Whole-Body Integration

Excellent video explaining Rolfing Structural Integration

The Rolf Institute has come out with a wonderful new video explaining Rolfing® Structural Integration to prospective clients and the public. So much media gets Rolfing SI wrong, as you'll see in many of my other posts commenting on Rolfing stories in the media. The Rolf Institute and the Rolfers™ in this video of course get it right, because it's our world and we know what we do! Please take the 9 or so minutes to watch this, or share it with anyone curious about Rolfing SI, it's the best overview out there.

 

Dogs in Boots: What Can We Learn about Proprioception and Rolfing SI?

I have a big dog. She has so much fur that she doesn't need to wear boots in the winter, so I don't have to put her through this.

While the linked video is entertaining, it also raises interesting mind-body questions. What is going on with these dogs that makes their movement so uncoordinated, and why are relatively similar movement patterns created in all of the dogs? We can't just assume that the dogs hate the boots and want them off: if that were the case, the best solution would be to lie down, apply teeth to boots, and rip the suckers off.

My first theory is that something must be going on with the dogs' proprioception - the body sense that tells you where your body is in space and what it's doing. Having something extra on the feet could be messing with that, by giving the sensation of a bulkier, weightier foot. Basically, your brain is always mapping your body, which creates your body schema. This schema then tells you where you are so that you can do things like stand up and walk around and function in a coordinated way. 

To diverge for a bit away from dogs and into body mapping and Rolfing® Structural Integration (SI) – more dogs later! – the body map is probably part of why amputees get phantom-limb pain, feeling a body part as if it were still there after it has been removed. Interestingly, I've heard that a few of my colleagues have mocked up doing Rolfing work on the phantom limb, which helped to decrease the clients' pain. While it could be purely a placebo effect, it would also be that they are somehow influencing the body map that still includes the missing limb.

The body map can also become distorted through injury. Here is an interesting story by Rolfer Robert Schleip about a man who "lost" his head due to injuries – basically, his brain no longer accurately mapped the location of his head, and as a result he was constantly bumping his head. Schleip devised an interesting and playful exercise for him to do at home that quickly re-mapped his head through sensory input, and the head-bumping stopped. 

If you are curious about the brain's body mapping, this book is an excellent resource. Also, its author, Sandra Blakeslee, is interviewed here by Rolfer™ and Rolf Movement® Practitioner Kevin Frank, discussing why Rolfing sessions can help restore and improve your body map – increasing coordination and grace in movement. Frank believes that body mapping offers a new theory on how Rolfing SI works to improve posture, coordination, and movement, as he discusses here. Originally we attributed the results of Rolfing SI to thixotropy – the property of a gel to become more liquid when pressure is applied, or in this case the idea that the fascias of the body can be softened and reshaped when a Rolfer applies manual pressure. Frank believes that research into brain mapping suggests that we are changing fascia/posture/etc. by changing the brain map and giving the body corrective sensory and proprioceptive movement.  

With my Rolfing clients here in Seattle, I always have them stand up after a session and ask them to feel what is different. Things change in Rolfing sessions, and if you can feel it, you can own it and live from it. I also tell clients to go for a walk (particularly after any work on the feet or legs) to "hard-wire" the changes into their movement patterns. This is particularly useful to do before engaging in any sort of automatic movements or patterning, like jumping in the car and driving off to the next thing in life. Rolfing sessions are as much a process of education into body awareness as they are a process of receiving hands-on work, so I work to enhance somatic awareness. On a mind-body-spirit level, what we are doing is balancing the head, heart, and belly (movement) centers, so that the person functions in a balanced and embodied way. The more this can happen – the integration of changes into the "felt sense" and the body map – the more the improved posture from a Rolfing session will last over time, rather than disappear the next day as often happens with massage. 

Back to the dogs. I posted the video link to a Rolfers forum, and asked my colleagues for their thoughts – as Rolfers are an inquisitive and thoughtful bunch – and I got back some interesting responses:

• Rolfer Deborah Weidhaas speculates that "when a dog lifts its foot, the world/ground is supposed to go away.  With boots on it doesn't, the ground sensory feedback continues, so they lift farther to try to get away from the sensory input."
• My colleague and fellow blogger Linda Grace concurs on proprioceptive factors, and also tells me that the leg-lift move may have to do with a primitive reflex being activated. In human infants, primitive reflexes tell the baby to seek the breast for nourishment, to suck, to step into contact with the sole of the foot.... Puppies also have canine-appropriate reflexes, and according to what a researcher told Grace, one of them is to raise the back leg for their mom to clean them up. She speculates that the dogs in boots may be lifting their legs to say "Mom! Get this off me!"
• Rolfer Allan Kaplan noted the theory that the movements may be due to "the hairs between the dogs’ toes getting erroneous stimulation when confined in the booties. Once they get used to them, they make the adjustment." This again points to proprioception – a disturbance messes up proprioception, then when the body map adjusts to the input, all is well.

