Self Trust and the Gut

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Elyse Shafarman

Been observing the effects of emotional anxiety on my digestive system. Guts tangling like snakes. High fear alert system from my body and difficulty distinguishing what is present time threat, and what is historical. Current commitment is to trust the sensations of my body, with the caveat that the interpretation of the meaning of these sensations may not be accurate. In other words, yes, my nervous system is accurately reading danger, but the meaning of this is nuanced in a way that my gut level thinking can’t access.

It’s the same issue when we work with movement. How do we recalibrate a nervous system highly attuned to the threat of pain? Yes, you will get accurate readings that something is wrong, but the most skillful response is not necessarily to arm yourself with muscular tension and get defensive in your behaviors. It’s essential that we heed our body sensations, but sometimes, they are calling us to pause for reflection versus jump to reaction. If we can re-establish a baseline of safety, our responses and our movement become freer.

In both circumstances, getting to a truth of how things are, even if very difficult, is less anxiety provoking then anxious speculation. Then, a reliable predictive model for how optimal movement occurs, or a narrative process of self-reflection and reframing, can provide a pathway out of primal fear.

This is what’s on my mind.

Some Sitting Help

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By Bjoertvedt - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=27198216

By Bjoertvedt – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0

Stand up. Find your hip joints. Locate your “bikini” line, and find the place where, if you press into it, your pelvis will shoot back in space. That’s where your hip joint is. Note that this is just the frontal plane. Your hip joint is a 3D structure, and exists on the side and backplane of your pelvis also.

Place your thumbs in your hips joints and your hands around your leg bones, so that you can feel for the rotation of your thighs (femurs) as you flex and extend your pelvis. When you send your pelvis back in space, notice that your femurs internally rotate. You might be able to feel a slight widening in the sit bones. When you extend your hip joints, you will feel external rotation of the femurs, coupled with a narrowing of the sit bones.

You can also practice sitting in a chair. Explore a gentle motion of rocking forwards and backwards on your sit bones. Sense the widening of your sit bones as your rock forward, coupled with internal rotation of the femurs. Sense the narrowing of your sit bones as you rock backwards, coupled with external rotation of the thighs. Find a balance point with the pelvis slightly tilted forward (sit bones widening). This helps to establish the lumbar curve of your back and will make sitting upright feel much easier. The slight lumbar curve will also help to release the shoulders as the fascia of the back will tend to tug the shoulder blades down a bit.

How does this differ from how you ordinarily sit?

Most people have a hard time finding and moving from the hip joints. Do you bend your head forward or extend your chest instead of moving at the hip joint? To isolate the movement to your hip joints, it’s helpful to imagine a marble sliding down the chute of the spine. When it reaches the tailbone, that’s the moment to lean forward.

As a final note, this type of mechanical guidance does not sum up the Alexander technique, which I would frame as a holistic method for enhancing our conscious lived experience of being embodied. I offer this mechanical exploration, because so many of my students have discomfort sitting.

Knowing a little bit about the geometry of your bones can make a tiresome daily activity easier.

Beating Anxiety With Self-Talk: A Cheat-Sheet, Guest Blog by Caitlin Margaret

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Think back to the last time you were anxious.

Do you remember the conversation you were having with yourself before the anxiety hit?

Probably not. Most likely, you can only remember how you felt. The fear. The panic. The worry.

And that’s normal. We can get so overwhelmed by the feelings that anxiety brings on that we don’t pay any attention to what we’re saying to ourselves in the moment.

In an earlier post, we talked about the importance of tackling anxiety from every angle. And how we talk to ourselves is a big factor in that equation.

In this post, I want to help you identify your negative self-talk patterns and offer a proven way to help you flip that internal script around and lower your anxiety as a result. When you’re done reading, download your self-talk cheat sheet to beat anxiety and write your own personalized script.

Dealing with Anxiety: What were you thinking?

One of the biggest challenges for a lot of my clients is identifying the negative thoughts that race through their minds when they’re anxious.

Many of them are so used to their own self-abusive chatter—“What’s wrong with you?” “How are you going to screw this one up?”—that they’re not even aware of it or how it’s fueling their anxiety, making it next to impossible to manage.

