Today I am more able to let the ugliness I hear live where it lives and go where it's going. I have tried taking it on in the past, tried to shift it into something more suitable for my sensitive pallet. I too became ugly in the process.
Today I found a way to stay with my own truth, my own understanding, my own self - in the face of ugliness. It just happened. Perhaps the years of practicing coming back to myself, and staying with myself showed up in todays difficult moment.
After all the years of giving into, and sometimes resorting to ugliness, today I am liberated from past suffering, and ugliness has gone on down the road without my beautiful self today.
Friday, July 4, 2014
Saturday, April 26, 2014
Call Me By All My Names
May this message find you well, safe and happy.
Good Goddess Golly! It's been a long time since I've been on this page. I made this page with the intention of connecting with the many folks who know me as Rashida Oji. I have many names and they seem to go with the spiritual path I am on at the time. I took the name Rashida Jokha Oji in 1986 just 2 months after having a first time memory of a horrible trauma I suffered as an infant. And for a long I could not tolerate hearing my given name because of this experience. Today I proudly wear the name my mother gave me, a loving memory of a childhood friend, to whom she made a promise she kept when she named me after her. I love all my names. They seem to be rites of passage that come about lovingly and naturally. Please call me by the name you know me as.
My current passions are my work in movement, Safe, Caring, Respectful Touch and singing with !Ojala'!
I teach Rosen Method Movement at a number of sites here in the SF Bay Area. I work with elders, recovering addicts, folks recovering from surgery, chronic pain patients and in my Rosen Method Bodywork private practice I work with folks who are on a path to spiritual growth and development through body awareness.
Many enriching experiences have unfolded since I made a commitment to bring Safe, Caring, Respectful Touch to the forefront of just about every group I am working with. I am finding that each person I touch has a rapid release of body holdings (tension) and a return to more full, natural breathing within the first 5 minutes of being touched. One student said "It's gone - that big not that was in my shoulder - I thought I was growing a tumor."
It is my experience that touch changes things very quickly and yes, there is a catch. And yes, most people can reclaim, practice and develop there capacity for giving and receiving touch. It must be Safe, Caring, Respectful Touch. What does this mean? Well, I made up the phrase to describe what I think Rosen Method Bodywork is in more general terms.
As one of the countless humans on this planet who has been traumatized, I can say that my body learned early how to be on alert, watching out for the next possible physically challenging or painful moment. Whatever happened isn't happening anymore, so how do I let my body know it's okay to breath easy again...all the time? How can I be more present to the life I have now that isn't a life of ongoing trauma and pain? What's the big deal? Why can't I just relax?
I have found that when the conditions are right my body quickly relaxes. It simply lets go of the holding. Often that same tension or holding stays gone after a few Rosen sessions. Sometimes, if it's a deeper trauma, it can take what seems like a lifetime to have it let go of my body.
Rosen Method has really improved my singing and I am far less, or not at all anxious when I get up in front of a large audience. When trauma lets go the body's breathing muscle releases and natural breath is restored. Every shocking situation we encounter can bring a sudden halt to the breath. A sudden blow to the gut (be it emotional, physical, mental or spiritual) knocks the wind out of us and unless we have a caring presence and the space and time to recover properly, its likely the experience gets reverted to a holding in the body, aka tension! As we accumulate holdings we can get more stiff in an area we are holding on and eventually create more problems.
There is lots of info about Rosen Method on the internet. If you youtube: Marion Rosen there are a series of lectures by my then 95 year old beloved teacher. I also have a neck and shoulder warm up under "Rosen neck stretch".
I look forward to connecting with you on the path to world health, love and happiness.
Good Goddess Golly! It's been a long time since I've been on this page. I made this page with the intention of connecting with the many folks who know me as Rashida Oji. I have many names and they seem to go with the spiritual path I am on at the time. I took the name Rashida Jokha Oji in 1986 just 2 months after having a first time memory of a horrible trauma I suffered as an infant. And for a long I could not tolerate hearing my given name because of this experience. Today I proudly wear the name my mother gave me, a loving memory of a childhood friend, to whom she made a promise she kept when she named me after her. I love all my names. They seem to be rites of passage that come about lovingly and naturally. Please call me by the name you know me as.
My current passions are my work in movement, Safe, Caring, Respectful Touch and singing with !Ojala'!
I teach Rosen Method Movement at a number of sites here in the SF Bay Area. I work with elders, recovering addicts, folks recovering from surgery, chronic pain patients and in my Rosen Method Bodywork private practice I work with folks who are on a path to spiritual growth and development through body awareness.
Many enriching experiences have unfolded since I made a commitment to bring Safe, Caring, Respectful Touch to the forefront of just about every group I am working with. I am finding that each person I touch has a rapid release of body holdings (tension) and a return to more full, natural breathing within the first 5 minutes of being touched. One student said "It's gone - that big not that was in my shoulder - I thought I was growing a tumor."
It is my experience that touch changes things very quickly and yes, there is a catch. And yes, most people can reclaim, practice and develop there capacity for giving and receiving touch. It must be Safe, Caring, Respectful Touch. What does this mean? Well, I made up the phrase to describe what I think Rosen Method Bodywork is in more general terms.
As one of the countless humans on this planet who has been traumatized, I can say that my body learned early how to be on alert, watching out for the next possible physically challenging or painful moment. Whatever happened isn't happening anymore, so how do I let my body know it's okay to breath easy again...all the time? How can I be more present to the life I have now that isn't a life of ongoing trauma and pain? What's the big deal? Why can't I just relax?
I have found that when the conditions are right my body quickly relaxes. It simply lets go of the holding. Often that same tension or holding stays gone after a few Rosen sessions. Sometimes, if it's a deeper trauma, it can take what seems like a lifetime to have it let go of my body.
Rosen Method has really improved my singing and I am far less, or not at all anxious when I get up in front of a large audience. When trauma lets go the body's breathing muscle releases and natural breath is restored. Every shocking situation we encounter can bring a sudden halt to the breath. A sudden blow to the gut (be it emotional, physical, mental or spiritual) knocks the wind out of us and unless we have a caring presence and the space and time to recover properly, its likely the experience gets reverted to a holding in the body, aka tension! As we accumulate holdings we can get more stiff in an area we are holding on and eventually create more problems.
There is lots of info about Rosen Method on the internet. If you youtube: Marion Rosen there are a series of lectures by my then 95 year old beloved teacher. I also have a neck and shoulder warm up under "Rosen neck stretch".
I look forward to connecting with you on the path to world health, love and happiness.
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