If you are going to put boots on your dog, here is some advice on how to acclimatize them to this new sensation in a gentle and kind way. If you want to try a Rolfing session, here is where you can find a certified practitioner in your area.

Woman Uses Tattoo Process to Move through Trauma

Bear with me... There are a few pieces to bring in to preface this video.

As a Rolfer™ I see alot of bodies and therefore alot of tattoos. (The places I've worked, Maui and Seattle, have lots of people of all ages with gorgeous ink.) What I love best is when people have great stories of their tattoos and what they mean for them personally. 

In Rolfing® Structural Integration work, I also see many clients with trauma histories. Trauma is a fact of life – almost everyone has experienced some form of trauma, whether a difficult birth, being fired from a job, losing a loved one, having a surgery or a sports injury, etc. It is now commonly known that trauma makes us lose touch with our bodies, as part of our being retreats from the overwhelm of the event. Many clients come to Rolfing work with the particular goal of reconnecting to those frozen parts of their bodies and/or psyches. Others don't have this goal, but find themselves remembering events from the past as their bodies receive work in an area that had experienced something traumatic. [Of course, if you have a significant trauma history that is affecting your emotional state currently, it is good to do more than bodywork – to see a psychotherapist or trauma therapist trained to help unwind these impacts. One particularly effective form of work is Somatic Experiencing™, which uses the body and one's felt sense as a doorway to gently release trauma. Peter Levine, the founder of that work, was originally a Rolfer, but developed Somatic Experiencing as his work led him into a profound mind-body-spirit-integrated understanding of trauma, the body, and the nervous system. He's written a good number of books; a good place to start is this one.]

Now to pull these thread together! This blog post was inspired by this video, about Molly Ortwein, a woman who underwent a double mastectomy for breast cancer. Ortwein found that tattooing her chest with a design that held alot of meaning for her helped her feel good about her body and scars after her surgery / breast reconstruction. Like many tattoos I see on my Rolfing clients, hers is deeply personal, deeply meaningful. Listening to her speak, it seems that getting the tattoo was a way for her to reverse the impact of a traumatic event through an empowering act. (She has started an organization to help other cancer survivors connect to tattoo artists, if they want to follow her example.)

Note: Because you see her chest in the video, some might consider this NSFW.

New Year's Resolution: Exercise for a Healthy Brain

As we move past the winter solstice – allowing our dark Seattle days to gradually become lighter! – and into 2014, my mind is on my vision for the new year, which includes improving my level of health and fitness. I found some great support for that today in a blog post by The New York Times health and fitness writer Gretchen Reynolds. She surveys research that links the evolution of the human brain and cognitive capacity to the development of physical fitness and endurance, suggesting that "if physical activity helped to mold the structure of our brains, then it most likely remains essential to brain health today." 

Sounds great, especially as there's also reams of research linking physical activity to longevity and happiness and quality of life. As you engage in any new activity or increase in your current level of activity, it's important to avoid injury so that your program is not derailed. Here's a few words of advice from my professional background and training in bodywork and movement:

• Any increase in activity or training needs to be gradual and intelligent: don't "just do it" but listen to your body and what it tells you as you move, as discussed here. Work out in a harmonious relationship with your body, not as its dictator.

• As you add in or amp up strength training or cardio workouts, be sure to stretch as well. I recommend yoga (particularly  Viniyoga) and Scott Sonnon's Intu Flow (which you can learn from  this dvd or on YouTube in this video and others.) I'll be writing more about Intu Flow in the future as I work with it myself, but my initial impression from doing it for about 6 weeks is that it is an awesome methodology for joint health and mobility, plus it is fun to practice.

• To support your physical activity, you may want to consider bodywork, particularly Rolfing® Structural Integration and manual therapy for the nerves to open up stuck fascia around the muscles, joints, and nerves. These "gunky" shortened areas will be challenged as you increase your level of activity, and you may feel restrictions there as either tension or pain that will make you lose heart rather than stick to your program. Some quick tune up sessions can easily jump start your range of motion and make it easier to stay on track.

