The vagus nerve is our body’s doorway to rest and digest. This cranial nerve creates the superhighway in which our organs communicates with our brain. Our vagal tone determines our nervous system ability to self-soothe and self-organise, create homeostasis and resilience in our overall health. Sound therapy works through the vagus nerve through its innervation in the auditory camel through to the middle ear into the pharynx, larynx, into our vital and digestive organs. Through mindful fluid movement to sound vibrations and resonance, as well as guided visualisation and vocalisation, we are able to regulate our immune and nervous system and affect our internal organs to restore their regulatory functions. Join myself and Singapore-based sound healer Jasz Lau @The Senses Therapy in this series of Somatic & Sound Healing Embodiment Sessions from November to February to experience this deep healing process for the body-mind-spirit. To register: https://www.eventbrite.sg/e/somatics-sound-healing-embodime… https://thesoundhealer.org/sound-therapy-and-the-vagus-ner…/ I’ve posted something similar on this before, and often speak passionately about it - the importance of honouring a baby’s neuro-motor developmental milestones to occur organically without rushing into sitting or standing.
I’ve also ruffled some parents’ feathers in the process, as a number of them are adamant (and also prided themselves) that they have “trained” their child to sit and stand sooner than their peers. The proliferation of chronic neck, shoulder, mid, lower back pain and spinal issues are not just happening amongst the adults I’ve worked with, but increasingly manifesting in children and adolescents as well. With most adults not being able to get to the ground and staying there comfortably, babies are often coaxed out of rolling, crawling, creeping sooner than they are ready for with sitters and walkers, as well as being trained to interact with a world that mostly hovers above them rather than at a level closer to the ground. A lot of the rehabilitation and movement education work I’m exploring centres around developmental patterns. It involves getting back onto the floor to rediscover and relearn our gross motor skills from the ground up. This is also important in rewiring neural pathways in the brain stem (heart rate, blood pressure etc) and limbic system (emotion, learning, memory) that offer us a sense of safety in our body’s relationship to gravity and the environment. We learn how to move through different planes, and also learn how to fall with ease and grace. This has a profound effect on our nervous system’s ability to self-organise, self-soothe, and build resilience. Perceived safety dictates our cognitive and conscious ability to "control" our responses, and is determined by factors such as our pre-disposition, trauma history (including intergenerational trauma), conditioning, power differential, our environment, our mental and physical health, our sense of belonging etc etc...
One of my teachers Richard Freeman would always say in class, "Stiffness is a blessing". Being hyper-mobile, yoga asanas came easily to me as a practitioner. When I was a new teacher, I'd be teaching 18 classes a week and demonstrating everyone of them on my dominant right side, and doing physical assists on the other. Then I got very involved in "universal principles of alignment" that'd prescribed systematic methodology of getting into poses, working into end range, and accomplishing peak poses for a recognition of my practice, not forgetting the photo ops. When I got into my 40's my right hip started clicking, my thoracic spine lost its kyphosis, my head feels to heavy for my neck and shoulders, my SI joint felt wonky and sore at times, and I'm always in a state of feeling like I'd jump out of my skin UNLESS I'm bending myself into deeper stretches. Something wasn't right. If Yoga is the path to freedom and bliss, my body felt shackled to the ball and chain of a yoga mat. I got into somatics first through the wonderful Feldenkrais classes with Tara Eden in Chiang Mai. Subsequently I dived into Body Mind Centering's embodiment work of non linear movement and understanding of the nervous system in psychosomatic relationships, learning to listen to the body through sensory awareness into different biological systems, to re-learn and repattern very conditioned ways of inhabiting our body, through self inquiry, using the body as a baseline. Now I can walk, run, sit, hike... do the functional stuff normal humans do for extended periods - pain free and with presence. My movement repertoire consist of a mix of different activities in addition to mat yoga - swimming, rock climbing, dance, resistance work - so my body's neural mapping gets wired in a variety of possibilities. I've also been working with yoga practitioners and teachers on preventing / rehabilitating repetitive injuries through therapeutic bodywork, yoga therapy which addresses the person through the different layers, and somatic movement education - learning so much about the body-mind as an integrated whole. I really hope more yoga people are waking up to the message in this article, so we can create a much more sustainable, enriching and mindful dialogue to this ancient tradition. As Richard Freeman says in the first line of Yoga Matrix, "Yoga begins with listening." #ahimsa #satya #aparigraha We shall not cease from exploration And the end of life our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time … T.S Elliot The longing I've always held for travel and exploration was born into me. Back when I was