Friday, September 28, 2007

bridge

Waking Up to the Call of Health in the Moment



to be healthy
is wonderful
and often
neglected
until
something
"goes wrong"

probably way before Ben Franklin
people knew
and forgot
that an once of prevention
was worth a pound of cure

and how
can
waking up
to the moment
help us with real health

in the moment
we can notice:
ah,
i'm a bit sluggish:
time to move

instead of the habitual:
i'm a bit sluggish,
grunt,
throw in some food
or stimulant

and again
in the present
when
we are eating
we can go slow
enough to follow
our breathing
while we eat
to taste slowly
while we eat

that way,
the meal
almost each bite
will be a feast

and we won't be
shovelling it in
and doing something else:
thinking
reading
talking
watching tv
while we
treat our bodies as mere
machines
needing a fueling stop

and this now:
if we sense
and breathe
and get honest
and clear:

what would
feel healthy and fine
to do
with ourselves
right now??

listen
listen
the answers are within


Saturday, September 22, 2007

oregon water

Season's Changing?
Or just a little early rain?



Now it's wet,
time to love water.

Now it's getting cooler
time to eat more fat.

Now's it's going to be darker
earlier
time
to eat more light,
or the
lighten
up
or en
lighten
up
or all three
or just
two

Now's it's Saturday
and that means....
whatever it means to you.

What do you love,
now?

What do you like,
now?

What would you do,
now,
if you didn't do
what you usually do

inside
outside

what habit
would it be fun
to explore
the shifting and undoing
and new variations on?

what is
it about now
that will
always be
and is
gone
even as
we notice?

ciao,
now,

chris

Monday, September 17, 2007

water beauty

SUFIA YOGA

Strength
Unification
Flexibility
Intelligence
Awareness & Anti-Aging




Fun, Expansion,
Learning, Love,
Ease and Clarification:

Move better
Feel Better
Think Better

Combining
Feldenkrais (10 years study, 165 days training beyond the 160 days required)
Yoga (7 years learning, 200 hour yoga certification)
Tai Chi ( 5 years studying with national push hands champion)
Pilates (not trained: this is code word for : Core Strengthening, back, abs and sides,
near the pelvis)
Plus ( strengthening the real core: Our Brain)

To understand the essence
of yoga
as a movement system
to connect to
Now
to connect to
Learning
to connect to
Joy
to connect to
Ease
to connect to
Power and Ease


Taught as group sessions
(see Current Classes and Workshops or call 707-996-1437

Private sessions at my
house
or yours.



Benefits:

Increase flexibility
without strain
or efforting

Increase awareness of
your body

Increase pleasure
in moving
your body

Increase
pleasure of
being in the present

Make "regular"
(i.e. non-discovery, Do it Right Yoga)
easier

Access your brain

Make learning central to
yoga
and to your life

Increase skills in other areas:
dance,
walking,
sitting

Heal and transform
back pain,
shoulder pain,
hip pain,
neck pain.

Learn to learn

Increase abilities
to slow down
to pay attention
to go inside

Connect with your higher self

Connect with nature

Connect with now

Connect with your humaness

Enjoy your life

Breathe better

Be happier

Improve creativity

Discover areas of yourself
that delight
and amaze you

Move as you
did when
you were
young
and
frisky

Discover how delightful
going slow
and aware
can be

in everything

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

garden


Eating Less



In Ramadan
people eat
only after sundown

the stomach rests
all day

they don't even
drink water,
the Muslims,
following
the dictates
of their religion

resting the stomach is good

fasting from dinner
is another way
to give the stomach a rest
make break-fast
a really amazing meal

and gain
an new appreciation
for how
much
we get pushed around
by our sensations
and our beliefs about
what we have
to do
the minute
the "hunger"
sensations
come


Tuesday, September 11, 2007

hillside

Nine Eleven,
did the bad guys
get to Heaven?



Six years ago,
some "bad" guys,
flew some planes,
they wanted to stir up
a hornet's nest,
they did.

They wanted to kill some people
and themselves,
they did.

The wanted to stun
the Mightly America.
They did.

And what can that all teach us
about health?

What goes wrong
when love
goes wrong?

