astracoyle – Page 3

March 21, 2022August 8, 2022

Solstice – inside and out

We are at a turning point in the year when day and night are about equal.
What can be easily seen and what is hidden are in balance.

Last week a friend invited me over to see the house renovation she’d worked on for 3 years. The house looked amazing. I assumed that she had just made surface changes to it.

Turns out that while the house looked really good, it had a BIG hidden problem.

Shortly after she bought her house, it started sinking. Unbeknownst to her it was built on fill dirt. A structural engineer had looked at the house before they bought it, but the engineers had been fooled by the appearance of the concrete apron on the outside of the house and failed to see what was behind the apron. Turns out, there was any real support. It was out there to fool everyone. It worked!

Last week I had a student talk about how their interior world, their experience of who they are, does not match how they appear to others. This brave soul shared that while she can observe herself and how she appears to the world – successful, healthy and capable – on the inside, she feels the like poo 🙀.

Through our work together she wants to close that gap and to experience and sense herself as capable, successful and healthy. She wants to FEEL it!

Most of us know what it is like to have those gaps in our self-image – to look one way to the outside world but feel another way inside. I sure have.

For many years after my Dad died, I had to fake it until I made it in order to survive. I played a role at work. I was happy to do it because it was the only time I was not crying. I liked answering phones and doing administrative tasks because they were concrete and gave me a relief from the difficulty.

That was smart at the time. I needed to income to pay my rent and to eat. I also needed to go to work to catch a break now from my mind and heart.

This pattern lasted 3 years. I got stronger.

A few years later, during my Feldenkrais Professional Training Program, I was receiving a hands-on lesson, called Functional Integration, in front of 60 students from a guest trainer I did not know very well. To get a lesson from a Trainer is a rare thing. I was really excited. Little did I know what was about to go down…

We sat side by side on the table, and while he was chatting to the class he was gently moving my vertebrae toward my head and down toward my pelvis – very gently, very small beautiful rocking movements. I melted. I rounded, my head dropping down and leaned back toward him. I wanted lean on someone else – literally and physically. I was bone deep tired form holding myself up for so many years.

Because he was teaching, he said something aloud he would have never have said to me if it was a private lesson. He said, “On the outside Astra holds her chest up high, but on the inside, she wants to collapse.”

He was right. I was humiliated. I thought I had been fooling everyone.

I had done a tremendous amount of healing, but now, to improve and grow further, I could no longer just give the appearance of being strong. I needed to learn how to be supported and strong internally. I had been willing and working hard to hold my chest up to cover up my vulnerability. Now, I had the opportunity to learn how to hold my chest with real functional support instead of pure will alone.

This is why so many of us report a gap between how we experience ourselves and how we appear to others or on paper. Chasing the exterior solution alone NEVER works. You may fool other people, but you can’t fool yourself.

And here’s why that really stinks – it is so sad, so tragic, to spend our lives covering up how we really feel so we can appear a certain way. You spend your life being you. Your waking hours are spent sensing and feeling YOU.

You can build success and strength internally. To do that, you must have a real lived, sensed and felt experience of internal strength, of adaptability, of functionality. Once your nervous system has had that experience, it is yours for life. Your body and brain will not forget it.

You have biological optimism on your side. Your nervous system wants you to succeed.

When students do lessons, they have an opportunity to build real lived somatic experiences of themselves as capable and functional. As they do this, they care less and less about the appearance of their life. Their lives become an outgrowth of the internal infrastructure they have built.

We all have this innate capacity. We just need to learn how to use it.

This weekend, I hope to plant some peas. In the months to come they will send up shoots and beautiful, sweet vegetables to eat. But first, while deep in the dark soil, they will use the nutrients and water to build a root system. From that root, they will grow. I hope you will too.

February 25, 2022February 25, 2022

Dream a little dream🌈

Each week during for the past year, I met with a friend who is a Professor of Economics at a college in Boston.

He is curious, funny, silly, kind and thoughtful. He has studied everything economics to theater and Feldenkrais. He grew up in New York in a family from both Sri Lanka and Lebanon so – he always brings an amazing perspective to any conversation.

He asked to meet, because while he loves teaching, he was frustrated that his students were focused on the grade and the ‘right’ answer. They showed little interest in learning or creative thinking.

These students were trying to look at incredibly complex global issues – like the impact of the global economy on farming for the European market in Central America. He want them to succeed in solving some of these issues, but he also wanted them to understand that the answers were not simple and there was rarely one solution.

My friend has been a student in many Feldenkrais classes and understood that what Moshe Feldenkrais created was a method of education. Movement is simply the means used to explore a way of learning and change – but the process can be extracted and applied to many situations.

I had heard these stories – about people who used the Feldenkrais Method process to learn a new language and things like that – so I was delighted when he called me!

The applications are endless. Ultimately the movement and learning how to direct our attention is a means to the change and learning people seek.

My friend wanted to figure out how to take the method Feldenkrais teachers use for lessons and apply it to his classes.

It is one of the most fun projects I have ever done.

We talked about basic principles that I use when teaching – like beginning with what is easy and already known and building from there, using intentional mistakes to clarify what works, engaging the nervous system so that the present moment is all consuming, and teaching from less to greater complexity so that there is no way to know what the end point or goal might be.