only a child, I used to cut out travel ads in newspapers and magazines, making scrap art from those unfamiliar & exotic images, lost in the luring landscapes of misty mountains ranges, panoramic lookouts, architectures from another world. I'd imagined the sights, sounds, smells... the touch of snow. This was back in the days before budget airlines existed and global travel became as ubiquitous as hopping on a subway. I remember taking buses to the airport just to wander about, looking at travellers and their multi-coloured suitcases and coats. I'd listened to announcements over the PA and wondered about the adventures that await them or the experiences they had returned from. I didn't get on a plane till I was 21. But I was hooked long before the journey started. I needed so much to explore beyond the little red dot on the map that's Singapore, the mysteries that laid in store beyond the little island city state on the equator. It was also this insatiable wanderlust that led me to subsequently leave behind my self-contained life, my cosy apartment, corporate career. After I stepped into my 40's, something shifted in me, made porous by the lessons learnt on the road - solitude, adaptability, grit, courage, respect, resilience, fear, love, and impermanence. And all that frenzy of looking outwards for mirrors of self-expression started to change course. As I delve further into the practice of self-inquiry and introspection, a different longing begins to take shape... a beckoning from a familiar place, calling out to me to not forget, to remember - of who I am and where I come from. To retrace the story of my own becoming. This subtle stirring in my heart a few years ago became a visceral yearning when I lost my father last year. Now the ambers have been stoked into a wild fire of recognition, a deep sensate resignation from the nomadic seeking, to return to the birth place of my karmic imprint, like a fish swimming back into familiar waters. “Take your attention down into the tiny, miraculous stitching of the life you are creating from nothing, and trust that each small thread is connecting you to the greater body of belonging. One day, maybe today, you will look back on everything that came after your decision to attend to your life like an artwork, and you will see a great number of years symbolized in moons and stained with blood, stretching across a great landscape behind you, and you’ll know you have come a great distance. Here, with your great cape of wound-moons, a piercing presence in your eyes, a living history on your skin, you will know you have always belonged.” Toko-pa Turner, Excerpt From “Belonging: Remembering Ourselves Home” ---------- I'll be moving back to Singapore in a few weeks time, after 12 years of wandering to be in close proximity to my family and friends who have stood by me through all these years. I'm also looking forward to bringing more of my skills and practice in therapeutic modalities to serve the local communities in Singapore and around the region. Starting from November, I'll be offering regular Yoga Therapy and Integrated Bodywork 1:1 Sessions in Singapore, with the flexibility of in-house, home visits and clinic sessions at Soma Clinic and Terra Luna Yoga. I'll also be launching teaching and therapist professional development programs for those who'd like to learn more on working therapeutically with a sensory approach in bodywork and movement. Singapore-based sound healer extraordinaire Jasz Lau and I will be partnering up again to offer a deeply therapeutic embodiment series of four Somatic & Sound Healing special classes at her lovely new studio The Senses Therapy from November through to February. And look out for the Somatic Wisdom Therapeutic Workshops at the trauma-aware Terra Luna Yoga which caters specifically to women. For teachers and practitioners looking for continuing education, don't miss out on two Somatic & Yoga Therapy trainings that I will be offering in Cambodia (December) and Thailand (February). If you are a teacher trainer or wellness education provider, I'm now available to help you create customised therapeutic curriculum that I can also facilitate or deliver in your existing training programs. See below for more details. Coming home. Blessings, Daphne https://mailchi.mp/31915f9a1d03/be-longing Yesterday, my sister sent me a message from Singapore to tell me she went to a TCM doctor to sought help after experiencing some pain from her neck that was radiating down her right arm and hand. The therapist proceeded with lots of needling, tissue manipulation and left more than a dozen of cupping marks on her body. She also told my sister that she now has a myriad of physical issues that isn’t going to get better, in addition to emotional baggage and energy blockage she’s carrying. The treatment consequently caused more pain in the aftermath, as my sister’s condition is exacerbated by the invasive techniques and her nervous system went into overdrive, creating more inflammation. Allopathic (so called Western) medicine and complementary therapies has had a long-standing strife in regards to a symptomatic vs holistic approach. With the rising popularity of alternative therapies, more people are seeking treatments away from the allopathic healthcare system. But even though alternative and Eastern traditional medicine are supposed to address the whole person rather than just the symptoms, I think it is also imperative that we (collectively as complementary therapists) reframe how we can move towards a more human-centric, constructive, and empowering approach in our duty of