Is it possible to seek change and growth and accept ourselves as we are?

Over the past week, I took my own advice and set aside time to be curious about my stories. Only fair right?! (see previous Blog post)   I decided to dive in and notice what I am embarrassed about, and ashamed of or have a hard time forgiving myself for. Yeah – sounds fun huh? LOL. 🤣 but really, I was feeling like it might be helpful, so I gave it a try.   I discovered old & uncomfortable stories. I ached. My belly tightened; my breath shortened.   I felt tender shining a light 🌟on these places, but I had no plan other than to see what was there. I wasn’t mining for stuff so I could change it. I wanted to know what was there.     I have not always been able to do this. I knew how to go for a goal and will my way to an outcome. But just sit and witness something?! I had no idea how to do it or why it was even valuable.  I thought the point of seeking change was to be better, right?!   Therein lies the key = when we look at why we want to change, we start to get to the ❤️ of the matter.     Most of us want to change because we don’t think we are ‘enough’ just as we are. The story goes something like ‘If I were prettier, smarter, more successful, athletic, I’d be more lovable, and happier.’ When we approach change from that place, the place of fixing ourselves, no matter what we improve, it is never enough. We look for the next thing and the next that would make us better. It is EXHAUSTING!   Seeking change covers up the deeper belief – we are not okay. We are somehow broken. When we think this – no amount of fixing will ever do.   What if you could keep evolving, growing, and changing, but it came from a place of self-love and self-respect not from a place of lack?   Enter compassion & self-love 💜   Before I took an Awareness Through Movement class, I had many teachers from various methods suggest I develop compassion and self love, but no one really could show me how to do this.     It wasn’t until I started doing Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lessons that I began to have a concrete actual experience of developing compassion.   Our ability to witness ourselves without trying to fix ourselves is a crucial step in healing.   During a typical ATM lesson, you are asked to attend to what is happening in the moment and to SIMPLY NOTICE it. You have no idea where the lesson is heading or how it will end. The lessons are structured to immerse you in the moment. There is no one telling you or demonstrating the perfect way to do something. In fact, is no one perfect way. You can learn to be more functional but not by imitation! You do not need to make yourself like anyone else. You only need to reference how you feel and what you notice. Say you are lying on your back with bent knees and one arm extended toward the ceiling. Extend the arm a little and to allow the shoulder blade to begin to decrease its contact with the floor. Notice if there was a way that you could still do this but make less effort. Perhaps you can reduce the effort in your jaw or your belly? Notice if there is unnecessary effort in your hand, your chest, your belly. Experiment and see what amount of effort is needed to do what you are trying to do.    All the while you simply notice. The teacher reminds you again and again that there is no need to be evaluative. Your entire job is to attend, to notice. And thankfully, because you are moving and attending to kinesthetic sensation, this is easier to do than when you sit still in meditation for example.   All of that noticing without evaluating, it builds our chops. (We even get good at noticing all the ways we judge and evaluate 😉 🤪 We develop our ability to witness through a concrete embodied process. Thankfully, the lessons have lots of brilliant functional exploration built in. We might go on to try variations on the movement. For example, could you try extending the arm toward the ceiling while holding your breath? While exhaling? While inhaling? And each movement would be done while we attended to the quality of the movement. The only goal being that we make it easier and more pleasing to ourselves.    The result? Students get up from a lesson with new sensations and newfound abilities. The new abilities did not come from a place of lack or trying to fix, they came from a place of witnessing and love. As I witnessed the stories this week around what I am embarrassed about, something began to shift.  The tenderness was compassion.  I felt love for the part of me that t is embarrassed. It didn’t need to change, it just needed to be witnessed. And in that, deep change began.   I wish this for you. All my best,   Astra

If I was lucky enough to meet you in person and ask you tell me about yourself, what stories would you share? What ones might you want to leave out?

Before humans could write, we told stories. We tell stories to entertain and preserve history, but most importantly, we do it to make meaning of our lives, collectively and individually. The stories we tell ourselves about who we are may recount our past, but the REAL power is in how they shape our future.    I had the joy of volunteering for Field Day at my child’s elementary school last week. For those of you unfamiliar with this tradition – it is a day spent outdoors during the last week of school playing silly physical games that leave you sweaty and (hopefully) happy.   I was at the “Over & Under” Station. My job was to hold a foam pool noddle with a rope through it, and slowly raise it  from the ground up. When it got high enough, the children could choose to jump over it, or go under it. As each child approached, there was a flood of story written all over face and body. Some kids squeezed their muscles and then leapt –  joyful and invigorated. Others were so jittery that they would burst like a loaded spring and do gymnastics over the rope. Then there were kids who dramatically threw themselves sideways rolling onto the grass.   And a few children, who were fully capable of getting over the rope, had a different story they were telling themselves. They approached with trepidation. No one was being made to do it. Some kids sat it out to rest, but the ones who chose to participate were physically capable. So what was going on with the kids who chose to participate, but were far from certain they could manage the task at hand?   Moshe Feldenkrais said that we move and act in the world in accordance with our self-image. The self-image is our perception of who we think and feel ourselves to be.  The trouble we get into is when reality of who we are and what we are capable of is out of sync with our perception of ourselves.     Those little kids who wanted to jump over a 4 inch high rope that were physically capable, but doubted it. They had a gap in perception of reality.  They had a story that became self-fulfilling prophecy.     Our brains alter stories nearly each time we tell them. Sometimes this is because as time passes our reflection on a story and the meaning we make from it has shifted. Sometimes, we leave out details to suit our audience or to make it more appealing. In the retelling of an experience, as the story is being made, we exaggerate or minimize certain parts of what happened. We make the story fit our audience – this can happen even when we are our only audience.We can use alteration to our advantage, to evolve or grow or we can use it to reinforce our self-image as it stands.  We are always the ones to decide what something means.   At Field Day, I saw I teacher I know well. Her class was running a ½ mile and some teachers were joining. I said something playfully to her about being wise to ‘sit it out.’ She said “I am way too old for that.” I said “Really?”  She said “Astra, I am a Grandma.”  “Okay.” I thought.  I too decided not to run because I was already hot and I didn’t want to get hotter.    Turns out, that teacher is one year younger than me. The difference is that instead of a Grandchild, I have a child in elementary school.  I tell myself another story about my age – not better or worse, just a different one maybe out of choice and maybe necessity. We both chose not to run, but we had different reasons and stories as to justify our choices.  If  we are always making  meaning, can we learn to use this to our advantage?   Those children who were worried they would not make it over the rope, they may have had a previous experience of failing. Or they may have been told they are not ‘athletic” because they have a sibling who is more athletic or something like that. We do not need to know the origins. We just need to know the story.    Some stories may be holding us back and many are re-traumatizing us. Maybe we are the victim or a martyr in our story? Maybe in our story we are too short, too old or too fat? But whatever we tell ourselves, becomes habit. Habit becomes self-image. It informs not only how we experience our lives, but it also influences the experiences we seek. If you want to change the future, get curious about the current story.   I learn a lot from my students especially the ones who find hope to change in the face of tremendous challenge. I don’t know exactly what sets them apart, but they all have some whisper inside themselves that they hear. Sometimes the whisper is painful, but in response to it, they have hope that change is possible. Most do not believe 💯  that they can change, but they also are not 💯 convinced they cannot.    You have all sorts of information coming to you all the time through your body, mind and emotions. Building your awareness of them is vital to your continued growth.   Become aware of what you are telling yourself. Only then can you decide what you want to do with what you discover Do we want to cling to them? Reinforce them? Or you want to use them to grow?   This is the gift of awareness.   I encourage you to find a little quiet. Consider doing a 5- 10 minute scan of your body. Without evaluating, simply notice your body from head to toe. Include both your internal sensations and your contact with the environment.   This can help with  2 things: ❤️building awareness of your habits of body, thought and emotion. ❤️building your ability to be non- evaluative about what you notice Questions to consider: What are the experiences I have where I feel hopeless? What stories have I created about me? Am I telling stories that keep me small or that re-traumatize me? What stories have other people or my culture created about me (gender, race, age, etc.)?  Do I want to challenge these story in a way that makes space for a new reality?     Notice what you feel in your body as you consider these questions. Again. no need to do anything. Just notice. Build your chops for observation. The rest will follow.  All my best,  Astra

