by Cindy Skelton-Hodge | Jun 15, 2020 | Personal Growth
Across the country, across the globe, we are starting to make decisions about “opening up” and getting back to “normal”. It is contentious! The complicated decision pendulum swings from “it is way too early,” to “it is way too late.” Every state, county, city, and rural area has to decide if it is time. With ALL that must be weighed, looked at, deciphered, considered and understood, it is easy to see how the decision process breaks down in frustration, anger, name-calling and total lack of empathy for the groups that see things differently than your group.
But what happens when that frustration and anger enters your own home? What happens when the folks living inside those quarantined walls are looking at the same data, having the same discussions turned arguments and come up with totally different answers?
Yep, that happened.
A simple and lovely party invitation was the final straw. Conversation over breakfast quickly turned into what felt like a feral cat thrown into a pillowcase with another feral cat. There was nothing but teeth and claws and no way to get out.
In this household, we know how to use regulation skills. We understand what happens to the brain and body when old patterns of fear, control, and anxiety take over. And here we were, in our own kitchen, living out the state and national paradigm of figuring out how to move on. Literally, the following thoughts and ideas were either said or implied:
- You are an idiot
- You do not understand what is happening
- You do not see what is happening
- You do not care what has happened
- You are too fearful
- You are not a risk-taker
- You are a risk-taker
- We need to get over this
- We need to move on
- It is too soon to move on
- We can’t live in constant fear forever
Clearly this was not about the party invitation. Over the past months of lockdown, we have expressed our thoughts and concerns. We share, mostly, similar political beliefs and have followed the national, state, and local safety guidelines.
But somewhere in our breakfast “bag of cats conversation” it became clear that we had not HEARD the depth of each other’s concerns. What we did hear was filtered by our own internal fears, and righteous thoughts about pandemics, shut-downs, and even the “American way”.
The foundation of our work at Windows To My Soul is deeply rooted in the Trauma Focused Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (TF-EAP) process of Natural Lifemanship, which is based on contemporary trauma research and greatly influenced by the work of Dr. Bruce Perry and many other experts in the trauma field. We believe the path to healing the effects of trauma is through healthy, good for both, relationships. This is because trauma and toxic stress can cause very real biological changes to our nervous system and brain. Inherent in these changes is the loss of connection to self and others limiting our ability to have healthy relationships. Building healthy relationships mandates that we maintain regulation (calm during stress) and causes us to rebuild or reorganize healthy neural pathways in our brain.
The question of good for both gets tricky when you are learning to communicate your thoughts or needs and/or are fighting to be heard.
That personal struggle makes it even harder for us to HEAR what the other person is fighting to communicate. Pretty soon both are frustrated and find themselves in a bag of feral cats. Many have said it – this is a traumatic time across the globe. To many, our very personal economic and professional survival is being questioned. This is trauma. In this state, we are only using the parts of the brain that are geared towards keeping us safe and protected. We are in fight or flight mode and may not have full access to the parts of the brain that allow us to empathize with others or think logically and thoroughly through issues. We may only hear our own scattered and fearful thoughts screaming through our head. Or, there is nothing at all. There are no thoughts, no fears, and no feelings. We are completely checked out.
When survival is at stake there are no easy answers. Even if the prescription for moving forward is given by others, we still must make decisions for ourselves, find our own answers and yes, find a way to move forward both individually and collectively. To do this, we are required to release ourselves from that bag of teeth and claws. But how?
STOP!
Slow down.
Feel your activated nervous system.
Feel your heartbeat.
Feel the tingles or tightness in your stomach.
Notice your feet touching the ground.
Start to see the details of your surrounding environment.
Hear the sounds.
Search for physical sensations.
Feel the need for a deep breath and then take one.
This is the moment when the cats in the bag realize that nobody is getting out alive unless another path is chosen. This is the moment when we start to feel connection with ourselves.
The journey from this point is clear, but not easy. It goes something like this:
In order to stay calm in stressful situations, I must learn regulation skills. In order to get good at regulation, I must practice those skills regularly so just like muscle memory, they kick in automatically when things start to get rough. Because I am able to stay calmer for longer periods of time, I can now stay present in this current moment without fear from my past or fear for the future. Presence in the moment allows me to better connect with my thoughts and feelings.
This connection breeds confidence in self and allows me to ask for what I need and stay committed to being heard. With that confidence, my need to control lessens and I am able to HEAR others without fear of losing myself or not being HEARD. When I can really HEAR others, I start to attune to their needs and concerns and our connection grows. Together we can start to consider what is good for both. In this moment we have created a new healthy neural pathway that allows us to consider more than just ourselves without losing ourselves. We are working on our healthy, good for both, relationship.
