One thing that sometimes helps me when I am scrolling instagram is to keep in mind that doing so is to go into a trance state - to enter a alternate plane of reality. This awareness helps me stay in my body and not get as "hooked" by things that I see there. Doing this naturally cuts down the time I spend on it because I don't allow myself to fully enter that reality.

Woo! @Kathy Wickerham, that's quite a combo to be working with 😮 How do you see those signatures show up most obviously in your life?

Virgo is an interesting sign to me. I can trace many similarities between friends of mine that are the same sign, but I find that the common threads between all my virgo friends are not so evident. So it's still a sign I'm trying to understand more experientially. You room is always very tidy during class and I certainly feel the reliable & trustworthy virgo traits in you. I am Libra rising and Aries sun....

Huzzah! Stamp of approval. How do you find yourself most embodying your Virgo traits?

Oh yay! So happy you'll be joining Anna's Happy Hour :) See you there!

@Karen Corsello for your dating profile? it's all yours :)

A controlled burn! 😂

I'll start. Naturally. Because I'm an Aries. 🤣 Libra Rising // Aries Sun // Sagittarius Moon

@Kira Elliott - I keep this in mind as well, but when I am judging myself for holding an opinion that doesn't go along with the pack (and I feel the tension in my social nervous system of being differentiated). I have to remind myself that by holding a counter opinion/idea/narrative, I am actually contributing to the health of the culture as a collective because ecosystems collapse when diversity isn't present. Of course there's a lot more nuance about how to hold a different opinion in a way that maintains right relationship within the web, but the basic of non-dual thinking definitely soothes some of the anxiety within the nervous system.

Is 9 minutes the default snooze amount on iPhones? It's a very specific number and it seems like not just coincidence that my snoozes are also 9 minutes...

Yaaasssss. A couple of years ago, in accordance with the principle of red and blue/aligning oneself with goodness, I started looking for the mundane things in life where I could be finding pleasure but wasn't tuning in enough and consciously cultivating that felt sense. Elimination was the easiest time for me to tune in and discover there are many times a day (peeing and pooping) when I could turn my focus on the enjoyment rather than the "hurry up and get on with it" most of us probably approach elimination with. There's nothing quite like that exquisite relief that comes when I really need to pee and finally get to! Ahhhhhh. But I also try to tune into the more subtle version of it when it's not been held too long. Dude, you've gotta try vaginal steaming :) It's soooooo relaxing and makes my vagina feel very nourished. I'll bring my stool (steam stool, that is - not my poop) next time I visit.

"Even if you and I both got into the same accident and landed the same exact way, it is unlikely we would suffer the same injury. " --- haha this is such a simple truth and one I hadn't really thought about before. That's a juicy nugget to imagine on for a bit.

I really thought it was going to have some very fancy anatomical name. Nope, it's the floor of my mouth, ok. Kinda cool that is self-mops.

Interesting - last night in the Unbodying White Bodied Supremacy class I've been taking the past 6 months, the topic of exploration was Conditioned Tendencies. From a Generative Somatics standpoint there are 3 main ways we embody our survival responses - and we usually have a main one: moving towards (fawning, appeasing, etc), moving away (withdrawing, withholding, etc) and moving against (fighting, etc). We discussed how these tendencies have served us (largely how they keep us safe) and also what they cost us. And of course, how they feel in our bodies when they become activated by stress. I found it really beautiful to acknowledge both the benefit and the cost of mine (moving away, obvi). And to actually find real gratitude for how it has kept me safe. It made me feel even more committed to changing the shape of it when it is costing me things I deeply want for myself (open relatedness, honesty in all things, relationships that see conflict as generative, true intimacy - i.e. being known), knowing that it will always have my back in situations where it is actually needed for safety.

Making your dream of being chill come true :)

This may be a little abstract/esoteric, but the past few nights as I lay in bed, I've been noticing the frequency of my resting state, and how it has been affected by what has come before - usually reading the latest depressing Covid news, or really any news since our media LOVES to focus on fear and negativity. And I can feel the vibration of that emotional state - it has a density that feels not great for every cell of my body. So a couple nights ago, I said "Ok, well then just cultivate the opposite." So I laid there are "channeled"/conjured the frequency of unconditional love through my body. (I've done this before, but the unconditional love was always directing at something, so it was more narrow in its focus) But this time I just tuned my body to the frequency of unconditional love - like changing radio stations. It was an IMMEDIATE shift. The sensations in my body sparked into lightness and radiance. Now that was a resting state that I wanted to live in forever. It feels so nourishing and generative. So I guess in terms of your question of a method for staying present and satisfied - just realize you can choose and conjure whatever emotional state you want, pretty much at any time. And putting that choice into practice requires presence AND I'm guessing you would choose states that are satisfying.

I've been in a similar state - I keep coming up against the internal belief that I'm doing a "bad" job and am therefore not as valuable of a person because my schedule has been upended by a few days spent traveling and then the readjustment period that follows (unpacking, doing laundry, settling back in - only to then leave again and go into another "off track" cycle). Funny though that on all of these forays, my computer and work has come with me. No shocker there for any fellow business owners reading this. But this has me thinking that most people now live in a state of affairs where our work doesn't stay at work. So if I apply a nervous system lens to this and the idea of pendulation between states - sympathetic to parasympathetic - it's like we never fully get to pendulate out of one state to find true rest, which would make it easier to get "back on track" when that state has run its course. So instead of thinking about being on or off track this week (no state is off track) I'm going to focus on which state/track I'm in - a state of doing or a state of fully resting and see if being more true to whichever track I'm on (rather than having them all jumbled up) helps my system find more balance. Thanks for sharing your thoughts - this has created a nice re-frame for me to play within this week!

Love the picture of the baby stroller walking itself, lol. AND that little pouty lip. AND the squirrel stash! Oh the bounty of the natural world...

@cindelicious39