Investing in Our Past

We’re serving up something different on Rooted Reading today: a guest post from Kwento founder Aidȳn Mancenido. When I learned of Aidȳn’s new business, it reminded me of how much value there is in our stories. Learn about her offering below:

As the holidays have passed and having spent precious time with those I love, including family and friends I don’t see often, I realized just how fortunate I am to be surrounded by such gorgeous humans; many of whom I consider resilient, wise, soulful, and abundantly generous in spirit. I caught up on stories of navigating the challenges of a new marriage; on the heartaches of supporting an older sibling contending with a heroine addiction since the age of 15; and the victory of overcoming stage IV cancer at the tender age of 79. These and many other stories make up the beautiful breadth and depth of our humanity. We are ever-evolving creatures immersed in a strikingly beautiful and kaleidoscopic array of life.

I started Kwento so that I can offer individuals the opportunity to capture some of these unique and impressive life experiences of those we love, including our aging parents and grandparents. I help folks preserve their family history as a legacy for future generations. I interview individuals through a series of 1-hour interviews to identify the threads and poignant elements, then I craft the story, which is shared as a printed book. With over 20 years of experience as a cultural anthropologist and writer, I am invested in documenting histories that lead to greater knowledge and appreciation of our pasts, and therefore, of ourselves.

You can learn more about Kwento at www.kwentome.com, or email me at kwentome@gmail.com.

Free Class for Releasing Holiday Tension: Acupressure Release and Relax

Happy holidays! This year, my gift to my clients, friends, family and anyone who needs it is this perfect 50-minute class for releasing holiday tension and tightness. You’ll need a tennis ball or acupressure ball.

Thank you to everyone who has supported Rooted Wellness & Pilates this year. It’s such an honor to support you. Enjoy the class and let me know if it helped you through the holiday season!

Cultivate a Healing State by Noticing What's Good

The late afternoon light is shimmering though the leaves outside the window at the studio. They are colored orange, yellow and brown, and it feels like fall in the best way. The light shimmers against the hardwood floors, too. As I notice this and the sun on the leaves, I feel a sensation of spaciousness and openness in my body. My breath drops down into my belly. It feels good to just take in this moment. I’m aware of feeling nothing bad or unpleasant in my body for the moment and I feel content. I’m also aware of how simple this moment seems and how valuable, because it has not always been this easy for me and my nervous system to feel ok.

I’ve worked to cultivate my ability for noticing and then to be with the sensations I notice in my body. In this moment, I’m not waiting for the next bad thing that could happen, I’m not on edge from a stressful moment that happened earlier in the day. I’m here and noticing what feels good.

This experience of feeling good is crucial for nervous system health. If you have a history of trauma, it can be hard to notice the good. Our nervous system developed to keep us safe and is prepared for fight, flight or freeze. It is attuned to notice what is wrong. The signals that something is (or could be) wrong get wired into our responses and patterns, and we learn to respond really quickly to what is wrong. This is great for actual danger but not so great for all the smaller stressors we are always experiencing in our modern world (emails, social media, the news and the overall busyness of life).

Our nervous system can become so wired to be on high alert for danger that we can’t relax, we can’t settle after experiencing stress, and we might plan for worst case scenarios or look at life from a pessimistic view point. While this is very common and a strategy for survival, healing comes from learning to orient more toward things that feel better — or things that don’t feel quite as bad.

Often this can feel unfamiliar and challenging, and it's a slow process of offering your nervous system a new experience and different options. Over time, we can strengthen our awareness of what feels better to allow our nervous system to soak into those feelings (thereby healing potential of the parasympathetic nervous system).

If you would like to explore this in your life, please reach out for Somatic Experiencing coaching.

Coming Home To Your Body

One of the reasons clients reach out for Pilates or Somatic Experiencing is the desire to feel more in their bodies. Our bodies are incredibly wise. They learn that disconnecting or tuning out can help us cope when things feel overwhelming — at least for a time. Often, these patterns are established early in life and, even when we no longer need them, they can linger.

Sometimes, it feels like the only signals coming from your body are the uncomfortable ones: pain, fatigue, anxiety. It’s important to meet this with compassion. These patterns began for a reason, and now you have the opportunity to support them in shifting.

Through gentle body and nervous system tracking in Somatic Experiencing and through Pilates movements that build awareness, strength, mobility, and flexibility, you can begin to have a different experience with your body. It’s so common to move through life without really noticing our bodies unless something hurts or feels off.

But what happens when you notice simply for the sake of noticing?

Can you feel your breath? How does it feel? Is it in your neck or your belly? Does it flow easily or feel restricted? Can you notice without judging or trying to change it?

What does it feel like to engage your abs? Can you sense the strength of your legs as you press into the foot bar? Can you connect to that same grounded strength as you walk up the stairs? Do new sensations arise in your body, and can it be okay just to be with them? What happens when you stay with a sensation and let it shift on its own?

Through this kind and curious exploration, we can develop a new relationship with our bodies and with ourselves. If it’s been hard to be present in your body, you can gently invite that presence as a goal and notice when it begins to show up.

You can learn more about yourself. You can feel strong, capable, and connected in your body and in your life. You can build a relationship with your sensations not through fear, but through compassion, curiosity, and kindness.

One Thing Everyone Should Know About Their Nervous System

Your nervous system has your best interests in mind, always, even if it doesn’t feel that way!

We mostly notice things that aren’t working in our bodies and in our lives. Our nervous system is designed to alert us to danger, and so the symptoms of activation are noticeable, often unpleasant, uncomfortable and disruptive. You can feel anxiety, racing heart, overwhelmed and jittery. You also may not sleep well. You might feel low and depressed, like you can’t motivate yourself, can’t get out of bed, feel really lethargic, or stuck in your body and in your life. These sensations can feel downright scary, and they give the cue that something is “wrong.”

Of course you want to change this and feel like yourself again. It can feel like your body has let you down. However, this fight, flight or freeze response is designed to keep you safe. I think it is so important and so helpful to acknowledge this because it is a reminder that your body is trying to take care of you in the best way it knows how to do.

Often, your nervous system and these symptoms go into overdrive because your brain and nervous system sees a current situation as a threat when the situation doesn’t actually need an extreme response. These patterns develop from past experiences and traumas. Our brains are really good at identifying patterns and responding to them. You can change your nervous system, your response and your patterns. You can support your nervous system in becoming more resilient and increasing your capacity and becoming more regulated. 

When you have a lot of dysregulation, a history of trauma and strong nervous system response symptoms, it can feel like your body is against you and you need to fight back against it. How do things shift if you recognize that your body is trying to keep you safe? For me, I feel gratitude. It feels so much better to nurture my body and nervous system, explore kind and compassionate ways to gently shift, and support change. 

Interested in learning more? Reach out for a nervous system coaching session.