October 05, 2004
You eat what?
Today in Shiatsu, Erica brought up something really relevant for me... the class was talking about how massage therapy can be a lifestyle as well as a profession, and how this can help us from becoming burnt out statistics (the average career span of an MT is something like 7 years).
So we talked about lifestyle, staying with our center, and practices, like tai chi, yoga, nutrition, things that build and maintain foundation. And then she mentioned being around people that support our lifestyle.
That really related to things that have been on my mind, things I haven't put the journal entries in for yet. :-) But I'm wondering how to maintain my current relationships without compromising my own integrity. I want to meet people where they're at, but I need to be met halfway. What is the win-win if someone else can't meet in the middle? I guess it's "no deal" then?
YOU try telling YOUR grandma, "Sorry, no deal." and get back to me on that.
I'm so not pleased with the time being almost 10pm. Sleepy time. More journaling next time.
Posted by Josh A. at 09:51 PM | Comments (6)
September 19, 2004
How (not) to Fail at Heartwood
Today was a day of work, but "not enough" work. Between science homework and all the extra practice sessions I had to do, I didn't get them all done.
I only did two last week, so I had to do the third I missed, an extra fourth to make up for the late, and then the three due tomorrow, plus a fourth to make up for the classes I missed.
So that's six. I managed to do four. Seeing how four in a weekend is "honors level", I could have been proud of myself, right? Or not.
I arrived at my room feeling really down for not completing it all, and needing to go to bed so I can get up tomorrow for class. I was trying to resign myself to simply not having completed it all, and I sat down and started to "move stuff."
It was really interesting... I developed a very freeform process in Rochester, and it's getting richer. When I'm alone and have time, I go back and forth between EFT and TAT as necessary, and journal it all out: Flow of issues (I like to be able to look back and see what memory triggered what), SUDS levels (subjective units of distress, the way I know if I'm making progress on clearing something), etc. Every once in a while I'll do a focus spiral as part of processing. Tonight, however, I wrote a poem.
It's so not fine literature. But it came from the heart, in the moment:
There is so much here abundance surrounds me around the abundant issues within methis writing black ball of disgusting worms
I don't want to call my ownand when I open and get close to
my process here at Heartwood I can feel
that I'm barely keeping my head
above waterand I've felt, I know
what it's like to drownat Cornell, I DROWNED
and then I sank further
and I don't know if I hit the sea floor
because I'm still alive
but I wonder how much of me died
and what can be salvagedI don't want to be a wreck
so I'm dredging my sea
bringing up the pieces
so that I can restore themI want you and I to see
not the broken pieces
but the person doing the work.
That was in the midst of dealing with feelings of "I can't keep my agreement (to do my sessions on time)", wanting the due dates to be Tuesdays instead of Mondays, feeling like I was having a difficult time even doing the minimum, and I want to excel, because practice on bodies is how we really learn this stuff. I said aloud, "I want to do as much as possible." and I could feel the place of lack it came from.
So what was stopping me?
I took the following down from 7's to 10's to 2's to 4's:
I'm afraid to ask people if they want sessions.
I'm afraid to give sessions.
I'm afraid to learn this stuff.
I'm afraid to succeed at this.
There's this wall in front of me.
I'm afraid to know myself.
I fear I appear not motivated.
I'm afraid I look bad to my teachers.
Undergirding some of this were two powerful experiences, one from 4th and the other from 5th grade; bringing the intensity of those memories down was essential to clearing many of the fears above.
Now, to get ready for bed... Yoga at 7am tomorrow.
Posted by Josh A. at 09:57 PM | Comments (2)
September 16, 2004
Mmm... sandwich...
The day was like a "yuck" on "fantastic" sandwich.
Bread: I woke up pretty easily, ahead of time, and although I could have gone to yoga or something, I took the time for me. It was really nice, to catch up on emails, do some research, and some reading.
Shiatsu went well. I was able to talk to the instructor about making up my two missed classes and we found a solution that worked for both of us.
The highlight of class: during practice, she walked by and said, "Great body mechanics, Josh." Uhh come again? Me? Wow. I'm learning :-)
Nasty: My frustration with the technology situations here came to a frothy, irritated head. It wasn't even so much what's affecting me or how so much as not feeling heard on the matters.
Luckily, this was all right before my meeting with Surya, the student counselor.
Condiment: I managed to pack a lot into our time slot. I came to a new understanding with the situation here, a vantage point from which I think I can move into acceptance, positivity, and helpfulness. Sometimes the ways in which my head would like me to be helpful aren't the ways I can be truly helpful.
Reality: Institutions change slowly, especially when they are working on BIG change. Reality: People often get numb hearing about/thinking about the same problems every quarter when there's nothing they can do about it yet. Reality: Heartwood is in the position of maintaining a school that is like no other massage school, and yet still having to compete with other schools on price. Fact: You don't know the power of this place until you come here. Fact: Not everyone can afford to visit before enrolling.