care. Though often well-intentioned, the No Pain, No Gain and Fear-Based treatment philosophy is counter intuitive and counter productive. We need to let go of the negative narrative that is often isolating, disempowering, re-traumatising and fear breeding. I’ve so often heard from clients that they’ve been told by their therapist that their pain or condition is due to a much bigger, scarier issue of their own doing - be it lifestyle, diet, emotions etc. Some are even told that their energy or anger or grief is stuck in this chakra or that plexus, and which if not dealt with via external intervention, will culminate in devastating consequences. And for some this is when sales pitch is cued - a 5-step program or 6-month Transform your Life package, and all the bad stuff will miraculously dissipate. This person then spirals into a state of self-blame and self-doubt, and becoming ever more resentful, and untrusting of their own body. They might feel that they have no other option but enter into a relationship of co-dependency with their “therapist”, or they shut down, disassociate or numb themselves further to avert the pain. For those of us working in complementary healthcare - PLEASE STOP THE FEAR MONGERING, even if you think that it is all in the name of service. As therapists, We need to stop self-aggrandising as the healer or the fixer, and start to see our very own humanity in the treatment room or the massage table. We need to stop assuming that we know better than our client, prodding into their pain physically or psychologically to promote a “cathartic release” can be re-traumatising. Being presumptuous and soliciting / fabricating storylines to their experiences are most of the time NOT WITHIN OUR SCOPE OF PRACTICE. We need to step into the supportive role - to hold space and not to overwhelm, to use our knowledge and intuition and skills to create the conditions / environment for the client’s nervous system to regulate and biological systems to re-integrate. We can help to lay down the groundwork for the person to find a symbiotic relationship with their body through safety, connection and trust. We can serve as guides for our clients uncover the strength and intelligence of their body to cultivate resilience, balance, and homeostasis. We need to let go of our persisting ego to fix and get out of the way for the person to take ownership of their healing process for it to be sustainable. So how about this. The next time you treat someone who has a back issue or dealing with pain or is always stressed and anxious. Instead of creating storylines of their trauma, try to offer something constructive - like “if you sit too long at a desk, how about setting a 20 mins timer to walk around so you’re not slouched over all the time?" OR “When you feel overwhelmed, notice if you’re clenching your jaw or anywhere else in the body? And if you are, can you consciously unclench? Notice what happens.” etc etc. There is so much more we can do if we also do our own shadow work and look within, into our own human conditions, our own fears and tribulations. As therapists we might have the tools to heal, but in order to do that we need to step off that pedestal of power differential, and hand the agency back to our clients / patients so we can enter into a effective, ethical, compassionate, heart-based therapeutic relationship. #yogatherapy #reframingtherapy Fractal nature
Order amidst chaos Within and without An alchemy of life and sentience A secret volition lays beneath perception Organic but inexplicable Of divisions and multiplications Of cellular intelligence and divine technology Elemental compositions Quietly nestling in the womb of my Ma Someone once said...
Hurt, is a sensate feeling Of unpleasantness Pain, is the storylines We build around it Our wisdom In reframing Through breath Through witnessing Transforms The experience Into grit and Resilience. Navel Radiation is a pre-vertebrate pattern within the Basic Neurological Patterns/Developmental Movement paradigm of Body-Mind Centering® developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. It is the pattern of radial symmetry and relates to our earliest connection with our mother, underlying attachment and support at the navel centre. This principle organises the body from our centre (navel) to the distal parts of our 6 limbs, including the 2 upper limbs, 2 lower limbs, head and tail. Exploring this principle help us embody pivotal physiological and structural systems, including the diaphragm, the psoas muscle, the latissimus dorsi muscle, the relationship between each limb, and the kidneys. As part of a training course work in which students will apply movement principles into their practice. Lana worked with the single principle Navel Radiation through the different relationships with gravity. Using her navel centre as the anchor from stillness in supine, morphing into dynamic balancing poses into creating the balance of both stability and mobility. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mgrnTk5M2Y&t=112s #somaticmovement #yogatherapy #yogawithdaphne #movingfromwithin #navelradiation The IAYT model of Yoga Therapy (often 1:1) integrates the whole being through relationships in the Pancha Maya Kosha model, i.e the physical body, the energetic body (e.g chakra system and pancha vayus, prakriti and vikruti etc), our emotional afflictions, our thought patterns, cultural / moral beliefs and frameworks, as well our core essence. These relationships are always in flux, each aspect flowing into or resisting another, a creative play of the conscious and unconscious.
