Reading for Pleasure

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I read for pleasure yesterday.  Yes, that’s correct.  I read.  For pleasure.

The morning began like every other morning.  I woke, came down the stairs in the house where I’m taking care of Frodo the Magical Golden Retriever, and opened my notebook to check emails while the coffee brewed. (The dream I had last August of continuing the morning meditation and yoga practice begun during Yin Teacher Training has collapsed.  Old habits die hard – but that’s for another post.)

On this Saturday, my heart just wasn’t in the emails.  Or working on my novel The Growing Season.  I wanted more from the day than the same old routine.  And so I put down the laptop and picked up Gil Hedley’s Reconceiving My Body, cozied up on the couch, and opened to the first page.

Six hours later – with a few breaks for lunch and dog walking – I read the last sentence, “I truly appreciate your interest” and closed the book.

I’ve mentioned Gil Hedley before.  I’ve posted his “Fuzz Speech” online, as have many of my friends from Yin training.  I’ll be participating in a one-day anatomy intensive with Hedley in February and a one-week cadaver intensive in April.  Reading this book was the beginning of my preparation for these workshops.

The thing is, Gil Hedley is an odd duck.  Admittedly, so am I.

Reconceiving My Body is a love story.  Sort of.  It’s the story of how Hedley went from wanna-be-Priest to PhD to Tai Chi Guy to Rolfer to Somanaut to Husband to Father.  It’s a deeply personal story and yet the story he tells belongs to everyone.  Who hasn’t struggled with faith, with sexuality, with finding their path?  How many travel through life playing the role of the victim until we finally learn to take personal responsibility for our actions? Ultimately it is trust – not faith – that leads to redemption.

Good teachers are hard to find.  Based on what I’ve seen, what I’ve heard and now, what I’ve read – I found one.

(I know, I know…you’re heads are still wrapping around the idea of a “cadaver intensive.”  That’s all right.  So’s mine.)

 

Dealing with Trauma

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Last night I had dinner with friends.  One was recovering from a bad motorbike accident a few days earlier that left him bruised, with several broken bones. My friend was particularly agitated because he had only just begun a new fitness regimen – and now all that hard word would be lost.  He was in pain, frustrated, impatient and determined to heal.

We discussed his options.  He understands muscle ‘memory’ and is concerned that ‘memories’ of the accident will make it difficult to regain the strength and flexibility he had prior to the accident.  My friend isn’t certain what sort of physical therapy he’ll have – he’s still waiting to find out if he’s going to have to undergo surgery – but he’s anxious to do whatever he can to encourage healing.  He wondered if body therapy in the form of Rolfing might be of benefit.

I had two bits of contrary advice:

Rest. Give the body time to process. The physical trauma is recent – only days old – and the body is still trying to figure out what happened.  That’s true on an emotional level as well.  When trauma occurs we need time – at least seventy-two hours, longer depending on the injury – for our physical body and our spirit to process what has happened and how our life might change.

Keep moving. The longer he stays still, the more time his connective tissue has to tighten.  So move.  Even a little.  And as silly as it sounds, the more you move, the more you’ll move.  (If you want to know more about connective tissue and why we must include a flexibility practice in our fitness regime watch The Fuzz Speech.)

My third bit of advice falls between the first two:

Multi-task. I told my friend that as soon as he can climb on a table, to book a massage appointment.  A soothing massage will rest the nervous system and manipulate the muscle fibers – it will increase circulation and help break up forming adhesions and scar tissue.

And Rolfing?

Funny enough, when I woke up this morning I saw an article posted on Facebook by my friend and Rolfer Michael Murphy.  You can read the article here.  And you can meet Michael here.

One paragraph stood out:

In that regard, he said he viewed the treatment as an extension of practices like yoga, which also offers relief without drugs. “Yoga is in many ways analogous to Rolfing because it takes tendons and it stretches them into a position of discomfort,” Dr. Oz said. “They’re just doing it for you without your doing it yourself.”

So true!  Especially considering practices that include a Yin or Assisted Yin element. Assisted Yin combines yoga with massage.  Think slow motion Thai Massage.  The practitioner supports the client in Yin derived positions for up to five minutes.  The effect is a profound stretching of the connective tissue that breaks up scar tissue, dissolves adhesions and deeply soothes the nervous system.  The work can be challenging but is not painful.

Disclaimer:  I’ve never been Rolfed.  I don’t have an informed opinion.  My ideas regarding Rolfing are based on anecdotal evidence. I have, however, experienced the trauma of being thrown twenty feet off my bicycle by a moving vehicle.  Would I want to be Rolfed after that?  No thank you. Still, Rolfing appears to be an intensely powerful experience – one that I think I’d like to try.  But as far as my friend is concerned, my advice is for him to wait until his bones have healed and the bruising is gone.  The best thing he can do right now is practice gentle, mindful patience.