Trager for Self-Healing: A Practical guide for Living in the Present Moment
256
Trager for Self-Healing: A Practical guide for Living in the Present Moment
256eBook
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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781932073379 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | New World Library |
| Publication date: | 02/09/2011 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 256 |
| File size: | 337 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Trager for Self-Healing
A Practical Guide for Living in the Present Moment
By Audrey Mairi, Nancy Grimley Carleton, Candis Graham, Paul Latour
H J Kramer and New World Libray
Copyright © 2006 Audrey MairiAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-932073-37-9
CHAPTER 1
So, What Is Trager Anyway?
The Trager Approach uses touch and physical movement to invite the body/mind to experience feelings of lightness, of softness, of bliss through something called Hook-Up. "Hook-Up is a state of being," Dr. Milton Trager said on many occasions. "It is a Hook-Up of this power that you are surrounded by. It is a life-giving, life-regulating power that has always been there and will always be there. And you can't try to get it. You can't try to Hook-Up because to try is to fail. You don't try. To try is effort, and effort is tension. We don't try. We just allow it to happen. You are going to feel. It is not the moves I do or the technique. Drop the word technique. [Trager] is not a technique. It is something different."
This quotation captures the core of the Trager Approach. Yes, there are many "moves" and "techniques" a Trager practitioner learns — the training is intensive — but they are merely the craft of our trade. Just as a writer knows grammar and a guitarist knows chords, a Trager practitioner knows the body — its muscles, bones, and tissue. Such knowledge, however, is not enough, just as knowing grammar or chords is not enough to make great literature or toe-tapping music. To turn craft into something different, something more, something that transcends our limited understanding, a Trager practitioner needs to be able to Hook-Up to the life-giving, life-regulating power that is everywhere at all times. It is for this reason that Dr. Trager suggested we "drop the word technique." Dr. Trager knew that at a certain point his students had to let go of their training, stay out of their own way, and get into Hook-Up by arriving in the present moment. In a state of presence, feelings of lightness, softness, and bliss infuse the body/mind, turning technique into an effortless vehicle to transfer these feelings into the client's body and therefore mind.
This is why the Trager Approach (also known as Trager Psychophysical Integration) operates through pleasurable, effortless, easy movement, which softly and safely introduces the body/mind to what it would be like if it were free to function without restriction.
Dr. Milton Trager's Story
When Dr. Trager was young he developed his muscles and sharpened his movement as an amateur acrobat, performing stunts with his brother on the beaches of Miami. But while his brother asked the question "Who can jump the highest?" Milton asked, "Who can land the softest?"
As a result of this way of thinking, he became fascinated with the light, dancelike movements of boxers, and at the age of eighteen he started training under a man named Mickey Martin. One fateful day Mickey looked like he needed to receive a rubdown rather than give one.
"Lie down, Mickey," young Milton said. "Let me take care of you for a change." A complete novice at bodywork, Milton let his hands innocently explore.
"Where did you learn to do that?" an amazed Mickey asked afterward.
"Well, you taught me."
"I never taught you anything like that, kid, but I don't care. Let me tell you, you got hands!"
Intrigued by this newfound talent, Milton practiced on his family and neighbors. His first patient was his father, who had been suffering from sciatica for two years. After Milton "worked" on him for two weeks, he never had symptoms of sciatica again.
* * *
Was it his technique that made such a dramatic difference to his father's health? At this stage in Milton's development, undoubtedly not. It was his ability to Hook-Up while in the present moment, an ability we all have. In fact, it is our birthright, our natural way of being. Unfortunately, as we age many of us forget what this life- regulating power from our source feels like. It falls into the background, soon becoming hindered by ego-based beliefs, then all but forgotten. Most of us shake our heads in wonder when asked what it feels like in our body to be connected with our source.
One way to get a direct experience of this feeling is to engage in a wholehearted application of the exercises provided in this book. Another way is to catch it (like catching the measles, to use the metaphor offered earlier, except without the fever, itch, and skin eruptions) from someone who has got it. A Trager practitioner is just such a person.
A Trager Session
If you were to have a Trager session, you would find that no oils or lotions are used. You would lie passively on a well-padded table (clothed or partially unclothed) while the practitioner, who is consciously Hooked-Up, gently rocks, compresses, elongates, jiggles, and shimmers the tissue in your body. You would experience the practitioner playing along the border of restriction and freedom, inviting into your tissue feelings of lightness, of softness, of bliss.