In a test run class, he taught to a group of colleagues, he asked the participants when the last time they “recalled being fully immersed in a process? When were they in process and not focused on the outcome? When were they in the zone?”

Each person, unprompted, talked about a physical experience – riding a bike, rock climbing, cooking, baking etc. I don’t think it was by chance that they all connected and described being in flow by being connected to their bodies.

Our bodies get our attention like nothing else can. They call us to the moment we are living.❤️

This past week I heard poet David Whyte pose questions while being interviewed by Krista Tippett.

“How could you be the ancestor of your own future happiness? What conversation could you begin? What promises could you make to your future self? What promises could you break to become the ancestor of your future self? What could you do to step onto the path that would make a better future for yourself in the world in which you have been given your gifts? “

Most of us, early on in our lives, when we were still dependent mammals, established relationship patterns, dynamics, habits that it would now serve us to disrupt.

My friend, the economics professor does that all the time. I think this is part of being someone who never ‘fit in’ anywhere. He always had a unique perspective. Plus he’s spent years training himself to be self aware and to respect what he discovers.

He could show up at work and only step into his role as an economics professor, leaving the parts of him that didn’t traditionally belong in that role at home and just act as he is expected. Instead, he pays attention to the many aspects of himself – including the years spent studying meditation and Feldenkrais – and brings those into every room.He doesn’t say ‘this is an economics class and mindfulness doesn’t apply here.”

When frustrated, he thought about leaving his job, but then he asked, “how could this be better? How could this experience be more meaningful to me and my students once they leave the room?”

He dreamed of the students respectfully engaging with these complex issues, understanding their complexity and yet, being willing to find solutions.

It is what I hope for all of us – not to stay in boxes society has drawn around us, especially when they limit us.

He did not stay in just one box. He didn’t want his students to either. He disrupted the roles expected or imposed. He grew beyond them.

When we can show up with our whole self, and allow all of that to be present and unfold into being, we are onto something truly satisfying.

3 weeks ago it felt like my life was beginning to be future facing. I had 4 projects come through that were all met with a ‘yes’ to what I proposed. I was THRILLED.🌈

Then within two weeks, one project needed to be put-on long-term hold and another is on pause. For various reasons my collaborators realized that they were not ready to move forward. Like me and most of us, they are clearing off the cobwebs after 2 years and slowly finding our footing.

We might not know the precise way forward, but for most of us it is safe now to begin to dream 🌈🌟 again – what is it we want to dream into being?

I’m going to begin with the questions from poet David Whyte.
“How could you be the ancestor of your own future happiness?
What conversation could you begin?
What promises could you make to your future self?
What promises could you break to become the ancestor of your future self?”

Wishing you all the best,
Astra

February 4, 2022

Seeds of change

“Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.”
– Thich Nhat Hanh

This is a seed of a moment.

Change is in the air.

I know many of you are feeling burnt out. Students and friends keep saying how they are ‘over it’ and ready to move on.

We are tired, but we also know there is work to be done to reimagine the lives and world we want to live and love in ❤️.

Anyone who tells you they know what is to come next is lying or fooling themselves.

None of us know – unless we see ourselves as passive without a part. In that case, the decisions will be made for us.

What if we are the ones to build it? ⚡️

When I read The Potent Self, I fell in love. FINALLY a brilliant scholar and scientist was talking about how to take a look at what I had internalized from my culture come to believe about myself. He said I could do it with my whole self in a way that was PLEASURABLE.

I had read a lot of philosophy and religious texts. None had said this.
The way forward:
✅ was not an exercise of my will alone
✅ would not rely on my intellect and thinking alone
✅ wouldn’t rely on my verbal analysis alone

The way forward was through connecting to my body. The same pathways that had formed my self-image in the first place, the ones I had used as an infant and child – movement, sensation and my felt sense – could be accessed to build a new self-image of my own choosing!

I would and could build my internal landscape on my own terms. I still am.

Regardless of why a student initially decides to work with me – what we are unpacking in some form is who they came to believe they were and building what it is they would like to experience and be instead.

Anxiety, depression, burn out, loneliness is all part of living in a society that is living out of sync with the needs of our nervous systems and bodymind. We are out of sync with ourselves and with one another.

Each and every one one of us has a part(s) of us that are marginalized by our culture – we have learned to hide those parts. The illnesses and discomforts we experience are part of this burying.

Don’t get me wrong, I am glad we have agreements across cultures, but it also often means that we relegate parts of ourselves to the shadows and underground of our life. We leave parts of ourself in the shadows and neglect them, but they do not go away, instead they fester.

When we deny any expression or contact with that part of us, we do ourselves a disservice.

Let’s look at it in terms of who has access to power – within ourselves in and in our cultures.

This month is the US is dedicated to honor Black History. Obviously, we don’t have a need for White History month because it is the dominant power running the show, determining the values and the storylines. We could say that recognizing Black History month is the beginning of publicly naming the inequity in society and the work that needs to be done. Obviously dedicating one month to an entire group within the society is not adequate and not the whole solution. But can it be a start? Can we start to listen to people whp were npt given access to power?

I have a family member who is gay. This family member had always brought same sex partners to holiday dinners etc. No one talked about it, but no one seemed to care either. At some point this person, for a variety of reasons, decided to ‘announce’ that they were gay.

I was maybe 23 years old. I called my Dad and started going on and one about how great it was that they felt comfortable telling us.