Of course, it doesn’t happen fluidly like that. This is why a trauma-informed trainer of Natural Lifemanship and Founder of Windows To My Soul and her husband end up like two feral cats in a bag.
Trauma happens to all of us. Our past and current circumstances determine how we react and what we need to heal. The process is bumpy and requires choosing a new path and sometimes it is just easier and more comfortable to stay on the current path. Sometimes we can’t even see that a new path is necessary or possible.
As for this cat and her husband, we had that STOP moment. We reengaged our regulation skills and we started to HEAR each other. We learned that both of us have very real concerns for mental health, professional and physical survival. We decided not to attend the party. But we will get to have the conversation of moving forward in the world of Covid-19 many more times, hopefully, a little more regulated and attuned to each other. We have a family reunion scheduled in June. ☺
by Kathleen Choe | May 11, 2020 | Personal Growth
After weeks of seeming stasis, were sheltering in place, physical distancing, online learning, working remotely, wearing masks in public, and other heretofore unheard of phrases and behaviors were becoming the norm, we are receiving conflicting messages about the restrictions lifting, businesses opening (at reduced capacity) and the possibility of life returning to some semblance of “normalcy.” Whether one agrees with the timing or structure of this shift or not, we seem to be on the threshold of tip-toeing out of our homes and into a world that looks vastly different from the one we knew prior to the pandemic.
What does it meant to be “on the threshold?” The word itself has some interesting definitions: a point of entry or beginning; the magnitude or intensity that must be exceeded for a certain reaction, phenomenon, or condition to occur or be manifested; the level at which one starts to feel or react to something or at which something comes into effect.
In other words, a threshold is that moment right before the change actually happens, when we are standing in the doorway looking out at an unfamiliar landscape, wondering if we are prepared for whatever we are about to encounter on the other side. Change is difficult for most of us. Even for those who thrive on adventure and new experiences, feeling a bit of anxiety in the face of uncertainty is common. In that moment when the training wheels come off and we are wobbling this way and that, frantically peddling while trying to adjust to the novelty of trusting our bodies to hold us in balance instead of relying on the machinery of the training wheels or the strong arm of a parent figure holding our bicycle upright from behind, we struggle to have confidence that we can fly instead of falling to the ground. It is the space between the trapeze bars, when we have let go of the one and not yet grasped hold of the other, suspended in mid-air, hoping we have stretched far enough to reach the safety of the handle swinging before us. It is the unknown territory we have not yet traversed, and it is . . . scary.
Brandan J. Robertson, in his article, On the Threshold of Tomorrow, writes, “What are we to do at such a threshold moment? . . . In moments of transition, we are simply to be. We are to pause and acknowledge that a transition is taking place. Instead of seeking to abruptly pass through a threshold, we are to tarry. . . . A new reality is emerging, but we cannot see beyond the threshold. All we know is that we exist in this moment, where everything is in transition. We may experience a new way of being, but we cannot yet sense what it will look like.”
After the end of World War II, all the Dutch citizens living in Indonesia were expelled and sent “home” to their native country, the Netherlands. My mother, along with many of her fellow expats, was born in Indonesia, and up until that point, had never even lived in the Netherlands. At the age of 15, my mother went “home” to a place that was entirely foreign to her. Worse yet, the Dutch citizens already living there did not welcome these returnees back into the fold as terrible shortages of food, fuel, and housing were compounded by the return of these refugees, who were awarded double ration cards due to the starvation and hardship they experienced in the concentration camps during the war. She remembers feeling lost, alone, and afraid in this country where she was supposed to belong but whose customs, climate and conditions were unfamiliar to her. Her mother’s sister, Tante Truce, took in the battered and bedraggled family of five and fed them, cared for them, and helped them over this threshold to adjust to their new life.
It is ok not to know what’s next. It is ok not to know how to feel, what to think, or how to behave in this new landscape we are finding ourselves in. It is ok to ask for help, to turn to each other for connection and comfort, and to find our way forward together, with uncertain, even wobbly steps. We may fall off our bicycle (or horse, as I did last week. Twice!) We may miss the trapeze bar. The important thing is that we allow ourselves to be helped back up by others who are traveling this new road with us and that we don’t try to figure this out alone. We may linger on the threshold and decide we are not quite ready to cross over it yet even though we see others doing so. And that’s ok too.
