Tag: listen

“The Goldilocks Principle”

by lebureauetc, posted in grow

Committing myself more to the ideas that everything is okay in moderation, a little bit goes a long way, “over doing” is just as toxic as “under-doing,” and lastly, there is never one right or one wrong way of doing anything! I call this my “goldilocks principle of Pilates and bread making, but it can be applied to all aspects of my life!

After depriving myself for years, I have been eating and baking sourdough bread for over a year (almost everyday and sometimes 2X/day)!   

I do fondly remember loving bread and butter when I was young! However, I stayed away from eating ALL types of bread for several years for health concerns as I knew that gluten interfered with my body’s ability to optimally digest my food.   Being hypo-thyroid, I have been coping with a sluggish digestion for most of my life after depleting my thyroid when I was a teenager.  

As most of you may remember, during Covid, making sourdough bread was ‘on fire.’  Many people were proclaiming its benefits, one being better and improved digestion!  I read that sourdough bread was easier to digest for many people as the acid in the bread from the active starter degrades the gluten.  Furthermore, I learned that sourdough bread acts as a prebiotic fiber which means that the yeast in the bread help balance our bacteria in our guts!  That is when my interest and ideas around eating bread (specifically sourdough) started to shift. 

After learning about the health benefits I was curious if I could be okay eating sourdough bread?  I was further inspired from a friend, Giovanni, who my family sees every year in Kona.  When we are on the island, Giovanni makes us a fresh sourdough loaf every week we are there.  I would eat his bread  when we were on vacation and it was so good…I never felt that my digestion was an issue.  I asked

him for a book I could use as a reference, (Flour, Water, Salt, Yeast, Ken Forkish) and I have been at “work” making bread since.  Learning to bake my own sourdough bread has been challenging(especially in the beginning) , fun, and an ever evolving process!  I have drawn many metaphors from my experience in baking sourdough to my Pilates practice. 

Baking my bread I’ve learned that there is a distinction between under and over proofed bread.  In other words, if I wait too long to bake my bread after the bulk fermentation stage my dough loses all structure, so it’s stretchy and slack when turned onto a work surface. The dough is also stickier than usual due to the lack of remaining gluten structure.   Essentially, over-proofed means that the dough has run out of food. It’s exhausted. It’s been pushed past its limit and has no strength left. In really over-proofed dough the gluten strands will eventually break down, and the dough will collapse. This can happen before I put the loaf in the oven or it can collapse while its baking in the oven.  There’s no strength left in the dough for it to maintain its shape anymore.   I have felt this way in my body at times in the past after practicing Pilates and working too hard and/or for too long.

For instance, in Pilates, over working your body in any position for too long will fatigue and weaken your muscles and tissues, so it is necessary to keep moving!  Remembering to move is nourishing and ‘feeds’ our bodies so we do not over work one position and break down our structures.   Furthermore, continuous not rushed movement will help you stay light and bouyant on the inside, just how we want our sourdough baked bread!  That said, continuing to move is easy to forget especially when you are trying to get it right! Maybe you are trying too hard? 

In Pilates specifically, over tucking (tailbones) in all the exercises, even when that exercise/position would benefit more from a natural lumbar curve position of the spine is a very common position that is overdone and is held for too long.  It can be challenging to know and feel if you are holding your tuck position and when to incorporate more of a neutral or ached position.   Although there is a place for the “tuck,” it depends on many factors.  For example, in what position is your body in? Are you moving? Where is your center of gravity? What is the rest of your body doing in that moment?  As you see, there is much to consider, before you choose to tuck!  Tucking our low spines needs more thoughtful attention, so there is balance between the front and back of our pelvis.   Most importantly, please remember to keep moving and not stay in any one position for too long:).

A repetitive steady tendency to ‘tuck’  even when the exercise or position you are in (standing for instance), does not benefit from tucking will have consequences that will manifest in the rest of our body that are not necessarily the most healthy outcomes.  Tucking promotes the upper spine to round and the front body/chest area to collapse.  Furthermore, excessive  tucking can tighten the front of our hips and groins causing imbalance in our muscles front to back.  Our quads will turn on whereas our glutes and hamstrings will have trouble turning on which can result in the muscles in our glutes/hamstrings and low backs to tighten, weaken and shorten.  