This is all shifting. And I believe effective, productive containers for the students' voices to be heard are forthcoming. Co-creation isn't always the quickest process. :-)
Now I need to integrate all of that, ACCEPT, apply the principles of manifestation, come from a positive place, and find ways to BE the change I'd like to see.
I also reframed some feelings, from "Do I have boundary issues?" to "I'm learning." America doesn't teach its children to talk like this, and move like this, and touch like this. I'm learning a new language, and there's quite the learning curve for me. I'm working through what's left of 13+ years of schooling and 24 years of accumulated crap.
The last thing I did was mention my desire to hold a workshop here, and what a bottle that uncorked. More on that later.
Spice: Just before dinner, I had a brief encounter with the illusion of Insufficiency. A Polarity Intensive student needed a receiver, and the TA knew I am really interested in the modality... but I couldn't do it at the time he had available, and at first my mind raced: "Is it now or never? Man, how important is this to me? Maybe I should break the commitment? But I really don't know much about Polarity, can I ask them some questions first?" and before any of that had even gone by, someone else volunteered.
And I realized: there is abundance. There will be more time slots, more givers needed, and even new students at the next intensive. I can try Polarity Therapy at a time that works for both me and the giver.
Bread: I was so thankful that I kept my commitment and went to Deep Circle after dinner. I held more space tonight than I knew was possible. I felt energetically sensitive really for the first time. I stayed present, grounded, in relationship, and got real BIG... and when it was time for me to speak, I moved in a way that I have been working for; new,for me, and wonderful.
What I remember speaking about most is my desire to hold an EFT workshop here and all the shit that's been holding me back. Best expressed in questions like: Am I good enough? Will anyone come? Or worse, what if they do come and it goes horribly? Will they take me seriously? Do I take myself seriously?
Some things I came out with: it's ok to take myself seriously because I'm not taking myself seriously. I have something to share. And I'm learning (more of that!) And it's ok.
My expression flowed, in and out of joy and tears and self love and gratefulness. Physically, I moved with a sense of freedom. For perhaps the first time, I felt good about the crying parts, and didn't feel a need to hide them. I felt really good about the balance provided by other parts, other feelings and my expression of them.
I left feeling wired, HUGE. I went to the Lodge and enveloped everyone in it. I joined a group going down to the sauna & hot tub, and did several cycles of sweating and cold showers before bed. Really helped me bring all that energy back into myself.
Dessert: So much is changing so quickly.
I've never had internet connectivity so slow and personal processing so fast.
Although I've downgraded the former to copper wire, I've upgraded the latter to fiber optic.
Posted by Josh A. at 10:08 PM | Comments (0)
September 09, 2004
Sit up straight, young man!
I was able to avoid giving bodywork in Shiatsu yesterday by receiving first, and then we ran out of time. How perfect it turned out to be... I was much more confident with it today and actually did a good job with the techniques and some of the body mechanics.
Cassie helped correct my posture by actually putting her hands on my back and sacrum and guiding me into alignment. A light went on. "Ohhhh... so that's what alignment feels like." No one every did that for me before. When I was younger they would issue vagaries like, "Pull your shoulders back!" Huh? Turns out they really meant, "Push your sternum up and out." And no one ever showed me how tucking my tailbone automatically drops my shoulders.
So she could tell I was having some issue, and started to acknowledge what she thought it was, based on what I had said previously about the troubles I was having... and I realized, and communicated, that today it wasn't self-consciousness... it was consciousness of being cared for. Of having someone with the skills to actually help me take the time to do so. On an old issue that I had simply buried, given up on. Felt good, but also difficult to accept. "I really deserve this?" Yes.
I took my lunch up into the library, intending to work or be otherwise "productive"... and ended up reading Utne, first a cover story about time, schedules, and breaking free of their tyranny... and then other articles. I read until 5 minutes to Musculoskeletal Anatomy. It was really nice to relax for a while.
Musc. Anat. was fine. I scored high on the test, although I'm trying not to care about the score. (13+ years of schooling don't go away that fast, though!) I'm trying to focus on the things I'm not so good at, which happen to be the really important things: palpation, location, identification. Seeing with my hands and fingers. Feeling rather than thinking.
It's tough, but every time we palpate in class I learn something, and Soyka spent a few minutes with me today being very helpful... she also suggested reido before palpating, as it's the method she uses to bring her awareness out of her head and into her hands.
Tonight was the first "deep" heart circle, held in the Temple. There were only four students + the facilitator... powerful. I brought something to talk about, but when I started to take my turn, I wasn't feeling it. So I started to describe the experiences, the weird psuedo-depression I talked about yesterday, and my deep recognition I felt at the end of the first Playtime that I carry all my baggage with me everywhere I go... and soon I was feeling it.
