Transcription of Equinox #27
Speaker 1: You are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast recorded at the studios of Maine Magazine in Portland, Maine and broadcast on 1310 AM Portland. Streaming live each week at 11AM on WLOBRadio.com. Show summaries are available at DoctorLisa.org. Download and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle through iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.
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Dr. Lisa: Hello. This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you are listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast. Number 27 airing first on WLOB Radio 1310AM, Portland, Maine on March 18th, 2012.
I’m excited because today’s topic is Equinox, which is very appropriate given that we have the Vernal or Spring Equinox coming up in a couple of days and across the microphone from me to discuss this topic is my co-host, Genevieve Morgan.
Genevieve: I’m feeling rather balanced as we go into the first day of spring.
Dr. Lisa: Oh, that’s a good way to start things out. Well, we have two very special guests and one of them, we thought enough of that we actually called across the country. It’s the Miracles of Modern Technology. We wanted to speak to Tosha Silver who is the author of Outrageous Openness. And we think this interview will be very interesting to people who are taking the time to tune in.
Genevieve: I know it’s our first coast-to-coast interview. It’s really exciting.
Dr. Lisa: It’s very exciting. And then to balance that out, we have local Feldenkrais practitioner and meditation teacher, Jane Burdick.
Genevieve: Who has been in Portland now, I think for over two and a half decades teaching balance.
Dr. Lisa: So, these individuals will each offer their ideas about balance and openness and how we achieve balance in our lives, which we thought was very appropriate for the equinox because equinox is as you’ve reminded me.
Genevieve: The equal juxtaposition between day and night.
Dr. Lisa: Yes. So, we have the same number of hours of daylight and nighttime at one point in the year and that is the vernal or spring equinox. So, Genevieve, how do you, yourself stay balanced?
Genevieve: It’s been a little bit of a challenge this year as you guys have, anyone who reads my column and has been listening to the show, which I hope you all have been listening to, know that I’ve had some health challenges.
I’ll just say for this year I did some very unique for me, which is I went out and got a bunch of seedlings and I planted them all in little boxes and I put them in the window and just this week, they sprouted.
So, I’m feeling very excited for spring because I feel like that’s what the equinox is all about. It’s about moving to the dark winter months into light and energy. And I really am feeling that way.
So, sometimes, it’s just individual and it’s as little as that as finding something to look forward to.
Dr. Lisa: I agree. And one of the reasons that I wanted to speak with Tosha Silver is that she speaks about just being open to whatever it is that inspires you. So, whether it is a seedling in your window or whether it is walking down the street and noticing that the trees are beginning to bud, in whatever mindfulness you can bring into your life, whatever openness you can bring into your life ultimately can approve to be very, very healing.
Genevieve: Yes. And for me, I’ve always look to exercise or diet for that, but since I’ve had such back pain, I haven’t been able to get out and be mobile. So, I went somewhere else. I went to the nursery.
Dr. Lisa: Well, that’s very appropriate because you’re nurturing your own self and you’re nurturing these little baby seeds and they’re going to start to grow and I think that it brings us right to why are we talking to Jane Burdick? And what is Feldenkrais, Genevieve?
Genevieve: Well, Feldenkrais is a very gentle movement practice that helps people tune in to the subtle, almost imperceptible movements that then link to the larger movements.
So, particularly, if you’re struggling with mobility or pain, going to a Feldenkrais workshop or working with a Feldenkrais practitioner can really show you how micro-movements are either inhibiting your mobility or causing you pain and then everything starts to flow easier after you pay attention to how you move in micro ways.
It’s a wonderful way for people who are kind of rehabilitating to gain traction faster. I don’t know if that makes sense, but basically, it sort of jumpstarts the whole rehabilitation process.
Dr. Lisa: I think that anything can make sense. It’s very interesting because one of the things that we’ve done over the past 26 episodes is to explore different ways that people might heal.
And whether it’s going to Feldenkrais, going that route or whether it’s sort of engaging in Outrageous Openness or whether it’s going to see Dr. Mike Totta who’s a back surgeon or going to see Steve Anderson at Body Architect and doing Qi-Gong.
Genevieve: Or doing acupuncture.
Dr. Lisa: Right. Doing acupuncture. I mean, well, what we are all about on this show is providing different points of view, different ways of looking at things, and allowing people to be inspired and go out and gain balance in their own lives in whatever way makes sense for them. So, I think this will be a great show.
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Dr. Lisa: Our next interview is our first national extrusion into the airwaves as we speak with author of Outrageous Openness, Tosha Silver, who also writes for the San Francisco Examiner. We hope you enjoy this special interview.
This morning we are on the air with Tosha Silver who I became acquainted with back I think it was around Christmastime. Is that… that sounds right?
Tosha Silver:Yeah. That sounds right.