My Dad’s response totally stopped me in my tracks.

“I don’t think this is great. Astra, did you call me and announce that you preferred to date men? No. You didn’t. We will have made real progress when this does not need to be announced. When we all truly have equal access to power, we can show up as we are. No announcement needed.”

He was right.

That is the future I want to build toward. That future is going to take being willing to be awake while being hopeful, joyful and determined. Yes, it will need to include pleasure and rest too.

Each of us has felt excluded from our culture or our family at some time – we have all gotten a big “no” here and there. We felt on the outside somehow. What did you do with those parts of yourself? Where do they go when you got the signal that they were not supposed to have a seat at the table?

I was once told by a professor in college that I was brilliant, but couldn’t write. 🤣He said that until I learned to write, no one would understand me. I stopped writing for a long time. I quit college for a year.

What he didn’t say was “you have a desire to relay complex information that may be hard to boil down into a soundbite or short paper for my class. Have you ever considered learning how to break those complex ideas into parts? Maybe I can teach you.”

I honestly thought I was lacking or incapable. I was ashamed. I carried that around for YEARS and YEARS. I thought he knew something about me that I didn’t know.

Moshe Feldenkrais thought that the children he worked with who were born with brains or bodies that put them on the margins of society were the most free. For example, the kids who needed braces to walk – they never had the sense that they could fit in. They were off the hook of societal expectations. They were free.

If you are someone who wants to rebuild your self or your society , consider bringing all parts of yourself along – even the parts that you were taught should not have a voice. Can you grant them a voice? Can you give them some freedom?

The parts on the fringe often hold great insight about what is broken or needs change in the society. They can see it all.

What parts of yourself have you made bad or other? How might you connect with them? How might you extend compassion?

You must step back and get a bog picture in order to have a better understanding and compassion.

If you can do this for yourself – you can also do it for others. And the other way around too-
if you already do that for others, you can allow this for yourself.

If you want to look at how it lands in your body – notice the places you are tight, sore, stiffen and contract. Where is your breath shallow?

Can you surrender and allow parts of your body to rest? What happens when you do? Do you collapse? Do you feel better?

If you find it hard to let go of the contraction or muscle that is sore, instead try to tighten and stiffen even more. Then let go. Now notice how you feel. Notice your breath.

This moment asks us about our own power, and our collective power –
Let’s look where we might find freedom within the constraints of our life? Maybe we can take whatever it is we are chafing against and leverage that for growth?

This moment is sobering, but our fate is not sealed. Maybe we can make a pearl from sand.

A BIG thanks to those who joined the class I am assisting in. More chances to learn coming your way soon.

Lots of love and cheers,
Astra

February 4, 2022

When affirmations are not enough

Identity based habits work and lead to long term change. Goal setting alone does not.

Your current behavior is just a reflection of your current self-image/identity.
Your identity is based on your past experiences with your caretakers, culture, and environment when you were still a dependent child and didn’t have lots of choice.
you can build in new choices at any time for the rest of your life.

How you behave and what you choose is a direct reflection of your identity
(not necessarily consciously).

You can change your identity and make new choices at any time.
If you want to modify your behavior and outcomes – you need to believe different things about yourself.
You build beliefs from ACTUAL experiences you have.
Experiences are first felt and sensed by the nervous system long before they are ‘known’ by the conscious mind.
you have to have an experience first, even if small or subtle, in order to be able to build on it and grow it into a new habit, self-image or identity.
Experiencing a variety of sensations through movement lessons is a direct way to build your capacity.

The more you feel and sense = the more experiences you have to draw upon and grow:
in your self-image & in how you think and feel about yourself
in how you think about who you are and what you are capable of being and doing.

💜🙌🏽🙌🏽🙌🏽💜
The pace in my life is picking up speed. Happy to say that this week I began working as an assistant teacher with one of my mentors David Zemach Bersin in a workshop called “Liberate Your Mood: a series of mood Lifting Feldenkrais Lessons.”

Very few Feldenkrais teachers choose to focus on emotions like I do – so when someone else does, I am thrilled;-) 🌈🦄

Here’s what David said in the intro “I’m eager to focus on the psychological relief that so many people experience doing Feldenkrais lessons. There’s a lot more than reducing stress going on here! We can do lessons to facilitate the development of comfort, choice, authenticity, confidence, agency, resilience, hope, and optimism. We can do lessons to free ourselves from long-time self-limiting patterns and bring our nervous system back to a relaxed, parasympathetic state. I believe this is one of the most profound benefits of the Feldenkrais Method.”

Best to you!
Astra

January 15, 2022

Is your life a product? Or a process?

A student of mine, who I have had the pleasure of working with for over 10 years, recently came to me because she had old back pain resurface. She had a pattern that had originated with an accident, but once that was healed and resolved, the pain would return under stress.

Old habits we have learned or experienced don’t magically go away. They stay in the brain. Yet, we can learn more pleasurable and functional ways of moving and being that don’t hurt. The body/brain likes them;-) And overtime, they can become our habits. 🌈The old ones, in a sense, lose dominance.

My student is a psychotherapist. As you can imagine working masked through the pandemic trying to help people has been extra hard. For one, she can’t see the most significant part of the face for expression! The lower half of our face both consciously and unconsciously communicates so much of what we are feeling, thinking and what is going on with us.