In a therapeutic setting, we are working with the Soma or the living body - recognising our body is the construct of our relationships within and without will help us to find different access points. Through movement, breath, visualisations, sound, touch, or simply holding space, we allow our cellular intelligence to come out of the shadow, a window for change and homeostasis to take place. As teachers / therapists, we need to juxtapose the insatiable quest for knowledge, while simultaneously honouring the liminal, unique, spiralling, blueprint of each person. We are co-regulating, co-creating, co-existing in each moment that unfolds. The biggest challenge is often realising that this is not a linear process, that healing isn't fixing, that therapists / teachers are merely facilitators - so we can keep uncovering, inquiring, connecting, titrating, supporting. The past 8 months has been a difficult time for me to navigate through life since the loss of my father. Toko-pa wrote that grief is healing in motion, the reaction from being torn from what you love.... And indeed, how easy it’s been to find tears welling up with a brief mention of his name, the sight of an item that belonged to him, the smell of his favourite food, the thought of never having that chance to say goodbye... 44 years ago he held me in the cradle of his arm, as he marvelled at this little bundle of creation that was me. I spent my birthday this year in memory of him, in the company of family, without the need to sanction the dosage of our loss. To allow the unravelling of healing to begin, to come undone with the sorrow and guilt that were not able to find light, and to keep feeling alive in the power of grief’s capacity to love. #grief #healing #birthday I love the sensory feedback provided by another body in Contact Improvisation, so I created my own improv with a contralateral elastic band and a foam roller. Took me a while to get into a fluid, tangled play in a dynamic relationship with gravity. I enjoyed the spontaneity and the non-linear movement that is always presenting some closed kinetic entanglement resolution :) https://youtu.be/WwkBIgGLBQY From Liz Koch, author of Core Awareness & Stalking Wild Psoas:
Yesterday I had the opportunity to talk Psoas with an orthopedic surgeon in Europe who reached out to me about this mysterious tissue. When I told him I thought psoas was a messenger he said "of course psoas is a messenger from guts... ovaries.. kidney... brain circulation.. because of connections with the parasympathetic.. it also receives messages..when its degenerative or atrophied it consequently distends nerves that pass through the psoas... n. iliohipogastricus.. ilioinguinalis... genitofemoralic.. cutaneus fem lat.. n.femoralis..n.obduratorius .. it has an influence on the circulation of gut and enlargement of its wall - what directly involves neuroendocrine cells for the production serotonin in the gut..." This surgeon confirms what I have spoken about for 43 years...that psoas can become "dry" (exhausted) and shrink (atrophy) when it has substituted or been used to over-stabilize the core. Stretching does not create healthy psoas whereas hydrating through micro-movements and increasing the bio-intelligence of the proprioceptive system, especially found within the bones...does allow psoas to flourish. He sent me...a little gift in appreciation...not what I find exciting but thought you might... Some of my additional notes for anatomy nerds on hydrating the psoas Gentle rocking and rolling through spiralling movements across the 3 planes of the body embodying the psoas as a core initiator, organised around the midline or notochord from an embryological perspective, in which the psoas is a bio-morphical development from the midline, out of the mesochyme material from the mesodermal (middle) layer of the embryonic tri-laminar disc. Movements include those that involve -
What is #embodiment?
