John Du Cane

John Du Cane

Open and Close, Open and Close, Open and Close…

By

“When the highest hear the Tao, they practice it with diligence. When the average hear the Tao, they question it. When the lowest hear the Tao, they scoff at it.”—Lao Tzu

When we were using, we shrouded our game in endless veils of secrecy. In fact, one definition of an addict could be a person who keeps secrets even when there is no need to be secret. Secrecy was our M.O. And there was so much we felt we needed to keep secret. Shame and fear kept us closed—until being closed became our second nature.

In recovery, we were encouraged to swing to the other end of the pendulum—and be open about everything. As the adage in the recovery community would have it: “we’re only as sick as our secrets.”

However, the delicate flower of our burgeoning new spirituality can be damaged when exposed to the harsh winds of judgement and prejudice. We work a spiritual program, but it’s a spiritual program that needs protection. There’s a reason for anonymity and confidentiality. There’s a reason to let trust grow at a natural, careful pace. There is a reason to be on guard against the predatory and abusive forces perhaps eager to destroy our newfound life.

What is sacred to us can be profane to others. What we esteem, others can ridicule. So, let’s be open in moderation—as in all things—and be ready to close like a flower at dusk, when the light begins to darken. Let’s choose to practice our recovery with quiet diligence. There’s plenty of time to shine. And plenty of time to rest unseen in the shadows, as we cultivate our serenity. Let this sensitivity be our strength.

Our natural state is a constant shifting from open to closed and back. We open our breath, we close. We expand our bodies, we contract. We reach out, we pull back. We gaze out, we look within.

Open Close

So, let’s express these sentiments through a few minutes of spontaneous movement. Not so much vibrating and shaking, but rather flowing in a supple easy manner. Our constricted post-apocalyptic selves may feel self-conscious, initially, to move without any particular pattern or discernible order. Just let the body’s inner wisdom take over, with no mentally preconceived steps or forms. Healing will happen from this—if we let it…

I feel the freedom and joy of my body moving to its own inner music.

The Great Connector

By

“Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect.”—E. M. Forster

Did we have good connections in our using days? Well, the answer is probably “Yes, no, maybe.” Our connections might best be described as The Good, The Bad and the Ugly. We connected all too well to the bottle, the spike, the rail, the spliff, the pipe, the bong, the… whatever our preference. But we connected not so well, perhaps, to our relatives, friends, colleagues, loved ones and the like.

Our relationship with the world was fractured—because the relationship with our own self was fractured. We were creatures broken to fragments on the wheel of our addiction…

Connection implies and requires other-centeredness. Connection implies balance, flexibility and open channels. Before recovery, we tended toward supreme self-centeredness. We were preoccupied by our own pain and our never-ending quest to medicate ourselves out of discomfort. We were just way out of whack—to use a technical phrase.

Now, our lack of connection to others did not show up just on the emotional, social and mental planes. Our addiction’s excesses afflicted our body too. The neural pathways got blocked. Blood flow compromised. Muscles got taut and tight and bunched and knotted. Shoulders got hunched. Foot, knee, hip and back pain asserted their angry voices. Fascia twisted and wound up. Our joints could sound like grinding gears…

And from lack of use or from imbalance in our structure, many of our muscles would simply cease to fire on demand. They’d given up the ghost on helping us through the day in an efficient manner. Sensory-motor amnesia had dulled our once finely tuned machines to sputtering inefficiency.

In recovery, if we choose to disregard our physical dysfunctions and not work to fix them, we may be putting our serenity and sobriety at risk.

Today, we will practice a simple exercise to loosen up our almost certainly tight hip flexors. Also known technically as the psoas, the hip flexors are THE great connectors between our upper and lower bodies. If our psoas is out of balance, constricted or tight, we will for sure be affected on every level of health, be it emotional, spiritual or brutely physical. We are following the Spark Your Day formula here. Protect your vulnerabilities, by addressing the physical—that this in turn helps heal your heart, mind and spirit.

