“No matter what we know intellectually, or rationally, if the body is still producing a threat response in a situation that has been interpreted as a repetition of a childhood danger, then that is what is in charge.”
Bessel Van Der Kolk, The Body Keeps the Score
I’ve been listening to “The Body Keeps the Score”. Have you read it? Or listened to it?
It’s a book I’ve been meaning to read for years and yet it’s never happened. So I love that now – now! – it became the thing to read (or listen to!). Of course! Perfectly timed in the lead up to May and Physical Enlightenment.
And perfectly timed because, when I look at my journey, the body hasn’t been a prominent aspect of my enlightenment process, so I was keen to learn more.
One pivotal time I did experience with the body though, was when I started yoga back in 2016 – oh how the tears flowed in those first sessions as the vagus nerve was stretched and the psoas muscle was eased out of contraction. ‘It’s a common experience’ my teacher told me.
Of course it is. Because we’re – most of us – dashing around in life, busy, doing, doing, doing.
And if we’re not busy, doing, doing, doing we’re contracting over the fact we’re not busy, doing – when we think we should be.
Our society is fuelled by the untrue idea that ‘doing stuff makes me good and worthy’ so we’re all suffering on one side or other of that falsehood.
Whichever side of that idea you find yourself on, you lose.
But thankfully – in the repeated tension of lots of doing, or the repeated contraction of ‘how rubbish I am that I’m not doing’ – the body becomes a doorway of the system that calls to us. Asking us via its tensions and imbalances and dis-eases to turn around and try moving a different way. To listen to it and its calls for being different.
The way it does this, is thanks to the fact that it does keep the score. In its score-keeping, it reacts and contracts all over again when something similar to ‘the first time’ shows up. Increasing the alarm each time, getting us to pay attention – if we know how to listen.
Creating tension upon tension in the physical system, which is echoed across the feeling and thinking systems too.
Calling and calling for us to look at how we’re being with ourselves and in the world, to come back into anchored connection.
Which means that, the more we release physical tension, the more the feeling and thinking systems relax too. Because it’s all one system, with this beautiful array of doorways for us to access ourselves. To remember our natural state of relaxed ease. So that the body can realign with that too.
And that’s why, in May, we’re moving through the physical body doorway.
Is this a doorway you want to move through?
If you’d like to join us for this month-long journey of gentle physical exploration, we’d love you to.
We start on 8th May with an opening call to set the context for the month, and begin your shifting relationship to the body.
On the 15th, Emily Phillips will lead you in a session to first make visible what’s on your body’s mind, and to then give that voice.
Next, on the 22nd, Anna Sagar will lead you in an embodying breathwork session to help you come to all your senses.
The 29th is the Closing Q&A call where the agenda is over to you.
And the whole month ends on the 3rd June with an integrating transmission with me.
Choose the payment option that feels right for you – everyone gets the same access and service. It’s simply a case of ‘this is what I choose to pay right now.’
You have three payment options
Whichever payment option is right for you, everyone gets the same access, including access to all the content since we started in Feb.
1. I choose £333
2. I choose £177 (because I want to become a Wild Fig Community member too)
3. I choose £87
The first 10 people to join May on £333 and £177 receive a bonus, private 1:1 session with the expert of their choice.
Anna, Emily and I look forward to welcoming you in!
What do you want to ask?
Email me here all questions, wonderings and curiosities are very welcome.