News Drop offers principles and practices for living in alignment with nature. For living osteopathically, in flow.

When we align with the forces of the natural world there is no limit to the sanity, ease and grace we can experience regardless of what is happening.

I can’t think of a more relevant conversation. Ready to dive in?

I teach micromovement because it helps people heal really quickly, and it feels really, really good.

When we allow our bodies to move slowly and consciously at their natural breadth and tempo, something magical happens. Not only do we begin to unwind tension, we also begin to move current that dissolves patterns and blocks from stress and trauma.

Years ago I was treating a woman with a supposedly incurable neurological condition. Though I gave her osteopathic manual treatment once a week for months (which is a lot!) I was stunned by how quickly she improved.

What was she doing that seemed to take the healing work we were doing to a whole new level? She was doing micromovement, often. The fluidity and cohesiveness she gained in our sessions inspired her to explore the wave motion she was beginning to sense within. On the healing table, my part was to help her body’s healing efforts ignite and do what they are always trying to do — awaken the sleepy areas and blend them back into the rest of the body. In continuation, she would continue to follow the sensation of the awakened healing forces moving throughout her body and further the unwinding. She took each new experience of freedom and multiplied it manyfold for a much deeper effect. She was being her own osteopath.

You could say osteopathy, and micromovement, spark life, spark respiration at the subcellular level. Imagine spending an hour practicing breathing at your true depth, only to spend the rest of the week barely breathing. Would you expect to feel sparkly? Probably not.

You are the primary driver of breath-not-breath and fluid-not-fluid in your body.

No treatment or supplement outside of you can take the place of your own attention and presence within. While fresh eyes can be essential for revealing and overcoming blind spots, you are the creator of breath-not-breath/ fluid-not-fluid in the masterpiece of your body. We are wired to heal in connection, with ourselves and others.

Emilie Conrad, Founder of a practice called Continuum Movement, said, “Movement isn’t what we do, it’s what we are.” Osteopathy recognizes that bodies are more space and water than anything else. Fluids don’t hold strain patterns. You can’t, for instance, make a shape in honey and expect it to remain. Even if a shape lasts for a while, eventually the honey will homogenize again, because that’s what fluids do. As unfamiliar as this idea may sound, you can be sure your body is capable of returning to its fluid origins, and to integration, regardless of your age.

To help you get started, here’s an excerpt of last Saturday’s Continuum dive. Be sure to catch the juicy parts at the end (and please forgive the crappy internet at my place of travel)!