The bodymind blog
The Lives That Came Before
During a walk through one of my favorite places, Oakwood Cemetery, I looked up and spotted the moon hanging in a brilliant blue October sky. Surrounded by autumn trees and the lives of people who came before me, I felt an unexpected sense of awe, gratitude, and connection. I began thinking about all the people whose lives helped make my own possible, including people I'll never meet.
From ancestors and teachers to friends and those whose influence continues long after they're gone, we're shaped by people whose gifts we carry forward. This is a reflection on lineage, gratitude, and remembering that we're part of a much longer story than our own.
The Fertile Darkness
Have you ever struggled to learn something, only to discover that it suddenly feels easier after you've stopped trying? I experienced this during my Feldenkrais training, when a movement that had felt nearly impossible one day became surprisingly accessible two weeks later. Something had shifted, even though I hadn't been consciously working on it.
I started thinking about the fertile darkness, those periods when change may be happening beneath the surface, beyond what we can see or measure. Especially in midlife, there's something valuable about learning to trust the process, give ourselves room to integrate, and recognize that growth doesn't always announce itself.
The Tuning Fork Effect
We tend to think of personal healing as something we do for ourselves. But what if its effects reach much further? Just as one tuning fork can set another vibrating, the way we inhabit our own bodies and move through the world can influence the people around us. Our internal state has a ripple effect, often in ways we don't even realize.
What happens when we begin to see our own healing as something that contributes to the well-being of the people we encounter? It changes how we think about our relationships, our presence, and the influence we have in the world.
Worth Wounds Silence Your Inner Knowing
What happens when you know exactly what your body needs, but somehow can't give yourself permission to honor it? For nearly thirty years, I understood the importance of living in harmony with my body's natural rhythms, yet I kept pushing through, taking on too much, and following expectations that didn't feel right for me. Looking back, I can see how much of that was connected to my own worth wounds and the need to prove I was enough.
It took turning fifty for me to finally begin making a different choice. In this post, I share what I've learned about the connection between worth wounds, nervous system patterns, and our ability to trust our bodies. I'll also share a simple practice for recognizing the difference between compulsion and authentic motivation, so you can begin making choices from a place of self-trust rather than pressure.
Why We Heal in Relationship
Have you ever noticed that something shifts in you when you're in the presence of certain people? Maybe you feel more grounded in a meditation group, discover a new freedom of movement in a Feldenkrais class, or find yourself accessing a deeper level of healing simply because someone else is in the room. I've experienced this in ways I still find difficult to explain, and it's led me to wonder about the invisible thread that connects us.
I believe we heal in relationship because that's where many of our wounds happened in the first place. In this post, I share some of my own experiences with collective healing, explore what neuroscience tells us about nervous system co-regulation, and consider how the healing we experience in community can ripple out into every relationship we have.
The Day I Realized the Body Is the Mind
I thought I understood the mind-body connection. I’d studied physiology, neuroscience, and psychology. Heck, I’d even taken a mind-body class in college that dug into the neuroscience and research. I could explain how everything was interconnected, and I believed in working with the whole person.
But it wasn’t until a Zen meditation retreat during my Feldenkrais training that I began to understand something much deeper. I started noticing sensations in my body before the thoughts associated with them even entered my conscious awareness. It was an experience that changed how I understood the union of the body and mind.
When Forgotten Dreams Start Coming True
Discover how autumn’s fertile darkness makes dreams more powerful. Learn why forgotten dreams - both sleeping and life dreams - may be trying to guide your next chapter. Includes practical dream journaling tips and a true story of how one forgotten dream manifested into reality exactly one year later. Perfect for midlife women ready to reconnect with their inner wisdom and trust their dreams again.
Finding Chi
Discover how somatic practices can help you access new realities and reconnect with your body’s innate wisdom. This personal story explores how cultural conditioning dampens our natural sensing abilities, and how embodied movement practices can help midlife women rediscover their capacity to trust what their bodies are telling them. Learn why feeling disconnected from your body isn’t permanent—and how your search for something more might be the very gift leading you back to yourself.
Tart Cherry Sleep Elixir
When perimenopause crept into my world and my business shifted online, my once-reliable sleep started doing its own thing. So, I dove into what I call “micro-dosing nutrients”
Tart cherries are high in melatonin, the hormone that controls the sleep-wake cycle, and a few small studies have shown that they have promising effects on sleep.