One small bite of the lip or movement of the mouth – we notice it and register that something is going on for that person no matter what they are saying out loud. We read the face and know when a persons words don’t match their insides.

For humans not seeing the lower half of the face and trying to ‘read’ and sense what is going on with another person is like having a dog that is unable to smell. It is REALLY hard to function.

When I explained this (with more detail) and the stress that it could cause to the nervous system – she got teary eyed. She had not really stopped to consider just how much harder her job had gotten. She was in a tough situation, she didn’t really want to stop and reflect. She wanted to get it over with…

We have all been there.

Sometimes we don’t want to be present to what is going on because it is hard, painful, stressful (at times it is even best not to be with it in the moment in order to survive the moment). We do all sorts of things unconsciously to lessen our connection to the situation. We hold our breath and tense our abdomen. We tense our muscles and ‘brace’ ourselves. We clench our jaw. We tighten our throat so we don’t yell. We brace our chest so it doesn’t hurt our heart.

Doing these things can be effective in the short term. We can steel ourselves in a situation to ‘get through’ it. The problem is that it becomes a way of living.

We’ get through’ our day at work, our workout at the gym, our family gathering.

We act like we will ‘live’ when these things are over.

Do we though?

For many of us, we unwittingly start living like we are just getting through it.” I’ll really live when I retire, when I ….”

This approach becomes a plan that turns into a habit.

Habits like this zap 💀us of living. They cut us off from the beauty right in front of us. 👋

Each day, my student was seeing as many people as she could, taking few breaks. This was all so she could get home and go for a run before it was dark out.

When I asked when the back pain resurfaced, she said it was when she started to add mileage to her daily runs.
“Why did you want to add mileage?”
“Because the runs were not helping me get exhausted enough to be able to sleep. My brain would still be going at night and keep me up. I have to be really physically tired to sleep. “

It became clear that she was going through her day, getting it all in as fast as possible in order that she could be ‘done’ and get home. She was holding it all in and then running it all out.

That approach works for a while. Running is a great way to release the stress, but her body was telling her it was not working anymore. I don’t think it was the running or increase in distance that was the issue.

She needed to learn how to regulate herself more throughout her day – how to take breaks, recharge and find pleasure throughout the day instead of getting home ready to burst .

The “waiting until” strategy it is very different when we LIKE our job or the thing we are doing and YET we are still acting like we need to get it over with. It is understandable how she got there. She was just treading water as long as she could.

This pandemic is endemic. There is no clear ‘end.’ There will only be a normalizing of a new way of proceeding.

My student had not quite seen that she was trying to outrun and will herself through a very long period of stress. Her body was showing her she could not outrun it. She was going to have to find another way to proceed.

All it took was a few questions. And just like that… she had the ability to see her pattern. 🌟

She had the chance to see her agency and where she might make small changes during her day. Because even though the running is where the pain showed up – it was what she was doing during her day that was the root of the issue.

Could she take more mini breaks between clients? Could she do things that were more pleasurable here and there? Could she go outside and look at the sky now and then?

These things are very simple, and they make a difference. We want the answers to be big and dramatic – but they rarely are.

Instead of getting through it, she started to consider how she might bring more enjoyment into the day. And how she might get home, still wanting to run, but not ready to explode with stress.

After talking, I gave her a hands-on lesson. She found a functional way to move again. Her back didn’t hurt at all.

Consider the process lived. The more you engage with your body and your sensations the more present you will be in your day-to-day life. When you can, feel what you feel, see what you see, smell what you smell, and taste your food. – it will deliver smack into the process of living like nothing else can.

And once you are in the process – in your body and all of its humanity, you will also experience awe, wonder, creativity and all things that are transcendent and feel bigger than you too. Our finite bodies are our connection to things much greater than us. Our finite bodies are how we experience it all.

You are not a product. You are a process.

Consider paying attention. I promise you will not be disappointed.
XO
_______________
Ways to learn together in 2022:

I have been taking time to reflect on the past year, and look ahead. When I asked myself what I miss and want to create or bring into the world – one thing I hear loud and clear is that I want to teach more often.

While I truly feel blessed by and love the opportunities, I have had over the past 2 years to teach at conferences, summits and to people all over the globe, I want more consistent connection with students. I miss knowing you.

One silver lining of the pandemic was a chance to study with some world renowned teachers. I have been studying breathwork, Somatic Experiencing with Peter Levine, as well as attending conferences with trauma and resilience expert Gabor Mate. It has informed my understanding of the nervous system and am excited to share this with you.

I am beginning an in person 7 week Awarness Through Movement series in the end of January! Very excited after being gone for so long.❤️

Shortly after that series begins, I would love to teach a 7 week series online. Awareness Through Movement lessons on a theme meeting 1x/week for 60-75 minutes.❤️

First theme =This class series will include somatic movement lessons that explore of how we can be deeply engaged in a process of change while caring for ourselves, and doing what is both pleasurable and regenerative. Students will have a chance to release old tension patterns in body and mind while building new patterns for both being and doing.
I will also share basic information about how your nervous system, body and brain work together as a system so you can begin to not only experience it, but also understand it.
Interested? Just reply to this email and I will send you more details.

Online classes and workshops:
People find these surprisingly intimate. It is really quite nice to be in the comfort of your home and learn. You need Wi-Fi and a camera and a place to lie or sit.
Generally, these classes take place from 12pm – 1pm weekdays (as this allows people to join from the west coast to Europe). For EST time zone it is a good break time mid-day.