• For the truly inspired, you may want to consider the Rolfing Ten Series, a ten-session protocol that I describe as "a 50,000 mile tune-up for your body." 

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy 2014!

 

 

A Dancer Speaks of His Body, a Rolfer Interprets

Here is a beautiful video, "Body of a Dancer," a cinematic poem about Tim Persent, a South African dancer based in the Netherlands. While it is stunning to watch, there's so much wisdom in the words he shares, which I'll discuss through the lens of my experience as a Rolfer™ working daily with people and their bodies, their injuries, their pain, their posture, and their transformations.

I was struck by so many of the things Persent says about his relationship to his body. While I'm not a dancer, it parallels what I have learned from my own trajectory of embodiment, and from my work as a Rolfer with so many other bodies. Let's start with Persent's opening statement: "I am a dancer – my body is my instrument. I take good care of it. It has treated me well. I have been dancing for the past twenty-five years." There are so many key ideas here, I want to parse it out:

• "I am a dancer – my body is my instrument." For all of us, our bodies are instruments. Most basically, they are our vehicles through life, but more than that, they immediately express our presence, our energy, our emotions.
• "I take good care of it." How many people take good care of their bodies? And what does good care mean? To me, good care is more than just the right food, sleep, and exercise, good care is about a dialogue and relationship with your body. This is something that many people awake to only when their bodies fail them, when an injury or illness prevents "business as usual." But has the body failed them, or is it trying to say something? (More on the dialogue with the body coming below.)
• "It has treated me well."  This is an expression of gratitude, not rejection. How many of our statements about our bodies reflect appreciation and gratitude, rather than rejection and complaint? From so many of my Rolfing® Structural Integration clients I hear negative statements, things like"I hate my legs," "I don't like how I look," or "Because of this injury I can't do xyz." What if we instead spoke of our bodies in a relationship of appreciation? If you are in relationship with a person and only complain, how good will that relationship be? A relationship benefits from scrutiny, but also from efforts to improve it and to enhance the appreciative elements.
• "I have been dancing for the past twenty-five years." I would venture that part of the reason Persent has been dancing so long is that he has treated his body so well, and that has allowed him a long career.

After this opening statement, Persent describes how he warms up, and how he "asks" his fingers to relax. This is so important! When we ask our body something, and listen for a reply, we are in dialogue. If the body says something hurts, we listen and attend to it. If it says it's tired, we find ways to rest. If it says it wants to move, we allow that. If we try a new form of exercise, we ask the body how it feels, and modify the activity accordingly.

This type of feedback loop is the antithesis of the Nike slogan "Just do it," which encourages us to force ourselves and our bodies to do things along a one-way circuit without feedback. I see many clients who have injured themselves through this attitude, and who delay their recovery by continuing to "just do it" even though the bodies is saying "I can't run ten miles right now." Thankfully I also see many clients who are working with their bodies and dialoguing and learning what is uniquely right for each of them. For one Seattle Rolfing client, the Nike attitude and her friend's encouragement got her to sign up for a Boot Camp exercise program. Through the pain and muscle tension that were aggravated, her body told her to find a different form of exercise, at least for now, while her body was releasing old patterns through Rolfing sessions and learning how to regain length and flexibility.

Persent says he imagines his fingers to reach out so they become longer. Thus, even in stretching there's a gentle touch and an invitation to the body, through the mind, to expand. This is very different from an ethos of stretching that sees the body as a series of mechanical levers (bones) and muscles to be pulled on as if objects. In asking the body, imagining, and listening for a response, he is working with the mind-body as a unity, an embodied, intelligent presence. As Persent states, "By thinking an idea, something will happen to the body." Yoga and tai chi are wonderful body disciplines because they invite you into an idea (an asana, a form) with a mindfulness that works this mind-body loop, but mindfulness can be present in any activity, whether eliptical at the gym or a charge down the basketball court.

Persent also says, "Dancing is spirit made flesh: it physicalizes ideas, emotions, thoughts. That's why it is beautiful, powerful, and freeing." As a bodyworker, I see daily how many of us use out bodies to either contain and restrain our energies and emotions. The fascia, or connective tissue, that I work with as a Rolfer is the shrinkwrap that locks the muscles and bodies in physical constraints, and often those physical constraints involve a history of emotions, or injuries, of old self images. We could call this the "personal history made flesh." In freeing the fascia, we free those energies and emotions and make space for a new self image. In doing a Rolfing series, or any transformative bodywork, there is potential for every body to be more "spirit made flesh." This is a renewal, so it's also spirit and body made fresh.

