Saturday, January 3, 2009

THIS BLOG IS DONE!

After careful thought, we decided to pull the plug on this blog
and continue the discussion on 'the blog we love'...
Click below...the discussion continues on...

Of course, our home base is always open too...

www.somaspace.org

Thursday, January 1, 2009

"Soma Time" #7 - After Hours


The middle of 2008 brought a 'sea change' to Naked Soma's "I" Contact Radio Hour. We tried out a new format in July; the panel discussion. While the shows were good conversations, the technical hassles and the new challenge of managing 4 or 5 voices was tough to do. We went back to the one guest format for a few months, but as we learned earlier in the year, it was nearly impossible to use their expertise to highlight the principles of TSM, since the guests, the audience and the WORLD have no clue what TSM is yet. So the cart before the horse effect continued to be the theme. But in OCT, we got caught in the Presidential campaign and created a new format: the SOMACAST. These shows were more fun for us because we can riff on the body language of a live event and still get the basic points across that a straight interview may miss. But again, no traction. So we decided that it was TIME to use the hour as a quasi-podcast for our Earth-bound clients. That led to the name change in NOV to SOMA TIME (to balance our name on the ground, SOMA SPACE). We started this dopey blog as a way to give the non-listener a quick summary of each show, which centered around translating the typical list of afflictions people experience into the language of TSM. Ugh. We did 5 shows on ANXIETY, BULIMIA, CANCER, DEPRESSION and ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION. Just like the panels shows and the SOMACASTS, these shows were a solid hour of stuff, just not audience-ready.

At the end of the year, just like at the end of the day, when you remember all the time and effort it takes to set up this hour each week and you see how few people it impacts, the realization I made was that these shows aren't meant for mass appeal. They find the people and the lives they need to and then their purpose is served. Maybe one of the archives below will find you. They're a click away. Here's another quick guide to the shows from the second half of 2008. The red highlighted shows below were featured during our review show. You can always go to the BTR show page and download any show you like. Happy reflections!

Dr. Chris Kent, Dr. Robert Affolter & Dr. George Muhs - Chiro Pyro Night - The Limitations of Matter - July 2, 2008

Sid Rosenberg from 790 The Ticket, Mike Silva from NY Baseball Digest and Harry Berberian from Electric Eel Entertainment - Sports & Phonies - July 9, 2008

David Beck - Fearless Living Coach - July 16, 2008

Mike Lofrano - Neuro-Linguistic Programming Past, Present and Future - July 23, 2008

David Goodman, Ph.D. - Prozac & Mass Self-Lobotomization - July 30, 2008

Best Of Your Worst - Finding The Peak of Your Valley - The Dog Days Show - August 6, 2008

Cheri Florance, Ph.D. - Decoding The Maverick Mind - August 13, 2008

Suzanne LaCombe, Ph.D. - MyShrink.com - Therapy Under The Microscope - August 20, 2008

Mary Abrams - MovingBodyResources.com - Mood & Movement - August 27, 2008

Kathie Snow - disabilityisnatural.com - Labels & Disability Politics - September 3, 2008

Bill O'Hanlon - Fear of Change, Success, & Failure + More - September 10, 2008

Daniel Benor, MD - The Metaphysical Superiority Complex - September 17, 2008

Dr. Marco Iacoboni - The Mirror Neuron System - September 24, 2008

Deidre Silva and Jackie Koney - The Savvy Girls of Summer - Women & Baseball - October 1, 2008

Penny Cohen, LCSW - Personal Kabbalah - October 8, 2008SOMACAST - The 3rd Presidential Debate Live from Hofstra University - October 15, 2008

SOMACAST - Game 1 of the MLB World Series - Mike Silva from NY Baseball Digest joins us - October 22, 2008

Cay Randall-May - Halloween Without Fear - October 29, 2008

SOMACAST - Election Night, part 1 - David Goodman, Ph.D, Kevin Dooley, Ph.D, join us - November 4, 2008

SOMACAST - Election Night, part 2 - Matt McCoy, DC, and Robert Affolter, DC join us - November 5, 2008

EJ Wensing - ECOSPHERE.NET - Sustainability & Self-Actualization - November 5, 2008