Psoas Diagram

Ready to release and connect? Here we go:

Sit upright on the edge of a hard chair. Place the blade of your left hand in the crease between your right thigh and your torso—AKA the inguinal crease. Place your right palm gently on the top of your right knee. The right hand helps to maintain focus on the correct alignment—keep the touch light. Keep your foot, knee and hip in alignment as you raise your leg up, around nine inches. Repeat for 20 repetitions and then switch to the left leg. You’re done. However, your hips will be thankful if you make time twice more in your day to perform the same routine. Continue to do this every day forward and you will be thrilled at how much better you feel.

It feels great to gently reawaken the dormant connections in my body.

The Healthy Shakes

By

“The taboo against full ecstatic expression of the human body is nothing mysterious or difficult to understand. . . . The oppressed find that shaking is a medicine for the suffering of the human spirit. It sets them free and opens the doors to the kingdoms of bliss. The shake comes as a great liberator to people in poverty, powerlessness, and suffering.”—Bradford Keeney

Might we still have some “bad juju” trapped in our unsuspecting flesh? When any of us suffer deep insult, the trauma of it can get trapped deep within the tissues. Those of us in recovery invariably have a heavy history of past trauma—and we are particularly susceptible to its insidious creep when unchecked… That trapped trauma can become a health time bomb if not addressed and released.

It might be a rape. It might be a mugging. It might be a surgery. It might be vicious verbal abuse. It might be a bad beating from a maddened parent. It might be a drug overdose. It can be anything that bludgeons us with a hard hurt.

That trapped trauma is ready to trigger when the button is pushed. Sometimes the trigger causes incremental bouts of micro-dysfunction. But sometimes the trigger causes a veritable firestorm of dysfunction—or the onset of serious disease.

Unlike other animals, most of us humans have lost touch with a remarkably effective, instinctual way to release from our trapped trauma. The birds know how to do it—and do it. The dogs know how to do it—and do it. Gazelles—they do it. You name it—they do it. Except for most of us—we mostly don’t do it.

What’s this forgotten “doing”, then? That would be a Shaking practice. Spontaneous shaking practices are an essential element of many shamanic traditions and other indigenous cultures. From ancient Chinese Qigong shaking, to the ecstatic shaking of the Kalahari bushmen, to the haunting shakes of the Native American tribes, to the Shakers and Quakers—the tradition runs on. However, the healing power of that shaking has not often been well articulated…

“Shaking out the spirits”—as it can be called—helps us to get out of our heads and gently start releasing those traumas within. Because it’s a slow, easy process and nothing is being forced, there is little if any chance of things going awry. We won’t necessarily know what has been released when, but you can trust that the magic is at work.

But most of us cerebral humans are too scared of losing control to shake it all out. We like to harbor our fears and hurts—and keep them stewing away beneath the surface. Out of sight, out of mind perhaps, in the short run—but with a heavy price to pay sooner or later when the jail break happens!

Healthy Shaking

Here’s your Shaking practice for today:

Stand in a relaxed posture. Close your eyes. Feel your body for a minute, scanning yourself with your attention from top to toe. As the mood takes you, start to shake your hands, then your arms, then your shoulders, then your torso, then your hips then your legs. Let your head gyrate and bobble of its own accord. There’s no right away, just keep shaking and shaking and shaking some more…

Continue for a few minutes, ten minutes, or even longer—until you feel complete. You may well feel wonderful surges of energy when you stop, a buzzing, a delightful tingling. You have just introduced yourself to the healing power of ecstatic shaking… Enjoy!

It feels so, so, so good to shake away my cares and troubles for the day!

Commit to Commit

By

“It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow.”—Ralph Ellison

It’s easy to flip the switch for change—when you have decided that there is no other decent option BUT to flip the switch. There is no such thing, after all, as a casual commitment… We are all in—or we are all out.

The commitment to sobriety is re-committed to day by day. No half-measures. No “just a little bit pregnant”. Nothing taken for granted. We stay clean—that’s what we do. Because we believe it’s what we need to do. We believe that clean is the only way to go, the only bearable way to be…

How do we strengthen that commitment? By persistently, consistently repeating the small steps of healthy habits—until it will feel like it would be an atrocity to abandon those habits.