We marry someone,
highly in love
(if planning the wedding wasn't
too fractious),
and then x years later,
we can 't stand them.

Where did the love go?

A religion sets out to teach
people
to
"love thy neighbor,"
to
"love thy enemy,"

and then,
down the road,
decides
that it's time for a Crusade,
time to go kill some infidels
and take over some real estate.

The Crusades.
men,
with their big muscles
and reptile brains,
and iron
and steel
and horses,
and ideas of God
twisted into
reason for killing
go
off the War.

Killing, looting,
all the usual,
not very "holy"
these Holy Crusades

and guess
what?

big surprise:
revenge ideas
from the "infidels"
who now have their
own ideas about who
is an "infidel"

To love the Infidel
or kill him,
what a strange question
and to realize,
many, many answer it
is the least loving way


Some people say that all healing
requires forgiveness.

There are fun stories
like this:
woman on death bed,
just about to expire,
has the realization
that she doesn't need to hate
the guy
who jilted her at the alter
on their non-wedding da,
and when she forgives,
she wakes back to life,
is healed,
gets up and walks
into the rest of her life.

forgiveness
of others,

forgiveness of
ourselves.

they haven't been perfect.
we haven't been perfect,
and
ohmygod,
that's perfect.

does that mean we should
stay asleep
to our lives
and the present?

nah,
it's far easier
to love
and forgive
and be happy
in the present,

so we might as well
come on back home
to now
and life
and love
and laughter.

ciao,
chris

p.s.
did the bad guys
get to heaven?

this requires other
prior questions:
what is bad?
who are the bad guys?
is their heaven?
what is heaven?
what is the function of heaven?
what is this idea:
the kingdom of heaven is within (J.C.)?

Thursday, September 06, 2007

happy chant


Red Sun,
Fires, Global Warming,
Happiness



Happiness is one of the reasons
we are alive

Love is another

Find someone to love
say,
yourself,
and then find someone else,
say,
whoever is nearest to you,
spatially

And love
you
and them

And then
try strangers

and then
enemies

enemies?

Sure.

See the essay
a couple of days
ago

in slowsonoma.com

and what about global warming?
take a walk
send out some love
see how little you can do today
and how happy you can be
doing that little

la
la

ciao
chris


Thursday, August 30, 2007

clothes on line, but not online


Joy to the
World



The Light has come.
The Night has come.
The smile has come.
The breath had come.

The Ford has come.
The Chevy has come.
The Prius has come.
The Lord has come.

What is the Lord?
Something important
inside us.
Or.....you give it your meaning.

And as for food,
I'm interested in the Body Ecology Diet
not to lose weight
don't need to do that,
but the clear up some fiesty
yeast inside
who feast
on the summer fruits.

Alas,
alas:
lots of greens.
Lots of vegies.
Lots of seeds.
Some good meat,
that I like to eat raw: buffalo in the freezer two weeks first,
wild caught Alaska salmon.
Some raw cheese.
Raw keffir made from raw milk.

Lots of water.
Some wheat grass plus power weeds juice.

Some super smooties.

On the BED
she allows three "grains"
millet, quinoa, amaranth,
and does the usual food combining
only grains by selves or with vegies

and meat and protein by itself
or with vegies

who knows
if this would be a way
you'd want to go

she,
of course
has a web site,
and has discovered that all autistic kids
have candida

hopefully i'm not autistic
but rocking back and forth,
with awareness
can be fun
but only as long
as the awareness keeps it fresh
then
time for something else

joy to the world
and this moment

looked at desk trainer lately?
see link to side
it's pretty darn amazing

but then again
you have to get out of the
good old rut
for ten minutes or eight or something

the terror of human life:
billions of people
running around
more or less asleep
to anything but the program
that they are stuck in
and that they
never really got to chose

and this isn't about
"limiting beliefs"
this is about
ongoing sleep

how to wake up

sing
experience now
joy to the world
the .... has come


keep close to the breath
keep sensing
and keep listening for the ....

ciao,
chris


Monday, August 27, 2007

Love, Mindfulness, Humor, Nature



Now, Nature, Love, Laughter

Especially
laughing at ourselves
and how we can make ourselves
so tense and worried
and constricted