SOMATIME with Naked Soma - Old Format Review, New Format Preview - November 12, 2008

SOMATIME with Soma Space - Anxiety - November 19, 2008SOMATIME with Soma Space - Bulimia - November 26, 2008

SOMATIME with Soma Space - Cancer - December 4, 2008

SOMATIME with Soma Space -Depression - December 11, 2008

SOMATIME with Soma Space - Erectile Dysfunction - December 18, 2008

Year in Review, part 1 - December 25, 2008 (re-broadcasted thanks to BTR)

Year in Review, part 2 - January 1. 2009 (again re-broadcasted thanks to BTR!)


Related TSM Links
Be a Soma Seller for our information/desktop products: http://www.somaspace.org/seller.html
Be a Soma Sponsor for our Live Workshops (we travel): http://www.somaspace.org/sponsor.html
Buy You Some Soma Now in our Webstore: http://www.somaspace.org/s4s.html
And in the store, pay special attention to the Somatic Companion for the ultimate emotional makeover.

For any detailed questions about TSM or our partnership opportunities contact Lota Samonte at (678) 701-8337 between 5pm and 9am ET (she's not from around here!) or e-mail her at lm_samonte@bellsouth.net - She'll handle most inquires with the day or in 24 hours at the most. If you missed the show, rip & sip it later - mp3 - or just use the player in the sidebar now.

Friday, December 26, 2008

"Soma Time" #6 - After Hours



2008 opened with an astrologer telling us to beware the wrath of Pluto on JAN 26th...and it kind of went off on several tangents from there. In this look back at the shows from JAN to JUN, we explored the themes of the Naked Soma "I" Contact Radio Hour program from the 'enlightened' position of 20/20 hindsight. We had a wide of variety of experts join us, that's for sure. The audience, OTOH, had trouble connecting all the dots we put up there. When you see all the episodes in one place though, you can better appreciate how many worlds somatics impacts. Here's a quick guide to the shows from the first half of 2008. The red highlighted shows below were featured during our review show. You can always go to the BTR show page and download any show you like. Happy reflections!

Pamella Cucinell - Astrology Terminology - January 7, 2008

Lisa Lawless - Sexual Identity & Experimentation - January 9, 2008

Rubin Naiman - The Spiritual Nature of Sleep and Dreaming - January 16, 2008

Hieros - Social Networking in Pagan Space - January 23, 2008

Rick Leskowitz - Crowed Coherence & Sports Fan Research - January 30, 2008

Bob Fanelli - Muscle Memory and Body Design Dynamics - February 6, 2008

Hasita Nadai - YogaGaia - Yoga of Earth & Kosmic Consciousness - Februray 13, 2008

Dorothy Martin-Neville - The Institute of Healing Arts & Sciences - February 20, 2008

Amy & Kristy - Paranormal Experts - February 27, 2008

Robert Affolter - Redefining Health and Health Care - March 5, 2008

Dr. Blogstein - Radio Jesus! - 03/12/2008

John K. Harms - Quantum Physics Exploration - The Immortal Battery - 03/19/2008

Saundra Harris, AKA Sassy - Women & Their Daddy Issues - 03/26/2008

Patti Littwin - Creator of the Yackle Ball - 04/02/2008

Anna - Parapsychologist - The Tantric Experience - 04/09/2008

Carissa Star, Blogger, Screenwriter - Movies, Media & Meaning - 04/16/2008

Joe Dispenza - What the Bleep? - The Biology of Change - 04/23/2008

Amy Hausman - From Holistic Life to Holistic Service - 04/30/2008

Neil Slade, NeilSlade.com - Brain & Creativity - 05/07/2008

Karen R DesLandes, InstituteofSelf-Discovery.com -Women's Empowerment - 05/14/2008

Stephen Elliott, Coherence.com - Author of 'Coherent Breathing-The Definitive Method' - 05/21/2008

Richard Jorgensen, AwareComm.com - eMods for Learning & Living; 05/28/08

Rachel Lazar-Paley, Esq. ConsciousWoman.org & ConsciousLawyer.org - On-Line Empowerment 06/04/2008