While the average body, not trained for years in dance, will never be able to do many of the things Persent can do, we all have the potential to evolve to experience our bodies with the presence, consciousness, and embodiment he exemplifies. 

A Rolfer's Thoughts on Barefoot Running

There's been alot of talk about barefoot running since Christopher McDougall published his book Born to Run a few years ago. The premise is that humans walked and ran barefoot for millenia, and that running injuries were not the plague they are now until the "sports shoe" industry developed all those high-fallutin' shoes with cushioned heels. McDougall himself had had to give up running due to injuries, but tossing his running shoes and learning to run barefoot allowed him to resume running without pain or injury. To help understand why, read this article about barefoot running, and watch the video with Harvard scientist Daniel Lieberman (chairman of the human evolutionary biology department) showing the impact of heel strike in a shod runner versus a barefoot runner. 

Not everyone wants to run completely barefoot, and in response to the barefoot running premise, new minimalist sports shoes have been developed, the most well known being Vibram FiveFingers®. Such shoes have a thin rubber sole that lets you feel the texture of the surfaces you move on, and also lets all the joints in the feet have mobilty and play.

I ran some in my 20s, but haven't run for years - especially since my surgeon for a lateral tibial plateau fracture in 2003 advised against it. I became curiuos when other Rolfers™ on our community email forum began talking about barefoot running after reading McDougall's books. They reported that barefoot walking and running were completely synergistic with the ideas of Rolfing® Structural Integration: in our form of bodywork we are concerned with the natural alignment of the body, and the mobility and integration of body segments. They reported that in barefoot walking and running, your toe hinge functions as it should for push-off, because the toes are not engaged in a wad of leather and rubber. And they reported that the increased mobility of the foot was working its way up through the chain of muscles, fascia, and joints and improving issues with knees, hips, and low backs. At that point I went out and bought a pair of Vibrams, to give barefoot walking a try.

I remember my first walk in them. It was late evening, a damp and cold autumn night in Seattle, and I was tired and reluctant to go out, but I hadn't walked my dog yet. So I put on my new Vibrams, put the furry girl on a leash, and headed out for our usual 20-min loop around the neighborhood. Astonishingly, within a couple of blocks, I felt pure unadulterated joy surging through my body and I was wide awake. It seemed like having my feet in such deeply felt contact with the ground was awakening dormant energy and enlivening me. I've always believed in the mind-body-spirit connection, - it's what drew me to Rolfing - but this still surprised me, the intensity and immediacy of the response. I spend the entire work day barefoot, yet something about being "barefoot" and actually striding and moving with a purposeful gait was waking up my feet and my energy in startling ways. I've been a convert to barefoot walking ever since, and I've also noticed improvement in my knees. I'm even starting to run tiny bits again.

Besides McDougall's book, there's alot to read on the web about barefoot running, including this article from today's New York Times, where McDougall updates the barefoot running world on the importance of form for good effects and also mentions Dr. Lieberman's research on unshod runners in Kenya. In other words, it's not just the shoes (or lack of shoes), you have to re-learn how to move so that you minimize heel strike and move more to the forefoot. I believe that Rolfing sessions can greatly assist in this process as part of what keeps us in habitual movement patterns is the familiar tension patterns in the body. So I would recommend that anyone transitioning to barefoot walking or running read up on the available literature, but also schedule a session with a local Rolfer to work on, especially, the sole of the foot, the calves, the knees, and hips. Getting more freedom through these areas will make for an easier transition and quicker benefits, and also help to attain proper running form.

I have recommended minimalist shoes to any number of my Seattle Rolfing clients, and many take me up on the idea. (I recommend REI locally, because they have a great selection of minimalist shoes (not everyone likes the toes on the Vibram FiveFingers, and a shoe that fits like a second skin is key to the benefits), and because you can return shoes if you don't like them, even if they have been worn. One friend who switched to Vibrams has also found that she no longer has flat feet. This makes total sense, as the arch of the foot is based on a balance of muscles and fascia through the legs. Rolfers have known this and worked to "create" arches through balancing fascia, but my friend's story shows it can also be done through proper foot mechanics from barefoot running.

 

 

 

Rolfing® SI Helps NFL Players Stay in the Game

As we are in the football season, I thought I'd share some memories, thoughts, and resources for those interested in how Rolfing® Structural Integration can help professional athletes.

