Pulsing to the Rhythm of Health

by Buffy Owens

We are rhythmical beings living in a world pulsating with life. Our lives pulse with the rhythm of our inner landscapes - from the pounding of our heartbeat and the tempo of our stride, to cycles of our sleep patterns and the cadence of our brain processes. We are also surrounded by the sweet music of life. Just notice the cycle of seasons, ocean waves, the pitter-pat of rain and even the sound of a passing car.

If you have ever been a part of a drum circle or enjoyed the sound of the symphony, then you know how music can move you emotionally, spiritually and physically. Joining in the music making can actually give you a direct link to changing the tempo of your attitude or exploring the sensations of your body.

Drumming for health today has merged the primal beauty of ancient healing arts, practiced for tens of thousands of years in all cultures across the globe, with modern science.

"We know from the research that active drumming effects humans on the cellular biological level," explains
Kat Fulton, MM, a board certified Music Therapist who with specialization in Neonatal Intensive Care Unit and rhythm-based wellness. "Group drumming studies have shown a 62% increase in individual mood state. The same studies also showed a significant decrease in stress hormone and an increase in white blood cells. There have been other studies that show an increase in hormones that corresponds to our immune system from a single session of music therapy."

So where do you begin? You can seek out a Music Therapist like Kat Fulton or you can follower her simple guidelines for beginning where you are:

Before playing: Please remember that there is no judgment in drumming for health. This is all about the process, not at all about the product. There are no mistakes; there are only opportunities to be YOU!

Prepare: If you have a small frame drum at home, hold it in your lap either face down or on its side. If you don't have a drum at home, feel free to engage in gentle body percussion instead. You can make up your own movement and rhythm in the process! Use your hands to gently pat different areas of your body, make sounds by stomping your feet, or use your voice and mouth for rhythm.

Center Yourself: Find a comfortable spot to sit or stand, and take a few deep breaths. Become aware of your feelings, thoughts, surroundings, and let them go.

Be Present and Drum: When you are ready, play. Play anything. Bring your awareness to the rhythm while letting go of any self-judgment or criticism. Instead of imagining the rhythms coming from you, imagine the rhythms coming through you.

Savor: After your drumming excursion, take a few moments of silence to allow the rhythms to permeate through your body, mind, and spirit. Take this feeling with you through the day, and remember that which you already know!
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Kat Fulton, MM, MT-BC
soundhealthmusic.com
858-205-8660 phone
858-433-2960 fax

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Open Your Heart - Falling in Love with Posture Therapy

by Buffy Owens

Have you ever been told to stand up straight or realized you have a better view of the sidewalk than the sunset? Well if so it is time to fall in love with upright alignment.

For many of us aching muscles, joint stiffness and general discomfort have affected us at some point in our lives. In fact more and more people are seeking relieve through massage, osteopathy, physical therapy or chiropractic.

But what if there was a way that you could enhance any of these treatments and address some of the fundamental causes of your aches and pains? Well postural therapist and therapeutic Pilates instructor Kristi Anderson say you can do just that. By employing a variety of stretches and gentle exercises designed to restore your posture to its natural state, you easily rebalance your body's muscles and joints.

"The beauty of Posture Therapy," says Kristi, "is that it is accessibility to a diverse audience, from seniors to new mothers to elite athletes. It meets the body where it is at, to return a sense of balance, vitality and confidence to a body through returning optimal alignment."

As Kristi explains, the effects of every day life can lead to poor posture. Participating in a personalized series of release exercises and gentle strengthening exercises can "help to undo the effects of gravity, injuries, childbearing, bone density changes, even emotional distress such as grieving which change how the body moves."

This Valentines day take some time to open your hear and enjoy the following exercise recommended by Kristi Anderson.

Floor Presses
This exercise helps open the chest and return the head to a less stressful position atop the shoulders when standing. With time, it can also return flexibility to the spine and shoulders as the neck finds more freedom through new alignment. Rounding of the shoulders and upper back are reversed with practice, but take your time and work slowly. Posture Muscles are endurance-oriented, which means they work over time, not in a power sense. Perform more repetitions at a low-intensity to ensure you are using the appropriate area and not compensating with some of the larger areas.
1. Lie on the floor on your back with your knees bent. Place your arms in a "goalpost" or "cactus" position - elbows on the floor beside your shoulders, backs of the hands on the floor by your ears, elbows bend to 90 degrees. If the backs of your hands don't touch the floor, let your fingertips face the ceiling while keeping your elbows on the floor.
2. Slowly press your elbows (and hands, if they're touching) into the floor until you feel some activity between your shoulder blades. You'll feel your chest open and your collarbones expand. Keep your neck and tops of the shoulders relaxed as you do this. Repeat 15-20 times, at a low-intensity.
3. Rest a few minutes, then perform a second set.
4. Slowly return to standing and notice how your neck, head, shoulders and even hips feel.