Is it in the waking hours when I feel my breaking heart aches for love that I’ve lost, when my drifting soul yearns to be anchored, when the weight of my being longs to be held. Are they the dark sleepless nights when my shadows come out to play, in my dreams when grief and fear and sorrow rip open my guts... Embodiment involves contacting our messy, vulnerable states, resisting the urge to run away, but to stay and listen.... Yesterday I taught a class at the Special Needs Foundation in Koh Samui. This facility helps to support kids and teenagers who are on the autism spectrum. When I started the class, this young Thai boy was slumped face-down on a yoga mat, he refused to make eye contact, nor acknowledge the presence of others in the room. I decided to let him be, and started the class practising poses with a chair. After about 5 minutes, he became curious, and started to emulate what we were doing. I quietly placed a chair on his mat, and invited him to follow along. We did breath work, dynamic and grounding poses with gentle touch and repatterning, and finished with this restorative inversion with legs up the chair. Within the space of an hour, the change in his temperament was profound. He smiled and engaged with me and others verbally, his body language was one of openness. He also gave me a number of big bear hugs and walked me to my bike to bid me goodbye. The central theme in the trainings I facilitate is on the regulation of the nervous system. In Body Mind Centering, our nervous system serves as a recording device, it records every phenomenon in every moment and red flags events that might potentially threaten our perception of safety based on our biopsychosocial memory bank of experiences. Using Stephen Porges’ Polyvagal Theory as a basis to approach therapy, we can create a container of safety and compassion to mindfully titrate somatic awareness for our clients and students who suffers from anxiety, trauma or disassociative syndrome, allowing the body-mind to slowly reintegrate into a present, embodied moment. In cases of autism spectrum the nervous system is often overwhelmed. This boy was in shut-down mode before the class. What I observed was through a container of safety activation of movement, breath, and touch, his nervous system could be shifted from one of shut down and disassociation to one of presence and engagement . How often in your day do you, can you, will you, dedicate time for yourself? How often in life can you, will you, do you, set aside a whole week, or maybe even two, to retreat and reconnect? How often will you, can you, do you, let your nervous system reset, to tune into a more subtle awareness that's guided by intuition. Visualise... A time to rest, rejuvenate, rewire, relearn. A time to rediscover your body, move, dance, self-inquire, befriend yourself again. This is the kind of work we do at the annual Embodiment & Bodywork Immersion. And yes, I call it work :) If you know me, you'd know I'm not one who gives formulaic answers or quick fixes. I can't offer you a 10-step guide to bliss and enlightenment. Nor can I offer you a sequence to perfect your handstand. I can't do the work for you. BUT. I love bringing people together to co-create within a container of a retreat. I love creating a safe space to facilitate the uncovering of deep and meaningful questions. I love offering a therapeutic framework to support one another through a shedding of layers, a deep dive into shadow work, one in which we return to the basics, of remembering who are. I love bearing witness to the unexpected creative expressions that are often borne out of this work - poetry, dance, drawings, and most of all - connections. This is the flame that's burning in my heart, a conviction that there's an art to living well that's beyond being busy and a nice glass of wine after a long day, a desire to learn and share and relearn about who we are, why are we here, what makes us Us. To call this journey an immersion is my best attempt in trying to describe the phenomena that occur every year when a group of people come together to push a reset button. To move, breath, inquire into our mind, our body, our actions, our relationships. To be empowered in our own healing process by truly listening to what's within and without... And then to leave with just a little bit more clarity, intention, and wonderment in their life, an embodied experience imprinted into our cellular being. "Daphne's embodiment and immersion retreat had me seeing the true state of my humanity - a difficult time, yet arriving at a return to central love. If you are seeking truth in your existence you will find what you are looking for in the realm created by Daphne's course." ~ Geoff Nichols, Poet, Australia Access to full details When I’m drowning In the deep dark waters of emotions Windmills spinning fiercely In my tangled mind Looping thoughts Fueling desires Scalding impulses When I’m trapped in these claustrophobic spirals... Just for a moment I let my cold feet sink into the bare earth Retreat under the tone of the drone The static of why, and how, and what, and if’s... The urgency to find cool relief From interpretations, narratives The rut of cause and effect Of past and future Shackled to a conditioned self... Just for a while I close my eyes From the realm of understanding I dive into the ocean of senses