Ease and flow, pandiculation and meditation

'Tis the winter of the nap, as far as we're concerned.

And why not? There is nothing sweeter than snuggling down for a snooze whenever we might just feel like it.

We're up before the sun most mornings anyway, in time to catch moments when the little orchard that we've created in our back yard looks like this:

Just before dawn.

Yep.

Life is easy. Life just flows.

You know that moment when you wake up well rested and relaxed and you yawn and have a really delicious stretch and then just lie there for a bit?




That yummy stretch (and release, the slow release is the important part) is called "pandiculation". Think of the way your cat moves every time she wakes up from a nap. It's a mammal thing, they all do it, and since we're mammals, we can benefit from a little pandiculation too.

The Universe, in one of its finer "help is on the way!" moments, caused me to come across this pandiculation thing when my hip was up to its old tricks recently. I started watching videos of something called Somatic movements, tried a few, felt the ease and flow returning to my body and started digging a little into the theory behind it all. And the theory behind it all is simply that brain and body, over time, or because of injuries or illness or stress, stop communicating with each other effectively. The body gets stuck in defensive patterns and postures, tension takes hold and voila, we have aches, pains, stiffness.

Boy do we ever.

The Somatic movement people call that "sensory motor amnesia", and the effect of these slow, deliberate movements is that the brain and body begin working together again. Pandiculation works with the brain just as much as the body - something I really like.

I have classic stretching exercises that my physiotherapist wants me to do daily, and sometimes I do them. Sometimes I don't. Mostly I don't. They leave me .. kinda uninspired. I don't like that mindset of pushing against the (natural) resistance my body has towards doing (what feel like) unnatural movements.

But the Somatic movements are leaving me feeling like I've had a ramble in a meadow. A foray in a forest. I don't feel like I'm pushing against myself in any way, I feel like I'm exploring what it feels like to be embodied. This practice is enhancing my feeling of well being.

(Which brings me back to the topic we've been on lately, that we get what we concentrate on. I've been concentrating on well being for months now, and what did the Universe offer me? A way to find even more of it. Thanks, Universe!)

As mentioned, I have a hip that bothers me once in a while. The video below shows one of the the Somatic movements that I started with that released the tension in there almost immediately. And as a nifty "side effect", I found I had better lung capacity after doing it for a few days. How? Well, have a look, you'll see.

So gentle that it barely qualifies as movement, but it's powerful stuff. Try it!

Here's another one. Again, very simple, and deeply relaxing.

Unlike modern medicine that looks down its nose at so called "psychosomatic" illness or scolds us that "the pain is all in your head", Somatic movement embraces the notion that what is going on in our bodies may well come from our minds, and that it's information that we can use to our advantage. PTSD is a dramatic example of this, but it needn't be a hugely traumatic event that lies buried in our backs or necks or hips. As many of us know, any state of emotional discomfort can get 'stuck' in our bodies, and of course we can get caught in a vicious circle of emotional distress causing pain which causes more emotional distress which causes more pain. Ugh.

Interestingly, as I've been exploring these movements, memories are floating up; of long past illnesses, injuries and/or stressful times in my life. I take this to mean that I'm reaching the places that I stored those memories, unlocking them as I release the tension in my muscles. And release is the operative word here - none of these memories are troubling me, they just float up, I think "oh, that's interesting" and then they melt away ..

A few weeks before I started with the Somatic movements, I started exploring meditation again. And it turns out that meditation - something I haven't been able to maintain the habit of til now - is far easier and more pleasant than I thought it would be. In fact I'm finding it delightful.

I don't do anything formal or mysterious, I just sit quietly, take a few smooth deep breaths, and start out thinking pleasant thoughts. I don't try to not think, nor do I concentrate on a mantra, those are completely unnatural to me. I just think myself through a walk in my garden, or about bears all curled up in their dens, or I imagine the starry sky overhead - anything goes, really, as long as it's nice to think about. Sometimes I just get into a feeling, like ease. Or appreciation.

Before long I can sense a smile lifting my face and from there .. well I'm not entirely sure what happens from there. I drift happily into an effortless, non-resistant state and just float there for a while. Sometimes thoughts come to me from some deeper place within, wordless thoughts, understandings that can't be articulated. Sometimes they don't come. And then after a while I naturally come back to the here and now, smiling, refreshed, and always a little in awe of how simple yet profound the experience has been.

Paul's little shed/studio in the half-light of dawn.

So yeah, I've been having a quietly exciting winter. That sounds like an oxymoron, I suppose. Quiet excitement? Meditation is quiet and the somatic movements are quiet, too. Yet they are each so refreshing in their own ways, and combined even more so; it would be impossible not to be excited about how good I feel now and how - clearly - I will continue to feel even better as time goes on.

I love exploring new ways to feel good.

Somatic movement was developed by Thomas Hanna, who was actually a professor of philosophy, which I was surprised to learn. As I was looking into this, I came across an interview he gave and was well and truly hooked by the first thing he said:

"All my life I have been profoundly concerned with being free. I have always understood that to be free does not merely mean to be without external hindrances. Rather, the prime requisite for being free is to have the internal power and the internal skills, judgement, perception, and intelligence in order to be autonomous, because freedom is essentially self-responsibility and independence. Not to be a subservient part of an institution is very much a theme of my life. You can’t be independent unless you can stand on your own two feet, and it’s not a matter of just rebelliously standing on your own two feet, but of knowing who you are, knowing your powers, and being able to be creative and productive on your own. "

Now there's a man I can relate to! And since I know that one or two of my readers (I'm looking at you, Wilbur. Let me know what you think!) will be interested in what else he had to say, here's the link to the rest of the interview. Maybe one of these days I'll do another post where I can go a little further into the concept of the 'soma', it's very, very interesting stuff and right up my alley ..

Oh, and for anyone interested in learning more about how Somatic movements can help relieve pain and stiffness, I can heartily recommend two youtube channels: There's Susan Koenig, who was the first one I discovered - I like her because she's an older lady I can relate to, unlike those young & perfect types who've never seen a day of stress in their lives (LOL). And then I found Essential Somatics with Martha Peterson (in the videos embedded above). Martha's videos are excellent - the instructions are clear, the production quality is top notch and she's great about answering questions in comments, too. I watch them both and mix things up. It doesn't take long to learn how to create one's own movements, which is another bonus of this system. Once you learn the basics of pandiculation, it would seem the sky's your limit.

Questions? Comments? I'm in a chatty mood these days so feel free to yak at me below or by email.