Oh Father! - The Glorious Father's Day show 06/11/2008

Summertime - The Equally Glorious Seasonal Transition Show -06/18/2008

Steven Hayes, Ph.D. - Contextual Psychology - Acceptance & Commitment Therapy - 06/25/2008

Related TSM Links
Be a Soma Seller for our information/desktop products:
http://www.somaspace.org/seller.html
Be a Soma Sponsor for our Live Workshops (we travel): http://www.somaspace.org/sponsor.html
Buy You Some Soma Now in our Webstore: http://www.somaspace.org/s4s.html
And in the store, pay special attention to the Somatic Companion for the ultimate emotional makeover.


For any detailed questions about TSM or our partnership opportunities contact Lota Samonte at (678) 701-8337 between 5pm and 9am ET (she's not from around here!) or e-mail her at lm_samonte@bellsouth.net - She'll handle most inquires with the day or in 24 hours at the most. If you missed the show, rip & sip it later - mp3- or just use the player in the sidebar now. In case you missed the show, I promised these two clips to the listeners...enjoy!

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

"Soma Time" #5 - After Hours





One Heart > Two Heads...Our 5th (and perhaps final) show in this format focused on the allopathic villain - ERECTILE DYSFUNCTION and well, as you can expect, we had some fun with our pathologizing pals. The first false God to address was the notion that ED was ED and not an SD or systemic dysfunction -- which it is. So we did the holistic chore of panning back and connecting all the dots that are not in the picture. As we explained, ED is just another example of how imbalances in the way the brain or heart (in this case both) regulate the body's function leads to the natural result, which in this case is a bout of impotency (sorry, 80's relapse). By understanding the social and deeper psychological issues that are the ingredients for this condition, the self-organizing nature of the biologicial/organic aspects actually seem downright intelligent on behalf of the body.



Wordsoma - The first choice word I uttered is something totally off the radar of the ED community. The process of tumescence (wiki) which is the engourgement of the 'erectile tissues' is not typically tied to the aforementioned - RED LIGHT REFLEX - which I'll save you the trouble of Googling and give you the relevant lines from Thomas Hanna's timeless classic "Somatic" book...


The Red Light reflex causes contraction in the perineal muscles through synergistic action. Contraction also occurs because of the increased pressure in the abdominal cavity, which causes the sphincter muscles of the urethra and the anus to reflexly contract. This chronic tightening around the blood vessels leading to the penis and clitoris prevents full blood flow and full innervation, thus prevent tumescence.


Impotence is common among persons chronically contracted in the abdominal-perineal area. And these same persons are, predictably, shallow breathers subject to anxiety feelings. The problem would seem to be a traditional psychological one, but it is not. It is more often a reflexive muscular problem in control has been lost." (page 56)


So by recognizing the fundamental somatic reality - self AND surroundings - we can get beyond the labels that stigmatize ED and demonize the biology behind andropause and free men from themselves.

I found a typical moo doctor summary of ED for the moo inclined - enjoy the horror story (1)


The rest of you sapes can move from one kind of red light...to another... ;)

We mentioned a few books and I recalled a few that I'd thought I'd pop in here since the holidays are upon us...

Survival Of The Sickest by Sharon Moelum

Pelvic Power by Eric Franklin

Dynamic Imagery by Eric Franklin

And finally, here's the link to Professor Val's mention of the article: 12 Things To Throw At Bush



Time Techniques - ED is a great portrait in the circular aspect of what we called your closed identity in TSM (oops, sorry Wordsoma). Just to save you the trouble, a closed identity is what makes you feel disconnected, separated and distinct from your surroundings. It's the more common way we orient ourselves in the world and as we age, this strategy works against us as we shift gears from the survival-based biological brain to the evolution-based social brain. The downward spiral to ED has many stops on the train. But to use time as an ally, I related a story of a client who found a way to use his non-ED past as leverage to re-focus his attention during the 'moment of truth' as it were. You'll have to replay the show to get the details. The general idea is spelled out here below.