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My youngest child read 15 novels, in addition to school, as part of a national book competition this year. He was captivated by the setting in a few books – Central Park, Grand Central Station, Ellis Island, Brooklyn, and Harlem. “Mom, have I been to Grand Central? Have I ever seen…?” “Yes but you were very young. “ I was so relieved that he had something exciting to look forward to during a tough school year of remote learning. I agreed to take him to NYC as soon as it was safe.  My best friend offered for us to stay in her apartment.. Much sooner than I anticipated, I was planning a trip.  Was it SAFE to go? During the planning days, my husband, my Mom, and friends shared their opinion. They were not all on the same page. There would be no way for me to decide based on what they thought (there would be no way to please all of them either).  When I am nervous or upset (even if I am also excited), I try to tune in and listen to myself.   “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” – Aristotle.  What did he mean? Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom?  We are both independent and social relational social creatures. Our lives depend on others and on ourselves, our decisions and actions. That is wonderful and amazing – makes for fun and love and lots of incredible experiences. It can also make for a feeling lost and confused or at least conflicted on a good day. Can we know ourselves, take into consideration our own wants and needs and be considerate of others?   Google the phrase ‘social nervous system’ and here is what you get… “The Social Nervous System is something that we all know about intuitively, to a greater or lesser degree. When someone makes eye contact with you and gives you a warm smile, both of your Social Nervous Systems are being engaged.” There is a theory about the nervous system that Stephen Porges proposes – instead of breaking the nervous system into 2 categories – the parasympathetic and sympathetic, He adds a third, the social nervous system.  Some  researchers propose that women, who usually have more estrogen than men, have stronger, more wired social nervous systems. They propose that the social nervous system enables women to bond, nourish and protect babies. It also works to protect intact groups like families, tribes and communities. But what happens when there is a reason to want to do something distinct of the group?   Have you ever felt like you don’t want to cause disruption to the group? Most of us have.    When I decided to give my TEDx talk, I was in this position. Keep everyone happy doing what we had been doing, or do something that I felt personally called to do? I did a LOT of soul searching. I spent  weeks thinking about who I might affect by publicly speaking about shared private lives.  When I had applied to give a talk, I had a certain intention, but it had not occurred to me how many people I would worry I might hurt or upset. And beside making problems or a mess for anyone else, I also feared for myself. What if some people were so mad they turned their back on me? Was I willing to risk certain relationships? In case you didn’t know – I am an independent  full grown adult. I do not count on my family for any childcare or financial support. I live hundreds of miles from them.  And the thought of losing them haunted me.  They are my first ‘intact” group. We could say that ,y social nervous system was wondering “should I  make waves or stay the course? “  But there was another voice that was also clear. I knew that if  I was going to grow,  I needed to take this leap. I needed to metabolize and integrate a huge part of my history by sharing it.  I needed to tell my story to strangers. My heart  ❤️ races even today thinking about it.  I chose to identify the fear and decide if going forward was worth it. It became very clear that it was. Without self awareness, it is easy to confuse other people’s needs with our own. It can all become one big heavy chunk of debris clouding our perceptions of ourselves.   Our earliest experiences we had with our first ‘in tact group (family/caregivers) over time  signals the nervous system. Even when things are not as good as they could be, it is easy to just keep repeating the same old behaviors because they are known. We have all just experienced a year of immobilization – our NS have been in a kind of freeze state. Our systems are stressed. And while things are opening back up in some parts of the world, this is causing new stresses.   In my immediate circle – there is a wide range of opinions about me going to NYC with my child, and also about masking and vaccination. There is literally no way within my social and work circles for me to be in agreement with everyone AND there is no way for me to avoid some conflict and discomfort. We are all establishing new social norms.   Go easy. Tune in to your body and listen to what it has to say. What do you want to normalize? What fears are yours? Which fears are someone else’s?    Years  of practicing Awareness Through Movement has gifted me with clearer self awareness than I used to have.  Paying attention to my body has made it EASIER.    I am just like you. I have a nervous system. I want to be part of a community while being true to myself. It is possible.   A few years ago when I  gave my Tedx talk, and again last week, as I sorted through my fears about travel, I gathered information from my members of my trusted in tact group AND I  tuned into myself.  I hope you will too. There is plenty to navigate and sort out in life – just make sure that whatever you are digesting and sorting through ultimately is yours.  Best to you, Astra