Resources
DVDs
"Roll, Release, Rebuild" by Kristi Anderson
"Stretch, Release, Rebuild" by Nathan Briner
"Posture Solutions" by Egoscue

Books
"Pain Free" by Pete Egoscue
"Pain Free for Women" by Pete Egoscue
"The New Rules of Posture" by Mary Bond
"Muscular Retraining for Pain-Free Living" by Craig Williamson

San Diego Websites
www.posturerx.com
www.egoscue.com
www.symmetryforhealth.com

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Setting the Intention to LOVE Your LIFE!

by Buffy Owens

Ahh...I love this time of year! The energy all around is bustling with parties and celebrations. While at the same time the weather outside and the early nightfall encourage us to turn inward. What a beautiful combination of energy and stillness.

One of my absolute favorite rituals for this time of year is allow myself time to reflect on what has come to pass and envision what is to come to be. A perfect balance.

MAKE YOUR PEACE

When you truly release your past, you can move forward into your future with energy, excitement and a fresh perspective. You can root yourself fully in your personal integrity and you can live freely in the moment. Now is the time to clean out the old and make room for the new. Below is a simple exercise to help you along the way.

Take a moment, a day or a weekend to retreat and honor yourself. Ask your higher self:

• What is incomplete for me right now?
• What habits or beliefs no longer serve me?
• What projects, tasks or relationships are keeping me from expressing myself fully?

Then simply listen to what bubbles up from inside. Keep the filter off. Allow yourself to write down anything that comes to mind no matter how big or small. Then simply make a list of those thoughts along with the actions necessary to have completion. Once your list is complete, decide when you will have each item finished. You can make this a detail-specific timeline or you can simply commit to tending to an item or two a day. Don't worry if you have a few things that stretch over into the new year, just having them down on paper and making the commitment to being complete will allow you the internal space to move forward.

TAKE A STAND

Setting a clear intention for the next twelve months can change your life forever. Perhaps you have some specific resolutions you have been toying with or some "shoulds" about health or finances floating around in your mind. What if you let all those specifics go for right now and simply commit to living a life you love and to loving the life you live. How would your choices be different if you stood in this commitment every day. How would your life be different one year from now? Declare your intention and then commit. Return to your commitment daily by allowing yourself a couple of minutes every morning and every evening to revisit your commitment. Perhaps you pray or meditate. Perhaps you speak your commitment out loud or read it to yourself. Do whatever moves you!

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Conscious Eating

by Buffy Owens

We are the conscious creators of our lives! Where we choose to put our awareness and intention truly determines what we create and receive in our life. This includes the nourishment of our body.

By paying attention to a few simple principles, you can help your system extract the highest levels of nourishment from everything you eat! Simply pick one or two of the following practices to integrate into your life each week. Before you know it, each meal will be an expression and celebration of your soul. Enjoy!

• Take three deep and soulful breaths before you eat. This will allow you to relax and connect with yourself, your nourishment and your surroundings.
  
• Take a moment to say a prayer or send gratitude to your food. Remember everything that you eat was once living. So allow yourself to honor the precious cycle of giving and receiving life.
  
• Don't eat when you are upset. If you are upset, allow yourself a moment or two to breath and get grounded. You deserve to enjoy yourself.
  
• Eat in a settled environment. If your environment is crazy (kids, family and more kids), see if you can take on the practice of truly tasting everything on your plate three times. Three mindful bites.
  
• Sit down to eat. This will assist your mind in settling vs. running around, and around and around.
  
• Eat only when you feel hungry. This may not be possible on those special days we spend with our families. However, notice when you eat out of habit or hunger on the days in between.
  
• Don't talk with your mouth full, or while chewing at all, but engage in pleasant conversation between bites. Can you taste while you talk? Enjoy your food, then enjoy your company. That my friend equals a lot of joy!
  
• Set your utensils down between bites. This little gesture and movement actually takes up time and can be used as a reminder to consciously chew your food.
  