Dr. Lisa: Yeah. And it was around the time that we recorded the interview with Dr. Christiane Northrup and she referred me to your book, which is Outrageous Openness, Letting the Divine Take the Lead.
So, I thought it was very appropriate book to talk about and concept to talk about as we head into the spring season, the vernal equinox and that’s why we decided to have you on here today. Thank you so much for coming in.
Tosha Silver:Yeah. Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: And I have Genevieve Morgan, my co-host sitting next to me.
Genevieve: Tosha, I’m delighted to meet you.
Tosha Silver:You too, Genevieve. I’m glad you’re here.
Dr. Lisa: So, one of the reasons… I mean this is an interesting thing for us to be doing something, taping this the way that we are and one of the things that we’ve had to be doing for the entire run of the show that began at September is to have a sense of openness, is to be simultaneously moving forward in a way that we know how to do things but also accept that we don’t know how to do things and be willing to experiment.
Tosha Silver:Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Your book is really great. Tell me if this is something that became important in your own life.
Tosha Silver:Yeah. I think it’s sort of… Probably one of the things of the foundation to what the progression that led into my writing, Outrageous Openness. Because I had this passive, I’m doing all these astrological readings, which I still do to some extent, but I was very much living a life as somebody who was giving readings and consulting with people about their problems.
And what was starting to happen was that I was feeling more and more that the issue really wasn’t about waiting for a particular transit to happen or waiting for Pluto to move here or Neptune to move there in somebody’s chart.
It was really about cultivating what you’re talking about. Cultivating in the sense of openness and curiosity and adventure to how the universe would want to present the next phase or whatever is lies and that actually had a really deep spiritual meaning to it that was outside of any specific religion. It was just a sense of opening and help and that there were very specific ways to open to that help.
Dr. Lisa: Now, I didn’t introduce you as somebody who does astrological readings, but that is an important part of who you are and you’ve been doing them for a very long time.
Tosha Silver:Yeah. They’re little by little getting to be less of my life as more happens with the writing and the book, but yes. I have done and probably suppose 19.
Dr. Lisa: But what it sounds like you’re saying is even if you present a picture of someone’s life with kind of the stars in mind, that doesn’t dictate where their life will go necessarily. The importance is to be open to possibilities that maybe influenced by perhaps where the stars fall.
Tosha Silver:Yeah. I think what was happening is that after doing all these thousands of greetings with people, I was struck in a way by how anything can become a box and that many people were even viewing the stars as a box like oh, certain things are happening in my chart. It must mean this or that.
And that there was an entire way of navigating in the world that was very much outside of fearing some sort of transit or fearing something in your chart.
And that unfortunately, there was some astrology that was actually out there that I kind of call fear based astrology really was cultivating in people’s sense… Was actually helping to create worry in their life. They would fear certain things about to happen.
And so, when I was working on Outrageous Openness, it was really coming from the studies I had done is one particular woman’s book towards commotion, The Game of Life and How To Play It. She wrote a lot of books in the 40s, in the 50s.
And kind of its good companionship is to Outrageous Openness because there’s so much about opening to what she called Divine Order that you can look at any situation and invoke the highest outcome for that situation.
So, if you’re looking whether you’re open to you need a new home or you’re leaving a relationship or you’re making a change in your career and any issue that’s happening rather than being filled with anxiety or even being concerned about what the next transit of the stars might be.
That you could move to Divine Order and you could say, “The, perfect… Whatever.” The perfect home, the perfect relationship, whatever, the perfect work is already selected and they’ll be guided to that in the right time in the right time. That sort of her work around that became the foundation of a lot of what expanded into the book.
Dr. Lisa: Tosha, can you describe the delicate balance between openness and healthy boundaries?
Tosha Silver:Oh, that’s a good one. I think that the openness that I’m referring to is really on an internal level to that conversation with Divine. However, somebody would wanted to find that that it’s not so much.
Actually, calling from California where it’s like you can go to Haight Street and there’s just people that have done too many drugs and they’re kind of open to everything in a way that isn’t necessarily helping their life work.
So, I’m not meaning it like that, but in a sense of I am open to getting the guidance like for example, I was just on the phone with somebody earlier this morning and we were just talking about she has a lot of changes to make in her life.
And so, we were talking about how you can put out a very specific prayer that simply says, “I’m about to make this particular move.” She was thinking about moving out of her home. If you could put out a prayer that could say, “If I meant to make this move then send a sign that makes it obvious. And if I’m not meant to make this move, cuff me now then design that makes me stop.”
And that to me is like a very fundamental basic inquiry or request that can be made to the universe that will get a response. I’ve seen it over and over. That, to me, is really different than just sort of saying, “I’m open to everything and I’m going to run around and let other people trample me.”
Genevieve: Right. Right. Openness doesn’t mean you’ve become a doormat.
