Play for Today

It can't have happened if it didn't fit the mould. Oh, how I wish. And then it comes. Memories that seconds ago were inaccessible come crashing down upon me, like shards of falling glass. In the hay barn, in the stables, in the fields, the ditch that runs along the track, by the woods, in the grain store. Bales of straw. I can feel the stalks scratchy and dry through my trousers, on my skin, against my back. I do remember. Some, like skin cells, live only a couple of weeks. Others, like fat cells, hang around for about eight years while heart muscle cells live about 40 years, and brain cells are believed to live as long as 200 years! That raises many fascinating questions for another time. When cells go rogue and don't die when they should, we have a problem. That's when they become cancerous and form tumors. One of the ways of targeting cancer is to stop that wild cell division and persuade cancerous cells to quite literally commit suicide, returning to their natural life cycles and die as they were genetically programmed to do. Dr Goel's research shows that process, called apoptosis, is triggered by OPCs in French grape seed extract. Inhibits Angiogenisis All living things require nourishment in some form. Plants require sunshine, air, and water. Bushwhacking is an easy way to get lost and discombobulated, and it is a powerful way to learn how to read terrain and discover your own path through the wilderness. In the same way, you can choose to leave the template and find your own way in your Energy Medicine Yoga practice.

Part 1 has given you not only poses and practices, but also the tools and skills for listening to your body and its energies. As you've been doing the practices, you've been developing your ability to sense what is going on with your energy systems and how to shift them. So through your practice and your breath, you can discover what feels good. What opens up your body? What allows you to move through your emotions instead of holding onto them? What gives you that extra charge to get through your day? What helps you get through that stressful meeting? Follow your body and your energy, and you'll start to be able to answer the question What next? The neglect Sam had experienced was traumatizing--an isolation too much for his young mind and body to bear. The impact of the trauma was showing up in the form of panic attacks, devastating self-blame, and disintegrated memories. Mindfulness meditation had brought this trauma to the surface, but it was unlikely that solitary practice was going to help him through. He needed a particular quality of connection with others to begin working with the extreme anger, self-contempt, and grief that lay dormant inside. Mindfulness would help him on the path to integrating trauma, but at this stage, he needed relationship to heal--the care and safety that he'd been denied as a child. SAFETY AND NEUROCEPTION Safety is a key component of trauma-sensitive practice. Unless someone we're working with feels safe, their practice will go nowhere fast. As practitioners, our work is to keep people's safety at the forefront of our mind. A basic definition of safety is being protected from loss, danger, and harm. Presuming that the treatments are not standardised then have you used sham points? There are no such things as `sham points': the points are places in the connective tissue that conduct Qi, but connective tissue, and hence Qi, is everywhere!

When a large German trial showed that Acupuncture was more effective than physiotherapy in chronic back pain, the detractors cried loudest: Well, that's because it's still Acupuncture, isn't it? Sham points don't exist - there are strong points and weak points. What you are measuring with `sham Acupuncture' is more like `non-specific Acupuncture'. Whether this is better than Acupuncture is still a valid question to ask, but, in the words of Bandolier, you have to know what you are measuring. Not only are there no `sham points', but there are also good Acupuncturists and bad Acupuncturists. When studying with the legendary Dr Wang Ju-Yi I noticed his points never bled. When he described how Acupuncture occurs in the spaces in the tissue he said: We have thawed. You fight them because you're fighting yourself,' I say, and only too late do I realise that I'm not making sense because she hasn't heard my internal train of thought. But she's used to this, too, and I leave with an urgent need to capture my progress in journalling, and a rare sense that a week is not so long to wait until I see her again, because there's so much to absorb in the meantime. Learning to control switching And other parts come. I don't mean to switch. It just happens. The therapist looks at me and nods understandingly, but I can tell she's not finished. I prefer things to be black-and-white, all-or-nothing. She seems to relish the grayscales. Working through the following two questions may help you decide whom to tell. Do you believe that making this revelation will benefit you in some way?

The answer to this question will vary with each person you consider telling about your BPD. For some people, telling a spouse can result in greater empathy if the spouse is reasonably understanding. Telling an abusive spouse, however, isn't likely to result in any benefit. Besides greater empathy, another benefit you may hope for in telling someone else about your BPD is greater closeness to the person you tell. Sharing difficult information with someone sometimes leads to greater closeness. More often than not, however, this hope is an unwarranted expectation because many people know little about BPD and what they have heard of it often comes with a negative label. Unfortunately, the very term personality disorder often carries a highly charged stigma, as if it means something is fundamentally wrong with the person who has the disorder. As a result, people can end up not trusting you or thinking that you're crazy. This failure to engage was always uppermost in my thoughts, when I should have been devoting mental energy to studying. But, as always, I hid my enormous distress beneath a placid and reserved exterior. I thought I was the only person like me in the whole world. No one mentored me, and I did not have a shoulder to cry on. Working as a Teenager My first experience of work was as a teenager, doing odd jobs for my father's printing business at night and during the holidays. I think my father instinctively knew I had no notion of following him into the family business (and was perhaps secretly grateful). But he liked to give me odd jobs to do--minor, repetitive tasks at which, it was found, I excelled. My first employment was a holiday job, filling shelves in a supermarket when I was sixteen. It didn't last long, however, as I was called to the manager's office and told without warning that I wasn't suited to the work and would never master it. You can also use crossed arms when you have a cold (usually tuck your hands under your armpits to keep you warm). The standard method that a salesperson uses with a customer to break the customer's arms' closed position is to provide the person something to hold, and otherwise ask them to do it.

Reaching Forward Reaching out your hand can be scary for them because you may attack them, and a sudden push is indeed an aggressive signal, mainly if the writing is pointed or shaped like a fist. Moving forward can also provide support or emotion, seeking contact, and joining with other people. Pulling Back When the arms are pushed forward, they are the first thing that can be caught or attacked. When a person feels defensive, they may step back to avoid injury. This can even be extended to put them behind. When the arms are behind their backs, they are invisible. He gave me sweets. He tickled me. It was fun. He talked to me. He listened. He touched me. He said he liked me. No-one had ever said that before. And I wanted it. I wanted the attention. Animals (including humans) need food, water, air, and sleep. Cancerous tumors require a blood supply to carry nourishment to the tumors and allow it to grow and thrive.