on restriction + spaciousness | Winter 2023

Hi all,

I hope that in the midst of the world’s unrest, you’re finding pockets to move through both the grief and joy of being alive today, this week, and beyond. In my physical and mental body I’ve been researching spaciousness: What do I make room for most easily? Where does my attention go? What feels restricted? How do I expand ease in my body?

I ask myself these kinds of questions over and over without always immediately answering them. Sometimes when I slow down and do something nice for myself, I accidentally find response to my inquiries. Like when I do a round of morning Qigong for 10 minutes or appreciate the dappled light on the wall, I remember how simple creating space in my body is.

Restriction can feel like such an omnipotent hope-sucker. It’s hard to feel hope when you don’t feel free. (I’m holed up with covid right now and our tax dollars are bombs, so forgive my bleakness but that’s where we’re at!) It’s not possible to never feel restriction, but regulation is about the ability to return. In Resmaa Menakem’s book, My Grandmother's Hands, he says, “In today’s America, we tend to think of healing as something binary: either we’re broken or we’re healed from that brokenness. But that’s not how healing operates, and it’s almost never how human growth works. More often, healing and growth take place on a continuum, with innumerable points between utter brokenness and total health.”

The time we’re in isn’t easy for answers, but it’s important to ask questions of ourselves, even if we don’t get resolve until later. The asking is what spawns an awareness of the clarity when it arrives.
More questions:

What can we do to waver towards peacefulness of body and mind? Can we embalm these moments as something spacious to return to?

Where has vulnerability been inlaid within our minds as a dangerous feat? As much as our social culture intellectually values it, many of us still haven’t quite learned how to procure true vulnerability from within ourselves. What holds you back from the spaciousness of transparency? Are you being as direct about your needs as you think you are (with others and yourself)?

What makes you feel expansive and free?

excerpt from Tape for the Turn of the Year by A R Ammons, as recently shared by Fariha Róisín

BIZ NOTES

OFFICE + SCHEDULE UPDATES
As many of you know, the Yellow Springs Healing Center has been under renovation for the past 6+ months and will likely continue to be till at least January. Since September I have shifted my schedule to accommodate this project, working Thursday to Sunday rather than Wednesday to Saturday. Starting in late January, I’ll begin booking Wed-Saturday again.

Also, a gentle PSA to please be cautious of the surroundings when you enter the office building; it is often changing! Working around construction is always a slog, but the space will be lovely, and I’m grateful to the workers who have been so considerate and easy to work with and around. Thank you all for your understanding and patience!

NEW RATES
Last year I raised my rates for the first time since COVID began, and I had hoped that would meet my individual and operational needs for a couple more years. With my unexpected life transitions over the summer, I’ve learned that my increased cost of living could use more support. Starting in January I will raise my rates for 60-120 minute sessions by $5. This increase excludes 30 min sessions and pediatric rates.

I appreciate everyone’s ongoing support of my work and really value your access to health care. Please ask me if you need to negotiate this rate to continue receiving care. I also want to offer the reminder that you can save 6.75% (that’s $6-10/visit!) by requesting and providing an annually updated prescription note for medical massage. Ask your DO, GP, chiropractor, or dentist (for intraoral work)!

GIFT CARDS
Yes, I have them! They’re available for 60, 90 or 120 minutes. Good as last minute holiday gifts! Good as pregnancy/postpartum pal care! Good as a ‘thank-you’!

I L L U M I N A T I O N S

Lightstream Technique
Lightstream Technique is often used as a way to establish a ”safe place” in preparation for trauma-reprocessing therapies so that if the client becomes emotionally overwhelmed during the session, they have a way to self-regulate their distress in the moment. Outside of a clinical therapeutic context, I find this method really easy to access on your own when anxiety, panic, or physical pain are in need of deescalation.
…

Dr. Jacob Ham on the Ten Percent Happier podcast
This interview has some really valuable insights on how we process and heal from difficult experiences. If you tend towards anxiety or intellectualizing in your own process, you may find liberating perspective in Dr. Ham’s approach.

Dr. Jacob Ham is the Director of the Center for Child Trauma and Resilience and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
…

On Vanishing: Mortality, Dementia, and What It Means to Disappear by Lynn Casteel Harper
I’ve recommended this one before, but it’s come up with a few friends and clients lately, so I’ll leave the title here again. This thoughtfully interrogative book feels somewhat timely as we begin to settle into the darkest part of the year.

”Expanding our understanding of dementia beyond progressive vacancy and dread, On Vanishing makes room for beauty and hope, and opens a space in which we might start to consider better ways of caring for, and thinking about, our fellow human beings. It is a rich and startling work of nonfiction that reveals cognitive change as an essential aspect of what it means to be mortal.”
…

TOMTE performance by Tom Lee
A sweet holiday/Solstice delight is this incredible shadow puppetry performance by Tom Lee! I was lucky to see it in-person in October during Cincinnati’s first annual Show of Hands Puppet Festival by Visionaries + Voices. (And if you’re interested in more Tomte content, the Fiddler’s Green zine, Tomten: the Lore of the Christmas Gnome by Danica Boyce is a treasure.)
…

community investment

Financial aid this season is going towards Jewish Voice For Peace, American Friends Service Committee, and Pro-Choice Ohio.

“May it come that all the radiances will be known as our own radiance”
—Tibetan Book of the Dead

yours in health,
Zoey Bryant, LMT