Oregon law allows bicyclists to use a full travel lane while turning left, passing another cyclist, or avoiding hazards such as glass, debris, and suddenly opened car doors. Stickers such as this one publicize the law, because many drivers are unaware of it and behave rudely when they are impatient to pass. Humans are allowed… Read More
Articles
Take a Break from Healing
Have you thought about the finish line of your healing process? What would it take to declare yourself healed? What conscious and subconscious standards do you set for self-approval and time to rest in the present? Do you compare your insides to other people’s outsides? It is easy to believe that we have to keep… Read More
Name Memories Without Words
Infants are born with survival drives to learn about the world, and to bond with their carers. They absorb information with their whole bodies, gathering sensory impressions and learning basic skills of responsiveness and movement. Physical and relational lessons learned in infancy inform every moment of our lives. Infant nervous systems are not yet fully… Read More
The Heartbreak of “Why?”
The question of “Why?” weaves over and under and through all the other reactions to trauma. Why did that happen? Why did it happen to me? Why didn’t anyone help? Why couldn’t I change it? “Why?” engages our spiritual beliefs about the world and our own worth. If we believe in a Higher Power, we… Read More
Serenity Through Your Locus of Control
Serenity Prayer Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, The courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference. — Reinhold Niebuhr Locus of control is a psychological term for our beliefs about who controls the events in our lives. It can be internal (we have… Read More
Integration: Live into Both/And
Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point… Read More
Check In With Your Chakras
The chakras are energy centers along the front of the spine from tailbone to crown. They are a key part of the energy map of the human body, developed around 3,000 years ago in India. Some people dedicate years of focused yoga and other meditative practices to refine the connection between body and mind, allowing… Read More
Choose an Easier Road
I rode my bike down a freeway on-ramp the other day. I expected a symmetrical interchange with a bridge across the freeway, and was halfway down the ramp before I saw it was freeway-only. Fortunately, it was a sunny afternoon and traffic was light. I cautiously crossed the on-ramp to the paired off-ramp, waited for… Read More
Enjoy Enthusiastic Consent
Anyone who makes an appointment for bodywork, arrives, and lies down on the table has given consent to be touched, right? Wrong! Clients are in a vulnerable position relative to the practitioner, lying down, possibly with some of their clothes off. Even with active encouragement to express preferences, it can be hard to speak up…. Read More
Explore Uncurled Posture
When we feel threatened, we hunch protectively around our center. Neck scrunches, shoulders pull in, belly tightens, legs press together. When the threat passes, we relax into a more comfortable posture. If the threat remains active for a long time, or if we stay in emergency mode after trauma, our muscles remain protectively tense, even… Read More