November Newsletter: Finding Home

All Humanity Newsletter | November 2022

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Greetings...

Sensations of Home

Home is a sensation that we allow ourselves to receive. It is not simply a particular place or a time, not even a particular structure. Your sensation of home can have many doorways – a smell, a song, someone’s laugh, or the cuddle of a pet. I have a cheap, multi-colored plastic recorder that sits on a ledge in the corner of my bathroom. I think it is my son’s from pre-school, but it reminds me of my lost sister, who taught herself how to play. For me, Laura feels like home. We all have our stories.

Not everyone can directly receive or conjure sensations of home. This is true for many reasons, from hard life experiences to simply failing to distinguish between sensations of home and their causes.

At Mind Body Solutions, our approach is predicated on believing that the body is the best home the mind will ever have. Such a truth is often particularly difficult to realize for someone living with trauma, loss, and difficulty. The unintentional cultural meme projected at them is to strive to ‘keep up and fit in’ with everyone else. Success often comes at the expense of their body because they perceive it as the problem or an object of shame.

At Mind Body Solutions, we have success when our students become more patient with their bodies, more amazed, and more curious. They begin to see their bodies not through the lens of what is not but rather through what is.

Learning to inhabit what is, rather than carrying what is not, is a profound healing realization. It begins with allowing the sensation of home within the body. Sometimes we need help remembering how this feels. Glance down at the pose of the month for a body-driven example.

So as Thanksgiving comes upon us, let’s give thanks for our sensations of home. Hug your loved ones and help them find it in their bodies, too.

Matthew

Matthew Sanford

Founder, Mind Body Solutions

Pose of the month...

Finding Home

Your body is the best home your mind will ever have - Matthew Sanford

It is each of our birthright to be at home in our bodies. They ought to be a refuge for our minds, allowing us to feel relief, attain tranquility, and embody the entire self.

Gather props such as a chair, yoga strap, blankets, sandbags, or similar items. If a partner is available, ask if they will assist getting into or out of the pose. There are many options: blanket under the head/arms/calves, yoga strap just above the knees, sandbags on the shoulders/hip crease/across the shins, etc.

Lie down facing up, calves resting on the seat of a chair. Once the props are arranged,

place the arms to the sides, palms up. After several breaths, the chest opens and the elbows, wrists, and hands soften. On an exhale, notice the lengthening of your spinal energy. With each inhale and exhale, feel the sensation of the breath spread evenly through the body.

With the foundation firmly established, the body is able to calm and notice subtle connections between its various parts. For example, connections can be made from the shoulders to the hips to the knees to the ankles. The reference on the back ribs and sacrum can send a certain energy to the legs. The diaphragm may signal a charge to the heels. MBS students have figured out that asana creates stability, allowing the mind to settle. This reveals a wondrous network throughout the loud and quiet places in the body.

Options:

Have a partner gently give reference on the diaphragm
Place sandbags on shoulders/hip creases/or mid shins
Cinch a yoga strap above knees/around mid thighs
Place blankets/bolster under the knees in lieu of the calves on chair
Press femur bones away from abdomen and notice the additional sensations of space
To activate, take one arm overhead while pressing the opposite sit bone diagonally away from that arm, switch sides

Benefits:

Relief and support allows for the experience of the subtle body
Support from back body, and removal of gravity allows for inner activation to unfold
Changes perspective of the world and perception of gravity
Alignment is restorative
Chest lifts when sit bones extended away from the spine
The settled emptiness allows for a sense of direction to be received

Mary Pat

Mary Pat FitzPatrick

MBS Teaching Faculty/Outreach Coordinator

Share Your Story! Nov 29th

Join in for the year's last Yoga, Disability, & Transformation gathering!

STORIES FOR A BETTER LIFE

NOV 29TH 2PM CENTRAL TIME / ONLINE

The MBS community is ripe with experience and wisdom. It’s time to listen and share. Join this interactive, community conversation to hear stories (or share one) that express the wisdom gained along the road less traveled, that is, the road of living with a disability. This session includes an intentional yoga practice that aims to honor all the lessons learned, both spoken and unspoken, that people living with disabilities carry through every day of their lives.