One of my favorite experiences to lead in BraveSpace® is conscious hugging.  Hugs are a microcosm for so many aspects of relationship.  They’re also exquisitely physical as a purely embodied form of communication.  Here’s how I break hugs down, strongly influenced by my study as a Laban Movement Analyst:

Reaching, Pulling, Yielding, and Pushing in a Phrase

These are fundamental actions in our interaction with the world.  They come from developmental movement patterning; studying how babies learn to move.  I like to include all four in a conscious hug.  That said, not every hug of our lives will have all of these elements:

First we reach for each other.  Reaching comes from activating the intent to connect with something outside of ourselves somewhere in space.  It is directional; typically we reach directly for what we want to connect with. In a hug we generally reach with both arms to and then around the other person.  

Then we pull the other person into the embrace.  Pulling involves active use of effort, whether strong or light.  Some parts may need to be held back.  In order to feel safe hugging some people will retract a bit through the hips.  I honor that fully—it’s the condition within which someone feels safe enough to be vulnerable with me.  

The next step is to yield.  This is the most vulnerable in my experience.  We soften together, receive, and listen with our bodies.  This step is missing from many hugs.  It is not for me to impose this on anyone, but I can enter the state of yielding and notice how the other person’s body responds.  This is not going limp or falling into them—I can maintain my stature in relationship to the ground and stand fully on my feet while also softening in relation to the other person.

The last step is to push away.  I value this step in maintaining boundaries.  We are whole in ourselves and co-creative.  The push puts a period on the sentence.  This relates to the phrasing of the hug.  Phrasing is how we relate with the flow of time.  Everything we do has a beginning, a middle, and an end.  Every interaction has phrasing, and we create it together.  The hug is over when either person is done.  I find that we’re mostly very good at feeling for this, but sometimes feelings of guilt or submission gets in the way of claiming the end of the phrase.  I may feel I owe it to someone to stay longer in a hug than feels true for my body.  Sometimes they may not let go. There’s a lot we navigate here.  The push is the way out.  By practicing ending hugs with a gentle (or sometimes a less-than-gentle) push I find myself more clear about my boundaries.  Sometimes I also push away when I feel the other person unclear in their phrasing, and that they could be waiting for me to signal the end of our hug.

For me a good hug is sensitive, clear, and present, without an agenda.  We dance together in a hug, sometimes coming from very different places in regard to the level of comfort and experience we have with bodies and touch.  Yet, hugs are ubiquitous, and someone may hug intimately with very little conscious knowledge about how they’re doing it.  Our bodies’ knowledge is of a different kind than the mind.  Here I write intelligently about hugging, and I honestly believe the mind can be used in this way to educate the body.  I am also so grateful for all the unconscious hugs I give and experience.  The body knows what to do. The mind is most useful when something in the body doesn’t feel right and we need more information to find out why or expand our possibilities.

The next BraveSpace® level 1 retreat in Boise will be Feb 25^th-27^th.  It’s an expansion of possibilities in play, touch, and healing. The early bird special runs through January 30^th.  Please take a look!

Last week I wrote about giving myself the permission to be uncomfortable.  As I’ve stayed present with discomfort I’ve been astounded by the pleasure that occasionally comes through it.  Crying in states of emotional agony I have simultaneously noticed the ecstatic stirring of energy coming up into my heart.  Deepening in and letting go of my hold to suffering—even as I simultaneously experience it—I have at times found the bliss of being arising in me.  My heart is both broken and broken open.  It happens mostly as glimpses I catch…subtle yet distinct.

So today I offer myself permission to feel pleasure and bliss.  I have often been ashamed of pleasure, a shame I carry in my body and actions while trying to logic it away.  I have complained a lot about my suffering, so perhaps I’m trying to stay consistent.  What a price to pay!  

To feel the heart is an embodied art.  Poets have written about the bliss of a heart-broken-open for eons.  Rumi says “You have to keep breaking your heart until it opens.”  What I’m writing is not original material, and yet each time I feel my heart I sense something authentic originates.  I am sharing my experience with you as a call in the woods; a way to stay connected on our paths.  We are both individuals and communal beings.  Perhaps my experience gives you permission to feel what’s coming through you.  I want to offer gratitude to my teacher Ann Marie Chiasson for initiating me in Heart Centered Meditation.  The practice is growing me.  I am also hugely grateful for 25 years of studying dance and embodiment to know the magic of living art.  The influences are integrating in me.

I am devoting myself to BraveSpace® without compromise this year.  I have seen so much develop in my community bringing our hearts and bodies together in motion.  Through somatic consent and consensus BraveSpace® provides the conditions within which we are safe enough to be vulnerable with each other in our bodies.  These past few years have made clear that even just being in space together carries risk.  For me it’s risk worth taking.

I have shifted the dates for the next BraveSpace retreat to February 25^th – 27^th so that we might get to know each other a bit better first.  I would like to offer what I can of BraveSpace® online via zoom, using the things zoom does well.  We can meditate together, move, witness, and speak with each other.  Touching on zoom is iffy.  I’ll reach out soon with more details.

Drawing by Genevieve Emerson

I give myself permission to be uncomfortable.  I need to remind myself of this quite often because when I’m uncomfortable (and this happens quite a bit) I tend to panic or shut down.  I become afraid that I will never feel comfort or pleasure, and so I feel trapped.  I want to run away screaming. I sometimes feel deficient because I see other people who appear to be (and perhaps are) more comfortable than I am and so I decide that I’m just not doing it right. Yet, I’ve also seen that even running and screaming makes me stronger over time.

I’m pretty uncomfortable right now; without going into the details of my personal life I’ll just say it’s a tough time.  Giving myself permission to feel uncomfortable is actually a relief. It’s a bit like I’m a plant in a pot that’s too small, and I haven’t managed to break the pot yet.  That will come in time.  I bet it will feel good.  

Our bodies communicate directly through touch.  We articulate the language of touch through movement, and receive it as feeling.  Touching, moving, and feeling, we can deepen connection, sometimes to the level of seemingly miraculous healing. The fascial network is the structural framework and container for connection within our bodies—it is the fabric that holds our organs, bones, nerves, and fluids together.  These connective tissues maintain the tensional integrity, or tensegrity, through which we are whole and contained as organisms, and in which each part affects every other part.  We are also composed largely of water, finding our flow over land thanks to the containment the fascia provides.  Flow is a quality of fluids, of motion, and of energy.  With conscious presence we can attune ourselves to the flow within and between ourselves and others, and we can affect it.  Thus, touch is a powerful means for communion, healing, and play physically and interpersonally.  Studying touch informs many aspects of being human.

Following the New Years BraveSpace Playshop, (and also after the BraveSpace Level 1 Retreat in February or March), I will hold a 2-day BodyWorks Clinic focused on fascia, movement, and energy.  As a ‘clinic’ the form of our time together will be performing bodywork with me on the other participants, and receiving a session yourself from me and the rest of the group.  If you would like to receive the work from the group without otherwise participating that may be possible.  Group size is limited to 5 people.  We do not need to be experts in order to converse in this way:  While obviously some people have honed their skills more than others, we all have intrinsic abilities to engage in this kind of relationship.  The clinic is offered with professional bodyworkers in mind, and everybody is absolutely welcome; you will be met in your curiosity. Learn more at this link, and apply here.