Committing to a consistent movement regime can bolster our mental and emotional commitment to our recovery. Just promise yourself that there is a bare minimum you’ll get done every day, come what may…

You can set the minimum bar at any height you want. It might be just the one or two movements from Spark Your Day. It might be a round of Tai Chi. Five favorite Yoga stretches. Six mobility exercises. One strong strength building drill, for five hard reps. You get the picture. And naturally, if you miss the boat for whatever reason— and find yourself sloshing about in the water—well no reason to beat yourself up. Just note and re-commit for the next day… You’re still a good person…

We’re into our eighth day of the new year. How are those resolutions keeping up? Feel ready to test the strength of your commitment? Your resilience when faced with a challenge? Good! Then let’s jump in and up the ante for today’s “absolute minimum”.

We are going to revisit the infamous full bodyweight squat, but instead of the ten repetitions we did on January 2, we are going to aim for 30 reps this time. Are you already moaning and groaning? And we haven’t even begun? Come on! You can do this!

Full Squat Child

Each squat rep, you will be able to go a little bit lower—if you let yourself. When you arrive at a sticking point on your way down, tense your legs as much as you can for three seconds then exhale and release down another inch or two.

Take your time and keep good form. Keep breathing. If you need to hold on to a chair or table, then be my guest… Go as low as you can without hurting yourself. Discomfort will happen. That’s a good thing. Your body is being forced to adapt to the challenge. You’ll be stronger next time round. Just don’t injure yourself.

Here’s a reminder of how to perform a great full bodyweight squat:

Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart. Cross your arms over your chest and squat down as low as you can, preferably below parallel and eventually with your thighs touching your calves. Keep your knees from bowing in by aligning them with your feet. Keep your back as straight as possible. Come back up and lock out your legs and hips completely. Squeeze the muscles in your legs as tightly as possible for a second, relax and repeat the squat. Inhale and hold the breath as you descend. Exhale as you ascend.

Congratulations, you made it!

It feels great to strengthen my recovery by committing to and conquering a physical challenge.

Fret Not My Friend

By

“If you ask what is the single most important key to longevity, I would have to say it is avoiding worry, stress and tension. And if you didn’t ask me, I’d still have to say it.”—George F. Burns

Every emotion we possess is part of a complex signaling system which helps us adapt to and survive in our environment. When managed appropriately, even the most powerful emotions—like anger, fear and worry—protect us and make us stronger against threat.

When we were using, we often had the darnedest time managing our emotions—mismanage would be the better term! Instead of remaining the conductor of the orchestra of our feelings, we let ourselves get roughed-up by some out-of-control bully boys. We tend to label those bullies as “negative emotions.” More constructive, though, would be to view them as “emotions-gone-astray.”

Ruminating in moderation about past mistakes and craziness, can help us avoid similar scenarios in the future. But chronic rumination about past misdeeds can cripple us with a cascade of destructive stress-response chemicals.

Worrying in moderation can help us face potential future challenges with greater resilience. But chronic worry can create needless stress where none had to exist—again creating a destructive cycle of energy-sapping, if addictive, chemical surges.

stress and worry

In recovery, we have been given a number of tools to help safeguard us against our compulsive flirtation with those more volatile emotions. However, it can still often be exceptionally difficult for us not to get dragged down and beaten up by our worries and our regrets.

Here’s a powerful method that can short-circuit these bad boys in one fell swoop:

Lie down comfortably. Place your right finger-tips gently on your breastbone and place your left finger tips just below your navel. Inhale gently, while imagining that the breath is flooding into your heart area. Exhale gently as you send your attention into the stomach below your finger-tips. Where the attention goes, the energy goes. Repeat from five to ten times (or more if you like.)

Now cross both palms over your stomach. Using your attention in the same manner, inhale into your stomach. Then exhale into your stomach. Repeat from five to ten times (or more if you like.)

When you do this with good focus, you will effectively zap your brain’s support system for all that worrying and rumination. It’s like someone turned off the current—which is exactly what you did! You may be rather amazed at just how well this simple method can “take you out of your head” and into the calmer pastures of your heart and stomach.

I welcome getting out of my busy, busy head—so I can enjoy the pleasures of a less stressful day.