Because you are not alone. We are all in this together.
Kathleen is a licensed professional counselor and practices in the Austin, Texas area. More info can be found here. She is also a member of the NL team, and a Natural Lifemanship trainer.
The Natural Lifemanship Institute is offering a variety of low to no cost support for you during this time!
Check out these name your price workshops to support you during this time and help to build YOUR resilience.
We offer a variety of resources daily on Facebook and a FB live series called Resilience Through Rhythm every Sunday. Connect with us on Facebook where we are committed to community connection and collective healing.
Survive + Thrive = SurThrive: A Webinar Series for Navigating the Pandemic; these recording are free to NL Basic or Professional Members here. All others can name your price here.
by Kathleen Choe | May 11, 2020 | Personal Growth
I recently watched the movie “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” based on the true story of friendship between Fred Rogers and journalist Tom Junod. Tom is indignant that he has been assigned to interview Mr. Rogers, whom he views as an insignificant and not newsworthy character, but he is surprised to find himself drawn to the empathy, acceptance, and kindness this television show host displays to everyone he comes in contact with. In an exchange that is very timely for today, Fred tells Tom, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’”
The news is currently full of very “scary things.” It is easy to get discouraged, overwhelmed, frightened, and even panicky about the ongoing stream of grim stories concerning rising infection and death rates and people losing livelihoods and loved ones. These statistics are scary and it is normal to feel anxious about them. However, a crisis like the pandemic also presents an opportunity for people to grow in unexpected ways. Many have shared heart-warming stories with me about giving some or all of their stimulus money to those in greater need, or discovering previously unknown skills for sewing facemasks, or a talent for organizing online scavenger hunts for bored grandchildren, or for tutoring reading online to struggling students. Helping others helps us. Neural evidence from fMRI’s research studies suggests a link between generosity and happiness in the brain. When we help someone else, the same feel-good chemicals are released in our brain that are being released in the brain and body of the one we are helping.
My father certainly needed a helper when he was being held in solitary confinement in a German prison during World War II. Sometimes help comes in unexpected ways, as it did for him when his parents and the families of the other imprisoned boys who tried to escape with him from the labor camp to join the Allied Army, hired a rather famous Dutch attorney named Fritz to plead their sons’ cases before the Reichsgericht (the criminal court of the German Reich). Fritz represented himself as a Nazi sympathizer to the German court in order to win the boys a reprieve from their death sentence and then had to go into hiding himself to escape his own prosecution once the ruse became known. (Upon their release, the boys were taken to another labor camp much further inland presumably to prevent them from once again trying to swim the Rhine River to freedom.)
We may already be drowning in “helping” as parents or caregivers who are attempting to homeschool children, work from home, navigate the frustrations of attempting to apply for small business loans or payroll protection or other resources to stay afloat financially (and emotionally!) We may need help from others rather than being in a position to offer help right now. It is not weak or needy to ask for support from others it is human. And if you find yourself in moments when that support is not forthcoming from the relationships you usually turn to (because they are overwhelmed too), the following resources might help in a pinch:
The National Alliance on Mental Illness has an Instagram account: “namicommunicate” which posts helpful tips, reminders, and resources
The “Calm” app offers meditation and sleep stories to help with the bedtime routine
Even non-yoga aficionados find Yoga with Adriene accessible and soothing.
Dr. Dan Siegel’s wheel of awareness and free guided meditations are available.
Natural Lifemanship is offering a variety of name your price workshops to support you during this time and help to build YOUR resilience.
Natural Lifemanship is also offering a variety of resources daily on Facebook and a FB live series called Resilience Through Rhythm every Sunday. Connect with us on Facebook where we are committed to collective healing.
A global crisis like the coronavirus pandemic can overshadow our reality to the point where we no longer find hope in the darkness. My father told me there were times he wasn’t sure he would ever leave that dark, damp prison cell. My faith reminds me that “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it.” We can take turns being that light for each other.
Here at The Natural Lifemanship Institute, we are here for you, just as you are there for so many who turn to you for support. And when you need some support for yourself: keep looking for the helpers. They are out there.
Kathleen Choe is a licensed professional counselor and practices in the Austin, Texas area. More info can be found here. She is also a member of the NL team, and a Natural Lifemanship trainer.
by Kathleen Choe | May 4, 2020 | Personal Growth
This past week I am struck by how many of you have told me you are feeling lonely. Some of you are what I call “alone lonely” because you are physically living and working alone and are experiencing profound isolation with the shelter in place and physical distancing measures currently in place.