Ask yourself this: In most situations, but especially stressful ones, do you tend to turn on yourself? Do you find yourself saying things like, “Ugh, What’s my problem?” or start making a mental list of  all the ways that you could fail?

That, my friends, is negative self-talk.

It’s the damaging thoughts to ourselves about ourselves. And these anti-pep talks feed anxiety.

But there are proven practices for overcoming these thought patterns, most notably, those derived from cognitive behavioral therapy and positive psychology

The primary principle of these practices is that our thoughts lead to our feelings. And those feelings lead to our behaviors.

Try this … close your eyes and say to yourself “I am stupid and ugly.”

How do you feel physically? Do you feel tightness in your chest? Or sick to your stomach? Do you feel small? Drained?

How about emotionally?

Do you feel a little beat up? Hopeless? Depressed?

What actions would you take if you were faced with a stressful situation right now? Would how you feel make you more likely to retreat or react defensively?

Now, close your eyes, and this time tell yourself, “I am beautiful on the inside and outside.”

Now how do you feel? Does your body feel lighter and more energized? Are you happier and less anxious? How would you handle that stressful situation now?

Thoughts drive feelings and actions … and anxiety

With the exception of some basic reflexes, our thoughts precede our feelings and actions, and influence both.

The thoughts we have are based on how we’re taught perceive our world. In any given situation, what we’re thinking about what’s happening is determined by the conclusions we’ve drawn from our experiences over the years.

These conclusions have been drawn mostly in our subconscious mind, so many times we’re not even aware of them. As a matter of fact, throughout the day our brain is acting on hundreds of unconscious thoughts before our conscious mind even catches on.

For example, an abused or neglected child will have significantly different thoughts about family life from a child raised with love and respect.

And his negative thoughts about his family—that he’s not loved or valued—will likely lead to feelings of anxiety or depression when he thinks about starting a family of his own.

But the person raised in a loving home will probably feel connected and appreciated when thoughts about family come up.

Constructive Self-talk Decreases Anxiety

So how do you fight back against your own negative thoughts when they’re often so deeply ingrained? Well, here’s the good news: Negative self-talk is just a habit. All thinking patterns are, really. And all habits can be broken.

You can start training your mind to overcome these thoughts by identifying each one and transforming it into a constructive, uplifting statement. This constructive self-talk becomes your new habit, replacing that old, broken record of your damaging inner dialog.

Now, keep in mind we’re using the word “constructive” here, and not “positive.” It can be hard to truly buy into “positivity” when you’re feeling down. This should be an authentic experience that rings true to you. You can’t fool yourself, after all.

Constructive self-talk isn’t about being constantly cheerful and ignoring reality. It just means that you actively choose to quiet that inner critic and replace it with empowering thoughts that are more based in reality.

So, how does it work? It’s all about neuroplasticity.

Each time you have a repeated experience, like your daily drive to work, you deepen the neural grooves in your brain that help you remember it. Eventually, you don’t even think about the ride anymore, you just automatically know how to get there.

Let’s say one day you start taking a new route. Now you’re creating new neural pathways to embed those directions in your brain. And the more those neurons fire and communicate, the stronger that neural pathway becomes. Pretty soon, driving that route is second nature.

Breaking negative thought patterns works the same way. If, instead of telling yourself you’re going to bomb before a presentation, you remind yourself that you’re qualified to speak on the topic and providing value to your audience, you’ll soon be more inclined to approach the podium with more confidence.

This neuroplasticity allows for the reprogramming of our brains  to naturally gravitate to more compassionate self-talk over time.

And research shows constructive self-talk can boost your confidence and greatly reduce your stress levels and anxiety.

And the benefits don’t end there. Change your negative thought patterns and you’ll also see:

  • A longer, healthier life
  • Lower rates of depression
  • Lower levels of distress
  • Less colds
  • Increased psychological and physical well-being
  • Improved cardiovascular health

It takes three to four weeks of daily practice to form a new habit to get your brain to make the switch over to more constructive thought patterns. I want to help you take the first step.