With the fierce pounding of my heart in my ears Undo the stifling corset of my skin The tautness of my belly yields Breathes colours into the monochrome of my bones Space. Life. Light. Fluids. This embodied presence A gift of attunement A primordial calling through Our cellular breath A biological blueprint of revelry of wonderment A timeless infinite Photo by Rod Willner #embodiment #musing #somatics #meditation #bodymindcentering There’s a piece of recent news depicting an Instagram yogi who suffered a stroke performing a Hollowback Handstand - an “advanced” pose requires the practitioner to extend spine and create a deep backbend, all the while holding the legs in mid-air. The hyperextension of the neck resulted in a rupture of her carotid artery which sent a blood clot to her brain. It was played up dramatically across the media, and triggered a lot of fear mongering as to whether Yoga (as a physical practice) is indeed as beneficial as it purports to be. Yoga is an ancient practice on a mind-body connection. However, what seemed to hold true in contemporary postural yoga is the emphasis on the end game. 1. In a group class format, students are instructed based on pre-conceived notions of shapes or aesthetics, i.e what a pose should look like in mimicry of the form. In social media, we scroll through contortions performed by hypermobile yogis hailed as an advanced practice. 2. There is so much speak in terms of alignment principles and how to get into poses successfully. These supposed universal principles sees the body as standard human architecture of parts that fit together. 3. In an attainment-focused, you-snooze-you-loose society, we are consumed by the notion of Mind over Matter, of what we’ve got to show to the world. It’s about pushing harder in everything we do, from our career to the exercise regimes we choose. It’s about 5-steps programs and quick-fixes and how to lose weight in a month. We want everything packaged and delivered. In the trainings I facilitate, I often go on ad nauseam on this line - It’s not about WHAT we do, it’s about HOW we do it. It is not about placing your feet here and turning your head there, and voila, you’re in a yoga pose programmed for bliss. It’s not about getting deeper into a backbend so your heart can be wide open. And it’s definitely not about the teacher coming in to push you into what is considered as the correct expression of an asana to add compensatory patterns upon compensatory patterns. It’s about what happens as we’re moving from point A to point B, it’s the moment-to-moment attention our mind affords the body during the transition. It’s about noticing what we are holding on to, or what we have disassociated with. It’s observing what is happening to the breath, what runs through the mind? And once we arrive in the pose, it's the continuity of how each moment is unfolding, what is the body informing us? What do we sacrifice in order to persist? How many other possible ways can we explore? Rene Descartes’ famous theology of I think, therefore I am, led us into believing that our body and mind are separate experiences that are relational only in the ways that the latter reigns supreme. This body and mind duality leads to a conundrum of us thinking that we need to outdo our body in order to attain what our mind tells us to. And our body does abide, it finds creative ways to work around limitations such as fatigue, stress, anxiety, until it can no longer…. Moshe Feldenkrais said, “You can’t do what you want until you know what you’re doing. Once you know what you’re doing, then you can do what you want.” It is often easier to do what someone tells us to do than to actually notice what we’re doing. To self-inquire is arduous and dangerous, as it often defies dogmas. It requires us to let go of old beliefs, step outside the comforting realm of familiarity. But what it will unleash is the courage to be true to our authenticity, a reimagination of perspectives, unearthing a wisdom through learning how to listen to a deeper and more subtle consciousness . It’s not about What you do, but How you do it. Someone once told me this is a heavily-loaded statement. And indeed it is. It puts us in a volatile position of not knowing, of beginner’s mind, of not trusting our fabricated storylines that are rooted in fear. It requires us to actually have to slow down enough to glimpse into the spaces in between. But it brings us to a whole new level of a grounded, embodied intelligence that gives us back the power to make choices, the right to BE who we really are. Embodiment is a somatic experience, an exploration into the deconstructing the phenomenons that have been recorded in our nervous system, conditioned by expectations and ego. It is the ability to move into an empathic path of coming into relationships with self and others, a relearning of choices, a bridging of the body and the mind. If you're interested in exploring this work, join me on the next Embodiment & Bodywork Immersion this July. A little rolly polly floor time playing with initiating from the soft midline, from navel to limbs. Playing with low falling and reversible spiralling movements, fascia continuity and biotensegrity in finding tension and rebound :) Heartaches can be deeply isolating no matter how many friends we have, and how much we try to count our blessings. But we are