On the contrary, If you are in a round ‘C curve’ position, you must tuck to follow the natural movement of the spine and therefore,  you must also ‘lift up’ in a round ‘C’ curve that continues out the crown of your head! 

In most cases, I believe we over do the ‘tuck’ position unknowingly.  For instance my teachers used to tell me to stop tucking and I had no idea I was doing it in the first place.  Maybe this has happened to you too?  Paying attention and checking in with ourselves and taking time to notice our inner sensations will teach us and give us more and more awareness to how our bodies should be feeling. Changing a habit is hard work, especially for us to change a habit we have been unaware of for maybe years!!!   At  first it may seem odd and not feel right, but remembering that everything, even this is a process, and finding balance and ease in our minds and bodies is always the goal! 

In addition to not having the awareness of whether our tail is tucked or not, tucking our tail bones, could also symbolize our need to ‘protect ourselves.’   When we are insecure, and not living to our full potential of you we are inside, its easy to collapse into ourselves and feel lesser than.  It can be challenging to stand tall when we do not even love and believe in ourselves.  Just look at animals in nature, when they feel danger they curl up and ’protect’ themselves…

Getting back to my bread metaphor, dough that is under-proofed means that the yeast hasn’t produced enough carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide gasses is what gives the dough its volume and openness.  Therefore, for a beginner bread maker and Pilates practitioner who want to see results,  it is necessary to have patience and trust in the process.  With a regular consistent practice you should see results, but it does take time and  practice.  

You may be curious, how to know when the dough is over-proofed or under-proofed?  This is similar to how to know if one is over or underworking some aspect in their Pilates practice!  My answer to this is that you need to be flexible and consider many factors as you bake and or as you practice Pilates!   

Specifically for Pilates, reminding ourselves to continue to MOVE the whole body is essential!  In fact, Pilates could be described as one BIG exercise, or one movement that is constantly in transit.  Furthermore, understanding that there is time for both, tucking and arching.  Allowing ourselves to un-tuck and stand, sit, or lye in a ‘tall posture’ maintaining a healthy lumbar spine is as just as beneficial if not more than tucking our tails time to time to round our backs to enhance our powerhouse. Lastly, learning the Pilates method is individual and no set of exercises and or body positions will be ‘right’ for every body.  At times depending on the body and the transition at hand, we may need to enhance more round or extension, but never will we stay too long, as this is what creates tension!  Life is always in transition as our bodies must be as well.

For sourdough bread baking…Its not as simple as just following a recipe and going off the recipe baking times and various steps. Fortunately, a seasoned baker has baked enough bread that they know what to look for and waits just enough for the bread/dough to tell them when it’s ready!  Its worth the effort to pay attention and listen to your body and watch your bread!  As you bake bread, and train your body remember that under and over-proofing dough and under or over working your body just happens, even to the best bakers and best practitioners.:)

I truly believe we all are looking for things, people and situations that bring a sense of balance and/or middle ground to our lives.  The same is true in our Pilates practice!  Through my personal experience with baking bread and practicing  Pilates I have had several occurrences when some incident/challenge positioned me to “act”  in extremes….maybe starting at one end of a spectrum and then to the other side, and them back again and so forth!  Finding middle ground and balance is work in progress and something I strive for more and more in all aspects of my life.

With everything, the more you practice the “goldilocks principle” in your body you will become more curious, sensitive, and open to changing any habits are not serving you. This practice to keep moving while staying present to myself, and live by the “goldilocks” principle is well worth the work!

Here are some things to consider next time you go on your mat:

*It’s important to have reverence for your lumbar spine and remember the goldilocks principle! 

Consider finding more balance between the front and back of your spine!  The front and back of your spine both need to be engaged and turned on to a degree as well.  I find that sometimes there tends to be a misconception, that to achieve a strong core you should feel the burn on the abdominals and sometimes in this process of only paying attention to the “burn” sensation, one may forget and neglect other aspects of their body, in particular, their back body!  In fact the low back should stay long, spacious and also participating along with the abdominals.   This is difficult to understand as we do not see our and or notice our backs when we are focused on strengthening our abdominals on your font body.  Therefore, as we engage our stomach muscles to our backs we need to remember to engage and strengthen our backs too!    An example of this would be executing a plank, as the front and back bodies are working together to achieve a strong plank position!

