Practices (FSOW) Flashcards
(17 cards)
Mutual Connection “Hand on Chest”
We practice to embody the principle of mutual connection and interdependence—feeling ourselves and others at the same time. This is building relationships from Center.
- This practice allows us to embody being able to fully face another in connection.
- We add questions to this practice, and “let your body answer” to practice being authentic with ourselves and another.
- Being centered in mutual connection, invites the other to center as well. We practice on both sides, right and left, to access both sides of the brain and psychobiology.
Declaration/Commitment
We practice commitments to become the person or group who lives them.
Knowing our conditions of satisfaction and designing practices allows us to embody what it is we want to create, what we long for, and what we are committed to. Our commitment becomes a part of our presence, relating, way of being, and actions.
Gratitude
Moods can be practiced. Practicing gratitude on purpose allows us to access this state of being or mood with more ease and regularity. Through practice, gratitude can become the generative state from which to perceive life and open us up to our resilience. This practice opens up a broader range of what we can be grateful for.
Centering
We center to become more present, open, connected, and on purpose.
We center to embody ourselves, allow more aliveness and feeling, and de-numb ourselves. We center to organize ourselves purposefully around what we care about and to have this inform and fillout our psychobiology. Centering builds presence.
Centering in the body, mood, and commitment gives us a pragmatic, body-based place to return to when triggered—in our living, working and relating.
Extension
Energy follows attention. We extend to move our attention, energy, listening and commitment toward something or someone.
* Extension allows both giving out energy/attention and receiving or listening to energy/attention.
* We use the practice of extending toward our commitments to train ourselves to focus our attention, aliveness and energy there.
When practicing with our arms, we are still extending from Center.
We extend during bodywork & mutual connection to feel more deeply.
Collective Extension (Allying & Collective Vision)
Energy follows attention. We extend to move our attention, energy, listening and commitment toward something or someone.
* Extension allows both giving out energy/attention and receiving or listening to energy/attention.
* We use the practice of extending toward our commitments to train ourselves to focus our attention, aliveness and energy there.
When practicing with our arms, we are still extending from Center.
We extend during bodywork & mutual connection to feel more deeply.
Extension Down
Extending down can help us feel more ground, physically and metaphorically, can train us to let energy, charge or triggering run down into the ground (like an electrical wire), and can help us learn to “hold our ground” or stay with our core values, from a centered place rather than resisting or collapsing.
When practicing with our arms, we are still extending from Center.
We extend during bodywork & mutual connection to feel more deeply.
Consent
Consent is a vital and foundational embodied relational skill that enables us to establish healthy boundaries that allow for our main safety, dignity, and belonging.
Many of us, based on our differing sites of shaping, need to relearn how to consent because our capacity was eroded as a result of life experiences, impacts of trauma, and systemic oppression.
Rowing
We practice rowing to remain centered in transition, centered in change, and to direct our aliveness towards our commitment or a shared commitment. Rowing can help us find our lower bodies and a sense of groundedness in change.
- Moving from center. Move your center and your purpose forward. Using breath. Allows you to develop increased somatic sensibility.
Jo Kata
We use the Jo Kata as an embodied practice to build a centered presence, relaxation in action, extension toward our vision, skillful and accountable power, and coordination with others.
We are not teaching the Jo kata as a martial arts discipline or as a weapons practice.
Request / Decline / Accept
We live in a relational world and to fulfill any vision or commitment we will need to coordinate with others. The practice of making centered requests, declines, and accepts allows us to build the embodied competency to remain connected to our commitment and bring clarity to our coordination with others both personally and professionally.
Grab
The core principle here is recognizing, becoming deeply familiar with, and eventually making friends with our Conditioned Tendencies (CTs).
* How do you react in mood, thinking, sensation, worldview, etc. when you are “grabbed”?
* Knowing how our CTs work in our somas allows us to be accountable and build more choices. It allows us to increase our ability to feel sensations and emotions without immediately “acting out” or “acting in.”
* It slows down our automatic reactions, and allows us to re-center, where we can make choices from our values and commitments, and from more connection to ourselves and others.
Grab/Face/Center/Extend
A lifelong practice of developing depth, accountability, and choice. The principle here is to feel and notice our automatic reactions (CTs), re-center in body, mood, relations, and commitment, and then move toward and “face” what caused the stir or reaction. The principle is to build our capacity to feel, take in, and experience what is grabbing us, and respond. GCF builds more choice and capacity to respond and act rather than react.
Two Step
Practicing turning from center of gravity, from your purpose and also extending. Using the foundation of our legs. What we know intuitively is there’s a connection between our emotions, language, spirit, it’s all in our center. We have legs for a reason… sitting so much and psoas getting atrophy and causes physical ailments, connected to emotional ailments…we think with our feet. If we can feel my feet on the ground, it opens possibilities for behavior, actions, different ways of being.
Blend w/CT
is a concept that comes from Aikido, a non-competitive Japanese martial arts. It means to move with the energy, to join it, while keeping your own center, as a way to work with and transform it. Our aim in this process is to blend the CTs and adaptive strategies, acknowledging them. This tends to create somatic opening.
Resilience
Somatically we understand resilience as our ability to re-harmonize, to shift from hyper-alert and reactive states — looking for what’s wrong and tracking for danger — to a calmer, more resourced and re-connected way of being. Resilience
brings a more present and responsive way of being, a positive imagination for the future, and helps us re-establish safety, connection, and dignity.
Declarations
We create the future through language, connected to action, practice, and community or partners. When we make a declaration, we commit to a future possibility. Until we explore, discover, and then name this future possibility in language it is often not distinguished enough to move toward.
Naming a declaration for our future lets us take clear actions toward this future possibility. A declaration is not simply transmitting information. When we make a declaration we are producing a future possibility in which we and others are able to act.
Your actions become centered around what you care about, and your declaration organizes your intention to fulfill on those commitments. Your embodied declarations reflect your identity, purpose, integrity, and stand in life.