Having spent the last year in the cocoon of our home, moving through smaller spaces with fewer people around us, we are now beginning to press against the container and unfold bit by bit.   As we emerge what will we bring out into the light of day? What will we grow? And what will we do with the yucky parts? Should we leave them behind in the shadows?   Recently when I was with a friend, I realized just how much I had been missing all year. It was not what I would have guessed!   When we met for a walk in late March 2021, she asked me if we could hug?! We were both fully vaccinated and had not hugged since March 2020.   We agreed to HUG! 🤗    It was joyous. She cried. She’d been cautious all year. I was the first person she had hugged and while it was gorgeous…there was also something else I could feel in her body that worried me.    I was shocked at what I could feel – the tension, the brittleness, weariness. The year had taken its toll. I knew things had been stressful in a roaming anxiety stress kind of way, but until I touched her, I really didn’t know the extent of the toll. We spoke freely each week about what was happening in our days to day lives, in our hearts and minds. Yet, it was not all there. I had not really understood.   Movement and touch are the simplest and most straight forward way to the truth. We are much more likely to fool ourselves and others with words. Touch, movement and our bodies express something altogether different. They do not lie.   Academics theorize that language was created to deceive. In other words (LOL), while language is all we have sometimes, it is far from accurate. Language is great for entertainment, storytelling and art – but it does not paint the whole picture. It can’t.   Let’s look at a simple handshake. There’s a lot to feel AND sometimes what you feel has nothing to do with what the person was trying to convey or what it is we are trying to convey.   Say you are going into a meeting and you are nervous. Have you ever been told to“FAKE IT TILL YOU MAKE IT (🤮 )” “use a firm handshake” “look people in the eye” or “use a power stance so you can enter that meeting and win’   LOL AGAIN! Yeah it’s me laughing. You know why?   That stuff does not REALLY work. It’s smoke and mirrors. A Potemkin village. Faking it only fools people who are not paying attention. People like you would probably not be fooled. Right? You are interested in paying attention.  Smoke and mirrors work on lemmings who refuse to pay attention to what they sense and feel.   So, if you would not be fooled by it, then why would you do it?   PRETENDING to feel skilled and confident does not make you more confident or powerful. It makes you better at PRETENDING to be powerful and confident.     And when we pretend, our insides don’t match their outsides. That causes problems in life every time. It often makes us miserable, lonely and confused. When the internal us and the external us don’t match IMHO this is where we can get into BAD trouble.    I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be better at pretending to be powerful or confident, I want to be confident and to have humility too.   I had a colleague who was a martial artist. We shared lots of interests, had great conversation and he liked my work, but I felt uneasy around him – like I could not trust him. There was no ‘good’ reason why, but I just knew it.     He moved with slow measured movement and a deep calm voice. One day, he was climbing onto a chair to use a long pole to get something from up high. He lost his balance, just for a moment, before recovering it. Thankfully, he was not hurt at all. As a matter of fact, he didn’t even acknowledge the loss of balance.   In that moment I saw what it was he was always trying to cover up – I saw why I didn’t trust him.   He was on a seeking path. I admired that. But while on that path, he was also posturing to be a wise something he was not (yet). He was not one of his teachers. He was trying to act and walk and talk like them, but he had not had the experience that would give him that skill. He had not built it from the inside out.He was a Potemkin village wall. It was just a wall, a façade with nothing inside.     Why did he pretended to be more advanced than he was, I’ll never know. I know  that with myself and with my students it is usually owed to a belief that we are not enough just as we are. And sometimes that is true.   I faked it to get a cocktail waitressing job at age 18.  I wrote down the drink orders for the bartender phonetically. When I wrote Old Granada, he was on to me. “What do they want?” I looked at him, knowing he knew I had no clue how to be a cocktail waitress. I gave him my best pleading face and went back to the man at his table to ask again – an  Old Grandad on the rocks! I needed the job, and I was determined to learn quickly. I knew I had those skills; I just needed a chance, but I didn’t trust that I would be given one if I didn’t lie to get my foot in the door.      After a few weeks of overall success at work, I owned up to my boss and the bartender. They already knew. My strong handshake had not fooled anyone;-)   “Find your true weakness and surrender to it. Therein lies the path to genius. Most people spend their lives using their strengths to overcome or cover up their weaknesses. Those few who use their strengths to incorporate their weaknesses, who don’t divide themselves, those people are very rare. In any generation there are a few and they lead their generation.” – Moshe Feldenkrais    We can learn to claim ourselves. We can own it all – our brilliance and our weaknesses. Every last bit of it. And we can learn to feel REALLY GOOD in the process.    I have always been impressed by people who owned all of themselves. They did not give it away to someone else to decide if they were valuable or lovable. They claimed it – their anger, their fear, their ‘gross’, habits, their quirks. They owned it. That doesn’t mean they did not try to shift and grow – but they did not hide from themselves either.   Find a trusted someone to begin to process, claim and know yourself with more and more clarity.  Then your energy can go to creating more fun and joy and growth. When I hold space for all of me, I know I am enough, and I create a life with those who want to be with the real me too.   Join me! It’s totally worth coming out for! Astra

Last week I was talking about learning how to regulate your nervous system at any given moment. While it is true that that is possible, one may have thought from the way I wrote it that I think I have mastered it and I am all done. Ha! 😇😇😇

 
We are never ‘done’ because there is no end. There is no perfect. There is only the process. There  is only practice.


It was a day I had deadlines to meet, and a kiddo home with a head cold, acting really lumpy and in need of emotional support. Earlier in the week before I knew what was ahead, I’d promised my Mom I would call her to chat about my son’s birthday plans.
 
I was juggling a bunch – and it seemed to me like I needed to multi-task – pop popcorn while I called my Mom, while my son was resting on the couch. I touched a hot handle and…

it all spilled on the floor.
 
I was pushing myself in that moment. I was aware that I did not want to get on the phone, but I had made a promise, so I was trying to squeeze it in. I was aware multitasking was not what I wanted, but I did not change the choice I made. I made an old habit choice – to push instead of doing less.
 