In person Hands on Lessons:At my new studio, I see a limited # of students for hands on lessons in person. So nice!
Each lesson is tailored to your individual needs and allows for specific input.
These lessons take place with vaccination, ventilation, masks with adequate time between students for cleaning

1:1 online – this is personalized time according to your needs and wishes that includes some talking, and a verbally directed movement lesson tailored specifically to you in the moment.
All meetings and lessons are recorded. All recordings are yours to use and keep. For those interested, I also curate and suggest lessons from my recordings or from other teachers and sources.

THANKS!

January 15, 2022

Freedom from the Hustle

an ode to Jay Z

Happy New Year’s Day 2022!
Thank you for being here.
As we turn the page on another year, I am reviewing the past 2 years (because who knows when 2020 ended and 2021 began) and dreaming about what is to come.

While so much of our world culture asks us to focus on what we will do… instead I am thinking about how I want to be, what I want to feel and the energy I will exude.🌟

Getting to this point has been a journey. I used to be primarily goal focused. You need to do x,y,z to win the prize? Hustle! “Ok. I will do it!” This sort of worked except I didn’t know what to do when I failed – like with meditation and achieving enlightenment 🤣And I internalized failing as if it meant I was something or was not something.

If you think you are something or are not something – then you are stuck. You’ve got to have it or not and ain’t nothing you can do. Not a fun place to be.

Then, came kids and motherhood. A job with no end. And as I learned, you can’t make a kid sleep. You really can’t – trust me. I tried in vain. Motherhood and my kids helped me realize that my life view needed recalibrating. If I stayed focused on the goal, I was going to be miserable and so would my family.

I remember planning a birthday gathering for my husband at our house when I still had kids under 4 years old. I was running around like a maniac – cleaning, vacuuming, moving piles. Besides wanting to throw a nice party, I was also really wanting not to stress myself and end up snapping at my kids or husband.

As I hustled around the room, I kept checking in with myself – was the amount of tension and stress I was moving with necessary? Did anyone else really care how clean the floor was? Did I care?

After friends had arrived, I looked up at the mantle above our wood stove to find a tennis sneaker perched on the mantle along with a dustpan and brush. It was an epiphany moment;-) – a true turning point.

Spotting the forgotten stuff and laughing instead of cringing = major progress! I even pointed it out to a few friends and laughed.

I was learning to make my peace with good enough AND becoming more focused on my experience than the outcome. That shift was leading to a better quality of life for my whole family.

Awareness Through Movement lessons are still helping me evolve my relationship to productivity. It is the one consistent practice that has enhanced the quality of my life and continues to today.

No longer am I solely focused on the outcome or the win as if my life has some finish line that once reached will = happiness. Instead now, I am way more aware, immersed in the moment and living my life guided by how I am being while I am doing.

“Even if you win the rat race, you’re still a rat.” – Lily Tomlin

Instead of goals, maybe consider the ways you could slow down your engines and your hustles. What is it you want your life to feel like? Moment to moment and day to day?

We all have a warped understanding of hours and productivity. Every human needs to look at the clouds and cook soup now and then. We all require things that are less focused on achievement and more about attending to soul of our life. Our senses, body and awareness provide access to that – to our lived experience.

There are many things I want to be part of changing and creating in my lifetime – but I don’t want to do it from a place of hustle and never good enoughness. I want the process to guide the way.

I know at the end of a calendar there is encouragement all around for us to set new goals.
If the last 2 years has taught as ANYTHING, it is that you cannot plan for EVERYTHING, you can’t control everything, but you can move your focus.

Our lives are not something to get through. Our lives are something to connect to at each and every moment.

Keep on with your love,
Astra

December 22, 2021December 22, 2021

We need some AWE to carry us

“You need power only when you want to do something harmful, otherwise love is enough to get everything done.” ~ Charlie Chaplin

A few nights ago I met up with a group of friends at 5pm. It was still light, but since we live in a river valley with ancient steep mountains to the west, once the sun dips behind them, it grows dark quickly.

As dogs and children ran ahead, we started our hike up the steep hillside. Nearing our stopping place, a large rock outcropping, I glanced back toward the valley below and the other, lower mountain chain that lies to the east. For a moment I was in shock when I saw a large orange light. I thought there was a fire up on the distant ridge. Thankfully it was not a fire, but I was still unsure of what I was seeing when my friend walked past and said “look it’s the moon poking out of the clouds!”

The full moon was the reason we had gathered for the hike. We wanted to watch it rise from the valley close to the winter solstice.

Sitting on the rocks watching its glow as clouds came and went – I felt a profound sense of peace. It wasn’t ‘peaceful’ with a pack of chattering kids and dogs. Yet still somehow the moon and the cold air and the clouds flying past, transported me.

I was in awe.

When we experience something bigger than us – longer standing, older, stronger or simply mysterious and beautiful – it can touch us and help us transcend from the everyday to the universal. It can inspire us.

We have all lived through a lot in the past few years. And while we know that life cannot exist without suffering and pain – in order to learn from it and not just feel beaten down by it – we need something transcendent too.

We need to be able to be in it and to see beyond it. We need to be able to be in our day to day life and create and experience a greater fabric that we are a part of. That is what awe does. It transcends the moment and connects us to a million other moments and things.

