Annette Bray
Free Your Body
Live & Love Empowered
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Safe to Open
Safety is a word that likely conjures images of predatory offense or inadvertent circumstances of being in harms way. Of course these fit that classification, but to the physical body, lack of safety can come just as readily from perception of imminent threat than a present moment of physical infliction.
And unfortunately, these feelings of lack of safety are very prevalent in American society. It's a stress response to physical and psychological stimuli that shows in our medical system. The Journal of American Medical Association estimates that 60 to 80 percent of medical visits are stress related.
To be alert, wise and emboldened when we are faced with danger could save our life. But to be constantly vigilant and reactionary to our psychological circumstances can take it away.
To find that safety we need to be in balance in our alert yet restful state, is to cultivate an intelligently open body that reflects it. How can this be done?
Somatic tools can teach you how to listen to your body's sensations and feelings as an access point to the heart capacity of intuition. Have you ever had a gut feeling to say no to something and then it worked in your favor when you acted in alignment with it?
The wisdom didn't come from closing down with fear, it came with the openness of trusting your own guidance. And there are ways to develop this capacity.
I'll be sharing one of those tools later this week. You can join me on my FB Live to learn it. And please feel free to schedule a complimentary 30 minute call
if you think I may help.
Sending all the best :)
This weekend, I had the honor of supporting another client as the realization sunk in...that meaningful change does happen. She is so committed to the process of growing and understands that she is held back from moving forward. But couldn't quite feel how. So we explored through connection to nature and some of the many resources that each of us have access to...when we know and choose to connect to these feelings. One of the many innate tools I helped her access is the calm yet expansive resource of the breath. There are probably hundreds of ways to engage with breathing that balances the nervous system. One of my most cherished teachings to my clients, is how to access profound focus on the breath to effect our return to the full diaphragmatic opening we were born to live in. And it was through this guidance and attention, that I witness the incredible change to a fullness of breath that was not there when we began. Not only did her breathing pattern change, but she accessed beautiful AND challenging emotion that helped her move through what was getting in the way. By days end, it became clear that her belief in healing the pain in her body and the emotions carried within it...was now steady and committed to her power to change. And the simplicity of following the bodies wisdom was the key. I just offered my knowledge and guidance to help this transpire. For me, it's the gift of helping and knowing the difference I can create that inspires me. If you're gut tells you I may be of support to you...reach out. I'm here to help you however I am able. Schedule with me ... or message me ... All the best :)
Have you ever observed how you breathe? Is it rapid, slow, tight, open, contracted or expansive? If you have no awareness of your breath and consistently align the way you live with the fast pace of our modern society, chances are that you err on the side of rapid, tight and contracted. Why? Because if you're response to life prevents you from looking up, opening your awareness and feeling in to the creative and expansive quality of the heart...it is likely that your breathing triggers some variation of fight and flight behavior. There are many ways to develop an alternative way of moving this energy of life. The phase of our breath that triggers the activation of the parasympathetic nervous system, is our exhale. In general, as I've seen in myself and assessed in my clients, it's the exhale that's been cut short. When you bring focus to the length of the exhale, you engage the calming of the nervous system. This naturally begins to bring you into the present and releases many physical and emotional restrictions that loop you into a heightened stress response. And this fullness of release enables more ease and natural fullness to the inhale. The practices you undertake to facilitate this are impactful. But only regular actions will create a long term pattern of change. I'd love to show you how. Reach out to me and ask me how i can support you. And perhaps you'd like to join me Live on FB on Friday as i explore this with you. And as always, reach out to schedule a 30 minute complimentary consultation with me. I hope you're having a beautiful week and I look forward to connecting with you :)
If the way we carry our body reflects how we feel, then any part of our anatomy can be a contributor to a posture that expresses this. The pain we feel can originate in our self perceptions. And the genesis of this are experiences turned inward. It's really a bummer that, all too often, these are negative experiences we turn into an internal image which causes us to be hard on ourselves. We can do the same with the positive. Yet, we tend to get trained to focus on what we did wrong (or what someone else interprets as our error). And of course, the hyper focus on what's wrong can be a survival tactic to ward it off again. But, we hold this energy within us for an impending event that may never come. And there it lies, causing a body and mind out of alignment and robbing us of the function we were designed to move with. Pain in your shoulders can be one manifestation of an emotional contraction. How could this be? When your open heart and feelings of being safe are challenged without awareness that there is an alternative, your spine changes. Mobility decreases in the vertebrae and the muscles and fascia of the spine, scapula and shoulder joint. If this is you, your shoulders turn into a contracted heart and prevent the lift of the ribcage to open the life affirming diaphragmatic breath. There are so many anatomical parts that contribute to how your body limits expansion. But, when you are mindful of being present with the source emotion and then add the precision physical tools to release, the painful information held within can be liberated. If I can help you do just that, I would love to do so. Consider if I can support you moving through your pain. Schedule a free 30-minute session with me to discover if this work can support your journey. And join me on Friday for my Live to explore the holding of the shoulders. As always, wishing you well :)
