Welcome to the Monday Muse, a short round up of stuff that I found interesting in the last week. If you have comments or ideas you want to share, feel free to drop me a message any time!
1/ What I've been up to
I had a blast co-hosting a meditation retreat with three friends this weekend in Tokyo. The theme was "awakening your 6 senses," getting out of your head and more in touch with your direct physical experience.
Typically, I find that I operate in two modes in my life: 1) thinking or 2) feeling my direct physical experience (sight, sound, touch, taste etc). Obviously, these operate in parallel (or at least oscillate rapidly back and forth), but the more I'm in my head planning, worrying, and dreaming, the less I can appreciate the sights, sounds and smells around me. In other words, getting out of your head and in touch with your senses is a path to being closer to the present moment.
We ran the one-day retreat in a big yoga studio in central Tokyo with a tight-knit group of 7 people. There was a mix of techniques including mindfulness meditation, yoga, breathwork, eye-gazing, intuitive dance, and a sound journey performance. There were no phones allowed, which by itself was probably enough to give people some headspace.
Everyone seemed to open up and relax by the end, and we had some good insights emerge during the discussion circle. It went smoothly, however, I felt like we tried to do a little bit too much in the day (not to mention my body is still quite sore). For our next event I think we'll experiment with shorter 2-3 hour or half-day retreats and hone in on one or two powerful experiences. This is all part of the Tokyo Mindfulness community that I've been slowly building the last few months and I'll be sharing more details about this soon when our site is live!
2/ What I've been reading
In an Unspoken Voice by Peter Levine
As I continue to dive deeper into my burnout journey, I came across trauma researcher Peter Levine's work. He draws on biology, neuroscience and body-oriented psychotherapy to explain how our bodies store and release trauma.
All animals including humans have a natural response to processing trauma. For example, a gazelle who manages to escape the jaws of a lion will find a quiet place and start to shake and tremble vigorously as the trauma is released from their bodies. Humans very much have the same response. Once we've escaped our predicament and can process what happened, our bodies go into action: our skin flushes, we get warm-tingling sensations, maybe we cry, tremble or even shake. This is a natural, healthy response. We "shook off" the trauma.
Trauma is inevitable in our lives — work, relationships, crime, death, car accidents, pandemics, fires, you name it. In most situations we can take action or process the trauma. The problem is that many people go through situations where, for one reason or the other, our natural instincts to fight or flee are blunted, which causes the trauma cycle to get stuck. This results in post-traumatic stress disorder, which then causes a host of other psychosomatic physical and mental issues, whose source can be hard to pinpoint.
Levine shares how this happened to survivors from the World Trade Center attacks. He tells the story of one lady on the 70th floor who had to evacuate down the staircase, walking in an orderly single-file line behind hundreds of others going down the stairs. The building was burning and people were dying all around them. While her adrenaline was rushing and screaming at her to run, she had to mentally inhibit this reaction and walk slowly.
This created a situation where her body was unable to properly release the trauma of the moment, which causes all sorts of issues months down the line: panic attacks, anxiety, heightened blood pressure and feeling terrorized most of the time. It took several sessions of body-centered therapy to release these dormant, unprocessed reactions to the trauma she experienced.
A summary of how this sort of therapy works:
This is one of those books that starts triggering memories and makes you connect the dots. "Wait, is that why I couldn't escape from my situation?" I recommend it if 1) you went through something traumatic that you're still struggling to come to terms with or 2) you have unexplained physical/mental issues that you haven't found the source for.
“Trauma is the great masquerader and participant in many maladies and “diseases” that afflict sufferers. It can perhaps be conjectured that unresolved trauma is responsible for a majority of the illnesses of modern mankind.”
― Peter A. Levine
3/ What I watched recently
I chuckled probably five times in this movie. Good light-hearted comedy for a Friday night.
4/ What I'm listening to
If you're looking for your handpan fix.
5/ Quotes I'm pondering
"Whatever we frequently think of and ponder, that will become the inclination of our minds.” — The Buddha