If we frame any undesired event (or desired one actually) as THIS TIME, we create a wave in time. The downside of that wave is called the MEANTIME, a period between the initial and the subsequent occurrence of the original event. Whenever that occurs is called NEXT TIME. Most of us are conditioned to spend our MEANTIME dreading, ignoring, dismissing, or denying that NEXT TIME will ever happen. Since we have six different time frames to access during MEANTIME, we have an opportunity to support the outcome we desire. To do that, we must view time as cyclical not linear.

TSM allows you to use your MEANTIME wisely so that no matter what happens NEXT TIME you can recover, renew and refresh your outlook because you're aware another MEANTIME will follow it. It works the same way for desired events. Rather than anticipating or craving NEXT TIME, we can take a more reflective position and allow for an appreciation of the prior event so if NEXT TIME arrives that is what surfaces and not addictive high of instant gratification. Both patterns take practice...

in the MEANTIME...check out our info product - Tacit Journey for more on this approach.

Related TSM Links - We're still gearing up for the holidays and want to include you!

Be a Soma Seller for our information/desktop products: http://www.somaspace.org/seller.html

Be a Soma Sponsor for our Live Workshops (we travel): http://www.somaspace.org/sponsor.html

Buy You Some Soma Now in our Webstore: http://www.somaspace.org/s4s.html

And in the store, pay special attention to the Somatic Companion for the ultimate emotional makeover.

For any detailed questions about TSM or our partnership opportunities contact Lota Samonte at (678) 701-8337 between 5pm and 9am ET (she's not from around here!) or e-mail her at lm_samonte@bellsouth.net - She'll handle most inquires with the day or in 24 hours at the most.


If you missed the show, rip & sip it later - mp3 - or just use the player in the sidebar now.

In case you missed the show, I promised these two clips to the listeners...enjoy!






Wednesday, December 10, 2008

"Soma Time" #4 - After Hours




Charlie Brown! You Blockhead! Depression was the focus on this week's show - and man was this a boring frickin' topic. I compare it's afflicted to the people suffering from shyness. They both carry the assumption that everyone else cares about their internal experiences. And to top it off, once you're in the depressed perspective, you cease to relate or equate you internal experiences to anyone elses. So the downer sape is locked into a fixed way of interpreting life. But life doesn't care. It just keeps those waves of experience crashing down on you and soon your downer becomes a bummer, and then a bender. If you enter into a rut, the 'known misery' becomes your security blanket to the only thing a depressed sape lives for - the possibility it could all get worse. And why? Look!



The origin of depression isn't external. It's in the natural cycle of life. The square wave of our breathing shows us that when we're depressed it isn't due to a lack of inspiration but a lack of expiration. Depression is the result of a breathing rhythm that doesn't allow the individual to empty their lungs, to EXO or exit the body with both their attention and their breath. So just by placing more of an emphasis on breathing out just a little more we release the physiological grip of da blues. But realize that we pass through it each time we breathe in again. We HAVE to get depressed to make space to receive the air. So it's on the in-breath that all the anxiety rushes in. Then if we don't let that energy go and fail to release it on the out-breath, we're discharged and soon after that, we feel less energized. This gets imposed on our movement patterns and soon we're 'feeling' sluggish. So then we get the 'full metal jacket' - a short, shallow in-breath and a slow, shallow out-breath. Sigh!

Wordsoma - There really wasn't much to report on this front during this show. Like I said, depression is only a puzzle to the depressed. It's a solo flight into the darkness. I did mention an old somatic term that qualifies as jargon. It's called The Dark Vise and rather than tell ya, I'll show ya.



"If we reflect upon the collision of the Red Light and Green Light reflexes in the senile posture and their statically opposing contractions, we suddenly realize the potential fatality of the senile posture. The body's two major muscle groups are opposing one another involuntarily in a static, isometric contraction-a Dark Vise that causes chronically high blood pressure. As mentioned above, hypertensive arteriosclerosis is at the root of cardiovascular disease, a major cause of death in later life. Moreover, it is common for elderly humans to have high blood pressure. By putting these two facts together, we come up with a cause of hypertensive arteriosclerosis: the senile posture that occurs due to the unimpeded habituation of the Red Light and Green Light reflexes. If these reflexes occur often enough and strongly enough, they can become habituated, fading gradually from voluntary consciousness into sensory-motor amnesia-and the Dark Vise takes over." - excerpt from “Somatics” by Thomas Hanna p. 106-110


