All one body
This year I’ve been taking seriously a rather wild understanding: that the individual body contains everything and all of us. This is actually a pretty traditional, mystical/tantric notion: microcosm of the macrocosm; as above, so below; body of Christ etc. However, it’s still a pretty huge – well, infinite idea. No … it’s a somatic […]
Movement-phobic culture
We live in a movement-phobic society. Culturally, we’re shackled and straight-jacketed. Don’t think so? Try practising yoga at an airport, doing pull-ups on a train or start dancing in the street. I’ve been mocked, threatened, questioned by police and even told I should be sectioned – just for moving my own body in these ways. […]
Don’t listen to your body. The body always lies.
As an embodiment teacher, I’ve been encouraging people to get in touch with their bodily selves – and therefore, their values, compassion and intuition – for years. Recently, however, I’ve started to hear people say that their reason for doing some piece of bullshit was because they ‘listened to their bodies’. While the body can […]
Top tips for facilitators
Know what you’re trying to do. Clear aims matter. Being is more important than tools. Embody what you’re teaching. Any training is a cycle. The beginning is not the middle, and the middle is not the end. This flow matters (eg building trust and authority early, and helping people get clear take-aways at the end). […]
Suffering doesn’t help
There’s a deeply held, implicit belief that we must suffer to grow. It’s Judeo-Christian essentially, but has made its way into all aspects of bodymind practice and personal growth. Today, extreme hot yoga, mud runs (and similar) and ice training are some of the most popular methods of torturing oneself. Much of this practice has […]
Being authentic is like wild sex …
If you think you’re doing it, you’re not.
The seduction of magic
Special skills (real and imagined) are very attractive. The promise of learning advanced sexual alchemy, shooting Reiki chi from your fingers like a benevolent Yoda, having the ninja death touch or the psychic skills to see what mere mortals cannot – and a host of other things – are seductive. People can make a lot […]
The new barons of trauma
When I started learning about trauma, it was an unusual thing to be aware of in embodied communities. I’d come across the realities of it in when doing humanitarian work in various war zones, so had got interested in it personally. My main mentor, Paul Linden, happened to specialise in this field. His work with […]
We’re all from the same place
One grandfather soared in the air and dropped death on Germans. He screamed in his sleep until the day he died. The other was from a village in Ireland. He spent his youth braving U-boats, sweating and shovelling coal in the bellies of war ships to get his children to England. His wife held broken […]
Today I decided to be human
Today I decided to be human. I went for a walk when I had “lots to do”, because busy is a choice. I smelt the roses and the dog shit, to be fair. I ate what I liked and didn’t feel guilty. I grunted in yoga and didn’t pretend to transcend my money worries or […]