Love:
of ourselves
and others
and nature

now
is when our lives take place

nature
is the sky and air we breathe
the earth we stand on
and grow our food in
and the trees
and the flowers
and the oceans
and waters
we
are bones
and two legged
and big brained
and stand and sit
and move in
gravity

gravity
and breathing
now
almost every now

the earth is always here
the sun is somewhere

a laugh
is just around the corner
waiting to bubble up

love is
in our hearts
flooding out
or
wanting to

it's a
good
world


Thursday, August 23, 2007

The Ongoing Sleep,
and Weight Loss



In our wonderful world,
there seem to me
to be
three choices
for us
human beings

so called
human
beings

one:
low functioning robot.
always do the same thing,
complain a lot,
in a lot of conflict
unhappy
making others unhappy
not able to do, very often,
what they (we) set out to do

two:
high functioning robot:
almost always do the same
thing
think the same thing
say the same thing
but these things
tend to be more upbeat
more positive
more "happy"
useful to others
and ourselves.
able to do what we set out
to do
some of the time
(or even all the time,
if a really high functioning robot)

and
awake
to this moment
yes, this one right now
and the next
and the next.

no real room for "negativity"
because in the present,
we just see what is,
and if we can make something better,
we ask or offer
a possibility

this is scarier land
this awake
place
because we might not say
the "right" thing,
and might not do
what "others" want us to do

we won't need the drugs
that bond people,
the coffee and
the sugar
and the wine
and the stress adrenaline
and the fear of the Bad Guy adrenaline
and the fear of Something Bad happening adrenaline
and the fear of the Enemy adrenaline

we aren't in a hurry
we are sometimes "late"
we smile when people insult us
we laugh at our own misconceptions

anyway
it's a fun place
and with a story can be lonely
and without a story
is sweet
sweet
peace beyond understanding

and what's that go to do with weight loss:

if we are, say,
eating only fruit in the morning:
and we have a "starving" story,
or an "I have to have what I always eat" story,
we aren't free
to just enjoy the energy
and the freshness
of just fruit in the morning

if we are, say,
not eating after five in the afternoon,
and are "starving,"
we can be present to the "hunger"
and drink some tea,
or take a walk,
or write something that is important to us,
or we can panic
and want to do
have to do,
be compulsively compelled to do
what we always do:
stuff our face
when feeling a little "off"

which might be
when we feel "alive"
and "full of energy"
these feelings might be so strange to us
that they feel "off"

oh, well:
it's a good life
and at
any moment
we can wake up
to
now

any
moment

even,
of course,
now

ciao
(rhymes)


Tuesday, August 21, 2007

hand juicer plus celery and windfall apples, and hard to see wheat grass

How to Be Healthy, 22




To be healthy
is
to be present.

To your breathing.

To your body.

To your thinking.

To your feeling.

Present
and
in love.

Also:
some practical tips:
find a friend with an organic
orchard.
Pick up the windfall
fruit
wind
fall
free
a little dirt on it
can't sell
it,
take it home
eat it
juice it
talk to it
smell it


and
find a friend
or plant
an organic garden
grow or pick
lots of weeds
mallow
pig weed
dandelion
lamb's quarter

pick them
eat them
juice them
talk to them
listen to them

be healthy

get a hand juicer
put the weeds
and the windfall fruit
and if you've grown some
wheatgrass
through

grind
smile
breathe
sense your feet
sing a song
laugh
juice

drink

and then
walk
or if you can't walk,
take a ride
in your wheelchair
outside
fresh air

breathe
smile
sense
feel
move
be aware
be aware of awareness

this is
a healthy
one
healthy
way
to start
your day

say
hey

love
and
laughter

chris


Saturday, August 18, 2007

poppy and ganesh

Shitty Food.



At a lovely meeting
yesterday
of some lovely teachers,
they were busy eating salted nuts,
and crackery kinds of things,
and then those frozen ice cream sandwich
things,
you used to get at roller skating rinks.

I guess it's possible to
be healthy
and eat shitty food,
but only if you exercise about
six hours a day.

These lovely
teachers
didn't look like the six hour a day
exercise types,
and so
seemed to be missing
a chance
to have been eating food
that was making them healthy,
instead of food that was most likely
making them unhealthy.