I thought I'd write a different email to you this week...as it hasn't been the norm in our family. On Sunday, my husband and I said goodbye to our adorable Rottweiler of 10 years, Fran. There's a deep ache in letting go of these amazing critters that are a part of our families. If we pay attention, they're teaching us something...our little soulmates offering us to learn more about ourselves. And of course, teaching us the ultimate lesson of unconditional love. They're joyful, authentically themselves and so in the moment. What a gift they are for us to share in life together. Which of course, makes saying goodbye so hard. I've felt it in by body since Sunday, that incredible fatigue from feeling sad. It makes the truth so clear about our bodies and are emotions being inextricably intertwined. I've relaxed in the tough feelings and it makes it better. And my feeling that she's free and yet connected to us energetically is bittersweet. I just wanted to take this week and honor the soul of Fran who brought us so much pure joy and endless love. And wishing that you all have these kinds of souls to love, learn and journey with. Wishing you well 💙
In the realm of somatic awareness, a resource is any mechanism of finding safety/well-being within your body. In my experience, sadly, I find that so few people know that this state is even within their power to create. We tend to habitually relinquish our experience of well-being to forces outside of us. We can be so vigilant in relation to our environment, that any pain in the physical or emotional body predominates our perception of how we feel. When truthfully, if we scan our entire internal environment, there is health and good function alongside the dis-ease that's getting our attention. So the ability to learn how to resource yourself in your body and mind is a precious tool in accessing health even when we don't feel good. And it's not just a distraction, the habit of resourcing can lead to physiologic changes that dampen gene expression that cause ill-health, and stimulate gene expression that heals the body. There are potentially hundreds, if not thousands of ways to resource your body/mind. The practice of mindfully paying attention to your surroundings without judgement is an access point to your internal well-being. Tracking the movement of breath in your body is another. Noticing how your body is supported by the foundation of your seat, or even mother earth beneath you are resources. I know they sound very simple, but when you come to know safety within, through these resources, your world can change dramatically. Do you want to practice this me? You can start by joining be early this Friday, Live on FB to do just this. Or schedule a free 30 minute consultation and I can point you in the right direction. I wish you a beautiful week and looking forward to engaging with you in the near futrue :)
When I assess the movement of my clients, a common physical pattern I will witness is a "hardening" along the body's anterior (front). It shows up mostly in the thighs, hips and chest, but can certainly present anywhere along this anterior. It tends to result in tight quadriceps, iliopsoas (hip flexor)rectus abdominus (six pack muscles), pecs and the fascia related to these muscle groups. The weakness (and dysfunction) that results is in the hamstrings, gluts and spinal erectors (long muscles of the back). My theory about what creates this physical behavior (for many people), is a mental drive to push and force things to happen. In the body, that originates from the compensatory action of forcing from the front side. When we start using our innate capacity to move forward from our back line (back side muscle/fascia network), we engage the integrity that is our natural design. You become the force that you were designed to emanate. There is effort to it, but rather that pushing from the front where your strength is very limited in this way, you drive from the back side that was created to move you forward. You can feel the joy and assuredness when you move from this back line pattern. It takes a somatic process of opening the front and re-connecting to the power that is the back side...to know the feeling of you as the force. It's amazing for me to teach this way of being in the body. And I'd love to support you if this calls to you. Please message me here ...or schedule a free 30 minute consultation to zero in on your needs and the path forward.
We live in these bodies that have so much capacity for ever expanding expression. Sadly, we tend to be unaware that this exists within us. We are sensing beings and it's through these inputs that we can tune into the lifeforce internally where we access innate power. Not power over anyone else, but power to create the most authentic, caring and self-assured version of yourself. I'm going to go out on a limb here as I relate this to the human biomechanical design and my experience of feeling. When we are aligned in our form and engage the patterns of muscle action that perpetuate this alignment, we feel strong and relieved from pain. When you are not in this physical and emotional alignment you can feel the fragility. A big part of our movement design is to move forward by being propelled by the synchronized action our back side. And doesn't moving forward through time and space guided by your own motor feel powerful? And what is missing from most people's function in the hind of our anatomy is the gluts. Yep, a weak butt can cause us to feel a total lack of connection and agency over our body. It translates into a feeling. And...perhaps the feeling is where it all began. When we don't hold our own self-perception of strength it can show in the way we carry ourselves through the world. So we can play with unveiling the emotion that causes it and embody power when we know the how of engaging it. And from my anatomy background, using those gluts is one of my favorite things to teach :) Join me on Friday on FB live as I teach this. And of course, reach out and schedule a free 30 minute consult if this aligns with you. Wishing you well...