I personally am not a football fan. I've never tried to learn the rules of it, so I see large men clobbering each other to advance a few feet on the field, then everyone takes a break. I hear there's alot of strategy involved for those in the know that makes it compelling. While my interest in the game is minimal, I am nevertheless fascinated by the bodies.

Many years ago, when I was doing deep-tissue massage at a spa on Maui, I had the privilege of working on two NFL players. I say "privilege" because professional athletes' bodies are like fine-tuned sports cars, anatomy developed to a specific, driven purpose. One was a linebacker, and he was built like a tank. I knew enough about football to know that his job was to jump on the other guys. I worked around this gigantic muscular form for an hour, not getting much response but grunts. I was gratified later when one of the spa attendants told me, "I asked him how his massage was, and all he said was "Damn!" I figured that meant I'd made an impact. (I had a reputation for being able to go really deep.)

The other gentleman was a wide receiver (apparently that year's Heisman trophy winner). The body type couldn't have been more different. Again, fantastic muscular development, absolutely sculpted, but this guy was lithe like a ballet dancer. Not knowing about football, I had to ask him what a wide receiver did that he was not built with bulk, and he helped me to understand that his job was to run fast, not get jumped on, and catch the ball and run more. So bulk would not have been in his favor, but man he needed those glutes and leg muscles.

That's about the extent of my understanding of football and my experience working with pro players, but here's a video of a Rolfer™, Wayne Henningsgaard from Minnesota, who has made working with NFL players a niche element in his practice. It's old, but has some nice interview time wth Wayne and video of him working on some Vikings.

 

As Editor-in-Chief of Structural Integration: The Journal of the Rolf Institute®, I knew Wayne's reputation in this area, and a few years ago I invited him and his wife Sandy (also a Rolfer) to write about their Rolfing work with NFL players for our publication. That article can be viewed here. It's quite an interesting read, about how they work with athletes in training, the time demands of working during the season, and a charming story about Sandy coming home one day to find three Vikings playing football in her backyard with a passel of eight-year-old boys (it must have made their day!).

The upshot is that Rolfing sessions can help any athlete with faster recovery from injuries that occur during training and play, and can prolong a career that depends on optimal functioning of the body. Likewise, for those who are not athletes but have careers that are physically demanding in other ways – like construction, supermarket stocking, massage therapy, long-distance trucking – Rolfing sessions could be a way to help you stay in your game.

 

 

 

 

 

Massage Magazine Publishes My Article "How A Rolfer Looks at Fascia"

The online edition of Massage Magazine has published my article entitled "How a Rolfer Looks at Fascia."  I wrote this at their request to help distinguish how Rolfers™/structural integrators and massage therapists look at and work with fascia, and I hope it proves useful to non-bodyworkers as well.

The key point is that Rolfing® Structural Integration is "not a technique so much as a modality embedded in and dependent upon a specific view of the body. Practicing it is inseparable from thinking and perceiving in terms of Rolf's comprehensive view of the body in gravity, which runs the gamut from specific understanding of the hallmarks of structural integration, in terms of anatomical relationships and movement, to a broader philosophical notion of the role of the work in the evolutionary optimization of the human form. Studying at the Rolf Institute® is as much about becoming steeped in this conceptual and perceptual framework as it is about learning technique."

In simple terms, this means that you could see a Rolfer and a massage therapist doing something that looks kind of similar, yet the reasons for doing it are different, and as a result of the different conceptualization and strategizing, the results can be different. Rolfing work is aiming for a "third-paradigm" holistic impact on the whole structure of the body, while massage is in the "second-paradigm" of work to fix things (e.g., relieve pain without necessarily changing the whole body).

I hope you enjoy the article!

Viniyoga: This Rolfer's™ Favorite Form of Yoga

Rolfing® Structural Integration and yoga make a perfect pair. The Rolfing work gets your body aligned and open, freeing both surface and deep restrictions, and yoga is the perfect practice to keep you body supple, elastic, and toned. Yes I have clients who don't do yoga – or other stretching – and that's ok, they just need Rolfing tune-ups a bit more frequently. That's beneficial for my business bottom-line, but my real business is to help clients become more embodied, and a yoga practice increases body awareness and reduces your reliance on outside help from chiropractors, Rolfers, massage therapists, physical therapists, etc. 

