I am a girl of fantasy.
I grew up reading books like the Half Magic series, by Edward Eager and 5 Children and It, by E. Nesbit, over and over. This was my escape as a child. And I couldn’t get enough of them.
If my letter to Hogwarts had come when I was 11, I would’ve jumped on that train in an instant without looking back.
Confused? Wondering why I’m speaking of such things today?
I see many correlations to my love of magical fantasy in the work that I do.
I am drawn to the magical inner workings of the body/brain connection. And while the work of anatomy, posture, and biomechanics that I spend so much time studying is based in science, the holistic movement educator in me is filled with peace and joy as I lead someone through the magic of breath work and releasing of chronic pain with visualizations and somatic body movements.
I am absolutely inspired by our body’s innate healing ability. To me, that is the purest form of magic there is.
The fact that brain cells are able to communicate electrically with one another to form and re-form connections every moment is magical to me. Based in science, yes. But can you step back and see how this could feel magical?
It’s only been in recent years that scientists have even discovered this new knowledge!
In school high school science class they taught us that the brain could not renew itself. That once neurons were lost, that’s it. Life was all downhill from there. New studies in brain plasticity have thankfully changed that view.
Or how about the fact that the heart’s electromagnetic field can be detected and measured several feet away from a person’s body and between two individuals in close proximity. Pure magic… I mean science… ahem.
See how the lines blur?
Now, if you are a purely science-based person, my viewpoint of the body as magic holds no weight. It’s science, pure and simple.
But where’s the fun in that, I ask? Childlike wonder is the lens I much prefer to view this world with.
It’s my opinion, that to close off our minds to the beauty, awesomeness , and magic of our inner workings, is to lose our connection to body/mind/heart.
The basis of the work I do and create with my clients is all around that magical connection to self.
While I do not wield a magic wand to ease and soften tight muscles, I might use a pair of therapy balls to create the same effect.
I cannot speak a spell to wish my client’s chronic pain away, but I can teach my clients to talk to their body to achieve the same thing.
I may not rub a genie lamp to wish away their back pain. But I can offer postural techniques to erase back, neck, and sciatic pain that work like magic.
I am unable to gift clients a charm from a water sprite, but I can offer a woman dealing with diastasis recti the ability to heal her core through breathwork and movement training.
I don’t mix potions of spider veins and dragon’s tongue, but I can teach them to use visualization to release stuck emotions in their tissue, ease their anxiety, and even change their flexibility level.
And to me, that all feels like true magic…
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Let’s play…
Take a break. Stop what you’re doing.
Go deep inside and feel the magic going on in you right now.
Breathe. And notice…
The beating of your heart.
Feel it.
The sound of your breath.
Hear it.
The movement of your diaphragm.
Notice it.
Feel your blood moving through your veins.
Make an image. See all of it going on together in your mind. .
Now, bring your heart into your awareness again.
Send words of appreciation and love for all it does.
See those words and emotions emanate from your heart and begin to fill your entire body up inside. Imagine it as a soft colored light. Choose any color that feels nicest to you.
Keep sending and expanding that light it until you are so full of it you can’t fill your body anymore.
Luxuriate in those feelings of appreciation and love.
Let it sink in.
Linger there even a moment more.
Feel the magic that your body can do.