Oh, well.
Who am I?
the food judge?

oh well,
again,
still:
tis summer
apples are just coming in,
tomatoes,
figs,
nectarines,
grow some sugar in
your yard

one woman i once read about
cured herself of breast cancer
by only eating food she grew herself
or bought in bulk.

her rule:
no packages
or boxes
or jars.

one way
to get back to healthy
food,
eh?


Monday, August 13, 2007

Transformative Yoga.
Classes Soon starting.



One way I've started to call it is
DNA yoga.

Discovery, Nature, Aware/ Ananda Yoga

Discovery,
for taking advantagege of my training
(4 years of the "basic" training,
and then another 700 hours beyond that)
as a Feldenkrais Practitioner.

The Feldenkrais Method®,
is a method of learning to
think,
move,
feel better,
via
being more aware,
and taking the emphasis
off of "getting it done,"
or "getting it Right,"
or "making progress,"
and bringing us back to a state
of learning
and discovery,
the state we were in when we were young
and a genius, say from birth to a couple of
years old.

See my
What is the Feldenkrais Method? One word, two word,,, one sentence, two sentence, and so on,
brilliant little collection
of ways to look at the method.

Anyway,
working with me
in either DNA yoga,
or "regular" (which means wildly creative and transformative)
Feldenkrais "work,"
or in the Work of Byron Katie,
and Discovery will be there
deep and firm in our joint unfolding.

Okay,
that's discovery.

And N.
NATURE.
I'll be having classes outdoors as much a possible.
All this hiding inside four walls,
cutting ourselves off from blue skies
and real earth,
and grass and
soil
and wind
and the elements:
nonsense.
Insanity.
How can we be sane
in a world
when we are always cut off from the world.

that's part of the NATURE part.
Another part:
Discovering what our human nature is.
To feel.
and to sense.
and what is the difference?
To make sense of something,
what does that mean?
To live in gravity.
What does that mean?
To have breath of which we can be conscious
or unconscious,
what does that mean?


A
is Ananda Yoga
or Awareness Yoga.
Or both.
Ananda yoga
is how I was trained
and certified at the 200 hour level
required by yoga alliance.
(compared to 800 hours for the "basic Feldenkrais" training).

Ananda yoga is about
being relaxed
and sending spiritual energy up your spine.
If that doesn't make sense,
it's about being relaxed,
even in the midst of efforts
and continually bringing awareness inside of yourself.

One way it does this is with affirmations.
For example,
the affirmation in what's called "Child's Pose"
(Balasana)
is
"I relax from outer involvement
into my inner haven of peace."

This not only accentuates and deepens
the posture,
but gives a big hint at what Ananda yoga is about.

Another posture,
warrior 2, Vira II,
Virabhadrasana II,
is a strong and joyous pose.
Its affirmation is,
either
(my version)
"I open gladly to the strength and glory
of being Alive."
or
the official version,
"I joyfully manifest
the power of God."

So
A
could be about Affirmations.

So, come to a class,
you'll love the affirmations.

And between poses
you rest,
and say the affirmations again.
This isn't about getting sweaty
and using yoga like going to the gym.

This is using yoga
for spiritual and emotional strengthening.

Though,
with the Feldenkrais
and awareness emphasis,
A
for
Awareness,
you will get more flexible,
much more readily
and EASILY,
than in normal,
do a bunch of postures
and always fuss with DOING IT RIGHT,
and never slow down
and really learn yoga.

This is yoga to learn,
to transform,
to enjoy,
to connect.

Deeply.
To yourself,
to others,
to the Earth,
to Spirit,
to your Higher Self.


Sunday, August 12, 2007

Classes and workshops:

Transformation
Change
Improvement
Fun
Waking up to Now


Back Pain
Weekend Workshop:
May 10-11
Sat and Sunday 1-5 PM
Cost:
$200 on bike or walk
$220 carpooling
$240 in car alone
10 % off if paid by May 3


enlightenment Tai Chi:
Learn a form forward and backwards
and to both sides.
the idea is learning and body brain awareness,
not "doing the form."
The idea is waking up to now.
Four Saturdays,
if at least eight people interested:
May 3, May 10, May 31, June 7
9-10 AM

COST: $50 on bike or walking
$65 if carpooling,
$80 if in car alone.