• Wait until one meal is digested before you eat the next. Often we interpret indigestion as hunger, so take note of how long you are waiting between meal.
• Eat at a moderate pace. You already know this golden rule.
  
• Sip warm water with your meals. If you drink with your meal try having something warm or at least room temperature. This will help keep the heat on for digestion.
  
• Step away from the food table. Sometimes the best thing you can do is flee from temptation!
  
• Sit quietly for a few minutes after your meal.

Most of All, Enjoy Yourself!

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Perls of a Somatic Exploration

by Buffy Owens

These are a few of the experiential concepts that I am currently exploring through movement. I invite you to join me in this experiential exploration of the self. Let me know what you find out.

Soma
The word somatic comes from the Greek root soma, which means "the living body in its wholeness." When we begin to experience the body from within, the body and mind are no longer separated but experienced as a whole. The perceiver and the perceived become unified.

Felt Sense
Much of what a person knows has never been consciously thought and verbalized. Felt sense is the unclear preverbal sense of 'something', as that something is experienced in the body. It is the capacity to sense and respond to your environment. As you explore yourself through somatic movement, you enhance the vocabulary of the sensory-motor circuitry of your nervous system. Thus, you increase your capacity to experience and trust your felt sense and enhance your ability to spontaneously respond to whatever arises in life.

Habit
Each of us has our own individual habits of movement that affect our body-attitude and ultimately influence our self-image. Somatic movement allows for a conversation of sensing, feeling, resting and moving that engages your whole self in a process where old habits can be replaced by new awareness, understanding and skill.
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Setting an Inner Intention

by Buffy Owens

Recently I was talking a with a friend about how her challenges in fully integrating a health and fitness program. Her problem, she said, wasn’t lack of information, rather it was lack of inner integration.

A lot of the information out there provides you with the knowledge you need for change and how to implement these changes into your daily life. This information alone is powerful in initiating and sustaining change. However, to truly create meaningful transformation requires that you not only take different actions, but that you also shift your thoughts, attitudes and beliefs.

The process of exploring your habitual ways of being brings with it great awareness and insight. It provides you with a moment-to-moment sense of what perspective or attitude you are choosing in life. And since, how we view the world or any given situation will dictate our effectiveness and our state of mind. Changing your attitude will not only change the way you see things, but will also change your reality.

If, for instance, you approach your health and fitness as being tough, that perspective will trickle down into everything you do. So shifting your perspective to one that will work in accordance with your goals and desires will allow you to truly embodying your health and wellbeing.

Setting an intention does not involve something we want to do, rather it represents a way of being that we wish to embody. If we can see ourselves clearly as we would like to be a few months or years from now, then we can utilize the energy of that perception to change ourselves day by day. Our intention becomes a beacon of light for the life we are creating even when we are faced with the day-to-day circumstances of life.

Conscious Play: The Big Picture

• Close your eyes and bring your awareness to your breath. Allow your breath to expand into your belly and out through there rest of your body. Feel yourself release and soften with each exhale. Feel yourself expand with each inhale.
  


• When you are ready, think about what is in store for you in the future. Pick a situation, a desire or dream that matters to you.


• Write down how you would like it to be, including in detail how you would like to feel and behave. Bring as much detail as possible into your imagination.
  

Conscious Play: Day-to-Day
Now, read your vision. Identify one quality from your vision that you want to experience in your life today: vitality, flexibility, an abundance of energy, strength or any other quality that appeals to you.

Ask yourself:

• “What would it feel like to embody this quality?” Trust what ever arises and write it down.


• “How would I move if I expressed this quality?” Close your eyes and kinesthetically imagine yourself moving as an expression of this quality. Then open your eyes and allow yourself to actually move around the room in this way.


• “What would it look like if I embodied this quality? What would my eyes look like, my posture, my movements, my expressions and gestures?” Then stand in front of a mirror and play with embodying these traits.
  


• “What would I sound like if I embodied my inner intention. How would my voice sound? How would it express itself through language?” Play with letting your voice express the quality you have chosen as your ideal.
  

Begin by playing with these exercises at home and then begin to integrate them into your daily life. Play with them as you go for your morning walk, when you are waiting at a red light, or every time you sit down for a meal. Do this for a month or two and notice how you begin to live into your Inner Intention.
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Walking Awareness

by Buffy Owens

One of my favorite things to do in San Diego is to take an early morning walk on the beach. I love the playfulness of the wind sweeping off the water and the acrobatic birds playing in the waves. I love how the clean fresh morning air dances with the sound of the ocean and the sense of an expansive settling that arise from within. I am inspired to play with my own movement experience.