Tosha Silver:Not at all. In fact, sometimes, I think the way this really works is that the more open you become on the spiritual level, under genuine spiritual level that there is this force that wants to engage with you whether you’ve considered the force that makes trees grow or that lives in nature or whether you’re here or in church, I think to me it doesn’t matter.
It’s just there is this force of love that wants to engage with each of us and that openness can be cultivated and it’s really like a dialog that gets deeper and deeper all the time the same way that people look for that with another person and I think part of that definitely can happen with another person, but it’s so much faster than that.
That there’s really this divine force that wants to have conversation with us all day long and if you invite that.
Dr. Lisa: Now, you speak of a divine force, but having read this book and other books, all the books that you referenced. I don’t sense that you’re going towards one particular major religion or another. Is that?
Tosha Silver:Yeah. I think it’s inclusive of everything. I think that’s more and more people that I know that feel this way. If there is a religion that somebody resonates with that, great. But that is a kind of spirituality that encompasses all religions and all paths and all things. And for me, I would call it a force of love. It’s a force of divine love.
Dr. Lisa: Do you have suggestions for bringing this love into people’s lives?
Tosha Silver:You know, there’s this book out there. I actually never read it, but I love the title so much because it’s really compatible with I think what’s an Outrageous Openness. It’s called Love Is What You Are.
And I think it’s a very different way of approaching this as opposed to even the idea in this culture that makes this about the human love that you want, a partner that you go out and you hunt for that person and you look for them and maybe you’re in competition with all these other people who are also looking and all that.
I think that all the ideas that’s about Divine Order that are in this book in Outrageous Openness are really about that you draw to yourself in what you are. That you simple embody… by embodying the energy that you’re supposedly looking for, you realize that that’s what you are anyway.
And then, of course, it comes to you because it’s part of who you are. So, the same prayer on the human level about this, the same prayer about that the perfect person say is already picked and they’ll be guided to you in the right way and the right time.
I think it’s really… I can use that… I don’t know. Hundreds of people. I mean you can use it for apartment, you can use it for partners, you can use it for anything, but it’s really good with human interactions because you can even use it with friendship.
You’re saying that the people that are right for your vibrations will find you. The people that aren’t right will fall away and so, it’s not like there’s just experience with auditioning or that you have to convince people to love you or that you have to earn their love that there’ll be drawn by you’re being based in the vibration of your own love.
And then I think it’s really the same with the divine that so often, we’re looking maybe for people on the outside. It’s still a space that is really, there’s a larger force to one person waiting.
Genevieve: When we did our interview with Dr. Northrup, she touched on this as a way to start tuning your instrument to this kind of love that you’re talking about.
Tosha Silver:Yes.
Genevieve: Which is that you already know what pleases you.
Tosha Silver:Yes.
Genevieve: So that if you take steps towards what feels pleasurable in your body even if it’s just looking at a piece of art or going to listen to music that you like or in her case, tango dancing.
Tosha Silver:Yes.
Genevieve: That there’s very clear physical steps you can take.
Tosha Silver:Yeah.
Genevieve: And it all has to do with finding what pleases you.
Tosha Silver:Yeah.
Genevieve: Is that something that you’ve subscribed to?
Tosha Silver:Yeah. I think that’s really right. Somebody had this quote once that I really loved and it was basically just like you can find that place inside of you that knows God because it’s a place that says yes. It’s like that whatever that internal self is saying yes to, is it.
Genevieve: That’s great.
Tosha Silver:And that’s your specific vibration whether it’s a kind of music or whether it’s a kind of essence and you can see it like when you watch two different people go through a museum and one of them just gravitates to something. And their whole being is just like yes, like this is it.
And sometimes I think that directly relates to their chart perhaps or past five. Who knows? But that there’s something within each person’s essence that wakes up and says, “Yes. This is what brings out aliveness.”
And so, I would call that the divine. I would totally agree with her. It’s almost like it’s the opposite of perhaps, some religions that would be about self-denial. But that idea of blocking down that pleasure its itself is a distraction and all of that, it’s almost the opposite.
It’s not heathenism. It’s just knowing that that part inside that says yes is divine. I think it’s that simple.
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Dr. Lisa: We thought this would be an appropriate interview to have right around the vernal equinox because that is a time where the lifeworks begin to rise again according
Tosha Silver:Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: To Chinese medicine, it’s the whole young within and that things begin to grow and sprout and the sap rises. Do people call you with different questions around these times of year? Around the equinox, around the solstice? I mean are their questions different?
Tosha Silver:You’re making me think about something I’ve never considered before. There’s definitely different qualities to the seasons that come through and what people are asking about an option in say the winter solstice, it’s a very internal time. And I think this is a culture that’s uncomfortable with dormancy.
You know, with the idea that there’s times to rest and there’s times to go forward. And so, often people are very concerned or agitated in the way they should be doing things that they don’t feel like doing.