Art, music, dance, sex, childbirth, love, nature, meditation, and many more things can inspire awe and transcendence.

And the experience of it transforms us. We somehow know we are connected to that amazing thing or experience and that we are somehow connected to a life force. That connection or feeling of it – it makes our lives grow. It gives us insight into our selves, an ability to forgive and love, a desire to connect and carry on in the face of adversity, a dream and plan for how things could be better.

The more I learn about the human body and brain – the more awe I have. Not less.

Awe is not magic. It is a deep appreciation – for the complexity of our lives and at how many things go right.

I am beginning to reflect on the past year today on Solstice and as we near the Gregorian calendar for 2021.

In the northern hemisphere tonight will be the darkest night. I welcome that – I love the mystery of the darkness. I love all that is born out of it. I love all that I don’t know and have yet to experience and to be amazed by.

I love that even after a tough few years on the planet there are still many of us who are looking for ways to love and to grow.

Keep on with your love,
Astra

December 22, 2021

Family Gathering: Reports from The Field

At its best a large family gathering is fun, full of laughter and connection. If it is going to be challenging, the least it can do is provide insight, growth or a new way of seeing things.

Visiting with my extended family over Thanksgiving was both. And it got me thinking about attachment to a point of view, to ‘my perspective’, when I am willing to see things in a new way or when I feel attached to my view and how that all lands in human bodies and nervous systems.

My plan was to have ‘the talk’ with everyone about respectful boundaries regarding covid era health (see previous post).

The outcome was a mixed bag.

My boundary and what was comfortable for me did not land well with a sibling. I was upset by it, but not surprised because we have a long history of  challenges when I try to set boundaries or state my opinion.

I tried to enter into the conversations with an open mind and a lot of hope that maybe things would be different – easier maybe. I was nervous, but I tried to soften my belly and jaw and breath and step forward.

In Somatic Education we say, “State proceeds story.”This means is that the state of the body/nervous system will inform the view we have of the world and the experiences we have with people, and the environment.

Think about a highly anxious person you know (perhaps yourself). Are they an optimist? Not likely.

When anxiety becomes a dominant pattern in the nervous system, we look for what could go wrong or is wrong in any given situation.

And you know what? We find it. We are looking for it. In other words, our nervous system is in a tizzy so we look around for the chaos that matches our internal state.

The really crazy part – if we don’t find it, we create the chaos. Why? Because it is a habit loop we are stuck in. So if it doesn’t exist, we will unconsciously recreate it because it is how we know ourslves to be, to exist and to live.

State proceeds story.

Now that state – be it anxiety, fear, tension, sleeplessness (you name it) came from somewhere. In other words, the person had REAL experiences of having their personal boundaries crossed in life or they had a significant trauma or repeated low level trauma. It can be personal or cultural. Doesn’t matter – it lands in the body and nervous system the same way.

Remember last time when I said that “boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and you can love me.” BTW – I found out that it was the brilliant Prentis Hemphill who said that.

Each and every one of us has had our boundaries crossed and we have crossed someone else’s.

This means that often we are not reacting to what’s happening in the moment with a person. We are reacting to the person based on something from our past – either with that specific person or situation or because of another one that is resembles.

And the same is true for whoever we are interacting with. Every single one of us.

If state proceeds story, what can we do to get out of this cycle? How can our relationships improve?

If we just look at anxiety, for example, lucky for us it is a frontal brain issue.
Frontal Brain = learned habit. And it can be ‘unlearned’ in a sense and replaced with another habit.

Sure to survive you need to have a certain amount of fear, and caution in the world, but when you are only sorting for what could go wrong? Well, life is NO fun at all.

The boundary setting challenge I had over the holiday was of no surprise to me. But I was aware that I wanted to allow for the possibility of something different to happen. I went into the interaction nervous, a little tense, but hopeful.

By the time I was in the throws of the hard conversation,  I was clenching my jaw, tightening my belly and shortening my breath. It was not a conscious choice. But I could feel it happening – and being able to do that, to stick with what I was physically feeling allowed me stay present. It allowed me to stick with something hard.

That is how the nervous system works. Part of me wanted to run (racing heart), part of me wanted to fight (the jaw clenching). And I also knew I could pay attention, stick with it, since my safety was not under present threat.

When you can sense and feel your body in the present moment, you have choice. You are not just acting impulsively out of your past story and state.  And this is how things begin to change. When you have awareness of what you feel, you are not just acting out of your past anymore.

I was scared and worried on many levels – calculating lots of things at once. I didn’t want to ruin everyone’s holiday gathering and I also wanted to set a boundary that allowed me and my kids to feel safe and healthy.

You can learn to track what is happening in your body and in your ‘State’ while simultaneously being in challenging situations.

In the moments to follow the tough interaction, I reached out to my people.

Remember the social nervous system? We will first run to the group for safety. In my case it meant talking to my husband, texting relatives who would understand what I was dealing with and crying to my sister. Having that support and allowing myself a good cry, enabled me to move on. It helped me process the stress and to come into another nervous system ‘state.’

Changing my state, enabled me to change my story. Instead of clenching my jaw through the whole gathering, white knuckling my way through the whole dinner, I was able to be present and actually have fun. I was not super relaxed, but I was able to enjoy myself.

I wish for you to know what it is you feel and sense.

