What Inspires you?
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Our job isn't easy. And the holidays can make everything more intense, highs and lows. This week I have already seen multiple folks in more acute states of struggle than usual. It can sometimes be a challenge to fully show up for our people and make sure we are tending to our own sweet selves.
Don't worry, this wont be a treatise on self-care. Rather, I'm thinking about "inspo!" Sometimes inspiration just happens and that's rad but unpredictable and we might need it more frequently than that. I believe we can cultivate that feeling of inspiration in lots of ways.
Gil Hedley as Inspo!
Without a doubt studying with Gil Hedley through the videos on his website has given me more inspiration and confidence in our work than any other single source - except the gift of those simple things like watching the light change in the morning as the sun rises or catching a specific star sky or moon scene riding my bike home at night.
He recently rolled through Portland on his Nerve Tour and it was wonderful.
Highlights
Soma-tone: The images of the peripheral nervous system woven into the superficial fascial layers was stunning. Like fine filaments of curiosity embedded at our surface, reaching out to be touched by life, the world. Gil reiterated that these are sensory nerves and thus our surface is one ginormous sense organ. It recommitted me to the importance of the right depth of contact and to trust pacing my touch work slowly so as to not miss what might be happening here. It's so easy to sail past these layers for something "more important."
"It's a pathway, not a problem": I actually can't remember what Gil was referring to when he said this. And, I love it. Use it anywhere it seems helpful. It is one of my big reframes when it comes to everyone's obsession that they have a "vagus nerve problem". It's a pathway, not a problem. Yes please.
Cradling the Nervous System in Two Hands: At one point Gil showed a video clip of him cradling the entirety of the CNS. One hand was under the bundle of cranial nerves, about where the occiput would be and his other hand was at the density of nerves where the sacrum would be. He gently lifted the nervous system of the table, the spinal cord gently sagged between his hands and the nerves going to the extremities draped down towards the table. The whole thing had this effervescent lightness to it, like leaves falling to the ground as the are blown by a wind off the tree.
It gave me an entirely new image for what we are doing when we cradle the dural tube at the occiput and sacrum.
Our work is a joy and a delight. We cannot forget that even when working within the healthcare system can feel lilke drudgery of fuckery. We must keep going in beauty and awe for who and what we are and the unbelievable honor that it is to get to work with folks in the ways we do.