I think with the spring, it’s often, there’s just this thing that sense in people that they can feel and even people that don’t really believe in the stars or believe in the cycles, they feel that that sap rising inside of them.
And so, there’s often that kind of focus on moving forward. I wasn’t particularly thinking that much about talking about the astrology, but I just want to mention this because this particular year since you’re airing this around spring solstice is really, it’s an important turning point this year moreso than some years because we’re in this extended Mars retrograde cycle that started at the end of January and it ends on April 11th.
And so, even though, normally, in the spring equinox, you get that forward rush of new life. I think it may be a little bit delayed this year until the middle of April because Mars retrograde is a very internal cycle that has a lot to do with inner purification and inner clearing.
So, if anybody hears this and you’re feeling like, “Wow. It’s equinox and I don’t quite feel it yet.” Hang on two three weeks.
Dr. Lisa: One of the reasons that I think that some people might be listening and be thinking, “Well, astrology. I’m not sure I believe in this.” Or they don’t really understand it enough because they haven’t spend much time with it. You spend a lot of time. Well, you went to Yale.
Tosha Silver:Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: And you had a lot of time to think about things in a very rational way and astrology somehow called to you in a very rational way as well. Was there a challenge for you to bring sort of the western way of thinking with this pull to do astrological readings?
Tosha Silver:They say this in general about different kinds of art and I consider astrology in some ways, just one more art form that you don’t pick it, it picks you.
I thought I was going to go to law school or become a journalist. So, this wasn’t like really a conscious decision I got out of school and I was just a test with it for a couple of years. And I was reading everything that I could. And the next thing I knew, people were constantly asking me for readings.
And I think what happened was I became intrigued by the idea that on the one hand, anybody’s birth chart could be like a signature with a piece of music that there’s a certain vibration contained within each person and one person might have a vibration like Mozart and the other person might have a vibration like Jethro Tull.
And that these things could be, it would explain why we have to pulls we have, why we have the disabilities we have, but that at the same time, I was really uncomfortable with being determined as stick like we’re trapped by these charts the way it sometimes is put out as if we’re completely the victim of this combination of factors.
Dr. Lisa: In light of your own twist and turns that happened in the arc of your life so far and I understand there’s lots to come. Is there an overreaching architect type of arc that each human life is meant to undertake?
Tosha Silver:Again, to go back to the idea of the chart that we each kind of come with a curriculum and that’d be one way to say it. That we come with a curriculum to study and that each individual chart is completely different and has a different curriculum which is why one of the things I really love and it’s the good side of astrology. Not when people uses it in a determined excluding way.
With the good side of it, to me, is it can make you very accepting of other people’s task and not just mental because you’re just going… Everyone has a different curriculum that they’re here to study.
One person might be here to learn how to be open to relaxing into life and another person might be here to learn how to overcome fear of aloneness and on and on. So, you never can really be judging whether someone else’s path is wrong for them because it’s not your path.
So, in that sense, I would say each person has a route that perhaps the soul contracted to learn before it came to earth. I kind of see it like a contract and that we’re here to be the best form of that that we can be, but each one is completely unique, an individual.
Dr. Lisa: And this brings us back to the idea of Outrageous Openness again. Just embracing one’s life but also what other people’s lives are meant to be for themselves. Is that true?
Tosha Silver:There’s a story in the book that’s called, “What Is God Were All Of Us.” It’s about that because it’s sort of the difference between, say, perhaps a more doctrinaire religion that would say there’s one way. There’s one way to be spiritual. There’s one way to know God. Here’s the rules. Here’s the regulations. These are the things that you have to.
And there’s a different kind of spirituality that I think this book embraces that says who you are inside as you is sacred. Kind of going back to what Dr. Northrup might have talked about that these inclinations of the body, that these inclinations of the soul, that these spontaneous pulls that arise from the inside are themselves sacred.
And that the more you can listen inside to them and honor them and honor the feelings in order things to stay arise, the more you are in touch with your essence and your own and you’re connecting to that greater self is always trying to interact with us.
Dr. Lisa: Well, that feels like the perfect place to leave this interview with you, Tosha. I know that people will be listening and probably rushing out to buy your book.
Tosha Silver:Well, that’s great. It’s on Amazon as an eBook and also as a regular paperbook.
Dr. Lisa: And you also have a website?
Tosha Silver:I have a website. It’s ToshaSilver.com.
Dr. Lisa: And do you have mp3s that people can download to…
Tosha Silver:I do.
Dr. Lisa: Hear more of your voice.
Tosha Silver:I do. I think there’s twelve or something mp3s on there and I’ll also be doing it’s this any in the spring. Starting in April or May, there’s going to be Divine Order Health class that I’m going to start.
So, a direction, the work is going to be fewer readings and more classes so that I can really be working with people about Divine Order.
Genevieve: And you can do that over Skype or?