Some of you are what I term “together lonely” because you are physically surrounded by a spouse and/or children, roommate(s), parents, siblings, the nanny who has temporarily moved in, and other assorted relatives/friends/pets but emotionally having the experience of loneliness, which may involve not being seen/heard/acknowledged/appreciated/understood/supported/loved/held/nurtured/validated.
In Brene Brown’s most recent podcast in her series “Unlocking Us” she interviews Dr. Vivek Murthy, a physician and the 19th Surgeon General of the United States, about his book Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection in a Sometimes Lonely World. He describes three dimensions of loneliness: Intimate Loneliness, which is the longing for a partner or confidant to share trust and affection with and to be a witness to our lives; Social Loneliness, which is the longing for relational connection through friendship, companionship and support, and Collective Loneliness; which is the longing for a network or community of people who share a sense of purpose and common interests. Many of us have been cut off from some or all of these avenues of connection by the measures currently in place due to the COVID 19 pandemic.
Loneliness is a profoundly disturbing experience. Most mammals are able to mobilize within hours of birth to avoid becoming a predator’s meal. Human infants are born completely dependent upon the caregivers in their environment to provide the resources necessary to survive. This does not only involve physical nourishment, but emotional support as well. Even as adults, we carry the primal hard wiring to avoid abandonment as early in life this equaled death. The truth is: we need each other. Not in a co-dependent, enmeshed way, but in a relationally supportive and connected way. We may be able to feed and clothe ourselves and tie our own shoes, but we never outgrow the need for emotional support and encouragement!
My father was a senior in high school in the Netherlands when World War II broke out. Initially, Hitler thought the Dutch would support his cause, as he considered them close cousins to the Germans. However, when he realized the Dutch citizens were hiding Jews and helping them escape and aligning with the Allies, he invaded and occupied Holland, conscripting any able-bodied men to work in his factories building munitions and war supplies as all the able-bodied German men were fighting in the war. Initially, Hitler allowed Dutch students to finish high school before being sent to work camps, so my father’s headmaster failed his entire senior class in order to keep them back and in school (and safe) for another year. The second time this happened, Hitler became savvy to the plan and my father was sent to Austria to build Tiger Tanks for Hitler’s war machine. He was 17 years old and determined to escape to join the Allied Forces in their fight against the Nazi’s. In a story straight out of a Tom Clancy novel, my father and several of his friends got the guards on duty drunk on some stolen Schnapp’s, attempted to swim the Rhine River, and make it to Switzerland. They were caught, however, and each placed in solitary confinement. Each day, the guards would taunt the boys that this was “the day they would die.” When I asked my father how he survived solitary confinement, in a cell 3×6 foot, he told me that the movie The Wizard of Oz had come out shortly before the war, the first color motion picture he had ever seen. He would lie in his cot and play the movie, scene by scene, until Dorothy (played by Judy Garland) taps her ruby slippers together and says, “there’s no place like home.” He drew strength from her encounters with the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion (and of course, her faithful dog, Toto). She found her “tribe,” a group of unlikely friends to journey with her, who each needed healing in their own way. He would think about his family and friends, all of whom were praying and fighting for his release. (And he was miraculously released, which is a story for another time!)
Sometimes life is just hard. Not because we are doing something wrong, or because there is something wrong with us. Sometimes life is just hard, but we can do hard things. We can find support from each other, our faith, our imaginations, nature, and we can persevere through our suffering because we matter and our pain matters.
You matter. Don’t forget.
On a lighter note, Hope has opened her eyes! She is seeing her world for the first time and finding it fascinating. Read the blog where we introduced Hope!
We will make it through this. . . together!
Natural Lifemanship is offering as much personal and professional support as we can for you right now. Take a look at our Survive + Thrive = SurThrive webinar series. Live webinars are free to all. Recordings are free to Basic and Professional NL Members on our online learning page. All others can name your price. Be on the lookout for our new and expanding Building YOUR Resilience Groups. AND don’t forget to watch FB live every Sunday at 5:30 CDT as we build resilience through rhythm and connection! We can take care of each other!
by Kathleen Choe | Apr 23, 2020 | Personal Growth
Many of us are finding that we are reaching our limits with the mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, and financial impact of the COVID 19 pandemic. The burden of sheltering in place, physical distancing, homeschooling our children, working (or not being able to work) from home, being separated from loved ones, making continual adjustments to our expectations for how long/how hard/how limiting/how big this ongoing crisis is going to be has become overwhelming and scary.