The cheat sheet I’ve shared here takes you through the exact process that has helped hundreds of my clients turn their negative thoughts on their head to create loving and constructive self-talk and overcoming their anxiety once and for all.

Once you’ve created your personalized script, habit-ize it baby! Ingrain that sucker. Keep it with you throughout the day. Put a copy in your wallet. Write it on a post-it and stick it on your mirror. Record it on your phone.

Then read it at least three times a day. Listen to it on your way to work. Let it be your support when you’re faced with a stressful situation.

The more you repeat it, the more you’ll deepen those shiny new neural grooves in your brain. Until one day your brain is teaming with constructive statements, and there’s no room left for anxiety—which will lead to a big boost in confidence.

Download your cheatsheet now!

About the author:
Caitlin Margaret is a Holistic Life Coach, empowering men and women around the world to naturally heal their anxiety, turn their professional dreams into reality, and design vibrant and meaningful lives

Eyes Free and Wide to See from the Point of Vision

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Elyse Shafarman

Eyes free and wide to see from the point of vision — Countess Kitty Wielopolska

Sometimes, the Alexander Technique eye direction is described as a Zen Koan. What is the point of vision? No one knows. I imagine that the point of vision is the occipital cortex, the location in the back of the brain that does the job of seeing. Knowing that my brain can work helps me to relax my eyes. Sure, the optic muscles have plenty to do in terms of focusing and orienting, but it helps to remember that the eyes are light receptors, and it’s the visual cortex that sees.

A little history: The eye direction was originated by Countess Kitty Wielopolska, an American who attended FM Alexander’s first training courses. To say that Kitty lead an interesting life is an undersatement. She left the Alexander training course due to a schizophrenic break and spent time an institution. Her illness remitted, she became a nurse and eventually married Count Wieloplska. Later in life, Kitty completed her training as an Alexander Technique Teacher. She mastered the schizophrenic voices that still spoke to her by using the Alexandrian process of inhibition. When she heard voices, she was able to inhibit an automatic response to believe or obey them. For anyone who remembers, “A Beautiful Mind,” the story of the Nobel prize winning mathematician John Nash, this conscious route to self-healing will sound remarkably familiar. Kitty created the “eye order,” as a creative response to her sister’s narrowing vision from cataracts. Kitty observed that directing the eyes seemed to have a global effect on her quality of attention and freedom.

The direction, “Eyes wide to go apart,” frees the forehead, lips, tongue, shoulders, neck and even hips. For anyone familiar with modern research into the polyvagal theory, the connection between calm relaxed attention and freeing of key structures associated with head orientation and communication should be no surprise. Kitty and her collaborators surmised that the eye order seemed to signal her nervous system to come to a state of openness.

No doubt that what we do with our eyes and face has a lot to do with social signalling. Often we tighten our eyes to indicate that we are listening, paying attention, or even putting on our compassion face (you know what I mean). You can probably name the myriad of “faces” you wear to be liked and accepted by the tribe. Sometimes it’s a good idea to check in and ask if social signaling is replacing genuine felt emotion, and what the cost might be to your use. By “use”  I mean the total sum of your mental, emotional and physical responses to life.

An expanded visual field is conducive to psychological openness. It’s trite but true to say that with open awareness we are more likely to see more than one side to a problem. In contrast, narrow vision is correlated to problem solving and heightened vigilance (aka stress). Obviously, concentration is necessary in the short term, but when employed unremittingly, as we do in our small screen culture, it will effect the quality of our use – and perhaps our cultural behavior.

I could write more about this, and probably will, but for now, play a bit with thinking, “Eyes free to go wide”. What happens to your seeing, your breathing, your state of mind and state of heart?

To support this, here’s a practice to relax the facial muscles:
Relax Your Face, Elevate Your Mood

To learn more about Countess Wielopolska:
Here’s an article that I originally read as a xeroxed sheaf while a student at the Alexander Training Institute: From a lecture by Countess Catharine Wielopolska, Certied Alexander Technique Teacher

This book, by Kitty and interviewer Joe Armstrong is a fascinating catalog of Kitty’s life and one of the rare explorations of the relationship between the FM Alexander Technique and mental illness Never Ask Why, by Kitty Wielopolska 

Shoe talk

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Getting minimalist shoes is something to think about – but certainly not a requirement.