Tosha Silver:You can. You can do it over Skype or you can do it over just a regular telephone line because I get a conference number and everybody calls in and it’s a really great way. We’re going to do a four-week class.
Genevieve: Okay.
Tosha Silver:Or sometimes it’s a six-week class.
Genevieve: And can we register on your website for that?
Tosha Silver:Yeah. I have… If people go to my website and they sign up for the mailing list then I’ll send them the notice as soon as the dates get set up. And people can also find me on Facebook, which as you know I seem to spend half my time on. So, it’s an easy way to also get the news of when I have the classes set up.
Dr. Lisa: Well, I find your Facebook postings very informative. So, thank you for…
Tosha Silver:Thank you.
Dr. Lisa: Thank you for spending some time on air at least for my sake. I do appreciate very much you’re taking the time to talk with us today about Outrageous Openness and the sort of relationship between openness in the spring and things string to rise and trusting ourselves. So, thank you for coming on and talking with us today, Tosha Silver.
Tosha Silver:It was my pleasure. Thank you.
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Here’s an excerpt from one of our past shows featuring an interview with Dr. Christiane Northrup.
Cristaine N: Here’s my goal. Ready? Here’s the goal. Everything that I learn out there in a book or at Mama Gino’s or whatever, just bring back to Yarmouth. If it isn’t scientifically accurate, it won’t work. It’s not enough to think that your source is that person’s work, that person’s work, your source is here.
And you want to bring it home and make it work here in your own backyard. Every single one of us has inner wisdom and has the ability to attract to us the resources, the people, the thoughts, the books that will make us whole.
Every one of us has an inner guidance system and I have to learn I’m not anyone else’s higher power. Yeah, this is a daily practice and this is a very good place to do it.
First of all, because it’s peaceful here. It’s calm. We get all upset if there’s four cars at a light. We call it rush hour. It’s a very high quality of life and when you’re going through something like the death of an old self, this is a really good place to heal.
You’ll notice Maine has more really solid holistic healers than any place I’ve ever been at. Really. I mean amazing people and for our population, that shouldn’t be happening.
What I want everyone in New York City to know is if they get a cheap ticket on JetBlue, they can save money by getting their healthcare here. And so, I see everyone understanding that bringing their own light into their life is the number one way you save the planet.
You don’t it through getting exhausted, through getting burnt out. How you do it is what you get. You have to find what you truly, truly love. So, what is the dream that you had when you were nine, ten, eleven. That comes roaring back. That’s your life force.
The only way you’re going to find out what it is, you can ask your mother. But if she isn’t around or if she doesn’t have the ability to see that part of you, it’s like Daniel Giamario, Shamanic Astrology.
He says, “What if you’re purple but you grew up in a family where they only recognize green?” Then it’s going to be very hard for you to know what that thing is. But I can tell you, I’ll give you a hint. It’s the thing that feels too good to be true. It’s like too much fun to be true.
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Dr. Lisa: On today’s Maine Magazine Minutes, we have a very special guest, Jane Burdick who will be introduced by our co-host and Maine Magazine Minutes host, Genevieve Morgan.
Genevieve: Thanks, Lisa. Good morning, Jane.
Jane Burdick: Good morning.
Genevieve: I’m so happy to have you in the studio today. I know that Lisa is a Qi-Gong teacher, but you do something very interesting. You’re a Feldenkrais practitioner and you’ve been doing it for more than 15 years in the Portland area. Can you describe what Feldenkrais is?
Jane Burdick: Feldenkrais is a little hard to explain because it’s experiential, but basically, it’s the manual that you’ve always wanted for your body. And I don’t like to say it’s Movement 101, but it teaches you the movements that are underneath everything we do so that if reaching and sitting and standing and lying, we all have habits that we don’t know we have.
And they get in our way and overtime, we can have illness and accidents and then we organize around those. So, Feldenkrais is really uncovering our original patterning, I would say.
Genevieve: It’s a very gentle practice.
Jane Burdick: Yes. It’s a very gentle practice and it has a vocabulary of over a thousand movement patterns. So, and everything that is troubling you can be addressed through Feldenkrais. Everything physical that and maybe even mental too.
Genevieve: How did you come to practice Feldenkrais and then become a teacher of it?
Jane Burdick: I came by it very honestly through 20 years back pain and I was a potter for 20 years when I lived in Rockport. And for all those 20 years, I suffered with back pain just thinking that was the inevitable thing. And I didn’t know really and I was very athletic and guarded and this and that.
So, one Feldenkrais lesson at the Camden-Y, with then the only practicing Feldenkrais person in Maine, Maryland Hardy. And I got up off the floor and I had no pain. And I thought what is this? What’s going on here? So, I studied with her quite a bit here in Portland and then took a training, a 4-year training.
Genevieve: Tell me, Feldenkrais, what is it look like when somebody is doing Feldenkrais practice? I’m not sure what you would call it. Describe this a little bit more for me.