When lying supine and you’re especially not “rolling/rounding” in an exercise, such as the hundred, leg circles, series of 5, etc etc…remember to root your tail bone. Not only will rooting our tail bone help us un-tuck and stay long and lifted in our low backs we will also establish a clear focal point to lengthen and grow out of, achieving a delicious counter stretch we all crave.  From our pelvic center we will stretch our lower body in optosition to our spines growing and lengthening  out the roof of our mouths!  This action is easy to forget.  I see it in myself, and others more than I want to admit. 

Rooting our tail bones is essential even if your upper spines are lifted and curling off the mat, your tail should stay anchored to facilitate more of a two way stretch.   Note that in even this position with your upper body lifting off the mat, you should not be tucking!!  Instead you should be working hard to deepen your low abdominals in and up to support your low spines.  Depending on the body, some spines will be on the mat and some may be imprinted…everyone is different.  I find that when people finally understand and commit to rooting their tail bones, they notice that their low backs are no longer imprinted in the mat.  They think however that they have to have their low backs on the mat to strengthen and work their low abdominals, so they will unroot their tail bones, “tuck,” just so they can feel their low backs imprinted!   This is not healthy for your low backs and will cause more damage down the road if this pattern is repeated over and over as you are neglecting your back bodies and over working the front of your body in a shortened and more compressed state.   

If you feel that you are somebody who easily uproots their tail bone, my advice would be to focus on keeping and creating  more space in the front of your hips and more space in your front spine in-between your pelvis and your ribs!  This is something we want.  The challenging part is keeping this space and length in our bones as we execute exercises.  Its definitely not easy, but this is where the work comes in.  For example , we need to ‘scoop’ with out shortening and we need to deepen our low abdominals to our spines without dumping and compressing.  Again, have reverence for your low spine and sense the “goldilocks principle” in your whole body where your front and back bodies equally participating in the workout.

When you are seated and moving in an exercise you may move in between your sit bones and tailbone depending what shape of the spine you are trying to achieve…  if you are tall you should sit on or slightly in front of your sit bones and most definitely in front of your tail bone.  If you are rounding your spine you should pay attention to sitting slightly behind your sit bones  and in some positions, behind your tail bone, but be careful not to collapse in your upper spine, remembering to  find length and space in the round!

BONNE CHANCE TOUS LE MONDE!

where’s your head at?

by lebureauetc, posted in inspirations, Pilates, Uncategorized

If you have read my blog you may have figured out by now that I have struggled to surrender and soften my efforts.  I have had a tendency to be too disciplined and sometimes ‘overdo’ it.  I have started this blog in part to help myself take my own advise to be more self-compassionate, truly listen, and believe in my own intuition.  This takes incredible trust and love of self!

I believe that by writing this blog, I have become a better listener, but still, it is an evolving and imperfect journey along with everything else. 

More recently, approximately March 2021, I over stretched, strained something in my neck.  Fast forward to now, November 18, 2021, I am doing much better!  I do still struggle with muscle tightness depending on what I am doing but do feel equipped to navigate my discomfort with the many lessons I have learned from being in relentless pain these past several months.  

My husband, Pontus, who is an osteopath, was able to work on me which no doubt is, pretty special, but with everything else, it also has its’ challenges!  I know it was hard for him to deal with me especially after having to care for his patients all day long.  He was tired and impatient and I was also impatient, in pain, and wanting clear answers to explain my uncertain state.  Regardless, I am very lucky to have my husband.  He knows my story, my body, and my tendencies and was undeniably helpful in my healing & recovery.

Pontus believed ‘some’ of my incredible discomfort was most likely caused by a rotation at the base of my cervical spine where I had my disk replacement b/t C6 and C7 in 2017.  I must have exasperated this rotation.  I could speculate forever on why?…but understand that it is simply a consequence to my tendencies to ‘do.’  At times, my pain sometimes was so bad that it encompassed my whole right side body, from my right side occiput to my right low back, but sometimes I was such in a flare state that I had irritation that continued down all the way to my right foot!  Continuing to breastfeed through my pain was a blessing and a curse.  Pontus was and still helps me de-rotate my upper thoracic/cervical spine with muscle energy technique, where I get stuck rotated to the left.  He also advised that I practice some daily muscle energy work in my upper spine to help strengthen and stabilize this very unstable area of my body.  I still perform muscle energy in my neck daily!!  In addition to Pontus manually working on me, I did accupuncture and/or massage weekly at times.  Although these modalities helped short-term, they were not able to stick and help long term. 