For you or me in different situation or the same one on another day– maybe I/you would leave instead. Who knows? There is no one RIGHT way to respond. I’m just looking for improvements, for growth, for change.

It was a win to stick with something hard and to be able to move on. I have not always be able to do that.

If something hard comes up in your life, simply notice where it lands in your body. Don’t try to change it. If your breath shortens and your belly and jaw tightens – it is for a reason. Maybe the reason is in your past or maybe it is present. Just notice it. Track it for a minute.

And when possible, connect to someone for support – even by text or with eye contact and touch if you can.

Wishing you the best,
Astra

November 19, 2021November 19, 2021

Your Social Nervous System during The Holidays

Part One…

Let’s talk relationships, family, friends and ‘the holidays” and the nervous system.

Over the next few weeks many of us will gather for some ritual, whether a traditional one or one we’ve created ourselves to mark a change in seasons, a religious event, or some cultural tradition.

Maybe you look forward to it. Maybe you dread it.

If you are like me, it’s a mixed bag of emotions – some hope and excitement, some anxiety and worry.

With our new pandemic normal – we are negotiating even more than before when we choose to gather with friends and family. We are calculating even more about how to care for ourselves, set boundaries in relationships that allow for real connection.

I recently heard someone say –
“boundaries are the distance at which I can love you and me.”

That relative who does not share our political views, drinks too much, makes us uncomfortable and angry when they say certain things, how our families don’t talk or small talk or avoid, that one person who’s too loud or says nothing. These are already a major stressor that we navigate.

Add in where you stand on vaccines and masking – What will so and so do? What if they want to hug me and I don’t want to hug? Will we all stay healthy?

It is a recipe for a LOT of potential personal GROWTH.

How do we do that? How do we make room to love ❤️+ 💜 ourselves and others?

There is a cascade of responses we cycle through under stress. Our Autonomic Nervous System responds to stress unconsciously (and in part consciously). It includes the social, sympathetic and parasympathetic branches of the nervous system. It keeps us safe in the world – alive. It takes in and ‘remembers’ previous situations and gives us bodily signals when we encounter anything that was previously experienced as unsafe or too much to digest all at once. This is why gathering with people you have a shared history and experience with is SO MUCH HARDER than starting out with new people.

The first thing the Autonomic NS wants to do under threat is to join with others. If that is not a good option and not one where we will be safer, then we will choose to fight or flee. If they are not good options, we will freeze, numb out or disassociate.

We have all been in a low-level freeze through the pandemic. Running to others for safety has not been an option. We have all had to make BIG choices about who we are willing to be with, in what situation. who we can talk things through with, and how we can gather safely over the past few years. It has NOT BEEN EASY.

Early on when my nuclear family was trying to figure out how we would work, go to school, socialize gather while staying healthy – I decide that the phrase ‘we are being really careful” needed to be unpacked. What did it really mean to each person who said it? Most likely something different.

I decided that disclosing to our friends or family what that meant to us each and every time was the only way to go forward. Letting people, who we wanted to make plans with, know what we were doing so that they could decide if they felt ‘safe’ with us and us with them seemed the best practice. It was awkward , but it only seemed fair.

I was in high school during the Aids crisis. During that tragic time, I was taught how to have the ‘safe sex’ talk. If you are not familiar with this – we were encouraged to have an open and mature discussion with our sexual partners about what our safe sex practices were. We knew little about how HIV was spread, but some things about how not to contract it.

Before you engaged in any sexual contact with someone, you would explain what you were doing to care for your health (and for your potential partners). With honesty and integrity, everyone could make an informed decision to care for themselves and what factor of risk they were comfortable with.

I have spent the last 2 years having the covid version of the safe sex like talk with many people.

If I choose to gather, as I will, with my extended family over the holidays, in order for me to feel like I can wisely choose on behalf of myself and my kids and allow others to do the same, I will have that chat with them. It is awkward.

The family members I share political views with – easy. There’s very little conflict so the conversation is not hard. The family members I don’t share political views with – it is a real challenge. Things are super polarized in the US right now. This has affected all of us and made it hard to find the points of connection and to feel like we can chat about our disagreements.

Add in masks. The social nervous system reads the face – especially the lower part of the face (think smile vs. bearing teeth). It also scans the left side of the face where most emotion is expressed by the right hemisphere of the brain. When neuroscientists temporarily paralyze the left hemisphere, the only emotion expressed on the right side of the face is anger. We want to see more than anger right?

Our social nervous system is scanning the face all the time – is this person on our side? Do they like me? Understand me? Can we trust them? Are we safe?

We’re scanning like this for info both consciously and unconsciously. Certainly, you have had that experience. Wondering “what did that look on their face mean?” during a conversation .

In terms of the cascade response from the social branch to the parasympathetic nervous system response here’s what it can often look like for a holiday gathering:

✅join the group for safety (social nervous system)
✅ditch group = run away and create my own thing (flight)
✅join but name my conditions (fight)
✅do nothing, numb out, drink too much and pretend it is not happening (freeze or shut down)

All the above are good options. Each situation and person have a range of what works for them. AND no matter what we choose, our nervous system will unconsciously respond to take care of us in the best way it knows how based on our past experiences.

But what if we want to grow and shift things some – how can we lean into our growth edges? How can I find safety and connection with people who are acting in the world in a way that is different from my own?

