Physical Freedom with Manos

27/02/2022

Man, I had a session with a psychotherapist …

And wow! 🤯

Man, I had a session with a psychotherapist and wow have things shifted.

I mean I’ve had talking therapy sessions before at various stages of my life but I’ve always felt a disconnect. My world was too far removed from the counsellors for there to be any real letting go.

When you find an ‘attuned’ therapist it’s a complete game-changer. 🦴

I don’t feel like I’ve put something big down after the session.

Rather, something gargantuan has been able to put me down. 🤲🏼

I’ve been released from a spell I had no idea I was even in. ✨

Maybe what Jung would have refered to as, ‘a complex’, had nowhere left to go…no more traction to push forward…🚜💨

and so..,

🔥 )) !P**F! (( 🔥

There it went! 🚮

If you read my posts (thank you🙏🏻) chances are, you really like words. 📖🐛

And you really like the way words can shift the way you see the world, change your mood, or even how you imagine yourself in it - and if my words don’t do that for you what are you waiting for, move on, find the ones that do!! 🥰

With any luck we can imagine our way into a softer, kinder, more egalitarian world. 💓

Actually I did a post in a similar vein not too far back (you’ll never find it 😝🙈).

It was about finding a story big enough in the modern world in which to find shelter.

Directly based on the teachings of James Moriarty who found his own shelter-story when he reframed the teachings of Christ and evolution.

But it’s one thing knowing something to be true and quite another entirely to have lived the truth of it.

To be given words or a metaphor that shape your life in a way that…

1. Has meaning to you.
2. Has ultimate compassion for all those involved in the shaping of your life - your parents mainly

This is a true gift 🎁

from Spirit
from Soul
from Grace
from a Psychotherapist
from a Sister

Cont. in comments…

22/02/2022

Bottoms Up! 🍻

Can anyone think of a clever analogy between sparkling water & lime 🥃🍋 and bodywork?

No 😅 Oh well…moving on…

I spoke with a lovey new potential student today. Discussing what bodywork is and perhaps, is not?! ☎️

With my head in the clouds I’d say bodywork is an exploration of our inner cosmos 🚀👩‍🚀☄️🌀

With my feet firmly planted on the ground, I’d offer a more prosaic explanation rooted in ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ approaches to therapy.

The top-down approaches (CBT, MBCT, Counselling) tackle our mind and our thinking.

Hopefully these therapies give us the tools we need to engage with our thoughts in a more curious way and just think differently about our circumstances.

The bottom-up approaches go direct to the raw emotions, and holding patterns of the body.

The body is really the home of our sub-conscious.

The thoughts we are not ready to have or that we have no safe container for….yet. ( is always keen to remind me of the potency of the word ‘yet’)

As I’m sure you’ll appreciate top-down and bottom-up are not rival therapies 🥊🥋😆

In an ideal world you’d probably want access to both. Especially if you need to talk through the stuff your excavating in the bodywork sessions.

That said, I have very successful clients who do the bodywork and support themselves in-between sessions. But you do need the space (mental, emotional, financial) to do the work - to journal more-or-less everyday.

Any which way you slice it, healing is a difficult road and I take my hat off to anyone on this path. 🐅

We are here for our own healing but also for the healing our children and our children’s children WON’T need to do if we take on this heavy mantle 👘

YOUR INPUT IS ALWAYS GREATLY APPRECIATED

Thoughts from body workers who have had talking therapies? 💭

Thoughts from talking therapists who have had bodywork? 💭

Thoughts from humans having human thoughts about healing? 💭

Thoughts from sparkling water manufacturers about normalising ordering sparkling water & lime in bars in Gateshead. 💭 ’morderingforafriend 😂

17/02/2022

“Bah…You’re as deep as the ocean you lad!” 🐡

It wasn’t an insult. But it wasn’t a compliment either.

I might’ve been about 16 and my cool older brother must’ve been in his late 20’s.

We’d just stepped out of his rusty, beat-up, transit van ready for a days graft laying cobbles.

You won’t believe how big a cobble is.

It’s not until you’ve actually laid one that you realise that a cobble, much like an iceberg, is about 90% below the surface.

I don’t have any more cobble-related anecdotes just in case that’s what you’re here for - I’d hate to disappoint.

It was a bitterly cold winters day and the icy north-east winds had as much time for my armchair philosophy as my hairy-arsed, no-neck of a builder-brother had done.

Which is to say…Zilch 🌬

But at least I had my tuna sandwiches and a packet of crisps to look forward to.

At lunchtime all the workers congregated in one of the stable yard buildings where a stove was lit and tea was drunk. 🔥

The only fella I really remember was a guy we called Geordie.

Geordie’s job was to pick stones out of the field.

Our boss was worried his racehorse stud would injure himself on a rogue rock.

I don’t know if you know much about stones in fields, but it’s a never ending process of stones just continually working their way to the surface.

So, it doesn’t matter how many stones you pick out of the field today…when you turn up tomorrow, there’ll be just as many stones.

It took a certain constitution to do that job, and Geordie had it in spades.

Which is funny because he never used a spade, just rubber gloves and a bucket.

Anyway, here I am some 30yearsclater still wondering if I a really am as deep as the ocean?!

Wondering if that’s a god or bad thing??

And wondering wether others have their own deep oceans?

Are you a deep ocean thinker?

Has it left you feeling isolated or misunderstood at times?

Maybe you wish you weren’t such a deep vessel?