Transformative Movement Lessons:
Based on my training in the
Anat Baniel Method.
Many uses:
pain transformation
yoga and sports improvment
vitality and anti-aging
fun
curiousity
waking up to now
Four Saturdays,
if at least eight people interested:
May 3, May 10, May 31, June 7
10:30-11:30 AM

Cost as above.


Waking up to Now
meditate
walk
move
doing nothing
talk
all from and in
the present

Thursdays
7 PM






To register for classes and workshops
, call 707-996-1437
or Email Chris Elms, M.A.



Wednesday, August 08, 2007

Eating and Fasting



We have this word
break
fast,
as in breakfast.

And if we eat at night
the fast isn't much to
break.

And if we don't eat at
night,
like the Dhali Llama,
say,
then the morning
finds us empty
and ready
and able
to truly
enjoy
a break
fast.

Ramadan
coming
up.
A different
kind of fast:
No eating in the day.
No water in either.
Breakfast comes after sundown.
Starts Sept 12.
Maybe this is of interest
as an experiment.

Not eating after 2 or 3 in the afternoon
is an interesting
experiment
for me
just now.

Ciao,
Chris

Friday, July 27, 2007

The Power of Feldenkrais Plus Ananda Yoga


The Feldenkrais Method, and Wake Up Feldenkrais
is superb at this:
allowing us
to come to the moment,
allowing us to train
and improve our awareness,
our brain,
and alongside that:
our grace and ease
in moving.

Yoga, of the traditional sort,
is pretty good at giving us
a guiding path of
how to place of bodies
in positions
that allow us to feel more full
of life,
a little more flexible,
more in tune
with how great it is to be in a body.

Ananda Yoga,
with an emphasis on affirmations
that accentuate and hone the poses
into arrows of direction,
directing our energy in
and up the spine
to our brain,
directing our attention
to higher emotions
(One, for example is,
"I radiate love and good will
to soul friends everywhere.")
and to
the Higher Nature in either ourselves
or some Higher Spirit (God??)
in the Universe.
(for example:
"With calm faith,
I open to Thy light.")

So with Ananda Yoga,
with not only have the body
and mental awareness of most yoga,
but we have a deep confirmation
and accenting of
the emotional
and spiritual basis of yoga.

And with a Feldenkrais companionship,
we have a deepening of
the immensely easy
and pleasurable
improvements in
awareness
and thinkng
and moving
that can come from a system based
on learning and discovery
rather than that old trap
of "Doing it Right."


Saturday, July 21, 2007

What is Yoga?



Yoga is an ancient system of self
evolution,
that involves mental, physical, and emotional
development.

What we in the West often call yoga,
is the body physical part,
sometimes called Hatha Yoga.

Well, usually called Hatha Yoga.

A really sweet way to cut to the core
of what yoga is,
is to go to the second sutra
of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras,
196 short and often very tense
statements on how to come to
the highest human states.

The second sutra
goes like this

YOGAS CHITTA VRITI NIRODAH

yoga is the stilling
of the fluctuations and whirlpools
(of emotional likes/dislikes/attractions/repulsions)
of consciousness.

so: yoga is coming to the quiet place
in the center of all the fuss.

And then again,
some people like to explain yoga
with the idea of YOKE,
as in that thing that ties two oxen
together,
or even wedding vows perhaps,
but yoga here can mean union.

Union with what?
With your Higest Self.
Or Union with God.
Or Union with the Biggest Quiet at the Center of Life.

Or union of feet and head,
front and back,
left and right,
outer involvement and inner awareness,
movement and stillness.

Once you start going for harmony
and union,
the possibilities are almost endless.

Isn't that nice?

Ciao
for now,
Chris


Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Weight Loss and Gout undoing Diet



GOUT DIET, LOSE WEIGHT DIET, GAIN HEALTH DIET
Core to this way of eating is to replenish and wash ourselves clean. We are 76% water and we need lots of water in our food. Gout is a condition of huge amounts of uric acid in the system, according to books. The cure: lots of cherries and strawberries and less or no meat. I’ve modified this so, you can stay super healthy, lose weight and wash the system in huge amounts of water.