Jane Burdick: Well, there are two ways of working in Feldenkrais and one of them is called awareness through movement and that is verbally directed movement sequences that would take probably a half hour or 45 minutes in which you would dismantle movement.
So, that it’s unrecognizable. Let’s say you want to work on reaching, but you don’t even know that that’s what you’re doing because you’re doing in at least tiny little pieces.
And then at the end of the awareness through movement Lesson, you put it all back together again. And you’re reaching and using your ribs and using your spine in a very different way. So, it’s very slow, verbally directed, but the other aspect is called functional integration.
And that is where you would come to me, you would lie on my table fully clothed and I would move you in those similar ways. So, you’re completely off the hook. You are just hopefully enjoying and giving me the feedback if anything hurts you. Anything, anything, anything. Then we back up. So, we don’t work through pain at all. We work on this side of pain.
Genevieve: Jane, I did a workshop with you and one of my favorite exercises had to do with finding… It was a partner exercise where you worked on another person, but you found your own comfort first.
You put your own comfort first and people made the analogy of when the oxygen mask comes down in the airplane that you put your own oxygen mask on. I’m wondering as we move into spring, how people… their listening can use that analogy to find more ease and comfort coming out of winter. How can you speak to that?
Jane Burdick: Well, I think it’s really essential. I mean especially that in some way, we’re all caregivers. I mean whether it’s ourselves or aging parents or children or whatever it is, we’re all caregivers. And we’ll all come to some kind of difficulty with ourselves if we don’t nourish ourselves first.
So, it really is about self-nourishment. It really is about moving slower in the world. Moshe Feldenkrais, said something so interesting. Once he said, “You can go very fast without hurrying.” And so, hurrying is an internal job.
So, we’re just always thinking of the next thing and we have a lot of encouragement from our culture to go fast, fast, fast, faster. It’s better more. More is better. In the case of Feldenkrais, less is much much better because in Feldenkrais lesson at least, you can absorb and sense much more if you’re going slowly.
Genevieve: You have some personal experience, recent personal experience with this.
Jane Burdick: I definitely do. I moved three years ago. And I was just getting things done in one place and painting in the other and then I took off with friends for Nova Scotia and did the driving. I was invincible in that moment. Just all this energy and then I crashed and I stopped sleeping was the thing.
So, that hurry-up mode, that do-everything mode really got into my sleep even. And then overtime, that lack of sleep really, I quite got sick. So, I’m just coming up out of that now as we head into spring and I’m so delighted to feel the sap rising.
That’s what it feels like really and to feel some real energy and to remember the things that I’ve learned over the years that I’ve been doing Feldenkrais to really do them with more application for myself.
Genevieve: You were trained in Feldenkrais and you learned that it was important not to always have your energy be outgoing, you learned to be more mindful, you learned that you couldn’t always be a caregiver. And yet, you somehow reverted back to an old pattern in your life perhaps.
Jane Burdick: Exactly.
Genevieve: And got you back to a place where you needed to remember these lessons
Jane Burdick: I think remember them at a deeper level. And then I think the teaching can really take place from a deeper level. So, I’m not sorry that it happened this kind of burnout. I’m not sorry because it had a great gift in it for me.
And that is that as I certainly get older and I’ll be 70 on my next birthday that you can improve. Moshe Feldenkrais always say, “You can improve until the day you die.”
And I thought that was so encouraging and setting forth a new model for aging as I sit in the workshop. It really is a new model for aging. So, I had to learn that at a deeper level. I couldn’t pretend that I was 30 anymore.
Genevieve: Well, you have been a wellness pioneer in the state of Maine for now, I would say two and a half decades and an inspiration to many other healers and practitioners particularly with your meditation knowledge and wisdom and I know you teach a meditation circle.
Jane Burdick: I do.
Genevieve: How long have you been doing that and how does that play in to what you’ve been learning?
Jane Burdick: I have been meditating for about 15 years and I lead and have led a group every Thursday from 6 to 7 at 25 Middle Street and everybody is welcome to come and we teach practices of love and compassion and wisdom.
And I think slowing the mind, slowing the body, they really are not separate and so, each one feeds into the other and I feel so grateful that during this time, I had both to really rely on and deepen in and you might even say that what I went through is a spiritual practice, a spiritual crisis actually.
And I think that’s what happens before you sink to another level of being able to just be with yourself.
Speaker 1: We’ll return to our interview after acknowledging the following generous sponsors: Pierce Atwood, part of the Portland Legal Community For 120 years. Clients turn to Pierce Atwood for help with important deals and critical disputes. For creative solutions and sound advise about legal or business strategy for piece of mind. For more information on Pierce Atwood, go to www.pierceatwood.com.
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Dr. Lisa: I do think that it goes back to, Genevieve as she just pointed out because there’s 1998, is that what I understand?