If you find yourself in a position of recycling old behaviors and pains in the body, you've run headlong into a common human challenge. I know it too. I believe each of us really want to move forward to become better versions of ourself. And create a life where we serve others utilizing our gifts and skills. Where do these patterns come from? Most often they begin at a time in our life when we're in a highly receptive brain wave state. Essentially, until the age of 8 our brain waves are completely subconscious. We're either in Delta, Theta or Alpha, which means we don't analyze what's coming in. If we get a message about our lack (of whatever), we take it in as truth in our subconscious mind. And it stays there as a pattern in our emotional experience as well as in the body's manifestation of that belief. Until...we develop the awareness that it's there and how to transmute the energy stuck in it. Sadly, we don't change until we feel the pain in our body resulting from our misaligned way of seeing ourselves. But mastery of the way we feel, the thoughts we generate and how we hold our body, is the key to creating the version of ourselves that we're seeking. When we can master our emotions and the thoughts that interplay with them we can begin to embody them and change our pain cycle. Couple this with an understanding of anatomy and how to utilize the physical to access emotion, now we're really impacting the patterns that feel like they've been cemented within us. This is why I love and teach somatic presence for those I help...because it works well. If this speaks to you, schedule a free 30 minute session with me. We can talk about the possibility of making that change for you. As always, sending love :)
Many of our bodies reflect the challenging self-perception we have on the inside, that results from us looking for our value on the outside. Your somatic (body) experience outwardly represents how you have subscribed to the perceived or expressed beliefs about you from others. The real bummer is that most of the time, how you see yourself in others eyes has been very miscalculated by your limbic (emotional) brain. It can be so difficult for us to carry our body in a way that reflects grace and authentic care for ourselves, yet compassion and humility towards another. Self-effacing behavior seems to collide with confidence as though they are mutually exclusive. Rather, I believe that self-love and humility are partners that cannot be separated. When we care authentically for all we are...the flaws along with the positive attributes, we can extend that love and humility to another. When we are in this state of fear, shame, despair or frustration, we will not have an innately full and rhythmic breath. These thoughts and feelings cause a change in how we are moved by breath. And the breath is the way back in, to transmute this energy of feeling back to our inherent state of love. Humans are hard-wired to care for self AND others. Coming back to the simplicity of being present with the breath confirms this truth...that we can be deeply and lovingly connect to self while being humble with others. Would you like to know this embodied experience? If I can help you on this path of discovery, please reach out. Schedule a 30 minute free consultation... I hope you had a wonderful and loving holiday weekend with those you care for. Sending love...
I know just as much as the next person, the pain of repeating patterns. And I would imagine you have a few that give you grief as well. There are a lot of factors stacked against us as we live out of sync with our biological rest and work rhythms. And then when we're on our own quiet time, it seems we struggle with our ability to focus and stay disciplined to behave the ways we've committed ourselves to. So what actually is a pattern? Whether it's a squat pattern or a thought pattern about how worthy you are of what you want, it's driven by your nervous system. A linked chain of neurons comes together to form a network that ultimately acts to initiate a motor (movement) action or a feeling (emotional) response. Without awareness that you can do the pattern in a more functional or self loving way, you'll continue on the pattern that was set forth years before. What does it take to change? In short, select the new pattern over and over again until it becomes the automatic one that your brain chooses to enact. I know it sound simple and yes, there is a simplicity to it. But as the saying goes, it's not easy. There are essentially 2 fundamental commitments that enable a pattern to shift...an elevated emotional state of being and a frequency of practicing the new action or thought process. I believe one of the barriers to achieving this, is not having the awareness of the resistance that gets in the way. It's not a story we have to re-visit, it's a feeling we need to be present with so it transmutes. The somatic process entrusts that when we are present and kind to what we feel in each moment, the body and it's pattern will begin to unearth and make way for the new that we want. It's my honor to guide those who ask me to help. If you would like to explore this journey with me, book a 30 minute free call and i will share with you the distilled lessons of over 25 years of transformational discovery.