I found this today....

...and really liked it.

http://christinekane.com/blog/bad-bored-and-bulimic-part-2/

For the computer-bound

A majority of folks that I see spend a lot of time at a desk, in front of a computer. Unsurprisingly, a lot of their complaints are the same: stiffness in their lower backs, tension and aches in their necks and between their shoulder blades, constrictions in their chests, unhappy forearms and hands. In brief, let's talk about what happens to your body when you spend hours each day sitting...

Shortened: hamstrings, hip flexors, pectorals, abdominal muscles, pronator teres (in your forearms, turns your hands palm-side down)

Lengthened: scapula stabilizers (rhomboids, trapezius), muscles in the back part of your neck (which are also working overtime if your head is in a forward position, rather than nicely stacked on your spine

What ends up happening is that all of the shortened muscles get used to being short and tight. They pull and pull and pull, creating tension in the muscles that oppose them. A simple way to begin addressing all of the aches and pains that arise from desk work is to stretch. Bob Anderson published a fabulous book on stretching, and makes some basic office stretches available on his website.

One of my personal favorite stretches is a pectoral stretch done on a 36"X6" round foam roller. You place the foam roller under the length of your spine, so that your head and sacrum are supported. Open your arms out, palms up. Bend your elbows 90 degrees. Let gravity pull your chest open. You can change which muscle fibers are stretched by raising and lowering your shoulders...kind of like making a snow angel (but maintain the bend in your elbow).

If you're a visual person, you can watch this lady.

I have to eat something, but I want to get this up, so start with this, and I'll post more later.

Ciao for now.

Metta Meditation

There is a meditation that focuses on the intention of metta, beginning with yourself.  You settle yourself comfortably and spend a few minutes focusing on your breathing.  How is your breath?  Is it shallow?  Deep?  Constricted in any way?  Go ahead and deepen it.  Breathe waaaaay down into your diaphragm to a slow 4-count, and exhale on a slow 4-count.  Then focus on the following:

May I be filled with loving-kindness

May I be well

May I be peaceful and at ease

May I be happy

Breathe it in.  See if you can fill your body with it.  How does it feel to wish yourself well?  

Sometimes I do this meditation while I'm walking my dog.  Sometimes my brain starts yakking up a storm about how fake it feels, oh--what's that over there?, I don't like how my neighbors landscape their yard, etc.  And I have to gently haul my brain back (much in the way I rein in the dog when she gets a bit cheeky on the end of the leash) and start again.  May I be filled with loving-kindness...

A lot of folks seem to expect meditation to be a magic bullet (massage, too, for that matter).  And you may very well have some sort of A-HA! moment the first time you do this.  If you do, good for you, and please tell me what you found.  For most of us, it's a new soundtrack that we start to play in our heads to replace some of our habitually critical soundtrack.  It gives you a little space, a little breathing room...and then, perhaps, some day you find you've cut yourself some slack when normally you'd be reading yourself the riot act over some slip-up.  

There is more to the meditation, but let's start at the beginning.  And...begin.

First things first: metta

Many years ago, I was on a personal retreat at one of my favorite places, Woolman Hill.  I had wandered into a bookstore in Northampton, MA and was looking for something.  I came across Jack Kornfield's A Path With Heart.  To say that it has changed my life would be an understatement.

With Sharon Salzberg and Joseph Goldstein, Kornfield co-founded the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, MA.  I think their website explains far better (and with fewer words than I would use!) the concepts of vipassana and metta.  

But metta is behind how I live life, and it's a driving force in my career choice.  So let's talk metta.

It's often translated as "lovingkindess"--a deep compassion that one develops for her/himself, and for others.  It is to have an open heart.  Really, it is to choose an open heart, because I think most of us can relate to how easy it is to close ourselves off in the face of internal or external criticism, judgment, fear, anger, hurt, loneliness, etc.  and to react with a closed or broken heart.

And, really, it must must MUST start from within.  You have to start by turning a gentle eye towards all of the things you find so unbearable in yourself.  Cuz the cliche is true: you cannot give what you do not have.  And if you haven't done this, let me forewarn you that it will probably be one of the hardest things you've ever done.

I was in the process of finishing my degree in Women's Studies and applying to social work school when my wife suggested "Hey, why don't you re-visit that old interest of yours in massage?"  (because I'd first considered going to massage school when I dropped out of art school at 19).  One orientation day later, I knew I was on the right path.  Talk therapy has its place, but I loved the idea of being able to work on a somatic level, because we live our lives in these bodies, and we hold everything within them.  On top of all the emotions we store and bottle in our bodies,  so many people are in struggle with their bodies--chronic illness, unhappiness with how we look, etc.  

So Metta Bodywork is about working and being with all of that from a) my own place of respect and compassion in hopes that b) people can rest in that space during sessions.