Jane Burdick: That’s when I started.
Dr. Lisa: You started the training.
Jane Burdick: Yup.
Dr. Lisa: Okay. And you got so good at being everybody’s else’s role model and to be a healer and everybody else was looking to you and I’ve had this experience myself as a physician, as a Qigong practitioner, as a Qigong teacher that you almost reach a place where you know that things aren’t right for you yourself.
But it’s almost hard to admit that because then it makes you less of sort of what you do. It makes you less of a teacher, doctor.
Genevieve: Did you have that experience?
Jane Burdick: I think to some degree, yes. Really walking my talk. Really saying, “Okay. This is really important.” It’s not just something I’m saying that you should do. I need to do it. I really need to come from that place of having done it and that’s true in meditation as well. You’re really just sharing your own practice.
Genevieve: And did you have to start giving things up that perhaps you’ve been holding on to?
Jane Burdick: Oh, there’s no question. I think, for me, I’ve been out one evening in the last four months and that was to see a great movie and other than that, I’ve just been home. So, giving up? Yes. Giving up, saying yes to a lot.
Genevieve: Has that been a problem in your life?
Jane Burdick: Yes. Definitely. Definitely. And I think that can be. I’m sure that men go through that too, but I think for women, it’s a really, it’s a cultural thing to say yes and not to be able to think of yourself first, but think of everyone else first. So, I think learning that has been a lifelong thing.
Dr. Lisa: Well, going back to the equinox theme, it’s a little easier in the dead of winter when things are dark
Jane Burdick: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: And hibernating to nurture that quiet solitude those moments of rest.
Jane Burdick: Right.
Dr. Lisa: How do we sustain that center as we move into… as the sap is rising as you put it and we move into the more active fiery months?
Jane Burdick: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: Do you have any?
Jane Burdick: I think there’s always breathing. There’s always gravity. There’s always just sinking into where you are like right now, can we feel our bottoms on these stools? Can we just feel that? And just being where we are in the moment. Just being present and entering the moment more.
Genevieve: This time of year, do you notice restlessness amongst people that you might be treating especially here on the state of Maine?
Jane Burdick: I’m noticing a lot of illness this winter and maybe you have too. It’s more than usual. I have so many clients who come to me who are actually ill this winter and I think it’s… I’m not exactly sure what it is, but I think we expect so much from ourselves.
And you to not stop even in winter. So, I felt very fortunate this winter to be able to sort of go with the season and to really be like a bear and hibernate and feel that coming out now has a different flavor. It has a different quality.
And just as you walk just feeling your feet on the ground. As you speak to someone, just be there. So, it’s not complicated. It’s really just being present.
Genevieve: How long have you lived in Maine now?
Jane Burdick: I’ve lived in Maine for over 40 years.
Genevieve: And how did it draw you here?
Jane Burdick: My then husband and I were walking down the street in New York City where we lived and we saw an advertisement for a cabin in Lincolnville for rent and he had spent summers in Maine. And so, and I had been to a 1967 Haystack Mountain School of Crafts where I learned to be a potter.
So, I knew Maine. We both knew Maine. We both loved Maine. And we graduated from college, Columbia University, and moved up here to start a family actually. So, we did that and we moved to Searsmont, Maine. And we both worked at home. I had a pottery studio and he had an architectural office.
And so, that was sort of like back to the land time, people running out of the cities and fleeing and coming up to Maine.
Genevieve: You call him your then husband so, I guess that assumes you’re no longer married.
Jane Burdick: That’s right.
Genevieve: Was that a crisis point for you?
Jane Burdick: It was the very end of the Feldenkrais training and I think the training produces a lot of changes. And so, just things really had changed between us and our daughter was grown and it was just time to separate at that point.
Dr. Lisa: So, whatever the point was, you used it constructively?
Jane Burdick: Yeah.
Dr. Lisa: And you were both able to move forward in your respective directions?
Jane Burdick: Very much so. He’s an architect up in Camden married to an architect. Very happy and I live down here and have a very full and rich life also. And our daughter lives in Falmouth with her baby. So, life is good.
Dr. Lisa: I do love the fact that you’re clearly very thoughtful, but you also have this physical aspect to what you do with the Feldenkrais and you have this creative aspect with the pottery. I mean you really have utilized so many different aspects of yourself and your brain and your personality. That’s unusual, don’t you think?
Jane Burdick: I feel tremendously lucky in my life to have pursued exactly what I was interested in and there was also another avenue in there called proprioceptive writing, which is a psychological form of writing that I did and taught for 15 years.
So, yes. It’s body, mind, spirit. And now putting them all together is really my pleasure and my happiness.
Genevieve: And I do know that it’s so appropriate to have you on this show, Equinox. Because the other word for equinox, of course, is balance. And you are one of the most balanced people that I know.
Jane Burdick: Oh my goodness.
