Embody Mental Health

Posts Tagged ‘reading’

I would hurl words into this darkness and wait for the echo, and if an echo sounded, no matter how faintly,  I would send other words to tell, to march, to fight, to create a sense of hunger for life that gnaws in us all.                                              byRichard Wright, American Hunger, 1977

The ex-English Major in me wants to deconstruct this sentence from start to finish.  Every word, every comma, every part of it’s structure is dripping with boldness and defiance.  It makes me want to get out of my chair and take action.  What action?  I don’t know but the potency inspires.  Just me? Ok.  So, I can get a little excited and emphatic about words.  That has always been the case.  Since early readings of LM Montgomery’s prose by my mother before I could utter full sentences I have been incited to action by words and brought more alive and bold in my own life by words I have read on a page.  I have dug in with my fingers to the prose and come out invigorated.  Just me again? Maybe.

But there is something about the creative experience, both imbibing it and creating it, that is profound and brings to life our own lives and living worlds to even greater vibrance than before we explored it through the lens of creativity.  Whether painter, scupltor, woodworker, photographer, writer,  or needlepointer there is osmething about the experience of art (creating or absorbing) that makes us be present, be in the now, and explore our own inner landscapes in new ways and to greater depths.  We mine ourselves and our world and up comes something, as Richard Wright states, that is worth saying.  And, as he describes, with every bit we create, every word that we write, even the tiniest reverberation draws us forward to create more and speak louder onto the page or the canvas or film.

Writing has been in my veins ever since I picked up my first pencil.  I had dreams of writing a novel when I was still scribbling on those giant pads with dotted lines in elementary school.  When I went through my traumas in my late teens and suffered for years with PTSD I stopped writing.   My inner landscape had gone numb and I lost myself.  Without the reflection of the word or the will to pick up a pen and speak I had no way to reflect back to myself who I was.  My voice had always been first in paper and then outloud.  When I came crawling out of PTSD years later I had to rediscover me–both in life and on the page.  Who was I? What was my voice? What did I have to say?  My writing life was so imbedded in my “self” and definition of self that I had to rediscover my voice on the page to know what I wanted to say in my life.

I wrote yesterday about empowerment and for me writing has been my voice, my picket sign, my empowerment far more than anything else.  I can write it before I say it.  Whatever “it” is.  Even my own rauma story came out on paper before it ever came off my lips.

What creative experience gets your blood pumping, your energy blazing, your vision of the world more acute and finite?  What creative experience makes your heart sing?  Maybe it is an actual creative art: writing, painting, photography, film, dance, theatre.  Maybe it is just something that brings you fully alive: swimiing, surfing, motorcycle riding, fishing, parenting.

What makes your heart sing?  What do you wish you had in your life to make it more vibrant and alive?   What do you have in your life that brings you that joy and energy for living that you are grateful for?

I thank writing for many things.  I thank my mother for teaching me the love of words.  Words have been my lifeboat.  What is your lifeboat?

There are 3 books I am supposed to read before even beginning my first day of “class” which include:  Food Revolution by John Robbins (heir to the Baskin Robbins cone but fled that life to live one of health and promotion of green living and eating), Yoga Mind and Body by the Sivananda Yoga Centers, and The Sivananda Companion to Meditation. 

Following the pre-program protocols for reading I am meant to read only literature and materials that benefit and enhance my yogic lifestyle so I have begun compiling my own Fall Teacher Training Reading List.  It’s like Summer Reading in Elementary School and is giving me the reminscent tingles similar to those I had as a fledging book nerd in my formative years.  I was, I can proudly say, winner of “The Summer Reading” Award three years running which was awarded to the unsportsmanlike soul who spent their summer hours reading more books than any other child. 

Funnily enough I came across my poster card award certificates this past month when purging through old paperwork in my parents’ attic in anticipation of our Florida move.  I was, as a terminal literary geek, still as fluttery and proud even decades later looking at the brightly colored paper with the promises of my prize written on the front: “One ice cream cone from ‘Do Me a Flavor’”.  Those were the days.  But I digress. 

So I have begun cataloging my “TO Read” book list for the two months of my abstinence from the chaos and ADD-inducing elements of the world like television, music, and hormone-laden meats (oh meats, I love you so).  I have also broken them down into a few subcategories such as: Yoga, Contemplative Thought and Spirituality, and Body-Oriented Psychotherapy and Trauma (some may overlap in area of study).  My list so far follows accordingly :

Yoga:

Kundalini Yoga Meditation: Techniques Specific for Psychiatric Disorders, Couples Therapy, and Personal Growth by David Shannahoff-Khasla (an interesting read as it covers a yogic method but comes from a base of study, statistics, and empirical data)

Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Trancendence by Matthew Sanford (autobiography of a man paralyzed in his childhood who was reinvigorated in adulthood by a yoga teacher and led him to create a yoga methodology for disabilities)

Contemplative Thought and Spirituality:

Open Mind, Open Heart by Father Thomas Keating (on the reinvigoration of Christian Contemplative practice and a guide to the practice itself; I am rereading it for inspiration)

Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World’s Religions by Wayne Teasdale (a book I have read in pieces but never comprehensively which universalizes the search for meaning and the root of contemplative practices in world faiths and includes references to yoga)

Living Buddha, Living Christ by Thich Nhat Hahn (about the contemplative traditions across two different faiths and their essence and universality; a book I am rereading)

Body-Oriented Psychotherapy and Trauma:

Trauma and the Body: A Sensorimotor Approach to Psychotherapy by Pat Ogden and others (Pat Ogden is a well known body-oriented therapist who has worked for years in the space between mind and body, accessing both…a book I am very excited to explore)

Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma: The Innate Capacity to Transform Overwhelming Experiences by Peter Levine (another well known body-oriented therapist and a book I am interested to explore and contrast the approaches of himself and Pat Ogden)

As I go through this literary feast I plan to write on each of the books, both here and through more in-depth reviews on my website www.embodymentalheath.com.  I look forward to the endeavor and a return to my youth where I can give myself the time, freedom, and leisure of pouring over books, one after another, without any other form of distraction. 

*More books may be added as I go.  Dependent on my literary stamina.*