Advanced Relaxing – LAB 4

Monday, June 2nd – Sunday, June 8th: 

In the fourth lab, you’ll learn how to use music to help soothe, scan, and re-set, challenge yourself by de-stressing in a busy place, and understand how to sense and shift pain.

LAB 4 LESSONS:

Lessons #10: Finding the Painful & Pleasant

Lesson #11: Music

Lesson #12: De-stress in a Busy Place

 

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #11: Music.

Click HERE to scroll down to Lesson #12: De-stress in a Busy Place.

 

 

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“In Sitting – Finding the Painful and Pleasant” Listen HERE (Duration – 13:06)

 

 

“Pain is blocked sensation.” ~ Peter Levine, Founder of Somatic Experiencing.

Pain is something we’ve all felt. There are various forms of pain: Acute pain, which is the type of
pain you’d get right after stubbing your toe or breaking a bone. Emotional pain is a type of discomfort that you’d experience when a loved ones dies, or things in life are rough. Mysterious body pains that move around in the body and set up shop in places that don’t have any rhyme or reason for being in pain. Chronic muscular pain, sometimes called “myofascial” pain, lingers and has a tendency to cause our muscles to ache and be stiff and sore.

All of these pains have one thing in common – we perceive it (the pain), because we are sensing that something inside our body isn’t right.

The quote above – “pain is blocked sensation”, is often what is occurring when an individual is suffering from the various pains just named, with the exception of acute pain.

Folks who I work with who suffer from chronic muscular pain and mysterious body pains are typically holding a lot of accumulated stresses in their body, and with this stress comes a veritable mountain of uncomfortable sensations.

Becoming more skilled at scanning and tracking our sensations and beginning the work of releasing held stresses can, and often does, lessen pain.

In this lesson I’ll be asking you to become specific about any pains that you might have. I’ll also be guiding you through a concept that I use from Somatic Experiencing (the work developed by Peter Levine) that helps shift and move pain. At the end of the lesson I’ll bring you back to the
importance of staying connected with your body, especially your feet.

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• Is pain something you struggle with in your life? If yes, please share how this has affected you and your life.

• Do you know the causes of your pains or are they fairly mysterious to you?

• What was it like to do this audio lesson and focus attention on areas of the body that are not as painful? Did it help?

 

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

Lesson #11: Music

 

 

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“Self-Guided Scan with Music“ Listen HERE (Duration – 1:53)

 

 

“Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.” ~ William Congreve – The Mourning Bride

I thought I’d bring my husband into this as he is a musician, sound healer, and composer. Here is what Seth has to say about using music to de-stress and get back into body sensation.

“Sound and music are vibrations. When the Beach Boys sang about “good, good, good… good vibrations” they knew what they were talking about!

Sound is a waveform that moves through the air until it comes into contact with our amazing ears, which translate that vibrating waveform into melody and rhythm, but when we listen to sounds we aren’t just hearing with our ears – the vibration penetrates our entire being. This ability of sound to literally move through us is part of what makes it such a great tool for doing healing work.

The great thing about sound is that it is totally impartial. Sound doesn’t judge or have an agenda for how you should be – it is a clean slate that carries with it whatever information we write upon it. When I write a song I impose meaning on the melody by giving it words. When I work with my
crystal singing bowls in a healing session I infuse the vibration with healing energy by focusing my mind on loving, compassionate intention while I play. Sound and music are excellent at conveying the meaning that surrounds their creation, although different people will interpret that information in different ways.

Music can create a very strong emotional response in us as well. We can develop resilience by experiencing the different emotions that may rise up and pass away as we listen to a piece of music – this can be a very safe way to begin to train our system to have more capacity, and to train ourselves to have an awareness of our sensations, rather than being ruled by them.

TAKE ACTION NOW! 

• What kind of music did you choose?

• Do you often listen to music –either to perk you up or calm you down?

• When you listen to music do you allow yourself to move and bop to the beat or flow with the rhythms?

 

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

 Lesson #12: De-stress in a Busy Place

 

 

AUDIO EXERCISE:

“Self-Guided Scan in a Busy Place” Listen HERE (Duration – 3:56)

 

 

“Invention, it must be humbly admitted, does not consist in creating out of void, but out of chaos.” ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

It is very seldom we are totally immersed in silence and solitude. Most of us live in cities and have lives that require continual engagement with people as well as electronic devices.

Many mind-body practices occur in quiet, serene spaces where there are no distractions making it easier to tune in and pay attention to our body. Of course this is great and can serve to lower stress levels and help people “come down” from the day or week of work, but why can’t we learn to de-stress and sense ourselves with greater detail and refinement when we have stimulus around us? If the interactions we have with the world are what causes our stress responses to spike up, then it is important to practice listening to our body when in relationship to busier situations.

If it is possible, head out today for a little field trip to a busy place. You pick your level of “busy” – meaning that if you are not used to bustling and busy environments, go somewhere that won’t totally overwhelm you, but will provide a mini challenge to your system. If you won’t have any opportunities today to get out to a busy place, you could try turning on the radio or TV and then practice little bits from past lessons that you’ve learned over the past month.

There is a reason I’m not reviewing and listing past lessons right now – can you recall some of the lessons before I prompt you? Ones that maybe stood out more than others?

TAKE ACTION NOW!

• Are you someone who is OK in busy places and you doesn’t find it tough to relax or concentrate in these environments? Has this always been the case?

• Does your skin crawl when you are in busy spaces with lots of people and noise? Has this always been the case?

• Are there places you avoid, or events you have stopped going to because you get overwhelmed and stressed when in a crowded place or around a lot of people? What would it mean in your life if you were more comfortable in busy spaces and around more people?

 

Head over to the Facebook group page to document your experiences and answers!

 

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Thursday, May 1st: The Pre-Requisite videos are released.
Monday, May 5th: Lab 1 is released.
Saturday, May 10th: Week 1 Coaching Call (10am – 11am PST).
Monday, May 12th: Lab 2 is released.
Saturday, May 17th: Week 2 Coaching Call (10am – 11am PST).
Monday, May 19th: Catch-up week begins!
Saturday, May 24th: Week 3 Coaching Call (10am – 11am PST).
Monday, May 26th: Lab 3 is released.
Monday, June 2nd: Lab 4 is released.
Monday, June 9th: Week 4 Coaching Call (3pm – 4pm PST).

Throughout the program, I’ll be hosting 4 Q&A coaching calls where you’ll have the opportunity to ask me any question on your mind (or body!). I really encourage you to make the time to attend these online sessions – the results from the last round were extraordinary! We even had a couple of live breakthroughs!

I’ll be recording each of the one-hour calls to send to everybody, but I really encourage you to book these 4 times into your schedule as if it is the most important appointment you have that day! As one of my mentors Marie Forleo would say, “If it isn’t written in your day-timer – it isn’t real.”

 

Saturday, May 10th at 10am – 11am PST

Listen & Download MP3 of this Q&A call HERE

Saturday, May 17th at 10am – 11am PST

Listen & Download MP3 of this Q&A call HERE

Saturday, May 24th at 10am – 11am PST

Listen & Download MP3 of this Q&A call HERE

Monday, June 9th at 3pm – 4pm PST

Listen & Download MP3 of this Q&A call HERE

Having trouble downloading the audio files?