Genevieve: Well, put it this way. You practice balance mindfully and actively.
Jane Burdick: Yes. And hopefully can convey that. I feel the importance of it in this crazy world. I feel as if really we’re getting way out there and just come back to center and come back to human values and ethics and beauty and what we have here in Maine I think is very important.
Genevieve: Do you think that what we have here in Maine is a greater sense of values and beauty and ethics?
Jane Burdick: I think it’s certainly possible here and I think there are a lot of people who are on that path. A lot of us. There are a tremendous number of artists and writers and bodyworkers and psychologists and every and doctors and writers. Every facet of life is represented here in spades it seems to me not just the restaurants.
Dr. Lisa: Which are also great.
Jane Burdick: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: I know we really do talk about balance. We have a little bit of everything in Maine.
Jane Burdick: It’s true.
Dr. Lisa: If I’m listening to this and I wanted to meet you. You said your meditation circle is open on Thursdays.
Jane Burdick: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: So, if you’re in the Portland area, you can just come and sign in.
Jane Burdick: Yes.
Dr. Lisa: And it’s not something that’s progressive. You can come if you’ve never meditated before.
Jane Burdick: You can come anytime. It’s a guided meditation and every time, it’s guided. So, beginners, experienced. Everybody is welcome to come.
Genevieve: And how about Feldenkrais?
Jane Burdick: And Feldenkrais, I have a private practice in my home and I teach workshops as well and I have a website, JaneBurdick.com. And I see people. Mostly, I see people privately in my home.
Genevieve: And how would someone who could benefit from your services know that…is a pain a big indicator?
Jane Burdick: Pain is a big indicator. Yeah, it definitely is. And that’s what people come for generally.
Genevieve: Okay.
Jane Burdick: Feldenkrais is very, very appropriate for people who would like to… They’ve reached a kind of plateau and playing a musical instrument or doing a sport for just being interested and being more embodied. I have a lot of people who come just for that as well.
So, really for almost anything that you can think of, it would be good to do Feldenkrais.
Genevieve: Thank you so much, Jane, for coming today.
Jane Burdick: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1: Our bodies are often the first indicators that something isn’t quite working. Are you having difficulty sleeping, anxiety, or chronic pain issues? Maybe you’ve had a job loss, divorce, or recent empty nest. Dr. Lisa specializes in helping people through times of change and inspiring individuals to create joyful, sustainable lives.
Visit DoctorLisa.org for more information on her Yarmouth, Maine medical practice and schedule your office visit or phone consult today.
Dr. Lisa: This is Dr. Lisa Belisle and you have been listening to the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast, Number 27: Equinox. Airing first on WLOB Radio 1310 AM Portland. Streaming, WLOBRadio.com on March 18th, 2012.
This episode featured Tosha Silver, author of Outrageous Openness. And Portland area Feldenkrais practitioner and meditation teacher, Jane Burdick. Both of these individuals shared their ways of becoming more balanced which is the equinox is all about.
We hope that individuals who have been listening to our show or maybe you’re not just an individual, maybe you’re listening with your whole family on the other end of the radio waves will be inspired to find balance in whatever way makes sense for them. We wish you all a wonderful spring. I wish my brother, Matthew, whose birthday it is this week, Happy Birthday!
And we hope that you will go to DoctorLisa.org for more information about our guests and our radio show. You can also find our Facebook page, Dr. Lisa and like it to get our daily updates. You may read my blog at Bountiful-blog.com. And we hope that you will become a podcast subscriber and have our radio show delivered into your inbox weekly by going to iTunes-Dr. Lisa Belisle.
This is Dr. Lisa Belisle. Thank you for being part of our world. May you have a bountiful life.
Speaker 1: The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is made possible with the support of the following generous sponsors: Maine Magazine, Mike LePage and Beth Franklin at Re/Max Heritage, Robin Hodgkin at Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, Dr. John Herzog of Orthopedic Specialists in Falmouth, Maine, Tom Shepard of Shepard Financial, Pierce Atwood, Booth, UNE-The University of New England, and Akari.
The Dr. Lisa Radio Hour and Podcast is recorded in downtown Portland at the offices of Maine Magazine on 75 Market Street. It is produced by Kevin Thomas and Dr. Lisa Belisle. Editorial content produced by Chris Cast and Genevieve Morgan. Audio production and original music by John C. McCain. Our assistant producer is Jane Pate.
For more information on our hosts, production team, Maine Magazine, or any of the guests featured here today, visit us at DoctorLisa.org and tune in every Sunday at 11 AM for the Dr. Lisa Radio Hour on WLOB Portland, Maine 1310 AM or streaming, WLOBRadio.com. Show summaries are available at DoctorLisa.org. Download and become a podcast subscriber of Dr. Lisa Belisle through iTunes. See the Dr. Lisa website or Facebook page for details.