embodiment

Body Agency: Science, Psychology, & Social Context

Body agency is a vital inner sense and source of body intelligence. It refers to our ability to act and move in a way that matches our intentions. Body agency is the touchstone of emotional health, and is compromised in depression, PTSD, and schizophrenia. And on a social level, it’s essential to our right to make decisions about and be safe in our bodies, In this Masterclass, we’ll explore: The five components of body agency The neuroscience of intention, agency, and action What happens to body agency in depression and PTSD Body agency in Parkinson’s, ALS, and movement disorders Revolutionary new therapies from artificial intelligence We’ll discuss methods to become aware of and empower this special inner sense.

Body Clocks + Biorhythms: Immunity, Mood, and Well-Being

Body Awareness, Depression, Emotions, Mind-Body, Neuroscience, Social Justice, Well-Being / By

A few weeks ago, I did a post on Seasonal Affective Disorder that advised exposure to light early in the day (within two hours of waking) and recommended other practices. That post lacked context, and prompted the apology post you’ll see after it. At the time, I promised to provide that context. Here it is. Almost all species have internal rhythms and a sense of time, which are the focus of a field now known as chronobiology. We have internal circadian (24-hour) clocks that generate and shape daily cycles in our physiology, emotion, and behavior.  Most organisms inherit the ability to track time on this 24-hour scale. For example, bees use their clocks to visit flowers at the appropriate time of day so they can feed when flowers are open. Birds use their biological clocks during migration to compensate for the changing position of the sun throughout the day. Other …

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A Public Figure’s Guide to Messing up and Learning in Public

Activism, Boundaries, Embodiment, Gender Justice, Learning, MeToo, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Psychology, Relationships, Social Justice, Somatics, Trauma, Yoga / By

This week, several people asked me to listen to the intro of a yoga podcast in which the host, J. Brown, defends a blog he wrote refuting the firsthand account of Christie Roe about how yoga teacher Mark Whitwell sexually assaulted her.* [See below for a link and content warning.] The people who asked me to review this intro were understandably confused. They had many questions. What made them so viscerally uncomfortable? Was the host entitled to tell “his side of the story,” as he put it? If he apologizes for his actions and seems contrite, even tearful, should he be given a third, fourth, fifth chance at making things right? What comprises a full apology (as opposed to an emotional one)? Why are so many people defending his intentions? And what exactly is learning in public? There’s so much to unpack here, and others have already addressed several of …

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When Advance Requires a Retreat

Boundaries, Embodiment, Empaths, Mindfulness, Personal Growth, Social Justice, Travel, Well-Being / By

At the close of 2016, I embarked on a 10-day silent retreat in western Massachusetts. It was necessary: chronic overwork, multi-tasking, and the political events of the year had fractured my attention and taxed my nervous system. Ten days might be hard, I thought to myself, but it was also necessary—like “attentional rehab.” It was hard. It was also nourishing. And it was full-on, life-changing extraordinary. Most of us have heard alluring tales of mystical experiences that arise during a retreat: unity with the Divine, a direct encounter with emptiness, and other such happenings. It’s tempting to think that mystical experiences are “the payoff” of a retreat. Yet most of us, myself included, have close encounters of a more pedestrian kind: intense, searing pain, for instance. Sleepiness (I much prefer the Buddhist terms “sloth” and “torpor,” which sound more dramatic and justified). Alien forms of thought that invade our mind: …

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The Beauty of Broken

Embodiment, Empaths, Healing, Learning, Somatics, Well-Being, Yoga, Yoga Therapy / By

I sit quietly, breathing, and gaze out over the Hudson River. The winter sun explodes: fingers of clouds extend as though in supplication, stained pink by the sun’s last vermillion flare. An I.V. tube protrudes from my arm, and I wear a light blue patterned hospital gown. I am in Pre-Op, awaiting my fourth hip surgery in eight years due to one hospital and two doctor errors. I have logged nearly ten years on this journey. Much of it has involved prepping for surgery, rehabbing from surgery, planning my teaching and travel schedule to allow time off for surgery, and intermittent discomfort between surgeries, all with little respite. My body has long been the instrument of my creativity, my work and joy and pain. The people I entrusted with its care have violated it. They have broken and re-broken my heart. Despite this, my heart is full. It knows its …

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