I didn't run to this place, I wasn't trying to run from anything. But it turns out there was still part of me that wishes that none of it would follow. That by coming here I could have left some of it behind. "Why are you still here? GO AWAY!" They color my hope, for what value does the future hold if it contains this manner of relating to them?
I spoke of them as if they weren't MY issues, weren't any part of me, but some sort of Other. Intellectually I know that refusing to own them, accept them, and even love them more or less sentences me to continue walking with them. Unable to claim them, I cannot change them.
When I was invited to express love for these parts of me, I railed against it. And in that space, I couldn't think of a single part of me that I did love.
Now that I have a better handle on this, having expressed it, I will be able to move through it quickly... as quickly as I can actually find time and energy to apply some tools to it. Unfortunately, I'm currently experiencing Heartwood as sapping both of those resources to the point of imbalance.
Hopefully the weekend will help.
Posted by Josh A. at 10:18 PM | Comments (1)
September 08, 2004
Waiting for this to pass
What a day. I got to sleep later than I would have liked, so I missed yoga and almost breakfast. It really colored a lot of my day.
Speaking of the day, it was Water Element day in Shiatsu... everyone dressed in blues and grays, it was fun that everyone participated. Also had circle time, which I used as a bitchfest:
Today I found out that it looks like I might not have a phone line until as late as October 7th. I'm really unhappy about that. Verizon is having to lay new cable. Why the school didn't have phone lines put in ages ago really escapes me. Anti-technology sentiment? Get with it. We all exist in relation to the rest of the world... I wouldn't even be here were it not for technology. We depended on phones, faxes, and email for both the application and the financial aid processes.
So yeah, I'm kind of feeling really unsupported by aspects of the community. While I know some people won't even be ordering phone lines, and some want them merely for convenience, I need one in order to work, to maintain consistent contact with my business partner, and access the internet with my own computer and specialized software, not a crippled public terminal.
And I have to say, processing my relationships as we deal with my being away at school is not something I can really fit to a public phone located outside, interestingly enough, the "quiet zone" dorms, or 15 minute time slots at a Lodge payphone. That stuff is important, too. It's not just "convenience".
Wednesdays are easy days. Plenty of time between Shiatsu and Conscious Communication. No movement or meditation. No science. And.... PIZZA? Usually, yes. Not tonight. Accident! The kitchen found they didn't have enough ingredients for pizza. Maybe they'll do pizza tomorrow?
I've had an odd pattern coming up for me... I was invited to go swimming after dinner, and I said yes, and wanted to... and then didn't. On my way up to the store I passed the Temple, and thought, "It would be so awesome to stop in the Temple for a bit." But I was still walking, so I even stopped... and looked at the Temple, considering it. And then I kept walking.
Weird. I'm not sure how to describe it, or what it's about, but it feels almost depressed.
CCS was good as usual. The subject matter really turns me on of course. Communication, counseling, awareness, interaction. I notice some students seem really into it and others seem really bored. I feel for them... I imagine what it would be like to "have to take 20 hours of this stuff" when it wasn't really the right time for me to be doing that "stuff".
Surya is the student counselor here, and Surya's Playtime is a weekly "workshop" (for lack of a better word... "playshop"?) she holds on Wednesday nights. I've gone every night so far... it's not right for everybody all the time, but it's really important to me right now.
Every time I go, it brings issues to the surface. And the issues I work with at Playtime are often connected to, and sometimes the exact same as, the body issues I and some other students are dealing with in Shiatsu. The first time it was so hard remembering how to play, and I only succeeded because I had read John Holt so recently. And it was difficult finding comfort in my body. In between the second and tonight's, I did the first Movement Magic "playshop", and that really helped... the safe space the facilitator created plus the structure provided by the "exercises" we did really opened me up. So each Playtime I've felt freer and more expressive, but tonight's was markedly progressed.
Tonight's first issue actually had a voice. I heard it say, "It's wrong to enjoy your body." And I answered back! I danced through it and declared, "NO. It's RIGHT to enjoy my body." To enjoy moving, moving in my body.
And then, issues of ego, and awareness of others, of energy. I don't want to say much on this, other than that sometimes I feel REALLY "insensitive". I know the word has some specific negative connotations, but I invite you to ignore all of that and consider the denotation. I've channeled so much energy into my eyes, as a visual learner and as a graphic designer. Now I'm asking myself to learn to sense things, usually very subtle things, with other parts of my body and being. And my inadequacies are being thrown into high relief at times.
Posted by Josh A. at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)
September 07, 2004
messy beautiful blessed
messy. beautiful. blessed.
Yes.
I felt it at all levels after Shiatsu. I am messy, beautiful, and blessed. Place. Process. People. The world is messy, beautiful, and blessed. The Universe adores us.