Our relationships to ourselves – think self-talk etc.– is based on our experience and RELATIONSHIP to the world, and the people in our lives.  Like we’ve chatted about before – we have a long dependency period, and we are social animals/mammals. This shapes our idea of who we are and what we are or are not capable of. It is based on our relationships, the feedback we get and what is valued in our greater culture that we internalize.
 
I grew up being taught to push. I got good at it.  I was praised for it. But it is not really what I want all the time, I want to be able to switch gears and rest and have more ease.
 
The hard part of becoming who we want to be? It is not in changing the world around us. We can only do that in limited ways anyway – so why chase that? To make real change, we need to look inward and find out what we are really doing, saying, thinking etc. What are the patterns? What are the habits? What are you saying on repeat to yourself again and again?
 
When we can discover what we are actually practicing, what we are saying to ourselves and doing – and when we tell the truth about it without blame or judgment of ourselves or anyone – then we can redefine our futures through new practices.
 
The practice is – becoming aware of my habits, what I am actually doing and being, to accept them and not add any evaluation, no story, nada, and then to explore new possibilities. And those new possibilities and try them out.
 
But here’s the thing the new practices – they do not happen in a fishbowl. They happen in relationship to others and to the world. Yes first we give them to ourselves, but then we practice taking it into relationship and building new habits, a new self-image, a new relationship to ourselves, through a new practice with others.
 
I didn’t want to tell my Mom I couldn’t talk. For no urgent reason, I pushed my own boundary, and   got stressed out. If I had been willing to do what I knew I needed, I would have taken one more step in building and practicing the way I want to grow in my relationships in the world.

It is a practice… knowing we are not getting to perfection because there is nothing about us that needs to be fixed.
 
If you want to fix who you are – forget it. Trust me, I have tried in the past. It only leads to heartache because it assumes that there is something wrong. And there is nothing wrong. You are human.
 
We are dynamic humans alive and well and always adapting and possibly evolving and  growing. When we focus our attention more on the process of living and less on the outcome – which is precisely what happens in every Feldenkrais lesson – we get better and better and BEING human. What could be better?
 
Happy Friday,
Astra

Spring is well under way here where I live. The ground is warming. The crocuses are up… and  sometimes when this starts to happen, I get nervous.  You may have noticed that I have a lot of energy and a lot of passion. I love being this way – but the thing is I can get excited about A LOT of things at once and end up with too many things on my plate.   It seems to happen more often in the Spring, because all activity picks up after the winter. In the winter, it is clear to me that I need to turn inward and rest. Come Spring, especially during covid, I am ready to get moving.   In the past, I would overdo it and end up with adrenal fatigue, and brain fog. Not pleasant. Plus, it would  take me a long time to recover and get back to my baseline of activity.   Over the years, as I have done this work, I have developed much better ability to track what is happening with me in any given moment. That means I can sense and feel what is happening and correct course most anytime, should I want to.   For example, if I am in a tense conversation with someone, I can notice my heart beating faster, and I can choose (if I want) to physically shift and calm myself.  I’ve learned how to disengage a little and step back when I feel the need to.   If I am mellow or have low energy and I need to get myself pumped up to do something, I use little tweaks to help elevate my energy and excite my nervous system.   While we all have the same nervous system overall, we are not just stuck with our default response in any given situation. We can easily develop choices in HOW we respond to whatever we are experiencing.   Moshe Feldenkrais wrote about health not as a static state – but rather as one’s ability to adapt to things that happen. He gave an example of a perfectly healthy and fit tiger that was the pet of a woman in Paris;-) One day when the woman was walking her tiger 😾, a neighbor reported her, and the tiger was taken into police custody. The tiger was in perfect health but died within a few days – not because it was mistreated (it had food and water etc.),  but because it could not stand the change in its routine and environment. So sad.    We have all been living in extreme times.  It has not been easy. And while it has not been easy, I bet many of you have found out just how adaptable and resilient you are  If someone had told you it would take a year to be vaccinated, it is likely you would have thought “I can’t do that.”  But you did. 👊🏼    Want to get better at being able to shift your energy, to adapt, to a quieter and more regulated state of the nervous system when needed and to a more energetic, playful or even boundary setting state when needed? Want to learn how to thrive?   Join  me on Sunday March 21st at 12pm EST.💜 In this workshop we will explore ways that you can learn to become better able to regulate your nervous system according to your needs. We will also explore how you can release some of the negative experiences you have had over the past year and leave them behind;-)   Reply to this to save your spot. Early bird cost = $49 See you soon I hope,   Astra   P.S. My tech team is setting up a payment system for those outside the US;-)

I live in a river valley, at 3000 feet at the foot of The Black Mountains in Western North Carolina.
 
The mountain peaks out my window are some of the oldest mountains on the planet. They are exquisite and still. They are dynamic and changing. Once, tall as the Himalayas, they now stand a mere 6700 feet. Slowly they shifted. Each day they change a little.
 
The black mountains are, in many ways, the most consistent presence in my day-to-day life. They are always with me, there to greet me each morning. And I am always in relationship to them.
 
Each morning they tell me something about an experience I will have – is there snow? Is there a huge cloud blanketing the ridge? Or is it clear and blue? Over the next two months, I will watch a carpet of bright green growth spread and crawl from the river valley up to the peaks. Come summer there will be giant rhododendron blooms, moss blanketing the forest floor, and wild blueberries for the bears and children  to eat.
 
I walk every day through the woods around my house. I have done that for many years, it is my way to process my thoughts and to settle my body. I don’t walk for exercise. I walk in nature just to be, to process, to connect to myself and to listen. It is true medicine for me. I feel deeply grateful that no matter what I do and no matter who I am – the air is there for me to breath, the sun rises and the moon waxes and wanes. I do not have to do anything, be good, or work harder, and the earth provides so I can live.
 
The natural world is the most consistent relationship in all of our lives.
 
Remember how we were talking about our relationships and how they influence us? Or how they can influence us? Let’s take a look at how we might use this relationship to our advantage.
 
Your bones were formed because you live in relationship to gravity. If you did not live with gravity, you would not have bones. Your eyes can see an exquisite array of colors because we live in an environment with light. Without light, no need to have eyes to see.  In other words, we’ve come into being and evolved, not distinct from nature and our environment, but in an essential relationship.  
 