Due to my pre-existing conditions in both my neck and my old compression fracture in my low back I had MRIs of my lumbar and cervical spine, a bone scan, and blood work done to make sure the pain I was experiencing wasn’t more serious.  Luckily, the tests showed no significant information to explain my discomfort.  This was also  a blessing and a curse!  Sometimes I thought, is it all in my head!?  Quite possibly!  I do know that my head played a significant role, both in how I positioned it physically and also metaphorically speaking.

Are you wearing your head in front of your heart? Or are you holding your head with your heart?

From as early as grade school I can remember being taller than most everyone in my class including all the boys, I was very insecure about this, this continued all the way into high school, where I would purposefully slouch and hang my head to one side so I would be a level to my other peers. I look back at this and wonder why I didn’t stand tall and be proud of my height?  As you already know, I know the answer to my own question!  I was not secure in who I was, felt powerless and unworthy to be me.  Fortunately, after experiencing a tumultuous couple of years in all facets of my life, I hit rock bottom my freshman year in college, but in the end, I was able to choose me!  I truly did a full circle, my self image changed drastically for the better and I started to love myself more and more.  Interestingly, not only did my self image transform, but also how I held myself changed, including how I positioned my head.  My posture wasn’t perfect however, and its been evolving (I believe) for the better ever since, of course along with my own self image.:)

Currently, my posture has suffered with the demands of caring for a new baby and also my tendencies to “do” and neglect what my body is telling me.  Pepper is now 14 months, and although she is still quite petite …23 Ibs, its been a lot of holding, breast feeding, bathing, feeding, twisting turning etc etc.  The steady demands of caring for  Pepper and the stress I put a on myself has definitely taken a toll on my posture!  This coupled with loose ligaments and general instability especially at L1/T12 from my old compression fracture and disk replacement between C6/C7 has been difficult for me to sustain freedom and ease in my spine!

I am writing this post to reflect on my experience these past several months in hopes that what I say may help you, if you find that you are struggling with neck, shoulder, back, body pain.   I hope that you will read this feeling some hope that your pain will go away and that there are simple things you can do to help yourself.  

I learned somewhat quickly that alleviating my pain temporarily was as simple as taking the time to align where my head was at, both from a metaphorical and physiological standpoint. It’s interesting how the 2 affect one another.  Furthermore, My pain significantly lessened when I physically reminded myself to hold my head with my heart, instead of forward of my heart which is where it wants to go.   My head also, naturally aligned more with my heart when I committed more time for self care.  This is not a simple action to take when you have a newborn!!  I found it to be very beneficial to work from my “head” first, not only physically with my posture, starting at my head and allowing the alignment benefits to cascade down, but also in my own thoughts!  I definitely had my moments of playing a victim to my pain…especially in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep!  However, this attention I would give to my pain lessened the attention I would give to taking the steps to feeling better and seeing the joy and beauty that was in me and that also surrounding me. 

Below is a brief summary of some ideas/practices that helped me feel better!  Remember the following are practices and ideas, and most if not all of the below are things I still work on and practice daily to keep me feeling better…

PHYSICAL PRACTICES – First you need to align and “wear your head over your heart!”  Then do the following…

-practice muscle energy from all sides of your skull with the heel of your hand to strengthen & stabilize…isometric exercises.

-“wear your smile from ear to ear” practice keeping the base of your chin in and down towards your throat.  Slight chin tuck.

-extend the roof of your mouth to the crown of your head

-“Stand your ground,”  Stand tall and be proud of who you are.

-in general, make smaller more precise movements.  Progress takes time and steady practice – little by little, bit by bit…!

MENTAL PRACTICES – 

-“What is the lesson?” What if I am experiencing this pain to help someone else not have to experience pain?  How can I use this experience to help and serve others?

