Tune Into Tone

We are so busy! However, more and more people are trying techiniques, such as yoga and meditation to relieve stress.These are excellent practices and tuning in can improve yoga and mediation or be used on its own.

In the study of sensory-motor-reflex, we consider the tone of our body’s tissues, muscles, liquids and organs.Tone is the ability of living systems to push out in tension and release to relaxation. It is tone that we use to feel and give us a brain map of the inside and outside of our bodies. The words “tone” and “tune” come from the root word. So when we tune in, we are noting our tone.

Try this: Sit in at a table and put your elbows on the the table. Relax. Cup your hands and gently place them over your ears. Close your eyes. Now tune into what you feel inside your head in the inner ear. Don’t try to make something happen, just notice. Take a minute or two and relax, just feeling the inner ear.

How did it feel? Warm and pulsing? Cold and contracted? Something else? The inner ear is the housing of our Gravity Sense organ: the semi-circular canals and of our sound wave translator: the cochlea. Tuning into this area may make you more aware of your sense of gravity and hearing. It may improve the tone of the inner ear and help a tune reach your brain more easily. Over time while practicing this activity, you may feel changes in the tone and sensations in the inner ear. Try it daily for a few weeks and see.

As the months roll on, I am hoping to bring you more tips about tuning in and toning. Tuning in gives the Lower Brain that oversees survival time to communicate with the busy, distracted Upper Brain. This physical inner exploration can be not only fun and relaxing, but the start of a more conscious way to help your body-brain system work more efficiently and to help sustain attention longer in only a minute or two a day!

The Tortoise:Sustainable Attention, Abilities & Powers

I once heard that the difference between a genuis and everyone else is that a genius can sustain his or her attention for a much longer time on one area of thought. Sustaining our energy is the key to many issues in people's lives:learning, attention, completion of tasks, and self mastery. As a younger person, I would hurl myself into every task, because unconsciously I thought I needed a "running start" to be able to finish it. I got through even simple tasks by brute force and speed. Partly this was my unregulated neurodevelopment and partly this was the message of my society that I must try very hard. However, through development, I have learned the truth of the tortoise and hare story for myself. Instead of "slow and steady wins the race", I think I would rephrase it: "as fast as sustainable, wins the race."

Some might argue, "Isn't the pace that is sustainable always slow? And will this turn us all into lazy louts?" I think not. Like the long distance runner, without knowing the sustainable pace, the complete race cannot be run. The conscious thinking Upper Brain (the cortex) often thinks that by not listening to the messenger in the Lower Brain, it can push through the warnings of coming overstress. And the Upper Brain can, but at a price. Using this ability to push through against all stress warnings can give us great ability to survive in times of need. The occasional use of this blocking can take a toll, but is usually survivable. It is OK to ask if it is worth the price, before a full out, unbridled plowing through life.

When we use this override functioning, day-to-day, through our life, the price is one of exhaustion and illness. This is not efficient.Using the knowledge of a sustainable energy level, more gets done in the long run. So how does one know about how to keep a sustainable pace through the activities of life? I believe that this can be best done by checking in and looking for the stress signals from your autonomic nervious system. The next blog entry will examine checking in and knowing your stress signs.

Conscious Living vs. Blocking Stressors

People sometimes fear that if they start listening to the developmental messengers of their body systems, they might become hypochondriacs. They fear that they will be compelled to listen to their body’s every complaint. Just blocking the message seems to be the most efficient day-to-day default setting. It is a surprise and a relief to find that the opposite is true. By consciously knowing and adjusting where our neural energy is being used or wasted, we become more masterful over our world.

The amount of energy that we use blocking the environmental stressors markedly increases unconscious stress. Blocking an such stressors take a lot of neural energy and the stress itself takes even more. Almost always suppressing these stresses cannot be sustained long without an emotional reaction. For example, your collar is chaffing, you block this sensory message, then the temperature rises and you block that message. Then your child asks for help and you snap. The energy needed to use your prefrontal cortex has been undermined by all the sensory blocking. If you had consciously adjusted your collar and had cracked the car window, you may have been kinder to your child.

We often block environmental stressors without consciously considering how we could easily accommodate our body systems' needs. I once sat at a meeting for 3 ½ hours facing dark window blinds cracked so that bright light shown into my eyes. I blocked the visual stress and, by the end, had a severe headache that made the meeting information unmemorable. If I had consciously realized the issue, I could have moved my seat or adjusted the blinds. Then the whole point of the meeting would have had my attention.

Many people carry labels, such as, ADHD & autism, and are being overwhelmed by environmental stresses. Attention and development take flight when there are high levels of stress.

Mercury, above, was the messenger of the gods. He carries the caduceus, a rod wrapped seven times by a serpent. This is an ancient symbol of healing. The caduceus could represent the lower "reptile" or survival brain bringing its developmental gifts to the upper brain for enlightenment, health and power. Heed the developmental messenger for health and well-being.

Developmental Resources: Dorothy's Slippers

Inner developmental resources are like Dorothy’s Slippers: you had them all along; you just didn’t know how to use them. Nature has provided us with some magnificant tools for healing and self growth. These tools are very real and physical, yet most people aren't consciously aware of them. We live in a cortex driven (upper brain) era. Many of us have lost awareness and trust in our deeper resources, such as our body senses and reflexes. We feel cut off, fragmented and somehow missing something. Our upper brain or cortex hunts for the reasons for these phantom feelings, usually in outer, complex, and unproductive ways.

Think of Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. She wanted to get home. She went to the upper brain (the Wizard) and he sent her out into the world to seek her way home, only to end up back where she started with no satifaction. It was only when she listened to her inner resources, Glinda, that she found that she had always had what she needed, both in Oz and at home. Her slippers of gems (ruby in the movie and diamond in the book) where literally at her feet.

The developmental gifts in our lower brain, including our body senses and reflexes, are there waiting to be called upon to balance and sustain us through our life. Let's start using them now. So all together: click your heels together three times....

Access Our Blog from Fusion Training Website!

We're kicking off our new blog here on the website! The good news is that we have a great plan to bring you interesting, useful news and tips about development and the sensory-motor-reflex approach every week. We will also be connecting this blog to Facebook and Twitter so you will be able to follow us and not miss a thing. We are slowly connecting all the parts, so bear with us for the next month or so.