We are formed by it and informed by it. But here is the thing – we often act like this is not true.
                                            
How did we get so disconnected from the most constant thing in our lives?  
 
In the western world, the industrial revolution pulled focus on the outcome. The product was valued over the process. What we could make, how fast, how automated mattered most. What mattered was what we could make – it did not matter how we got there.
 
What did this lead to? We know the amazing influence of the industrial revolution….
 
It changed the western world by transforming business, economics, and society. These shifts had major effects on the world and continue to shape it today. Before industrialization, most European countries had economies dominated by farming and artisan crafts such as hand-woven cloth.
 
The unprecedented levels of production in domestic manufacturing and commercial agriculture during this period strengthened the western economy and resulted in greater wealth and a larger population in Europe as well as in the United States.
 
Many good things came of the industrial revolution that we can’t imagine living without, but it only benefitted a few and disproportionately affected many. Not only did it lead to cultural changes, it also led to major pollution and climate change.
 
The question for us is – how is it affecting us personally now? The ship has sailed. We are not turning back, but how is this affecting how we relate to the other mots consistent relationship in our lives, the relationship to ourselves?  
 
We switched our attention and value system to what could produce over the actual process of production. And remember from past blogs, where attention goes, that part of the self-image grows.
 
As one of my teachers used to say – you can get a screw out of wood with a butter knife, but both will come out damaged, right?
 
Once we shifted our focus on the outcome, what could be made, how quickly, and for how much profit, everything changed. We lost our connection to the experience of the process of living.
 
Think about this for a second – when we were hunters and gathers, or even agricultural societies, we paid attention to cycles. We knew what animals moved through an area at what time of year. We knew when we could plant certain crops or when some were doomed to fail because of a lack of rain. We understood our exquisite interdependence with our environment.
 
Until we didn’t. We don’t have to look past Texas this past week to see how this has gotten things way out of balance.
 
There  is a balance we can strike much closer to home – it is with our bodies and how we relate to them. We can drive cars, ride buses and buy sneakers made in a factory AND still connect to our bodies and the natural world.
 
When we start to pay more attention to our body, our cycles and rhythms, we BENEFIT from our relationship to our natural environment as well. We begin to understand our inter dependence, how our cycles are related to the natural cycles that formed us, that we live in, When we do this will be less at odds with nature, but more directly we will be less at odds with our own nature. We become more in tune,less at odds with our cycles, and learn to  work with them to enjoy the pleasure of living.
 
Your body experiences cycles each and every day just like the sun rising and setting, and the moon waxing and waning, and the seasons changing. Tune in.
 
Take a breath in and out. Just a normal breath. Notice how the air going in your nostrils is a different temperature than the air coming out. You feel that? That is part of your exchange with the natural world.
 
You are not a machine. You are a dynamic ecosystem.
 
Most modern medicine is based on this machine-like approach to the body. I am grateful for MRIs and antibiotics and vaccines, but you can ask any honest practitioner of a modern medicine, and they will tell you they do not have all the answers, the body and mind are a way, way, way more complicated and complex system than modern medicine can address with a singular approach.
Some ancient medicine systems, take this into account. In traditional Chinese medicine for example, they do not see the body and mind as distinct or separate from the environment and natural cycles. They recognize that we are influenced by the seasons and our environment.
 
 If only we could take what is best from all of these practices and merge them into one. Many people are.
 
Let’s look at all the ways you can start acting like the exquisite complex natural being you are and stop acting like a machine.
 

1. The food you eat, the water you drink – notice how it tastes. Notice how you feel after consuming it.                                                                                                                       I don’t eat the same food in the winter as in the summer. I can do it because I have the privilege to have access to really good food. But even when I was living with much less access and on much tighter budget, I found ways to pay attention. For example, I stopped buying and eating apples in the winter – they just tasted bad. Apples flown in from who knows where did not taste like apples picked in the Fall, so I would rather not eat them. I would rather eat applesauce in the winter.

You may not have access to fresh food, or maybe you live in a food desert or it costs too much to eat fresh food. I get it. Consider then to simply pay attention to what it is you do have access to and how you feel when you consume it.

There is nothing wrong with boxed cereal, pasta and rice. It’s tasty. Maybe you want to grow a little herb plant on your windowsill and add it to the rice? Or maybe you notice you felt better after eating less rice with some butter or fat on it rather than more rice with nothing on it? There is no one size fits all. The point is just to start to notice how you feel. Become an expert on you.

1. When your body is tired rest. The earth rests every winter.   

You are not a machine. You are not a better person if you do more, produce more and don’t rest. Your life is a process. We know what the outcome is – we will all die;-) So notice your natural rhythms and cycles. When you are tired rest. Remember the sun will rise and set without you, you will keep breathing and your heart will keep beating even when you rest. You don’t have to do something all the time. You can also just be. You are a human BEING after all;-)

1. When you have energy and feel active – enjoy it.

We seem to focus so much activity on outcome and what we can make with it. When you can, is your energy also available for pleasure? Do you always have to use your energy to be productive? Or can you be productive and enjoy it? Can you bring some pleasure and enjoyment to your activity? Play around with this. The solutions do not have to be big. They can be as simple as noticing that you don’t need to clench your jaw while you walk fast or get that project completed.

1. Compost, prune, let it go to seed.

Parts of your life and routine would benefit from pruning and cutting back. What’s your body telling you that you can compost, prune or let to go to seed? Compost makes rich soil for things to grow – you have to let go and get rid of things and let them die in order to have the fertile soil for things to grow. What is one small thing you can compost in your life?

1. Dream of what seeds you want to plant.

Maybe you want to consider what you want to grow in your life? If so, dream it, feel it. Plant the seeds in your mind’s eye. It does not all need to grow right now. Maybe it needs to grow later. What do you want to grow now? What can wait until later?

1. Get a house plant and notice it.

What does it need? Do you have the right environment for it? Just simply tuning in to a little plant can remind you of your connection to seasons, your nature and your rhythms.

1. Stare at the sky, feel the air on your face.                                                                             I know that Covid and lockdown has been rough. It is real. If you are able, look out a window and notice what you can see, maybe a patch of sky, maybe a little patch of dirt. Look at it daily. Notice how it changes. Maybe consider writing down what you see or feel or consider taking a pho

 
I wish you to be adaptable and healthy and in good relationships. The way to that is to tune in. Listen and be willing to act on your own behalf.
 