-“Less ego and control, more universal and flow.”  Soften, relax, breathe and let be

-“Forgive, no self judgement”

-“Do less and Be more”

Lastly, if you’re hyper mobile, unstable, have pre-existing conditions, and a mover like me, you may want to consider doing prolo-therapy or PRP(platelet rich plasma) for your vulnerable areas, especially if you have good, healthy blood.  I did undergo PRP in both my low back around my old compression fracture and also more recently around my disk replacement in my cervical spine.  I know it has made a positive impact.  I am noticeable more stable in my ligaments and joints and therefore, experiencing less pain and persistent irritation caused from the instability.

I have a class on my Vimeo account – “upper body tune up” I recently made that shows some of the physical practices I would do to help me with my pain.

I hope this helps and please reach out with feedback or questions.

Aloha,

Brooke

Vagus Baby!

by lebureauetc, posted in gut instinct, inspirations, Uncategorized, vagus nerve

Aside from reading all of Paulo Cohleo’s books (I find his perspectives and stories to be so heartfelt.)  I do not do much reading these days, nor did I EVER before I had a newborn.  If I’m lucky, I’ll read 1-3 books a year, usually when we vacation in Hawaii. My latest book that I read, although not a Paulo Cohleo story, is called Cured, by Jeffery Rediger MD.  Jeffery Rediger researched why people have remissions from terminal illnesses.  He explains the science behind these miracles, instead of just calling them flukes of nature.  There has to be an explanation, right?  He reveals 4 pillars that played a significant role in helping one heal.  

1 – healing your nutrition; 2 – healing your immunity; 3 – healing your identity; and 4 – healing your stress response.

In todays post I will talk more to the 4th pillar of healing our stress response and how I believe this work to heal how we respond to stress could also significantly help us find and sustain more physical integrity and a sense of well-being within.

Dr Rediger discusses how stress is inevitable as we deal with stress everyday.  It’s how we respond to the stressors in our life that is important.  If we can somehow learn to be more conscious of what we do when we are stressed, maybe we can make little changes to alter our tendencies, and instead, unstick ourselves from our unconscious patterns.    These unconscious patterns, I believe, affect not only our mental and emotional state of well-being, but also our physical body.  I believe our body can suffer and can continue to suffer from the simple memory of “what happened to us” and be in pain until we can change how we respond to our stressors differently.

So how can we change our stress response?

I will start by giving you these 2 following excerpts – 

(pg. 183) Think of how Often you’ve used the phrase gut feeling for a broken heart; you had butterflies in your stomach.  You feel different emotions in different parts of your body for good reason: areas are hot beds for neural receptors. Recent research is showing that we actually have three brains: the head brain, the heart brain and they gut brain and their health and development depend on keeping them in balance and alignment. With the vagus nerve as a connecting cord, emotions flood through our system in the form of neural messages and hormones. Some signals begin in the gut or the heart and flow upstream to the head brain, while others cascade from above. In this way, our thoughts and emotions have both instant and long lasting effects on our biological systems: nervous, endocrine, immune.

(pg. 182) The vagus nerve exits the brain stem at the base of your skull deep in your neck. Press your fingers to the pulse points on your neck and you are close as you can get to your vagus nerve. From that spot under your fingers it shoots down to your heart and beyond, where it regulates heartbeat and dozen of other vital functions. If you have doubts about how deep and rapid the connection is between the mind and the body, the vagus is that literal link between the two – a thick humming power line that runs from your brain to your gut.

This idea that we have 3 brains is fascinating and even more intriguing to me is that they are all connected to our vagus nerve that regulates how we respond to what is happening.  Stress affects me in curious ways, physically I experience many things depending on my current state, but recently more irritation in my neck and right side body(probably due to all the holding and breast feeding I’ve been doing).  I also generally experience a lack of inner flow and circulation.  It is a horrible feeling to feel so stuck inside.  I can feel frozen regardless of how much physical movement I do, foods I eat, etc, etc…So to learn that the vagus nerve controls most of our body functions and our ability to rest/digest and connect to our parasympathetic nervous system was huge insight for me.  How then can I tone my vagus nerve so it’s able to help me relax and help me better respond to simple stressors?  I learned that, toning my vagus nerve to help me relax is relatively simple. However, just because it’s simple, doesn’t mean it is easy!!! So I am writing this post, to reflect on what I could do better in my efforts to fine tune the way I respond to stressors in my day to day to create more feelings of ease. 