I wrote this for a student with osteoarthritic knees. We’ve been working on correcting the way her leg bones spiral when bending and straightening. The correct direction of spiral removes the pain completely. This has been going well, so I felt it was time to address the subject of her so called “healthy shoes”, ultra padded running shoes replete with motion control, arch support and a hidden 1.5-inch heel lift.

To get the knees to work better, it’s going to help if the feet and ankles can do their job in the most unfettered manner possible. When we go barefoot, the foot can change shape and adapt more flexibly to different surfaces and different physical demands. The intrinsic muscles of the foot get strong and flexible. The forefoot and rear foot have the freedom to counter twists appropriately between inversion/pronation and eversion/supination, depending on the stage of the gait cycle. This means that ground reaction force moves up through the body in a way that creates powerful stored elastic tension and spares the joints from pain and wear. Restrictive shoes might jack up the heel, limit foot motion via arch support, control pronation, squeeze the toes, among a few of the  impositions on natural movement.

We tend to think of our hands as sensitive intelligent instruments and our feet as bricks that we shove into padded casing. Your foot has 26 bones and 33 joints. The sole of the foot is a rich landscape of sensory receptors. Our feet have evolved to move in a myriad of directions and relay a rich schema of environmental data to our brain. In shoes with very padded soles, our sensory feedback is diminished. In the absence of good data, the brain protects the body by tensing the feet, ankles, knees, and everything above.

You can test this out. Wear only one sock and have one barefoot foot. Walk around your house. Notice the difference in how your two legs move. Which leg is freer and more fluid? Which foot feels secure? Which leg do you trust? Which limb feels pleasurable to use? If your answer is the side that’s barefoot, you have just discovered the impact of better proprioceptive data on physical movement.

You can assist this process by using a foot roller or other implement to wake up the sensory receptors in the skin of your feet. If you google wooden foot roller, you’ll get dozen’s of results.

Minimalist shoes offer less support and protection to the foot, and can take a while to get used to. I recommend starting with only an hour or two at a time to help the intrinsic muscles of the foot adapt to the new level of work demand.

Personally, I like
Vivobarefoot
Earthrunners
Softstarshoes
Xero

Flip flops, although they appear minimal, can be a problem because it’s necessary to squeeze the toes to keep the shoe on. Same thing with clogs. You want your toes to only have to do the work they were meant to do.

And hey, summer is coming. Time to go to the beach and feel the sand between your toes.

P.S. As a final note, it is possible to use your feet well, or at least better, while wearing fashionable shoes. This is the sort of thing that I help my acting students work with. It’s reasonable to choose aesthetics over function to survive in our culture from time to time. I tend to save my fashionable shoe time for tango or the occasional date night. The rest of my life, I like to let my feet roam free.

Photo by Jordan Whitt on Unsplash

 

Oral Cavity Like a Cathedral Ceiling

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Pause for a second and visualize the soft palate space, and even up above into the oral and nasal cavities, which are located just behind the cheek bones. Imagine these spaces like the dome of a cathedral ceiling rising over the throat cavity, carrying the head up. Imagine the neck muscles melting, releasing any downward pull on the head. The jaw can stay uninvolved. The jaw does not need to help lift the head or stabilize the neck.

Similarly, imagine your tailbone free to hang and move, almost like a little tadpole. No weight should be carried through the tailbone, it hangs off the sacrum and serves as an anchor for muscles of the pelvic floor. When you sit, you are on your sit bones, the tail is free.

Freeing the tail and the head to “swim” away from each other on opposite ends of the spine can help provide both length and greater spinal mobility, and encourage an elastic tone for the pelvic floor and soft palate; not too tight or too slack.

You can visualize this while sitting, walking, standing, or in other activities.

It’s very helpful to pause during daily life, check in with these areas, and remind yourself to allow more movement.