I will be hosting and teaching three workshops in mid-March, April and May. More details to come soon. As always, I will be teaching and sharing experiential ways for you to become more of who you want to be in the world for yourself and in relationship.
Stay tuned for details.
Best to you,
Astra

Love is so pure, so simple, so elemental. How can we grow more? 

The simplest and most exquisite act of love is attention.

If you want to receive or give love, you need to attend, to notice and to connect.  We do this with our families, our pets, our homes, hobbies, the earth. But we live in a BUSY BUSY world – we attend our texts and emails and…. there are so many demands on our attention. 


What about to you? How do you attend to yourself? To your own needs and desires?

In other words how do you grow in love for yourself?

I know you’ve heard a lot form me about paying attention to the rubs, to what is not working or hurts. But I don’t want you to stop there…never;-) Because it is no fun – and it is not the point of living at all;-)

We want our lives to be as full of love and happiness and growth as possible. Right? I only ask you to do pay attention to what hurts because it can serve as an entrance to deliver you to more satisfaction, greater happiness and yes, more love.

When I teach, I’m asking people to focus on their pleasure. They’re encouraged to avoid any action that causes them to feel a stretch or any pain at all. Because of the culture we live in – it takes lots of reminding and encouragement to stay in a movement zone where it is easy.

But we learn it. And it becomes a habit that does not stay in the classroom. It starts to grow through our whole lives.

I teach that way for many reasons having to do with how we learn and how we create new habits. I won’t explain it all here – but let’s just say that to learn from and transform the pain in your life, first you must detect unneeded effort you are making – you have to really dial it down to be able to sense the small and subtle patterns that are making things harder in your day-to-day life.

The unnecessary effort is what is causing and contributing to the pain. It is the unnecessary effort that you have control over.  In order to sense and feel what is causing you pain and to be able to get to what is easier, more functional, you have to slow down and do less. 

During a lesson you’re asked toattend to your own sensation and your own satisfaction + your own true sense of pleasure. When you feel like resting, you rest whether anyone else is or not.

Students learn to take their cues from themselves – not from me. That is tru love. That allows students to deeply connect to their own sense of what is enough, satisfying and desirable.

We can feel these things clearly if we just slow down and turn down the volume enough to notice. When we notice, we begin to have choice – and therein lies your chance to build new habits that cause less pain and create more satisfaction.

Lately, I have been adding a little bit of dance during my workshops. When we dance – it is never for how it looks. It is all for how it feels to the dancer. Just like everything we do. Don’t want to dance? No problem. I love and honor each student attending to what they need and want.

This is something you could use all the time in your life. How does what you are doing feel for you?  It’s just simply paying attention to what gives you pleasure. Can you slow down enough to feel that?

Take for example how you brush your teeth…

I had a student  who after her first class, emailed me to tell me what had happened that night. When she brushed her teeth (nope the lesson I had taught had nothing to do with tooth brushing!) She could so clearly see how much unnecessary effort she was making. She had been making it for years. She just had not noticed!

What she got from our hour together was just how much effort she was making in her day-to-day life that was totally unneeded. Tooth brushing was just a portal – she noticed she was clenching her teeth and gripping the brush harder than necessary and tightening her belly and holding her breath just a little. She realized she was doing this in all sorts of things in her life. (Psssstttt – most of us are) 😇

When she took the time to slow down and attend to herself – she noticed all the unnecessary things she was doing that were making her life harder.

A while later she wrote this to me – I was blown away! https://astracoyle.com/success-stories/

 After years of studying and doing Awareness Through Movement I too began to understand how much more I could do an accomplish when it came form a place of embracing pleasure. Why be so Puritanical? And why was I so puritanical anyway?

Like many people I work with – I was worried I would do nothing if I started only doing what was pleasurable. I thought I would never get off the couch. Many worry that if they do this , they will end up eating the whole bag of chips or never wanting to go to work or fill in the blank that they won’t do anything for the world and will  become selfish.

This is cultural brainwashing! Society wants to keep you in its grip instead of you being in your own power. It is easier to get you to follow their lead their directions if you do not pay attention to your own needs right?!

You can break these bonds simply by attending to yourself – bit by bit as you build that ability, you build you love for yourself, you have more choice, and you have more freedom.

And you know what? You don’t get more selfish – as a matter of fact – because you are taking care of yourself, you have cleaner and clearer relationships to yourself and to the people in your life. You learn how to ask for what you want without expecting to get it. Brilliant! You understand (and hope) that the other person is doing the same – attend to their needs and ask for what they want. And you all know that no one owes you anything 💜.What an adult relationship;-) So self-love and self-care really leads to more love all around.
.
Just think what it would be like to live in a world of empowered independent people? Try to picture it….our relationships would look so very different. So very healthy and fulfilling. 👯‍♀️

I think it sounds DREAMY, but it wouldn’t sell as much and there would not be as much hierarchal power structure. And you can imagine – not everyone would like the sound if this would they? 

 I sure do, and I hope you do too.  

As soon as you turn to notice yourself – you stand in your own power just a little more.

Be still a moment and ask – how do I feel? Is there a way that what I am doing right now could be easier? Am I making an effort in my belly, my jaw, my hands, my shoulders? Could I notice my breath? First, just notice. No judgement needed. No story needed. Just the facts;-)

Then ask, is there one thing I can consciously do less of just for a moment? In my jaw or wherever you noticed the tension?

The truth is we are so hungry for attention to ourselves we are so ready for attention to our bodies into what gives us happiness and pleasure that we have started to think it is outside of us. It’s not. It’s right there waiting for you and for your attention. 

Pleasure can = not rushing in the shower. It can be brushing your teeth with ease;-) Pleasure can be allowing enough time for unexpected things to happen during your commute. Pleasure can be a dressy outfit or sweats. Pleasure can be a really intense work out. Pleasures can be tackling a massive project at work or having a big dream. Pleasure can also be a bubble bath with Epson salts. Pleasure can be rest.

You get to decide. You get to choose. 