Often when we are walking down the street, we are not thinking about the way we walking, how our skeleton moves, or what muscles we’re using, or whether the pressure of every step is subtly hurting some part of our body. Our goal is simply to get from where we are to where we are going, and often without much awareness of the process. Even taking a morning stroll on the beach can be void of awareness. We can be entranced by the world around us without necessarily sensing ourselves in it.

We can enhance our experience of life, our ease of movement and sense of self by taking time each week to move around in nature with awareness. Try this simple walking awareness practice for a couple of weeks and discover a new sense of ease in your everyday movements.

The walking awareness practice is best done on a natural, uneven surface. Take a walk in the park, on the grass or at the beach. Invite a friend and share what you discover.

Before you begin your walk, stand still.

• Close your eyes. Notice the sounds around you, the feel of the sun and the wind and the smell of summer. Be aware of your balance.


• Stand as you are. Don't try to stand in any particular way, rather let your comfort be your guide. Allow your skeleton and your muscles hold you comfortably as your arms rest down by your side.


• Bring your external awareness in. Try to be aware of nothing external except the sounds that come to you. Attempt to identify each sound: is it high or low, pleasing or grating, what direction is the sound coming from. Let the external sounds reverberate through your body.
  

You are now ready to begin moving.

• Be grounded in the awareness of your feet. Begin this walk in a slow ordinary series of steps. Let each step be grounded in the awareness of your feet as they touch the ground.


• Notice the variation in the ground: subtle changes in the level you walk over, in the texture of the surface, in the way your feet roll over the sand, the stones or roots. Awareness comes as you notice more and more differences in the same path.


• Look around. While walking, continue to give attention to the contact of each foot as it touches the earth while at the same time looking around. As you look out over the horizon, how does the contact of each foot change its relationship to the ground?


• Be playful. Explore how you make contact with the ground and how your ability to play with awareness shifts as you speed up and slow down.


• Sense yourself. Towards the end of your walk, ask yourself what differences you feel in your body and the way you walk.
  

Try this practice for twenty minutes a day or a few times a week and enjoy the new sensations in your body and the deepening of your awareness.
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Moving Through Life with Ease

by Buffy Owens

It has been said that it is not important how old you are, but how you are old.

Are you aware of your approach towards aging, exercise and movement? A big part of aging gracefully is being willing to change how you think. One of the easiest facets for shifting our thoughts is to shift how our thinking about movement and to become a thinking body. Remember, the manner in which you treat your body is inseparable from the manner in which you cope with other aspects of life.

Here are some tips that will help you move through life with ease and have greater success in whatever form of exercise, fitness or movement activity you choose:

Don't Force It. Perform new movements slowly and gently so that you can feel what you are doing. This will give the brain the opportunity to differentiate what effort is necessary for the movements and what is not.

Explore Your Comfort Zone. Recognize your own level of comfort and move within that zone. Once you know the mechanics of the movement you can expand your zone by expanding your range of motion or moving more quickly and with greater power.

Use Your Imagination. Imagination has been used by both professional athletes and doctors to enhance the learning of, the quality and the precision of movement. Begin by doing one or two repetitions of a movement or exercise. Then, pause and take a few moments to imagine the movement. See if you can feel the movement in your imagination. Then do the movement again. What do you notice about the movement after taking time to imagine?

Expand Your Awareness. Exercise and movement is not isolated to one area of your body. Be aware of how your body feels as a whole and its relationship to the floor and your surroundings. Give attention to your pelvis, the length of your spine, your neck and shoulders, your eyes, your breathing, the expression on your face and anything else that speaks to you.

Use Your Intelligence. The body and the brain are one, they are in constant communication. When you think through your movements and concentrate on what you are doing and how you are feeling the brain receives new information. As the brain processes the new information it is able to manage your movements more efficiently and expand your movement repertoire.

Age is a State of Mind. There is nothing static about the movement of our bodies, our minds, feelings or emotions. When we cast aside old, automatic ways of moving, thinking and feeling and integrate new options into our lives we can learn to move through life with ease.

As always, please check with your doctor before beginning any new diet or movement regimen.

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