It was somewhere between 2 and 3am and I was in a bed that was not my own, in a house, a mile or two up a mountain. I had committed to spending 3 straight days with a therapist in this house to finally and fully look at my fears, blocks and beliefs. It was an intense commitment, and the dialogue created huge waves of thick energy through my bones. I went to bed exhausted at 7pm the first night, and again the second night. It was somewhere between that second and third day when I woke up early in the morning completely full of electricity.
I mean, I was so amped up I could have powered a lawnmower. The suddenness of it left me wondering what to do! So I got down on my yoga mat and did pushups. I did squats. I did air boxing. It was the first time that I had experienced a movement such intense CHARGE in my body,
and thankfully my natural reaction was to discharge it.
I came to learn a few years later that there are 5 primary ways that we discharge energy:
Our face/mouth
Our hands
Our genitals
Our feet
And tremoring
(I work with 4 of the 5 professionally)
What finally moved through me that morning, was a chant about transformation. I started singing it, and every round it just got louder and louder until I was stomping my feet and clapping my hands and yelling almost at the top of my lungs, in the dark of the night, with just the bedside lamp on. Anyone passing by would have thought that I had lost it. This went on for several minutes, then it slowly simmered and eventually I sat on the edge of the bed in silence. Feeling much better, I laid back down, turned off the light and went right back to sleep.
Have you ever witnessed a temper tantrum? Road rage? A dog shaking during a thunderstorm? A crowd roar with cheers, clapping and jumping during an exciting football game? Tears? A fist fight? Lovemaking? These are all examples of moving energy THROUGH our bodies. And it's critical for our survival.
Dis-ease in the body, of almost all orders, is the result of a
pattern of un-moved charge. A charge is simply a feeling (positive or negative) that moves into us when we experience or think about something that brings us out of our center (Fyi, this happens a hundred of times a day). The body IS the spirit, so when we feel something mentally, our insides are quite literally changing in result to that. Repeated feelings of guilt will break down the reproductive organs for example. Repeated repression of our opinion will break down the jaw muscles and thyroid gland, as another example. Because how can the body hold all that???
This is why I created BODY Mapping. BODY Mapping is the group space to be gently guided through systematic charging and discharging movements to unblock some of our most common holding patterns. It's not a yoga class and it's not like anything you've ever done in a group before, but it is grounded in the science of the body. It's a supreme bath for the soul, where you're allowed to stomp, and yell and tremor and cry and roll around on the ground if you want. This may sound so completely primal and uncivilized...and you're RIGHT! IT IS! I have a belief that it's our civility that's killing us from the inside out. When we cautiously refrain from crying or stomping or yelling or touching ourselves or curling in to a ball, we are denying the very tools that we have been given to keep ourselves healthy and clean.
Somatic therapy has fundamentally changed my life, which is why it is the focus of this class and my private practice. Whether you try the one-on-one or the group experience, it's likely time to
trust your body more and depend less on the mind to reveal your truths.
BODY Mapping meets from 10:00-11:00am on Thursdays, changing to 9:45-11:00am beginning in March.
Free private consultations available.