If we can grow our ability to attend, we can grow love.  ❤️ 

There is a sweet song we sing before we eat sometimes. It goes like this…More love, more love, 
Alone by its power 
The world we will conquer…

When we give attention to ourselves, when we really take care of ourselves, that is when we have the most to give to anyone in the world. It can seem counterintuitive – the whole ‘put on your oxygen mask before you put it on anyone else’.” But the journey of independence into adulthood is the slow separation of oneself from one’s caretakers and culture. And the journey or growth does not have to end just because we move out of our family homes or gain financial independence. It happens with attention. And therein lies the key for greater and greater satisfaction. 
Much love, 
Astra 

How’s it going where you are? Here in the mountains – it’s been an action-packed couple of weeks. Some good things are happening. Some pretty stressful things are happening.
 
That’s life right? It keeps changing.
 
If life is always changing, then what is your true north? For some it is faith. For other’s a practice, a job, a relationship.
 
For ALL of us it is a relationship to something – that something is our selves.
 
We like to think of our personality or character as if they are fixed and solid. It’s sort of reassuring unless we don’t like something about ourselves.
 
In truth, our personality and character it is adaptable and dynamic just like everything else in life. We can work that to our advantage – if we choose to.
 
Let’s take a look at this…
 
You have an image of your Self. Your self-image = who you think and feel yourself to be, what you believe you are good at, not so good at, what you think is your ‘personality’, your taste and opinions. In other words, your self-image is HOW you experience yourself in relationship to your environment.
 
How did you form your self-image?
 
When you were a baby, in the earliest stages of life, you did not experience yourself as distinct from your caretakers. What Mom felt, thought, and did when you were in her belly, you experienced too. Your nervous systems were linked.
 
In the field of epigenetics, they study changes in organisms caused by modification of gene expression rather than alteration of the genetic code itself. They’ve studied, for example, how trauma or stress, gets embodied and passed along from the parent or caretaker to the infant and child. That passing and influence through relationship with a caregiver, not only influences what genes are expressed, but it literally sets the stage for the child’s interactions with and expectations of the environment. It influences what information the child sorts for from the environment and how they respond to what they find. Thankfully, the good stuff and positive experiences are part of this equation too.
 
This field and the studies are a wonderful illustration of how we may carry a certain propensity for all sorts of things, but our environment and our inner action with that environment is what influences us the most.
 
 
Your sense of yourself and your personality is formed through your relationship to your environment. This includes your caretakers, friends, weather, air you name it. AND since we have such a LONG dependency period on our caretakers (see last blog post) – our relationships play a HUGE role in forming our self-image.
 
From the moment you existed, you were forming your sense of the world, what it was like, based on your relationship to your Mom through your body, your nervous system and your senses. What she felt, what hormones got released, how she moved, how she breathed or didn’t – directly shaped your experience and your idea of what the world was like and who you were in relationship to the world.
 
All of that information and experience created biological responses in your body brain. It fired and wired neurons and that becomes part of our habits.
 
How did you take that information in as a baby in utero? How did you take that in once you were born, breathing independently?
 
You took it in through your senses –in Mom’s belly and outside of it. You still are.
 
Your earliest interactions in the world are through your senses. Your sense have the most direct route to your nervous system, brain and neurons.  They continue to work the same way your whole life biologically speaking even though most of us have been taught to value reason over sensation. I am not saying that reason does not have its value and place – it does. But make no mistake, sensation and inner action with the environment is always the primary influence in the brain and the neurons.
 
After birth, your environment shifts from your Mother’s womb to the local environment your family group and the customs of your culture. Your interactions with the environment, and your personal experiences with it become internalized and part of what forms your self image. So, if you shift your experiences and your habits, you shift your self-image.
 
 Your Self Image is ALWAYS capable of changing and shifting with new experience. Remember our amazing neuroplasticity we talked about last time? 
 
That means that no matter what you experienced before this moment, you can always shift your self image and grow it.
 
 Let’s back up… yes we know that your body and mind are influenced by the environment you grow up in and by the culture. But as humans, this stuff, how the culture influences our sense of who we are is sneaky stuff. It is the water we are in – so we can forget it is there. Until…there is pain or a problem that begs our attention.
 
That pain can show up in a variety of ways… for me, as a woman, for example, I have felt like I could not safely and fully express myself in certain situations. Why? Because I live in a society where women are not treated fully as equals (yet) and there is violence toward women. The reality is that it has been a wise choice for me not to fully express myself in certain situations– it kept me safe to stay small at times. I learned that from my caretakers. I learned those cues about how to be safe from the people around me.
 
But if I stop there and just stay small and quiet all the time as my primary way of staying safe – a whole lot of me goes unexpressed in the world.  I don’t want to be small and quiet – so I seek safe ways to be the person in the world I want to be while in relationship to my environment.
 
The aim of the body and brain is survival and one of the ways we survive is by adapting and being socialized by our care takers. They are in charge of taking care of me – so I’ll follow their lead. Right? That’s smart.
 
 
Once we are no longer dependent on our caretakers for survival – we have a choice to look at the culture and the things our caretakers taught us and decide if it is what we still want to live by and do. Do I want to believe the same things as my family or my culture or other things?
 
(Another example of socialization is toilet training. I am happy my children learned how to use a toilet;-) Just to be clear – not all socialization is not bad.)
 
We not only want to survive, but many of us also want to thrive.
 
Who we are interacting with, and the values we have internalized from our caretakers and culture and experiences are all expressed in how we move, think and feel – in other words they are expressed through our habits. Our habits are a reflection of internalized values and they in turn influence our self-image.
 
When we find ourselves saying this like – it is ‘just who we are’ and “there is nothing we can do” – that is when we are in deep trouble. It is understandable that you don’t want to change things about who you are, but there are other things that we do not need to give up on if we want to change.
 
This is the horrible tragedy of what happens to people in domestically violent homes. They form their self-image in relationship to the abusive person. Likely, they formed that self-image and pattern early in life through their caretaker, and the pattern continued. Since they knew themselves and who they were through a certain relationship pattern, it is common that they will repeat the pattern because it is who they believe they are and how they know themselves to be in the world.
 
So why do some people change and heal? If they can listen to the part of their self-image that knows they deserve a better life, then they can see a glimmer of light – a small opening of hope that things can be different, that they can be different. A vital shift. They must be able to change their relationship to their environment. They need to connect to the resources and relationships that help support building a new life, new habits, new experiences and a new self-image.It can not be done alone – it is done through a change in relationship. 
 