As I mentioned above, the “gut” is a brain and integrated with both our heart and our mind with our vagus nerve.  This idea made me contemplate the connection between listening to my gut instinct and how that generally has helped me make “better decisions” – of corse when I chose to listen to it!   Studying in France, marrying my husband, Pontus, and switching careers to focus on teaching Pilates and Yoga are 3 decisions I have made that reflect my choice to listen to my GUT.  All those decisions felt really good in my whole body and I cannot always say that has been true for other experiences and decisions. As a human being, I believe we have been more programmed to listen to our mind and heart.  It’s easier to give priority to these 2 brains, especially the mind, as most times this is the logical thing to do!  The whole idea of listening with my gut requires me to trust in myself and in order to trust myself, I need to have at least a general understanding of who I am at my core.

In my youth, (no offense Mom and Dad, I love you and so grateful for you) I often felt as if I had no value.  I didn’t feel like I mattered, as I was not encouraged to have a voice and did not feel listened to.  I was never included in my parents decision process from the schools I went to, to the activities I participated in… I was the child and they were the parent and I did things because “they said so.”  Oh, how I hate that saying!  I believed my role was to be quiet, respectful, grateful, do good in school and do what my parents told me to do, including the Catholic schools I attended.  I should be grateful, no doubt, as I had a lot of opportunities other kids did not. I know my parents were doing the best they knew how, and wanted to give me the best!  However, life is life, and most of us know by now that things are not as always as they seem!  From this memory, I believe it is important to feel like you have a voice in order to feel love and have trust in yourself. 

If you think about it, “listing to our gut” requires us to trust in ourselves.   Listening more to our inner voice is just a way to be true ourselves and love our actions/decisions.   This love for self and what we do tones our vagus nerve keeping us out of our sympathetic nervous system and therefore, more easily able to deal with STRESS.  Our gut instinct should never be ignored!  It’s definitely an up and down and circular journey for me, but as always, I believe, it’s worth the effort!  For me, listening to my gut brings me back to me!  Knowing this helps me to remind myself (over and over again) to not look past my own inner knowing and self worth.  Maybe you would you would benefit from this reminder about yourself?

Along with the idea of listening to my gut instinct, I feel it’s easier for me to listen well when my gut is physically aligned more with my heart and mind.  Grounding, in general, has always been a challenge for me and something I have been trying to cultivate my whole life.  Since a very young age, I have been told several different times that I lead more with my ‘upper body.’  Growing up playing various sports, my coaches all tried to get me to run with my feet under me instead of behind me.  they would say,  “Brooke, you run with your heart.”  It is true, I did!   My lower body followed and tried to keep up!  I look back now and feel maybe I was just ‘running to please’ without ever stopping to ask if I was pleasing myself in what I was doing?  I wonder if this lack of connection between my physical upper and lower bodies translated to my lack of ability to be able to align my gut with my other 2 brains and therefore my vagus nerve?    Maybe that’s why I love how I feel now after practicing Pilates and Yoga; where these 2 disciplines encourage me to find and connect to a plumb line and work from a place of whole body integrity?   Hmm?

A strong part of me has always believed that you can change your own destiny. Believing my thoughts reflect my current state.  This belief structure works great when things are “good” In my life. The events, stuff, experiences that I believe (especially in the moment) are not “good” I have to wonder… Did I subconsciously ask for this to happen to me, what lesson is the universe trying to teach me now?

Regardless of what your beliefs are it is quite interesting to look at your life from this perspective.  Although, it’s sometimes easier to put the blame on something or someone else for things that happen that are not what you “think you desire” it can be illuminating to play with your own life pieces in an effort to make sense of what makes you YOU! 

I hope you remember to align your gut, heart, and mind, in and out of your workouts, and truly listen to what your GUT is saying.

Here are some other fun excerpt regarding the vagus nerve from Cured

(pg. 184)The vagus nerve is like a muscle the more you use it the stronger it becomes. using the vagus-stimulating it through everything from deep breathing to connecting with a friend or partner is like flexing your biceps as you lift weights, it increases its strength, flexibility, and elasticity. And just like with physical exercise, the more you use it, the better you get at using it, and the more health benefits you reap.