After spending only a preliminary amount of time processing and letting go of old patterns of learning, test taking, schooling... there was enough space for older issues to come to the surface.
I am at my edge of discomfort here. This is how I know I am in the right place at the right time.
In high school I started working on my body image. I did a lot to become comfortable with the way bodies look, both my own and other people's.
I never did any work on being comfortable with the way my body moves.
Sitting form was fine, but beginning the supine form today brought up issues of body mechanics, self-care and comfort, and self-consciousness. Old, old feelings rose up. I had to go to the bathroom, cry, regain composure with TAT. After class I spoke with the teacher and the TA to let them know where I was at, and that if I seem weird, this is why.
Posted by Josh A. at 01:31 PM | Comments (0)
September 03, 2004
Relating to school
Great talks lately. Wednesday with Amy regarding path... yesterday with Jamie regarding old patterns of approaching school and how to release them and take on new ones... last night with Lisa about LOTS of things.
Today Soyka reminded me to celebrate my victories. I was downplaying the shift represented by my showing up to study group, and she emphasized that I had changed, and that it was a big step (which I interpreted as "non-trivial", "important").
Old pattern: wouldn't have come to study group. Why? Because it was in the morning (yuck) and I don't need it to pass the test.
New pattern: I came to study group. Why? Because I need it to really absorb this information and make it mine. And it was great. Flashcards. Actions (circumduction, supination etc). Skeleton models. Palpating people's spines. Labeling each other with markers.
Received and gave my first full shiatsu session today. Mmmm. I'm so impressed to be done with the second week and already knowing enough to fill a 45-60 minute session. I am so about the tips and barter come break time!
Posted by Josh A. at 03:19 PM | Comments (0)
August 26, 2004
BODIES!
I just realized that learning about my body is a very "new feeling" process to me. Obviously I learned something(s) about it once. But now there is a relearning as well as a learning of new things, new ways of moving and being. And the prospect is very scary. Realizing what's in front of me, I can feel a small pressure to turn around and run. To get as far away as fast as I can and stay "safe" in what I already known, even though it's been so painful and even dysfunctional at times.
My body scares me. Other people's bodies scare me.
Posted by Josh A. at 04:40 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2004
Spoke from my heart
I spoke from my heart in Conscious Communication today. I spoke about how moved I was by someone else's words, and how feeling so emotional normally shuts me down. After class, when I realized what I had done, I was elated.
Fast forward to Surya's play time... at the end during circle I felt like I did something "wrong" and then I didn't know what was expected of me... and I shut down. I wanted to leave. I felt trapped. I couldn't ask for what I needed to know, and when I asked, I didn't feel clearer from the "answers".
I stayed. And eventually it came out: I brought it ALL here with me. When I owned what was going on it hit me how EVERYTHING I've held on to follows me everywhere I go. I was inclined to set the intention to clear it all up *within 9 months*. Can I clear up 24 years in 9 months? Can it happen?
Why not?
I want it in the sense that I feel like I lack it.
During play -- which was hard to remember how to do -- I was often metaphorical to the point of linearity and almost literalness. I felt very kinesthetically uncreative. I put down much of my expression. And connecting it to something Steve said... that I often seem to trivialize what I do in my head... I think I may not express well where I am... or want to be... coming from. And maybe I do hold a lot of judgments about things -- that come easily to me -- that other people value, and even sometimes (often?) envy.
And I realized that at least part of the problem I have in speaking from my heart is that I have a whole LOT of judgements surrounding verbal expression and what's "good" and what's not. Prime examples include fluidity (few unintentional pauses or umms), diverse word choice, and mostly: composure. Simply enough, I suspect the FEAR OF losing composure and/or violating other judgments CAUSES loss of composure, fluidity, etc.
Breakthrough! Because, you know, we don't have any tools to remove fears and old judgments. ;-)
Yesterday I was described as "reserved", and I didn't know what that meant until play time. Unreserved = put yourself out there fearlessly.
The first two tai chi classes brought up a lot of emotional energy for me, and I held back my tears. I'm hoping to be able to express it in class on Monday. Open up the space, empower it.
Shiatsu rocked. We finally started DOING bodywork. I worked with Sarah and Macska. 24 points on the back, and some stretches.
After lunch, study time. I was attached to finishing it all. That ruined the whole thing. Gotta study more freely. Yummy Assam Extra Fancy, though. Couldn't get the library computer to print, hated life.
I talked to the guy who was supposed to be my roommate, and he's leaving. Looks like I'll be alone for this quarter.
PIZZA night. It ROCKED. Delicious. I don't really like regular pizza, so I was prepared for the pizza here to be even less appealing... and it was SO. MUCH. BETTER.
Posted by Josh A. at 10:30 PM | Comments (0)