not alone. Each one of us is on our own journey. And It can sometimes be fraught with shattered dreams and losing battles. No matter how pretty a picture we paint to the world, there are days when the feat of pulling the blanket off of our faces and getting out of bed is a testament of our grit and resilience. We hang on to unrequited emotions for fear of losing our sense of identity. We cling to the security of an arbitrary reference point, the yearning of a resolution. We are afraid of being forgotten, archived, our existence buried. It is easy to focus on others’ validation of our self, and hard to sit with hopelessness, paradox, ambiguity. But what if we take a pause, look around, into the eyes of the people who truly love us unconditionally... will we even contemplate the possibilities of non existence? What if we sit for awhile, without moving left, or right, and tend to the pieces within us with cool loneliness, will we be able to bask in the solace of not knowing? Listen to this recorded meditation A little psoas play inspired by Liz Koch of Core Awareness. Begin by sensing the structural support of the psoas from the initiation of the breath in the diaphragm. Tune into the undulating waves. Move into the fluidity into a continuous flow through the whole body. Explore the different planes of perspectives. Lean into PLAY. In recent years, I've moved from an alignment-based yoga practice to an intuitive, inner-guided, interoceptive somatic movement repertoire, listening to the subtler, quieter places within my body. This is a little video of a morning flow. It's edited down to 7 mins long. The first half of the video is the actual pace of my movement. The second half is sped up 5 times :)
Grief & Expansion
On 29 December 2018, I received a phone call that changed the world I knew forever. My father passed away, without warning... Everything around me crumbled in that instance. I felt my limbs went numb, and I stood frozen looking at the phone in disbelief... In the last few years several major events happened in my life, including falling severely ill over a period of time. My approach to yoga, especially the physical aspect of the practice, has to evolve with my changing body. I used to live my life so I can thrive on the yoga mat - twisting and contorting my body out of any pain or lack I might be experiencing from the inside out. But now, I work with an exploratory, somatic approach to yoga, one that can teach me how to listen deeply - as relational inquiries into our body and mind, into self and other, into how we live our lives. One of the many healings I gained from this embodied shift in perspective is the courage and humility to reconnect and forge new bonds with my family in Singapore, after living (and running) away for so many years. Consequently, the seemingly abrupt departure of my Dad left me devastated. It was difficult for me to try and come to terms with all that's left unspoken and undone, and what I would give to have him back again... A couple of months have now gone by and the world beckons me to resume back into "normalcy". It is "business as usual" ... because the system that we live in expects us to "buckle up and move on". In a cognitive universe in which we need everything to make sense, we can even atttempt to contextualise sufferings - put a label on grief with an expiry date, and set it aside. But sometimes sorrow has no resolution. Sometimes tragedies aren't accompanied with answers. Are we able to lean into our broken-heart when it asked to be witnessed? Can we deepen our relationship with ourselves instead of running away from the pain? Are we brave enough to surrender to the imprint that an untenable loss has left upon us? Can we find the gateway to grace that grief has inevitably opened up for us to walk through? In every mourning moment that my heart closes in and the walls around me erect, I pray that I will keep expanding, in his legacy of love ... Musings on grief ~ I stood watching you Sitting with grief #embryologymusing
It all begins with 1. In the Chinese tradition, we are 1 when we’re born. The Chinese take into account that life begins in the womb - the moment of conception, when our journey in this realm begins. When we study embryology, we go back in time to explore and inquire into this imprint, this period of time when chance and change reign supreme, wherein a higher order dictate the choices and decision in renewal, change and growth. In this time before there is conscious intervention driven by our nervous system, we completely rest in the womb of “being”. When we study how our form morphs from one into two, two into four, four into eight and into the 70,000,000 cells that we are now, we tap into an intelligence that is unchanging, an order that nature calls forth in order to survive and thrive. This is what embodiment is about. It is the becoming of this magnificent journeying, a recognition in the miracle of our cellular imprint, a knowing of which is unique and yet abide in the selfsame laws of the cosmos, an allowing of this divine template to support us in our expression and homeostasis. Join me in this exploration ~ Embodiment & Bodywork Immersion this July. |
Daphne Chua
Registered Yoga Therapist, Somatic Movement Educator, Bodyworker, Yoga Teacher Trainer
December 2021
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