’sdeep

13/02/2022

Different ways of looking… 👁🧿👁‍🗨

There’s a way of looking that emphasises our separateness.

Social media, and our technology 📲sets us up for this isolating experience every time.

There’s you out there looking at the phone and there’s me somehow in here on the screen.

Nothing connects us.

That disconnect is enough space to allow judgement to creep in.

That person is prettier.
That person is more athletic.
That person is cooler.
That person has more money.
That person is a show off.
That person.
That person.
That person.

It’s not healthy for either either party.

Can we hangout out in that space between us.

It’s difficult, but not impossible. Even through screens we can do this.

Try this… (let me know in the comments or on the dms how you get on) ✨🎋🥰

Allow your body to soften. Relax your breath.

Imagine tendrils or silk threads reaching out from your body. From your heart space. 🕷

Imagine them, feel them, sense them reaching straight through the screen and connecting you to me. Me to you. 🕸

You’ll know you’ve got it when your relationship to me changes.

When I’m no longer someone ‘showing off’ on a jetti by a lake.

And more like someone you feel you know.

Someone equally lost.
Someone equally baffled.
Someone equally full of love.
Someone equally full of rage.
Someone.
Someone.
Someone.

📸 .hardy_rochester

05/03/2021

Still on paternity leave over here. 🤱 (Interesting sidenote, No father-baby emoji)

Just thought I'd pop on and see how everyones keeping? 😬

Whilst I'm on...I'm wondering how clumsy this analogy is for the ??

I thought, maybe you could help me out with suggestions?

So in my head, our breathing apparatus...lungs, ribs and all our breathing muscles (basically the body) is analogous to these gears here. ⚙️⚙️⚙️

With bigger stronger gears we can drive more power...or we handle loads easily.

So far so good?

Let's add a little dust & grit.

Now a little dust and grit over time is going to add up to a lot of material... and will eventually be an issue.

Does it make sense to think of our thoughts and mental processes as accumulating over time like this grime?? 🧐

And if we don't spring clean this dust...with meditation...therapy...or maybe just a real honest connect with close friends & family...then things come unstuck ⏳ 💣

So we have our body (the physical gears) and we have our thinking patterns (like grit) and we can take care of both through... exercise and being attentive to our own needs and wants.

Finally...🌻

HOW we breathe is analogous to the cadence and tempo of the cogs ticking.

How we wind up the clock matters...how much force we bring to bare on a task or situation...how frequently we calibrate this cadence. 🗜️🎼

How you regulate your breath matters...is your breath wound up tighter than it needs to be? When did you last check up on it...give it a fine-tune??

So in summary....

The breath isn't just about doing a few breathing exercises and calling it good.

From a scientific underpinning we could talk about the Biomechanical aspects of breath, the Biochemical and the Psychophysiological.

But it's probably easier (more useful???) to say, the breath is where the mind meets the body.

As you can probably tell...these are the things that keep me up at night 😆🤪

And the more I learn the less I understand 😅

Thanks for being part of my thinking out loud 💜

05/03/2021

FREE Breathe Better (ONLINE) four part workshop series starts Wed 10 March -

03/03/2021

Delighted to be part of this event with Shanti Bee - Holistic Wellbeing Centre

My sessions are FREE to you on Wednesday evenings from 6.30-8.15 from next Wed 10 March.

05/01/2021

Happy New Year Folks...

“The heart is a thousand-stringed instrument that can only be tuned with Love.” Hafiz.

I've been away... a lot has happened but I'm ever present and ready for teaching in my dharma...

I'm continuing to teach online for the next little while...

Jump into my Sunday eve yoga class 6.30pm - 7.45pm or book yourself a one to one stretch therapy or yoga class online via zoom.

01/01/2021

26/11/2020

Imagine aliens 👽 scanning our brains 🧠 trying to work out just what kind of creature a humanbeing is ???💭

Notwithstanding the male ge****ls, which obviously will not cover all of humanity, the sensory Homunculus modelled above might represent what our alien friends 'see'. 🍆

👁️👄👁️

The lips, hands, feet and s*x organs have more sensory neurons than other parts of the body, so our 'little human' friend here has correspondingly large lips, hands, feet, and ge****ls.

👁️👄👁️

The next time you get up to go for a p*e in the middle of the night & stand on a Lego block you'll appreciate the large amount of information the brain is processing ⛲👣💥🤯😆

🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻🙌

And whilst the feet seem over-represented, the hands appear, next-leve, ridiculousl!! 😳😳😳

Although I think we can appreciate why...

🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻🙌

Through our hands we give and receive

🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻🙌

Through our hands we signify our intentions.

An open palm is a universal sign that you're not carrying weapons and is why soldiers salute to this day.

🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻🙌

Through our hands we comfort and reassure our children.

🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻🙌

We even use our hands to brush and stroke ourselves when we get nervous - watch cloesly someone not used to public speaking and you may see this.

🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻🙌

Through our hands we feed ourselves and each other (preparing and cooking food).

🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻🙌

Through our hands we make and use tools.. and music...

We hold hands...reach out with hands...check temperatures with our hands...

We build AND destroy with our hands.

And of course, here we all are typing and texting with our hands.

🙌🏿🙌🏾🙌🏽🙌🏼🙌🏻🙌

20/11/2020

If you're keen to shop small this Christmas and get ahead on your festive prep I can email or POST you gift vouchers out.

Massage, breath work, coaching - amounts start at £50.