(Please know I am not talking about connecting to anyone who has abused you. I am not suggesting that is what you need to do in order to grow. Only you can decide what is best for you. Always.)

I consider growth transformative when a person can take something new and expansive, into other settings outside of the context where it was learned and repeat the action with consistency.

When I graduated from my Feldenkrais Professional Training program, undoubtedly my life had been transformed. Not all I experienced in my training became habit in my day-to-day life, but key aspects of me had made a considerable leap forward, and I began to experience my life differently. It was better.

I will never forget the first time I was aware that I was staring out the window of the car pouting when a family member had said something that offended me.

The pouting, with crossed arms and flexed spine, was a familiar response to the situation, but the awareness that I had a choice was completely new. No longer was my only strategy to focus my energy on telling the person how their actions made me feel, waiting, and hoping they would change.

Over years my response to that situation and person evolved. My impulse to pout, get defensive, change my breathing or posture, dissipated. In places that I had felt stuck and unable to progress in the past, I was changing, becoming the person I wanted to be. It was remarkable.

I watch this process with my students – in their relationship to me.

Sometimes when I ask them what they want to do during our time together, they defer to me. Often this is because they think that is the relationship they are supposed to have with a ‘teacher’ – one where they defer their power to me. I explain that that is not how I work. I am more like a midwife. I am there to support what they want to grow or birth.

Many students don’t know what they feel or want. They would be happy for example if someone else ordered their meal for them rather than decide for themselves. This is something they adapted to for survival growing up. We work incrementally finding the safe places to pay attention to their sensation slowly and building from there.

When students are first learning to attend to themselves and set boundaries around what they like, don’t like, want or don’t want, it can be expressed in a strong way. Maybe they are short with me, even rude at times. I keep clear boundaries. As their teacher who wants nothing more than for them to have agency in the world – I am thrilled to witness a student begin to attend to their likes and dislikes. When I see them step into awareness of their sensations, and their bodies, they begin to build their autonomy. The dots connect and they begin to see where they have options.

Having choice is everything.

If you want to change your emotional state and response to life – you need only change your muscular skeletal posture. It is not only fundamental to change and growth, it is the simplest way forward.

I wish you the best. More to come on relationships and the nervous system soon…

October 29, 2021

“Joy is the most vulnerable emotion.”

I recently read that quote in an interview in The New Yorker with Brene Brown.

Have you ever noticed that sometimes when there is pain, there is also a lot of joy and how they can go together?

We are in a time of year in N. America where there are many festivals, holidays and feast days honoring the dead. When we honor the dead, it is a time to reflect on our own lives, our own mortality, honor what came before us, and know that we too are part of this great life cycle.

It can be a time of joy too. 🙃

3 years after my Dad died, I had done a lot of processing and grieving and felt ready for an adventure. I wanted to experience freedom again.

I had always wanted to see the National Parks out west. I love meeting people from other countries. I love adventure. From my desk job in Philadelphia, I applied to be a tour guide for a European trekking company based in northern California. I spent the next 8 months living out of a van, meeting people from Europe and taking them to experience the National parks.

You can imagine that taking 12 strangers from various countries by yourself, driving a van 100s of miles to places you have never been, teaching them how to pitch tents, while organizing hikes and meals – is a lot of work.

It was well worth it.

At each turn in the road, I was filling my soul with natural beauty and sleeping under the stars for weeks at a time. I was healing.

I visited the Grand Canyon 3 times in various weather from dry summer heat to snow on golden aspen leaves. The first time I peaked over the rim and looked out, seeing the colored waves and swirls in the rocks, showing me that water was once there… that is when it hit me!

My place in the universe was tiny. I felt a huge relief.

I had been in so much pain for so many years. And in that moment of geological awe, I felt both the insignificance and the significance of my life. The scale of my life, just how much had come before me and how much would follow after me, was clear. It was not depressing. It was liberating.

Nature shows us the scale of time in seasons and in scope. Nothing grows all the time. There are cycles with every living thing. We have periods that are hard, or where things need to die and be composted. We have times where we grow, expand and flourish.

The capitalist economy and the culture surrounding it asks for constant growth. Yet, nothing natural behaves this way. When we pay attention, we know that. We see it.

A few weeks ago some friends decided to build a temple from scrap wood. They wanted to build something to recognize all that we have lived through with the Plague aka Covid.

They built it with a lot of care over a few weeks. It was exquisite. We were all invited to put notes in it with things we wanted to leave in the past, and honor those who have died.

Then, we all gathered at night. They lit it on fire. 🔥

It was amazing. There was so much joy and celebration that came from the grief.
(see it on Instagram @astracoyle)

Just like my experience of my pain from my Father’s death. They took something hard, and out of it created beauty, an opportunity for joy and an experience of pure wonder.

Pay attention to what you feel. What you feel is different from your emotions (while those are good to notice too). Pay attention to your body’s sensations. You already know that your body has a cycle of energy in a given day. Your body is part of the natural world too. Consider listening.

If you do look at the Instagram photos – you will see the last picture of pure wonder on the faces of kids. That is what it is like to feel all the feelings. 🔥💜

“A future worth contemplating,
will not be achieved
solely by flights
to the far side of the
moon.
It will not be found in
space.
It will be achieved,
If
it is achieved at all,
only in
our
individual hearts.” – Loren Eisley

I wish you strength and love,
Astra