So in case you don't really care, what all this fuss above means is, if you're depressed for prolonged periods of time, you'll get locked into postural habits that put your heart in a pressure cooker from the loss of voluntary motor control of the muscles that allow you to move freely from a relaxed neutral posture. You've seen these people everywhere. The ones with the candy cane postures have their heads out in front of their chests, locked in flexion. They have literally failed into their old fetal C-curved spine, the one that has weak cerebellar development, which is a hallmark of both fetuses and the senile - translation - brain rot!. The jacknife sapes with the bubble butts are still trying to fight gravity and they are the ones who get the belly aneurysms when the system can't distribute the tension anymore & buckles below the heart. Either way, not good people. Will you breathe now?

Time Techniques - We talked about the two primary timelines we use to organize our experiences. The issues in depression isn't time, it's what's expected to happen next. Depressed somas are in a constant state of dread that they'll be a mismatch between what they anticipate happening and what actually does happen. So they carry two (or more) constrasting images about the future and as a result, refer to the past for guidance. This is why we say depression thrives on 'known misery' because if keeps circulating old images that allows for a low degree of security, but no freedom at all.

We talked about adopting the Raindrop Time Technique to get around this draw bridge & root yourself. By placing the future (what's next) above you, you feel more 'in the moment' and then as you exhale the past goes through you and into the ground. Try this one for a few days and then go call Prozac!



Related TSM Links - We're still gearing up for the holidays and want to include you!
Be a Soma Seller for our information/desktop products:
http://www.somaspace.org/seller.html
Be a Soma Sponsor for our Live Workshops (we travel):
http://www.somaspace.org/sponsor.html
Buy You Some Soma Now in our Webstore:
http://www.somaspace.org/s4s.html
And in the store, pay special attention to the
Somatic Companion for the ultimate emotional makeover.


For any detailed questions about TSM or our partnership opportunities contact Lota Samonte at (678) 701-8337 between 5pm and 9am ET (she's not from around here!) or e-mail her at lm_samonte@bellsouth.net - She'll handle most inquires with the day or in 24 hours at the most.


If you missed the show, rip & sip it later - mp3 - or just use the player in the sidebar now.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

"Soma Time" #3 - After Hours


Check Out Anytime You Like - Tonight we tackled the Bronco Nagurski of the Allopathic Alphabet: CANCER. So if you have a 'Grossburger' in your cells I can relate. On the show, I continued my own personal experience of it that I had begun on SUN with my essay: Cancer Villain and got into the missing pieces of the puzzle that the somatic paradigm addesses. It was cathartic for me to take this reflective trip back through the maze I had to wade through back when it was still a little 'uppity' to question your doctor. We uncovered some hidden truths for you.

Wordsoma - Continuing our 'list-less' format here (help anyone?), here are some of the terms we tossed out there during the show that may have stopped your train of thought as you listened in. The first was this notion of stigmas - which CANCER has managed to maintain, despite over 40 years of a self-declared war on it by the conventional health care community. The culture determines was conditions are socially acceptable or unacceptable and our bodies eavesdrop on that conversation. In the 50's, the scandalous event like a teen pregnancy was enough to get you banished from your community. Addiction, even to socially sanctioned drugs like alcohol, has not seen as a disease at one time, it was a social outrage. Being pro or anti-war has been in and out of favor, depending on the decade we zoom in on. But CANCER is a different case. Since the 60's we've targeted everything, including the sun itself, as potential sources of cancer. We can't BBQ, get a tan or indulge in almost any vice without hearing about it's cancerous risk. Yet we're also given the allopathic shield of prevention - which if we follow that paper trail, it resulted in establishing a set of 'early interventions' to screen us all for the initial stages of - ya guessed it - CANCER. But as we've seen with women and PAP smears - the number of false positives sometimes outweigh the benefits of the procedure. This gets into the somatic aspect of all this. When cells are traumatized, they lose their shape and express dysplasia - the allopathic shorthand for funny-shaped cells. In the cases of the PAP smears, dysplasia can be due a yeast infection, but that never stopped the radical hysterectomies and radiation therapy that were being performed. But if we actually look at the life cycle of cells, we are provided with a nice map. Cells growth, repair and get replaced. Each tissue has a 'kinetic', an action-plan to accomplish this and sustain their integrity or wholeness.