Fascial Love Letters
What if I told you that right now your body is generating tiny electrical charges? Not from some fancy device… but from your own fascia - that connective tissue that’s literally holding you together.
Movement In Meditation
Exploring the role of movement in meditation.
This musing stems from a session that I was planning to record for those inside the Embodied Well Membership and the Free CoEvolution Community, as it's sort of a preface to the meditations we'll be exploring, but then as life often does.
This question arose in another context. It came up during a meditation group that I'm involved in. The question was something along the lines of, "Is it okay to move in meditation, and if we're moving, is it meditation?" So, I want to dive into ways we can approach it and honor how dynamic and complex this question can be.
Exploring. Learning. Breathing.
Have you ever wondered why you hold your breath when doing something new?
We often take our breath for granted, usually breathing in and out 12-16 times every minute without being aware of it. Most of us only notice our breath when something happens to prevent us from breathing normally. Others intentionally bring their attention to the breath as part of mindfulness practice.
Language Of Healing
I was recently talking with a student who struggles with hip pain. Like no joke, they can't walk when the pain hits type of pain.
So we're chatting it up after an Awareness Through Movement class, and they shared their insight into how shifting their attention from their hip to their head helped them to understand their pain better.
"Do tell," I asked, "what did you discover about your hip pain?"
A Holistic Take On Anti-Nutrients
If you've attended my Awareness Through Movement classes, you've likely heard me say that straining and discomfort often signal not to stop what you're doing but to do it differently. Sometimes, stopping something altogether is important, especially in the short term, as it can provide an opportunity to reset.
However, signals of strain and discomfort often invite us to explore alternatives, thereby expanding what's possible in our lives. This principle also applies to food and nourishment. Instead of eliminating foods entirely, we can find different ways to prepare them, enhancing our dietary experiences and leading to a more delicious life.
Watermelon Arugula Salad!
Between the heartbreak and the heat, every cell in my body craved something cool, juicy, savory, sweet, and absolutely delicious. This salad hit all the marks.
The juicy watermelon perfectly complemented the peppery bite of the arugula, creating a harmony of flavors that delighted even the most broken of hearts. The crunch of the pistachios, the softness of the cheese, and the cool, crisp, sweet watermelon satisfied my tasty texture desires.
Contraction and Flow
This audio is part of my 108 Conversations With Women In The Pause Years exploration. Each conversation offers new insights and expands my capacity to think about, move with, and embody what it means to live with a regenerative purpose.
I take time after each conversation to reflect and share my thoughts and discoveries. Today, I want to muse on a profound inquiry that surfaced during a conversation with one of the incredible women I speak with about the concept of the pause years and regenerative purpose. This reflection delves deep into the experience of flow within our bodies and how it guides us through life's highs and lows.
Savory Summer Quinoa Breakfast
A friend recently requested a Quinoa recipe and I instantly thought of this super-duper yummy Quinoa Breakfast. In fact, this is my favorite summer breakfast meal. It is simple, and I always feel ready to take on the world after eating it. I hope that you do too!
A Few Quinoa Facts
Quinoa (pronounced KEEN-wah) is actually a species of Chenopodium grown as a crop primarily for its edible seeds. Yum! It is a pseudocereal rather than a true cereal as it is not a grass and its leaves are also eaten as a leaf vegetable.
The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has officially declared that the year 2013 be recognized as "The International Year of the Quinoa." Yay!
Walking Awareness Benefits
You probably already know that walking is a great way to reduce pain, lose weight, and improve or maintain your overall health. But those are just a few of the many benefits that walking offers. I'm not going to go into all of the benefits here. But I'd like to encourage you to read through the two key points below and see if you can notice how the lessons and daily walks affect your personal experience.
Creamy Dreamy Tart Cherry Drink
This dreamy recipe will tantalize your tastebuds and nourish your dream-state.
Tart cherry juice is one of the powerhouse ingredients that live up to the ‘food as medicine’ hype. Research has shown that it can help to improve sleep, reduce muscle soreness & inflammation, and may even reduce belly fat. That’s a lot of goodness packed into these little antioxidant nuggets of juicy joy.
9 TED Talks On Neuroscience That Will Inform, Inspire & Move You
This post on my favorite neuroscience-focused TED talks is consistently one of my most popular posts. It’s an oldie but a goodie. I still love the diversity of these talks and the insights they can offer for living an embodied and well life.