This last week, I had the very, very great gift of being able to explore with Pamela Underwood—six full days of Body Writing.  What you see here is the canvas that I'm walking away with. Now, this is not a complete piece. It's the beginning of a relationship with these prints of my body. I learned so much about myself, about art, and relating to art. And what you see here is one of several iterations.  Each day of the retreat was a new iteration — an unfolding of these body prints. One day, one iteration felt like failing & falling. It looked like one body was falling, and the o ..read more

How we move either contributes to our resilience, physically and emotionally, or it breaks us down.  The book, The Elusive Obvious, was once only available in hardback format, bringing me a special kind of sensorial gratification. As I hold the book in my hands, I can feel the strength of the binding and the subtle texture beneath my fingertips. The simplicity of the solid black and white cover delights my minimalist spirit as the title begs me to delve into a koan-istic approach to moving and learning.⁠ ⁠ I still have my hardback copy that I purchased years ago. Each time I fli ..read more

Language Can Be A Portal To Embodiment. I was recently talking with a student who struggles with hip pain. Like no joke, they can't walk when the pain hits type of pain.  So we're chatting it up after an Awareness Through Movement class, and they shared their insight into how shifting their attention from their hip to their head helped them to understand their pain better. "Do tell," I asked, "what did you discover about your hip pain?"  Before I go on, I want to pause here and celebrate the felt connection this person made about their hip-to-head. Sensing into these types of relatio ..read more

“Chief of the world’s luxuries…when one has tasted watermelon, he knows what the angels eat.” — Mark Twain Jump To Recipe Let's talk about living the good life as we hit middle age! We all know (and feel deep in our bones) how important it is to keep ourselves healthy and vibrant! So, today, we're going on a delicious adventure into the world of the Mediterranean diet—a superhero (think Wonder Woman) among diets! And it's not only about eating right but also about feeling amazing.  And guess what?  I've got a super scrumptious and easy-to-make dish for you—the Watermelon Arugula Sala ..read more

Taking time for mindful hygiene not only changes your life, but also the lives around you. People often ask, “What brought you to this practice.” My honest answer? The proper amount of dysfunction and an eternal search for freedom! Like most people, I began this journey with my personal history on my back and the itty-bitty-shitty-committee standing in solidarity. Eager to escape the weight and noise, I started with desperate faith to ‘find a way’ OUT. My own experience with becoming more mindful was genuinely uncomfortable. Every single thought seemed to echo in my physical being. I was ama ..read more

A healthy lifestyle can help curb chronic inflammation and be a crucial part of managing chronic pain. You can’t see it or feel it, but chronic low-grade inflammation may slowly be damaging your body. I don’t want you to treat “inflammation” as a four-letter word —it exists to help us. It’s a crucial part of the body’s natural healing system. But it doesn’t just happen in response to injury. An inflammatory response also occurs when the immune system goes into action when there’s an infection. Unfortunately, the inflammatory response can also activate when there isn’t an injury or illness. It ..read more

I'm Buffy Owens, and I thought I'd begin by sharing just a little bit about why I do the work that I do. You see, as a young child, I had these episodes where I would start crying and say that the monsters were coming. And the monsters were actually this experience of feeling like I couldn't think, I couldn't control my emotions, and my body wasn't my own. And when things got really, really bad, I'd cry even harder and say that I had bucket-head. Now, bucket-head was really my way as a child of conveying that my world was getting smaller. I was losing my hearing. I was starting to get tunnel ..read more

What is the difference between feeling satisfied and feeling full? When we think about being mindful of eating until well before we are stuffed, we often think about noticing when we begin to feel full. But actually, this practice starts well before you even sit down at the dinner table.  Tuning in to your body's cues and not feeling deprived go hand-in-hand. If you're going about your day in a satisfied state, tending to your nutritional needs as they arise, you won't show up to the dinner table ravenous. So when you feel like you're too hungry, you're more prone to eat faster, which lea ..read more

I LOVE... Slow Food Slow Movement Slow Eating Slow Living Slowing Down To Live More For me. taking intentional time to slow down and enjoy my meals is one of the ways that I savor my day. But sometimes, we also have to eat fast without hurrying.  Oddly enough, that is often the case on Zen retreats. I remember my first Zen retreat. I assumed that we'd be eating slow and mindfully. So I did. By the time I expanded my awareness enough to notice everyone else in the room, I was stunned (and a little embarrassed) that I was the last one done eating. Everyone was ..read more

Pause right now and find one pleasant or neutral sensation in your body. Write it in the comments below. If you've explored the Somatic Insights Journal then you already know how important it is to focus on what you want to feel. And if you live with chronic pain, then this skill is crucial! This simple technique is great because it interrupts the hypervigilant focus on pain and symptoms that your nervous system has become so accustomed to when in chronic pain. When you retrain your brain to focus on something else (and the more you practice this, the easier and more automatic it becomes), th ..read more