(pg.185)What truly tones your vagus nerve are small moments of connection –  a sort of falling in love, if you will, with the people who surround you on a day-to-day basis, everyone from your husband or wife to children to the barista you’re getting to know that your corner coffee shop.  It could even be a total stranger you meet on the street.

(pg. 189) When the parasympathetic is engaged the vagus activates face-heart connection. At the metaphorical level, it opens your heart to others, and on a literal level, both relaxes and constricts different facial muscles that help you to smile, focus, and express warmth and interest so that you can connect with the people you’re speaking with. When you’re in chronic fighter flight mode, you without even realizing it –  a flatter or forced affect. Fight or flight stiffens your body, inhibits the warmth of your gaze, limits the genuineness of your smile, and overall inhibits your ability to make connections, leading those opportunities for micro moments of love to slip by…..

Therefore a person and fight or flight will have more difficulty, therefore connecting with others, and essentially healing their own selves.

BE COURAGEOUS…

by lebureauetc, posted in inspirations

Desiree Rumbaugh, one of my favorite yoga teachers always says, “LOVE IS STRONGER THAN FEAR.” Although sometimes this statement may not always be easy to live by, I do know that if I stay connected to my heart and to the people and the things that truly inspire me, I find that I can agree whole heartedly! I know from my experience that when something ‘feels wrong’ it probably is! Just how when you have unease in your body, usually everything in life is somehow also troubled and uncomfortable. These sensations tell you that there needs to be a change! However, I also know that it is fearful to change and simply easier to keep up the same routine. However, is ‘staying’ really serving you, if you feel it’s not right? What could happen if you have a little more courage and follow your heart?

Recently I withdrew my commitment to teaching at a club I had been strongly part of for over the past 4 years.

Just to give you some background….Over the past 14 years I have worked in several fitness studios and fitness health clubs from Des Moines, Iowa, Toledo, Ohio, Redondo Beach, California, Salt lake City, Utah and also here in my home town, Seattle Washington. At all of these places I had magical experiences! I met incredible people, learned amazing things and for the most part enjoyed the ride. I strongly believe magic is always present and ready to show itself if you are allowed to breathe, are passionate about what you do, and also, are not confined to the “clock in and clock out” mind set!

Uprooting and rerooting myself with all the moving has given me great opportunities to start anew several times! What a gift that has been! This has supported my transformation and growth in becoming a better person and teacher. I am passionate about teaching (and always have been and always will be), but also having the opportunity to enter a new community with a different environment challenged yet also allowed me to fine tune my skills as a teacher. Having many different teaching experiences has empowered me to know when to adjust and also how to accommodate different situations and different people.

My most recent change is actually the most exciting one. I am not moving to a different state and I do not need to say good-bye nor am I changing my position and moving to a different gym/studio facility. Rather, I am choosing to focus my teaching solely out of my home studio, Le Bureau! It’s my studio, I make the rules, and there are no procedures such as “clock in, clock out”! Most importantly, I felt it was time to move on. It did not ‘feel right’ to stay at the club any longer. I could give several reasons why I should have stayed, but it was not ‘right’ for me any longer.

I feel very lucky and fortunate that I can choose to work out of my home studio. After having more time to reflect after my recent neck surgery I learned that I wanted to streamline my efforts as a teacher and teaching out of my home is the best option for me now. This is the next step to opening a studio on larger scale which has been a dream of mine for some time. This change, I know will bring many new challenges for me, but I know it is worth the effort as long as I stay connected to my heart and what ‘feels right.’

Change can be exhausting with all the unexpected circumstances it may bring. However, when change is a result of listening to your heart I argue that one will gain a better understanding and brighter perspective that definitely makes up for any feelings of unease! Personally, I have learned that it is best to be humble and open to experience new ways of doing things. I know that if I do not listen and treat every person and situation with respect I will miss out! Every new place and experience has taught me something more about who I am and the importance of being courageous and taking time to listen.

I hope you all have several opportunities in your life to be courageous and allow you to do the things that make your heart beat and your eyes smile. Maybe ask yourself, ”does it feel right”?