Here goes:

Breakfast,
and all eating before noon:
Only fruit, ORGANIC FRUIT, fruit in season. Which now means strawberries, cherries, peaches, apricots and so on.
Tea, herbal tea.
Water, filtered (not bottled, let’s get beyond plastic) water.

Lunch
1. Main option: huge ORGANIC SALAD, at least 80% of the meal.
Along with the huge salad 20% of high omega three animal protein: hardboiled organic egg; salmon; buffalo.
(Cook the fish or buffalo as rare as you can stand it.)
2. Or: just a salad.
3. Or: just fruit, some more.
4. Or: any raw meal, get a raw foods book and find a recipe you like.

Afternoon snack:
1. Carrots, celery, any veggies
2. Or: A seed smoothie, and always first soak the seeds (okay kinds: pumpkin, and sunflower; hugely good kind: flax, though put them in fridge after soaking a couple of hours, they getting slimy don’t be scared) or a nut smoothie, with only almonds, again soaked overnight first. Add a little stevia to sweeten, or a small amount of honey.
3. Or: Plain fruit.
4. Or: Tea or water.
5. Or: Nothing, exercise and breathe.

Dinner.
1. All the lunch options.
2. Or:, 80% salad with 20% whole grains. Not whole grain bread (no bread, pasta, bagels etc, nothing from flour on this diet). But the whole grain of rice or millet or quinoa or buckwheat. With a little raw butter. A little.

Salad dressing:
All organic: cold pressed olive oil.
Raw unpasteurized apple cider vinegar (Bragg’s)
Flavorings: unpasteurized miso, garlic, ginger, Celtic sea salt, Dulse (seaweed, really good for you), turmeric, any other herbs,
Make your own though. Anything that isn’t crap is way too expensive and not as fun as making your own.

More to come, but this will change your life.

P.S. The usual medical disclaimers. You have a mind. Use it. If you want medical diagnosis, go
to a medical doctor. This diet will probably make you feel great and far healthier than
you've been in ages. Show it to your doctor, and have him or her come learn from me.

Remember: 4 days it takes to adjust to something new in the eating habit realm.

No: sugar, coffee, and little alcohol (one glass of red wine a day) or none.

No stuff from cans and bottles and boxes.

No stuff with pesticides, i.e. non-organic.

No dairy for awhile, and then only fermented (i.e. yogurt, or kefir, and raw if at all possible,
i.e. make your own).

Shop farmers markets, have fun, eat slowly, taste every bite and follow your breathing and think grateful thoughts while you eat, preferably eating outdoors.

Enjoy, learn.

Change requires change,
but you are becoming a new person.

Enjoy the discovery.




PLEASE BE WELL:


Pleasure
Ease
Awareness
Sensitive Strength
Enjoyment

BE

Waking up to now.
Embracing Change.
Learning to learn.
Loving to move, improve and transform.


CURRENTLY OFFERING THESE CLASSES





"To make the impossible, possible;
to make the possible, easy;
to make the easy, elegant."
Moshe Feldenkrais.





MOVING EASY
MOVING SMART
FOOD FOR BRAIN
BODY
AND
SOUL.

Mondays until June 18
at the
SONOMA BALLET CONSERVATORY
around the corner from the Post Office

Monday June 25
skipping July 2, and then
Mondays
from July 8 on into August,

at the Field of Dreams,
shady area between upper and lower levels,
(bring a mat or blanket if you don't
want to lie on the grass)
12:30-1:10 PM
Bring a Mat or Blanket
Dressed Comfortably
Be Enthusiastic about Learning, Feeling Better
and Expanding your sense of Enjoyment


Wednesdays
until June 20
OLSEN PARK
(west of W 5th, on bike path,
or on Linda St. just west of W 5th)
10-10:45 PM

Then August 8 on in Olsen
Park at 9 AM.

Cost: sliding scale : $10-20
Seniors (65+) sliding scale: $5-20.
First class: $5-10.








For amazing and transformative
and gentle
one on one lessons,
called
Functional Integration®
see
Individual Lessons








Monday, June 04, 2007

kefir and kombuch
Kefir and Kombucha
in the afternoon sun.
Fermented foods = good for you.
Probiotics that keep making themselves
again
and again
and again.