The reason I have dedicated myself to this work for the last 20 years is because I have seen time and time again that the more self-aware we become, the more we can look at our internalized values as see how most of them are based on the place, family and culture we happen to live in. When we see this, when we experience our ability to change, we have a much better chance at happiness as individuals and a more peaceable world for all.
 
I LOVE watching people as the lightbulbs go off and they start to see that they have not FAILED. They just had not seen how they had been influenced. They had not seen how the values they had internalized from their caretakers, from their societies were in conflict with who they really wanted to be in the world. When a person sees this – and clearly feels it – it is simply amazing to witness. I have the chills just thinking about it.😊
 
When we are raising teenagers, as they start to separate themselves from their families and find out who they are – as parents we look to see who their friends are. We ask “are they good kids? Will they be a good influence on them? “ We know how much their peers will inspire and conspire with them.
 
We could ask ourselves that same question about the people we are around, the news we take in, the routines we keep, the books we read. Are they a good influence? Are they asking you to grow in good ways? Do they make you more loving or more fearful?
 
I am extremely lucky to have a partner who always reminds me to consider compassion. This week when I had a very difficult interaction with someone, as my husband and I talked about it, we really tried to understand why that person was acting that way. We did not excuse their behavior. They were still held accountable for what they had done. Yet we were able to have compassion and still care for them.
 
I have strived for this in my life and failed many times. Having a partner who always reminds me at every turn to consider choosing compassion has deeply influenced and shifted my relationship to the world. He has helped me form new habits and it has changed me and my world for the better.
 
For all of our differences, as humans, I do believe we all want the same basic things – we want food, shelter, love, protection. We want enough. We want peace and stability. The more we can align our self-image with those core values – the more joy we experience and the more peaceable the world becomes.
 
We all grow up socialized. We are humans. And humans are relational social creatures. When we begin to see that we are a bit more vulnerable to the influence of our environment than we might like to believe, we can begin to use that to our advantage.
 
Notice how you feel when you are around certain people and in certain environments. Do you feel jittery? Nervous? Excited? Calm? At ease? Like whom you wish to be?
 
Keep paying attention. By paying attention, you start to honor yourself. Your start to listen to the core parts – the essential parts.  It may not be comfortable – but I promise you can grow more and more into the person you want to be if you just pay attention and then take one small step in support of that desire.
Practice. Again, and again.
Astra

Did you ever stop to wonder how you came to think the things you think? Believe your beliefs? Or value your values over other values? Or even like the food you like? Or dance the way you do?
Humans come in all shapes, sizes, colors and are the most adaptable animals on the planet. We have managed to live on all 7 continents and to create over 7000 distinct languages.

Why don’t deer do this?

Our species has been able to do this thanks to a large brain that has neuroplasticity from birth until death.

Brain plasticity, also known as neuroplasticity, is a term that refers to the brain’s ability  to change and adapt as a result of experience. Neuro refers to neurons or the nerve cells that are the building blocks of the brain and nervous system that communicate information, and plasticity refers to the brain’s malleability.

That means when you and I were born, we had a large blank slate available to be filled with information.  We had to learn how to do all sorts of things because they were not hard wired at birth.

A baby deer can walk within a very short time of being born. You and I took months or a year to begin to master mobility.

Back to those 7000 languages and how our brain gets shaped…

Thinks about a dog’s bark. Can you hear it? What does a dog bark sound like to you? Write it down or say it aloud. 

You got it? Are you sure you are right about this? And is a Japanese dog’s bark different from an Australian dog’s bark?

Nearly all dogs bark. Studies have shown that virtually all dogs understand the barks of other dogs regardless of where they come from.  So an Australian dog understands a Japanese dog.
But get this – the way that humans hear those barks differs greatly.

The language the human speaks influences how they will hear the dog bark! And how the human represents those sounds as words.

Linguists say those words we use to represent dog barks are based on onomatopoeia, which is the process by which we try to characterize a real-world sound with a word that sounds something like it. In other words, the language we hear and speak influence how we perceive the world. The environment we grow up in influences our perception of something that has no measurable difference objectively speaking.  

What we sort for, with our senses, is based on what we have already learned and experienced in our life previously.  And each time we learn or experience something new, we are setting up new neural pathways for information to be channel and filtered through.

When we hear the dog bark – the same neurons that fire when we speak and hear our own language – fire when we hear a dog bark.

Even in a single language, there may be a number of different words used for a dog’s bark, for example, in English, we recognize “woof-woof,” “arf-arf”, “ruff-ruff” and “bow-wow.” Many languages also have different words for the barks of large versus small dogs, thus “yip-yip” or “yap-yap” are used in English for the barking sounds of small dogs, never for big dogs.

The only thing that seems to come close to being unanimously agreed upon about a dog’s bark is that dogs almost always speak twice—thus a Hebrew dog says “hav-hav”, a Japanese dog says “wan-wan” and a Kurdish dog says “hau-hau.”

Now let’s take a bigger view of this – yes you were born with certain genetic propensities, but most of what you believe, think, hear, and feel is based on the environment you have experienced. This environment includes the books you read in school, the news you watch or read, the things your caregivers taught you and the current company you keep.

In the US we are living in one of the most divisive times I have ever experienced.
I know that the way I think and act was primarily informed by what came before now, the people I am around, the prosperity, privilege and traumatic events I’ve experienced, and the company I keep. The more I learn to pay attention to what I experience around me, to listen and to see various perspectives, the less convinced that my opinion is the right one, and the more peaceful and connected I can be toward others.

BUT  in order to be able to experience the world, from a more open minded and adaptable place, we need a regulated nervous system.

We need to be able to act, not just out of our past, not just out of fight, flight and freeze, but from a more regulated and balanced state. When we are acting out of fight, flight and freeze, we are acting out of our past. We are not tapping into our unique human ability to be highly adaptable. In other words, we are not using our greatest gift – our neuroplasticity. 

When we are actually in a safe environment and in a more regulated and balanced state, we can hear one another much better and begin to build a world with more representation, less exclusion and less violence toward one another.

That’s the world, I want to live in. Hope you will join me.
Work your practices 💜listen to yourself and your body, 
Astra
PS more next time on what to do when you are not safe and rest is not an option