Social media memes ping-pong from challenging us to learn a new language/instrument/skill to encouraging us to just be glad if we managed to feed ourselves, or anyone else depending on us, that day. We are bombarded with conflicting messages about when things will return to “normal” and are left wondering if we are entering a “new normal” – one that we don’t like very much.
How long will we have to wear masks and wait on designated red squares at the checkout line and be glared at as though we have leprosy when we pass someone in the grocery aisle and watch people cross the street to distance from us when we go walking in our neighborhood?
I heard an interesting message from author and speaker John Ortberg over the Easter holiday that focused on what he called “Three Day Stories.” He pointed out that the Bible is full of these: for example, Jonah spent 3 days in the belly of a whale and Jesus was crucified on Good Friday and resurrected on Easter Sunday (Click here to learn more about this topic.) but what caught my attention was his question: “What about Saturday?” If Friday is when the trouble starts (think: Jonah being swallowed by the whale, Jesus being nailed to the cross, the coronavirus spreading through the global population) and Sunday brings redemption (Jonah is delivered from the belly of the whale, Jesus rises from the dead, we develop a vaccine for COVID 19) what happens on “the day in between” Friday and Sunday?
We are currently in a very loooooooong Saturday. We are in that day in between when the trouble starts and when it gets resolved. We are in that state of limbo, treading water, stalled, downloading (that annoying little circle twirling round and round on your computer screen when you are waiting for whatever site you have tried to access to actually appear), completely stuck. The worst part is that we don’t know how long this “Saturday,” this waiting period, will actually last.
For another one of our blogs about fear, anxiety, and the spinning circle metaphor, during this time, click here.
Any pregnant woman will tell you that every day past her due date feels like an eternity. We like guaranteed deadlines, delivery dates, and certainty. This pandemic has thrust us into the darkness and uncertainty of a Saturday of unknown length, and our brains and nervous systems do not like that one bit. Just like the child counting down the days until Christmas, WE DO NOT LIKE TO WAIT. Amazon Prime amazed and spoiled us with “same-day delivery” until it outdid itself with “Prime Now” which delivered your item within hours! We have become accustomed to instant gratification and quick results. Waiting is not something we are used to doing, and we are not very good at it. It makes us feel helpless, out of control, and powerless.
It is ok not to like where things are in our world right now. We don’t have to falsely try to cheer ourselves up, or “look on the bright side” or find the silver lining or deep meaning in all of this. It is ok to feel annoyed, angry, scared, sad, tired, discouraged, upset, and unhappy. Sometimes life is just hard, not because you are doing something wrong or there is something wrong with you, but because there is something wrong in our world.
Another one of our blogs on this subject: This Pandemic is Trauma for Us All
However, while you are being honest about your feelings, and accepting them without judgment or self-blame, also make room for those moments when the ordinary can bring you comfort: the smell of your morning coffee before you take that first sip, the sun peeking through the clouds after a storm, your dog’s wagging tail because you have time to walk him (again!).
When my mother talks about her experience in the concentration camp during WWII, she often mentions the “little things” that helped the time pass during the tedium of waiting for liberation: finding a piece of string to play cat’s cradle, or some tin foil to fold a boat to sail in a puddle after the rain, or a scrap of paper to write on (she managed to assemble enough of these to keep a diary of sorts). She remembers these discoveries as small treasures that distracted her from the enormity of losing her home and family and everything familiar about the life she knew before. “This too shall pass” was the sentiment of the day, and it did pass, as will our crisis.
Another one of our blogs with a little different spin on this idea: Is Life Great? This Too Shall Pass
I was reminded of this spark of hope when my Equine Professional, Monique, who works with me in my Equine Assisted Psychotherapy practice, found an abandoned, day-old kitten in some tall grass at the ranch where we conduct sessions.
This little scrap of fur was probably hours old and had little chance of surviving, but we took on the challenge of bottle-feeding it (she has generously taken on the night shift!) and a week later it is still very much alive. We named the kitten Hope, as she represents the truth that life truly does go on, no matter how dire the circumstances seem to be in the moment. Although lives and livelihoods will be lost in this tragedy, in our humanity a spark burns that will not be put out. We are resilient. We are wired to survive and thrive. We will overcome this challenge together. Saturday can’t last forever. This too shall pass. And we will still be standing, together, when it does. (Join with us for the Building Your Resilience series: multiple online opportunities for profound self-care)
Waiting with you for Saturday to pass, and finding Hope in the meantime.
by Kate Naylor | Apr 6, 2020 | Applied Principles, Basics of Natural Lifemanship, Personal Growth
By Kate Naylor and Bettina Shultz-Jobe
In times of great grief, anxiety, stress, or fear why does it seem like words are unnecessary or even hurtful? We are verbal creatures, we have a great love for language. Just take a look at the astonishing collection of great written works we have accumulated – literature, poetry, lyrics, storytelling, and more. Words have given us new ideas, new frontiers, and abilities we never could have achieved before.