The Body Ecology Diet



RADICAL HEALING VIA CHANGING THE MOUTH INPUT
I was just recently reintroduced to the Body Ecology Diet, via Acres, USA magazine, a radical agriculture and health magazine. Acres, in and of itself, is a great read, not just on organics, but on a whole movement necessary to take the economy back from the people who make all the profit moving money around and giving back a rightful return to those who work the land. And that’s another story.

The Body Ecology story is a way of clearing on a Candida epidemic, common to many of us who have used antibiotics and not added yogurt and other probiotics at the same time, or who have had too much sugar in our diets at one time or another.

Basically, it’s a great way to get back to the basics and unhook yourself from sweets and grains and sugar and start to radically heal, as well as lose weight.

Here are the key elements:
Eat lots and lots of non-starchy, non-sugary vegetables ( leaving out potatoes, cooked corn, yams and sweet potatoes and beets). This is all for awhile.

If you eat grains, only eat millet, quinoa, buckwheat or amaranth.

No fruits until symptoms clear up. Except lemons, limes, unsweetened cranberries and one other thing. This is the hardest for me, and surprisingly, you (I) just start eating more greens.

No sweeteners except stevia. No sugar, nor honey, nor maple syrup, nor anything along those lines. Only stevia.

If you eat anything, eat organic if you can.

Food combine: veggies with meat and protein, or veggies with the four permitted grains, but not grains with the meat or protein.
Seeds, soaked, and almond seed, soaked, are great sources of protein, as are eggs.
No dairy except kefir, and it a bit into the cleanse and healing.

It sounds strict, and yeah, yeah, it’s the cave woman or cave man diet, basically, minus fruits. It won’t kill you. It’s a great break from habit, and it might save years and years onto your life.

See Body Ecology dot Com
Ciao,
Chris.




PLEASE BE WELL:


Pleasure
Ease
Awareness
Sensitive Strength
Enjoyment

BE

Waking up to now.
Embracing Change.
Learning to learn.
Loving to move, improve and transform.


CURRENTLY OFFERING THESE CLASSES





"To make the impossible, possible;
to make the possible, easy;
to make the easy, elegant."
Moshe Feldenkrais.




May 7- June 20

MOVING EASY
MOVING SMART
FOOD FOR BRAIN
BODY
AND
SOUL.

Mondays
12:30-1:10 PM
Wednesdat
1:15-1:55 PM
Bring a Mat or Blanket
Dress Comfortably
Be Enthusiastic about Learning, Feeling Better
and Expanding your sense of Enjoyment

SONOMA BALLET CONSERVATORY
around the corner from the Post Office

Cost: sliding scale : $10-20
Seniors (65+) sliding scale: $5-20.




• Increase moving ease

• Get smarter

• Increase pleasure

• Transform Pain

• Discover Habits,
Learn new ways of
Moving,
Communicating,
Being,
Pleasure,
Learning

• Re-learn to learn again
as you did when you were a child

• Have fun

• Learn ways of being
that bring pleasure
in many aspects of your life










To Sign up or get information,
Call 707-996-1437
or Email Chris Elms, M.A.







For amazing and transformative
and gentle
one on one lessons,
called
Functional Integration®
see
Individual Lessons








Wednesday, May 23, 2007

Secondary Gain, and the Path to Deep Healing, Happiness and Life



SECONDARY GAIN
My father, blessed his heart, used to work too hard. In his forties and fifties he could not allow himself a vacation. Also, he wasn't very good at the family thing, where people didn't salute and take orders and understand the Hierarchy, with him on top, giving orders and the rest of us obeying. His work was with the famous military industrial complex, making jets and then missiles and whatnot for the great competition with the bad guys things that kept him and many others at work in both this country and the bad guy bloc. And he functioned best in a semi-military, top down world. The family, especially our nutty family was topsy turvy, not top down.

That's a bit of an aside.

The point: no vacation.

Lots of fighting with my Mom.

Not much peace in the family.

Okay: how to solve these problems. Well, one way would have been to take vacations and figure out how to communicate in a listening and give and take and mutually respectful family atmosphere. But that would have required real inner change. That wasn't the route my father took.