On the show I mentioned the popular book "Ageless Body, Timeless Mind" by old Depak Chopra, which btw, he's updated and re-issued the book and coated it in the current popular woo pancea, quantum biology, in 2007. When we get out of that rhythm, the cells don't die and replaced so we get what amounts to 'zombie cells', necrotic tissue that leads dysplasia, dysfunction, degeneration and ultimately...trumpets -unregulated cell growth, which is 100% totally frickin' natural and necessary!

When replacement fails, repair and growth battle it out. If we learn to support the self-regulatory nature of cell regeneration, this overproliferation is now se-cured. Ugh. We also discussed how recent work by people like Peter D'Adamo in epigentics (adaptation biology) and Bruce Lipton in PNI (which deals with the primacy of the environment) and yet we still fear and dread the INEVITABLE experience of cancer. What we advocate in The Somatic Method (TSM) is not prevention, but prehabilitation, which we achieve by tonifying the integrity of the motor system through SIMPLES. There are no ways to bullproof yourself from CANCER. So stop looking. If we face the fears we have about dying by focusing on how well we want to live, when CANCER visits us, we know it's about a loss of rhythm, not a curse from some dead ancestor trying to swat us off the planet. Surf life sapiens!

Time Techniques - I'll go into the desert for one of my old friends on this CANCER trail. Somewhere in the 80's I crossed path with a sape named Carlos Casteneda, who's sort of the somatic Jimi Hendrix to me. He described a breathwork process to help us unravel the attachments we accummulate with our past (including all that fear conditioning) that mutes our existence...

Recapitulation is a term coined by Carlos Casteneda in his book, The Eagle's Gift, published in 1982. In The Eagle's Gift, Florinda, one of don Juan's apprentices, teaches Castaneda about the process and purpose of recapitulation. She explained that recapitulation consisted of "recollecting one's life down to the most insignificant detail" and that when a woman's recapitulation was complete she "no longer abided by the limitations of her person."[1] She further explained that in the process of recapitulation one recounts all the feelings they invested in whatever memory they were reviewing.

Florinda told Castaneda that recapitulation often began with a list of items to be recalled. One then proceeded to work through the list one item at a time staying with the item until all of the emotions around the event had been felt. The recapitulation was done with the breath. While recalling the event, one inhaled slowly, moved their head from the right shoulder to the left. The next breath moved from left to right and was an exhalation. The purpose of the breath was to restore energy. When breathing from right to left one would "pick up the filaments they left behind" and when breathing from left to right they would "eject filaments left in them by other luminous bodies involved in the event being recollected." [wiki]

Related TSM Links - We're still gearing up for the holidays and want to include you!

Be a Soma Seller for our information/desktop products: http://www.somaspace.org/seller.html

Be a Soma Sponsor for our Live Workshops (we travel): http://www.somaspace.org/sponsor.html

Buy You Some Soma Now in our Webstore: http://www.somaspace.org/s4s.html

And in the store, pay special attention to the Somatic Companion for the ultimate emotional makeover.

For any detailed questions about TSM or our partnership opportunities contact Lota Samonte at (678) 701-8337 between 5pm and 9am ET (she's not from around here!) or e-mail her at lm_samonte@bellsouth.net - She'll handle most inquires with the day or in 24 hours at the most.

If you missed the show, rip & sip it later - mp3 - or just use the player in the sidebar now.

Thursday, November 27, 2008

"Soma Time" #2 - After Hours



Table For Shun? Once again we begin this capsule review without the ability to simply move one line down in the text. That's apparently too tough for the Blogger monkeys to figure out for us! So we begin our post-show reflections with a little trip back to my training days in Iowa. Yes, we went there. And that's how we can connected the dots of Albania and bulimia. From there the focus of the show was on the basics of somatic development. As with most 'disorders' in the allopathic alphabet, bulimia is viewed a psychophysiological condition when in fact, it's really a physiopsychological one. So as we get ready for that annual eating disorder called Thanksgiving, let's soma size bulimia for ya.


