Yoga gives you space.
In that space you will:
Trauma has two parts. The first part is created when you experience events that exceed your emotional capacity.
You can be one month old and accrue trauma when you don’t get fed in time. It is true; that does fit the definition. You can accrue trauma when you are one year old and you don’t get to eat that entire chocolate bar despite your biggest wails. This isn’t to diminish trauma survivors experience, rather it is a place to start making sense of the mechanics of trauma. As we grow older the opportunities for trauma typically grow in diversity. All of those events result in the same aftermath; retaining the event within our nervous system.
Continue reading “Men, Trauma, Rage And A Path To Wholeness”
Imagine your surprise when you discover that mitochondrial cells inside you do nothing but generate energy for you to go about your day. They expect nothing. Take care of them or not; they don’t care. The only thing they care about is setting you up for success. There are more.
Cut your finger and white blood cells rush to your aid. They don’t care what you did. They don’t care about your failures. They don’t care what horrible thing you did. They are there for you. They are there to help.
Your heart keeps pumping. Nobody asked it to do so. It just keeps running and running and running, all for you.
This is true love.
Accepting yourself for who you are doesn’t always mean respecting yourself. If you identify as male, then you are especially suspect here: part of being a person who identifies as male today means that you only compare yourself to the top 1%. The cult of exceptional-ism is strong, alive, and well today.
Continue reading “Respecting Your Limits Means Respecting Yourself”
Your health is your wealth.
It is the most important variable in personal growth.
The vocabularies of scarcity and rage are the only ones available to those who are numb. They create a vicious circle serving only to further numb them and keep anyone who could help them far away. The solution is to take a breath and give them room to be safe, and then tell them about taking just one breath, too, to get a respite from the pain. It only takes one!
You are not who you think you are. The mind tends to go to extremes. In the process it drags you through all of the junk that it finds to keep itself entertained. Imagine what a three year old would do given the chance to operate a bulldozer in the living room of your mind. It is something like that. Of course, when it is pleasant, we love it. When it is painful, that is when it starts to hurt. You know it will never end well.
Better help that kid grow up and be a good friend instead of a trouble maker, right?
Only then can you start to discover who you really are.
“I look forward to spending time with my friends so that we can catch up and tell each other how horrible
… SAID NO ONE EVER
Take a five breaths and hear them out. Maybe that is what they want to say; maybe not. Ask them to tell you more. Reply “Gotcha…and…?”; sometimes it works wonders. “Gotcha… you are a horrible person and are we still going to the concert this Friday?”. “And” turns the topics from a roadblock into a speed bump; you can still go somewhere with it. Better to move forward then sit in the muck of bad ideas that probably aren’t even true.
Beneath the pain you will find resolution. It is astounding.
Shockingly, you might not find a reason or explanation for that pain, and, that it might be fine without one.