He took the route of secondary gain and got heart attacks every several years.

These solved all the above problems temporarily.

He got a break from work.

The family became deeply solicitous and realized how important and wonderful he was.

My Mom and he stopped fighting, and she assumed a Florence Nightingale role vis a vis him. (They met when he was sunburning at a country club pool an d she came to his rescue with sun tan lotion.)


So, this happens a lot. We don't know to sit down or lie down, so a disease comes along and brings us to our knees.

We don't know how to get the attention and gentleness we want so we fall apart and then it's forthcoming.

Or maybe, it's different, less linear: we have been attention starved for years (all the attention to our real arms and legs and moving and breathing and whatnot that we do in Feldenkrais and in slow and conscious yoga is that much less attention we need from outside ourselves.) And we've eaten a diet full of pesticides and sugar and refined flour, the three main elements Western Price discovered in the 1930's were the crucial difference in native cultures health deteriorating into the land of cancer and heart attacks and degenerative diseases. (See my prior essay: Food and Health.) So we come down with something heavy.

The disease is real. And a shift in our stress level and our eating and caring for ourselves has to take place, but we've got the secondary gain thing going, because now that we are the Diseased One, we are suddenly getting the attention and pampering we've been craving forever and ever.


So what's the Way Out?

I have other essays on what to do if you have cancer, which can be a start for those with any serious setback illness. June 24, 2006 essay. And June 26, 2006 essay. All sorts of ideas in there. This is part of the way out. (Reading those essays, they aren't quite as good as I'd like, so next essay in this blog will be a series on Radical Healing, but they are a start.)

And another part is getting a sense of humor about how part of us is a big baby and is using this illness to remain a big baby. Talk to those who are taking care of us and come to realize: they will love and pay attention to us even if we aren't ill.

Get well by shifting all sorts of things. (See the index of all the essays blog, at Health Blog Index.)To change we have to change. And, of course, the rewiring of the brain and improvement of the entire nervous system that comes from the Feldenkrais Way, and the coming to the present that comes from Wake Up Feldenkrais are tremendously useful in this.


Mainly though, we need a commitment to loving life, to being present, and to enjoying the journey of change that we are going to need to take to get healthy again. And part of that journey is going to have to be a humorous and honest understanding of our secondary gains.

Love and healing to us all.







Friday, May 04, 2007

Create Joyous Health for Yourself, Starting Now



REAL HEALTH
In the town of Sonoma, we have a rather big mess with the situation of replacing the existing hospital. One radical solution, and one that takes the responsibility back, is to keep our health in such fine shape that we never need to use the hospital.
How can we do this?
Well, from a discussion at the Farmers' Market this morning, here's some things we came up with:

Do some aware moving. Yoga with awareness. Feldenkrais, which demands and centers around awareness. Walking or dancing with awareness.

Eat fresh, organic food.

Grow the food yourself, which is to say: garden.

Get outside, and move consciously: which is to say: garden, or walk, or take a hike, or a stroll, or even a run.

Forgive. Find a way that works for you. If you haven't found one yet, the Work of Byron Katie will enable you to give up and move beyond all your grudges. I use it daily, to relieve the little complaints before they create a groove in my brain, and waste my life, happiness and health.

This we didn't discuss, but I believe it is crucial to health: eat a lot of raw food, preferable one or two or even all raw meals a day.

Go to bed early. Sleep happily.

Do something that is either meditation, or like meditation. This could be gardening, or yoga, or Feldenkrais, or walking. Or sitting and looking at the stars, or lying and look at the sky. Spend some quiet solitude, just you and your sense of being present and alive.

There's probably more. Ah, yes: keep learning. Learning in the way of the most recent essay at WakeUp-Feldenkrais.blogspot.com. Learning that is organic, and easy, not forced and artificial like most book and school learning is. Slow, joyful aware learning.

Slow, joyful, aware living. Isn't that a nice way to be?



PLEASE BE WELL:


Pleasure
Ease
Awareness
Sensitive Strength
Enjoyment

BE

Waking up to now.
Embracing Change.
Learning to learn.
Loving to move, improve and transform.