WordSoma - Once again, please forgive the text block style. If you have any blogging experience and can figure out how we can write these things like a LIST, e-mail us at nakedsoma@gmail.com That said, we had a few TSM terms that crept into the conversation we'd like to clarify now. First, we mentioned the wave - which refers to the natural rhythm of experience we're all rooted in. It's full name is the Untamed Wave, which we describe in detail here - It's on the wave that we develop our unique somatic perspective. The 4 orientations we have are informed by The 4 Domains - which are biologically-rooted in us to help us achieve what's called our Sense of Coherence. For more on that nugget, click here. Anyway, we are wired with 4 somatic drivers which were coined by the papa bear of somatics, Thomas Hanna. In biology, we speak of the 4 F's: feeding, fighting, fleeing and...sex. In somatics, Hanna re-names them: hunger, anger, fear and lust. [read more] So even if you know zippo about somatics, if you can track your appetite, libido and stress response, you can get a general sense of where on the wave you're hanging out. The issue with bulimia is that these individuals have what call a LOCO or 'low coherence' way of experiencing the PHYLO or rising portion of the wave and develop a faulty sense of nourishing themselves. So when they get to the top of the wave where the ONTO or self-referencing perpective is, they reject whatever they've eaten. This creates that classic 'binge and purge' cycle that is the hallmark of bulimia. Now let's soma solve this.

Time Techniques - This time we're just going to ask you to regress back to that toothless splendor of infancy and SUCK your way to better digestion. Drink through a straw and keep your chin level and actually allow yourself to FEEL the fluid go down your throat. Ah!. That is the glitch in the motor codes of the bulimic. They a) swallow air and b) don't chew. And all this because they don't know how to suck well. I know, raw and real, but just watch people eat and you don't have to wonder why so many of us suffer from chronic digestive problems. The bulimics just perfected one bad habit.

Some tips for the holiday binge which begins with the Thanksgiving feast...Drink a cold, not ice cold, but cold glass of water about 10 minutes before eating and about 15-20 minutes after eating but not during the meal. This will keep you from overeating and from having any reflux issues after eating. Remember to practice closing your eyes before you put the food in your mouth so you switch from your Extended Self/Visual Timeline to your Intended Self/Kinesthetic Time as we discussed last show re: anxiety. Another trick to insure good immune-digestive system harmony is to crunch on some pepper corn after eating to get those bitter taste buds activated. The last one is to practice a little Chi Kung about 20 minutes after a meal to aid proper peristalsis.

Begin by sitting on the edge of your chair...Take the four fingers of the right hand and point them so they touch your just to the left of the midline under your ribcage. Then bring the left hand in at a 45 degree angle to form a V-like contact there. What you want to do is act like your looking 'over' your hands to see the floor.Exhale as you do this and hold the end position until a breath naturally returns. You don't need to press in on your stomach at all. The hands are there to serve as a pivot for the chi that is trapped in the solar plexus from worrying. Practicing this after meals allows the system to 'rest & digest' better. Three times is enough for a light meal, six for a moderate one and nine for big meal. After a few days you'll feel the gurgles and the churning return as the chi drives the energy out of the solar plexus, allowing the stomach to empty with rhythm. If all that is STILL too tough to picture, skip to the 3:00 point in this video

Related TSM Links - We're gearing up for the holidays and want to include you! Be a Soma Seller for our information/desktop products: http://www.somaspace.org/seller.html Be a Soma Sponsor for our Live Workshops (we travel): http://www.somaspace.org/sponsor.html Buy You Some Soma Now in our Webstore: http://www.somaspace.org/s4s.html

And in the store, pay special attention to the Naked Soma Video's for that bulimic in your life! ;)

For any detailed questions about TSM or our partnership opportunities contact Lota Samonte at (678) 701-8337 between 5pm and 9am ET (she's not from around here!) or e-mail her at lm_samonte@bellsouth.net - She'll handle most inquires with the day or in 24 hours at the most.

If you missed the show - rip it and sip it later -- mp3 or just use the player in the sidebar now.