There are many types of yoga, suited to different body types. If you are young and flexible and energetic, power yoga may be for you. Many of my clients, however, need to 

• recover from an injury or get help with chronic pain,
• reduce the impact of aging,
• regain lost mobility, or
• reduce stress

My favorite form of yoga to recommend to these folks is Viniyoga, and my favorite Viniyoga studio in Seattle is Whole Life Yoga in Greenwood. Whole Life Yoga has a new blog, and one of the early posts is "What Makes Viniyoga Different?" She outlines the 4 main factors, which I'll explain below from a Rolfer's perspective.

1. Adaptation – This means the yoga asanas (poses) are adapted to fit your body – you don't have to become a pretzel to fit a strict form. This is important for me in recommending Viniyoga to my Rolfing clients who have had injuries that limit flexibility, range of motion, and the like. It's a form of yoga that works for all bodies.
2. Use of Repetition and Stay – In a Viniyoga class you do sequences that move you in and out of a pose a number of times before holding it. I support this as a Rolfer because it prepares the body for change by gradually signaling stretch receptors in the muscles to give a little more, then a little more. You are also working your awareness of your body in motion, and noticing the changes with each repetition. If you can't notice something, you can't embody it – that's why at the end of every Rolfing session I ask my client to "stand up and see what you notice, what's different." Repetition helps to focus the mind and enhance awareness. 
3. Moving with the Breath – It sounds so simple – as you breathe in, move this way, as you breathe out, move that way – yet coordination of breath and movement is magic balm for the nervous system. I see hypertoned (too tight) bodies every day in my Rolfing practice, and a portion of that tightness comes from a wound-up nervous system. As you coordinate your breath and movement you automatically slow down, become more fluid in your movements, and bring your nervous system back into balance.
4. Sequencing – Viniyoga practice combines poses intelligently into a fluid moving practice based on class goals. For example, I often recommend that clients with back pain try out Tracy Weber's Yoga for Healthy Backs as I know that her Viniyoga training has taught her to string poses together in a way that will pose-by-pose prepare the body to gradually and sensitively open painful areas. (Tracy owns Whole Life Yoga; you can read here how yoga resolved her severe back pain.

If you see me for a session, be sure to ask me for a free class pass for Whole Life Yoga, to experience for yourself what Viniyoga is.

 

 

 

Parenting for Happiness Rather Than Success

Pop quiz: You are about to be born. Who do you want for a mother, the woman whose mothering style has the aspiration of Raising Happiness or the woman who marches to Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother?

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother is Amy Chua's book about parenting, which was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal to much ado on the internet, including my furious response. Raising Happiness is a book by Christine Carter Ph.D., who gives an articulate rebuttal to Amy Chua's ideas here.  Chua advocates a demanding form of parenting – expecting perfect grades, allowing no playdates, insisting the child master violin or piano, etc. – that she believes is the key to the child's future success. As I noted in my post, Chua is a "success" in the world – a law professor at an Ivy League school – but has no credentials in psychology, child development, or parenting. In contrast, Carter is a sociologist and parent educator, and her article shows a broader understanding of what constitutes "success" than mere outward achievement. Refreshingly, Carter speaks to happiness as the key component of success, noting that "three decades of research clearly suggests that such a narrow focus on achievement can produce wildly unhappy people." Validating what I mentioned in my post, where I commented on research presented in the book A General Theory of Love, Carter also articulates that "social connections are the foundation for happiness, health, and success in life." 

Carter's book Raising Happiness is about "the science of raising happy kids," and part of her mission is to help parents be happier. On her blog, she has a pledge you can sign: "I understand that improving my own happiness is a way to make the world a better place. Over the next nine months, I will take steps to increase my happiness." I like this. While happiness is not something you can make happen in your life, we all know things that make us happy and we can create time to do those things and cherish those moments. Paradoxically, many of the things that make us happy can often be traced back to the qualities and things we most loved as children – another reason that it's important for kids to have fun and play. 

For many of my clients, creating and enjoying freedom and movement in their bodies makes them happy –whether it's through yoga classes or exercise or bodywork. One of my Seattle clients, who did the 10-session Rolfing® series a couple of years ago, was in for a tune-up in November. We were talking about the upcoming Christmas holidays, and what she and her family would do, and she decided on the spot that what she wanted for Christmas was to gift herself an Advanced Rolfing Series. For her, the quality of life she experiences getting in touch with her body brings happiness, more than the various things she could buy. 

I encourage you to find what it is that makes you happy, to enjoy it, and to make happiness contagious in your families and in the world.