And yet, there are significant moments in our lives when words are insufficient, even counterproductive. Why is that?
Although we are a highly verbal species, we are not only a verbal species. We are an embodied species as well. We need so much more than words in order to truly feel seen by others, in order to truly be seen by our own selves. Our minds are an incredible gift, and yet they would be nothing without our bodies. Our minds know things, because of our bodies. The two together are what make us human.
So how do we care for our whole selves during this pandemic, a time of collective trauma?
As Larry McDaniel, an NL certification student and executive director and founder of Coyote Hill in Missouri, so beautifully states – words can only do so much, and then there is everything else.
Our brains and bodies begin forming in the womb, cells divide in an extraordinary choreographed dance that transforms these cells into a tiny body. This tiny body continues the dance of expansion and contraction – flexion and extension – reaching out and pulling in – in order to continue the development so needed for life outside the warm waters of their mother’s womb. What does this tiny body experience as it grows? The rhythmic whoosh of flowing blood and water, the bump bump bump of a heartbeat, the changes in gravity that come with the movement of the world around them as they are suspended in liquid. This is passive sensory input – sounds and sensations that a tiny body does not produce for themself, but receives freely. This is the foundation of brain and body development we all experience in some form – for some it is rhythmic, calm and nurturing, for others it is not, and still others it is something in between. But no matter what kind of womb experience, it is where we all begin.
Built upon this foundation are the movements this tiny body produces as they grow and stretch in the womb, and after in the world. These movements continue to develop the brain. Being held, pushing up, holding oneself, reaching out, grasping an object, and coming back to self again are all a part of our development – each one of us having individual experiences along the way. Built upon these movements are the relationships and meanings and memories that are created as this tiny body becomes a relational body as well. Who loves us? Who doesn’t? What does love and caring feel like? Is the world safe? We ask these questions and grow from the answers.
This development all begins in the womb, and continues after birth and on into a child’s life. This is how it is for all of us. Only lastly, do the words and thoughts come, when we are babies and young children, and on into adulthood.
The question of why words may not be sufficient during this time is important, and also clear once you understand where we come from. Words are insufficient because we are so much more than words. We are built, piece by piece, moment by moment, into the people we are today by our environment, our bodies, our relationships, our memories…as well as our thoughts and words.
So what can we do? As Larry says, we need music, and nature, and laughter and love – we need not just words but the other rhythms our whole selves are craving as well. In a more scientific sense, we need passive regulation from rhythm in our environment – music, nature (the sights, sounds, smells, and textures), sleep, food and drink, the warmth of other living beings, and a home environment that feels as predictable and soothing as possible (whether that be through routines, rituals, fabrics, light, sounds, smells, or all of the above). We need regulation for our sensory-motor (sensorimotor) circuits – we need to move in response to that passive sensory input we are receiving all the time. We need to sway to the wind in the trees. We need to dance to the songs that stir something within us. We need to cuddle into a soft blanket and withdraw from textures we dislike. We need to walk, run, and use our balance. Quite simply, our bodies need regular movement throughout the day to feel well – indoors or out, stimulating and soothing both. We need limbic stimulation and regulation through relationships and connection – with those in our home, with those we see through a video, with those we can hear on the phone. Being seen and heard, feeling loved and cared for, and doing the same for others…is necessary.
Words are beautiful and inspiring, AND we need so much more than words to feel human.
This is why Natural Lifemanship seeks to support YOU – our students, members, and anyone else who wants to join our amazing community – with rhythm and relationship during this time. It is our desire to support you in the most primitive of ways because our developmental foundations are all the same – our bodies, minds, and souls need rhythm, movement, and relationship to heal and grow.
Join us on FB live every Sunday at 5:30 p.m. CDT to build resilience as we connect across the globe through rhythm and movement.
Join us in small groups to build resilience through meditation.
Check out the most recent ways we are offering personal (and professional) support to YOU!
Sign up for our email list to receive weekly updates about available support during these difficult and uncertain times. NL is releasing new offerings each week! Feel free to tell us what you need – we are listening!
Recent Comments