The session would soon become a movement reeducation that addressed the physical and nonphysical aspects of your body/mind, thereby giving you (whether you knew it or not) an alternative to any erroneous physical and mental patterns you might be holding onto. Through the deep but nonintrusive touch that is Trager's signature, your practitioner would introduce you to the place of all possibility, to the origin of everything you have ever thought, felt, or imagined, to that life-giving, life-regulating power all around us. You would know this by the expansive open feeling in your tissue, as if the gravity holding you down had lessened. You would know this by how your joints would seem to have been lubricated, how your breath would deepen, how your mind would quiet. The combination of the practitioner's skill at the craft plus their ability to stand in the present moment (and thereby Hook-Up to source) allows for such a transference.
Dr. Trager taught his students how to stand effortlessly in presence — the state of mind that gives the Trager Approach its magic and power. He developed ways for anyone to put him- or herself quickly and effortlessly in the present moment, automatically eliciting the feeling of Hook-Up. He called these tools Mentastics (a term coined by his wife, Emily, from the words mental gymnastics).
In Dr. Trager's opinion, it is just as important — if not more important — to use Mentastics after the session, off the table (or if you're unable to get a session) to allow the learning process in the nervous system to continue. Mentastics take very little time and are performed alongside everything else we do. In fact, when we use Mentastics throughout our day — washing dishes, making phone calls, walking to the mall — we not only regain and reinforce the feelings received during a session, we also independently foster our growth into presence. The more we stand in presence, the more the feeling of connection to our source grows, the more we are fed this energy, the clearer our decisions, the more relaxed and the healthier our body, the more creative our mind. Each of us can experience these lingering effects of the Trager Approach to body/mind integration by repeatedly practicing the Mentastics presented in this book.
CHAPTER 2Giving Yourself Permission to Be a Beginner
It's a competitive world out there," I've heard people say. "Where am I in relation to the next person? Is he ahead of me or behind me? Is she going faster or slower? Does he have more flair, greater interpersonal skills, superior networking abilities? Will she usurp my position? If I don't come up to speed, I'll fall behind. I must do better."
What pressure!
Most people, including me, experience such thoughts, adhering to the belief, either consciously or unconsciously, that we have to perform perfectly immediately upon being given a new task. It is not a great leap to see how our minds become preoccupied, our energy undermined, and our perception narrowed the more we are burdened by comparisons, past mistakes, and future expectations. Such burdens build walls that box in our beliefs and confine our cognitive skills. In turn our creativity and decision-making abilities are hampered.
All of this starts with our upbringing, with the ways we learn to understand the world around us. When I was a child, the only praise and recognition I remember getting came when I got high marks in school. I interpreted this to mean that when I did exceptionally well, I would be recognized and loved (a good thing). When I didn't do well, my young mind reasoned, I would be a failure and not loved (a bad thing).
By adulthood the extensions of this dysfunctional logic had turned me into a perfectionist. I expected myself to perform the first time around — perfectly. Such dogged determination inevitably spilled over to other areas of my life: I tried too hard to learn, tried too hard to relax, to work, to play. I was exhausted all the time!
After a couple of decades of this I started to wonder if there was a more efficient way of being. A better state of mind, maybe? A way to do less and accomplish more?
I found there was. Trager calls it Beginner's Mind.
With Beginner's Mind, we approach everything with innocence, loosening expectations based on past experiences and looking at life as if it were fresh and brand-new. This attitude takes us out of the pressure cooker and washes away self-doubt. We become more attentive and more relaxed when we give ourselves permission to not know, not expect, not compare. We no longer prematurely slam the gates on all the information it is possible to gather at any one time. Suddenly, we take in more of what people are communicating. We notice not only their words but also their tonality and their body language: Is that a quiver beneath his bravado? Do those raised shoulders and that sunken chin match the courageous words we're hearing?
It is easy to allow our preconceived notions to cloud our judgments and take us out of what is. Such was my experience during my first Trager training.
* * *
It was a hot, muggy week in July 1984. I was shy and scared. For the first time in eight years I was out in the world by myself. I'd spoken to virtually no one except my second husband and my five- and seven-year-old sons for so long that I couldn't look anyone in the eye. Glancing at the other participants in the church basement, I saw laughter and confidence. Staring down at my old and tattered clothing, I saw inadequacy. We were so poor I had to borrow the money to pay for the course, so I had to be good at it! I had to be able to justify the disruption I had caused in everyone's life when I chose to do this.
Three days into the course, the class was practicing new ways to move the chest and belly. "Okay," our instructor informed us, "your lower hand fits quite nicely on these lower ribs. Notice how your middle finger points toward the navel. Now, your upper hand is the one that is going to be traveling a bit. First of all, fit the palm of your upper hand on the ball of the shoulder with your fingers pointing in toward the heart. Now, with the movement starting from your feet, rock your pelvis. Then, keeping the upper hand on the ball of the shoulder, point your fingers down the arm and continue to rock the body."
I thought I was doing exactly what she said to do. My hands were in the right position. But my partner wasn't moving! I wasn't getting it. My frustration level, like a kettle about to boil over, bubbled and bubbled until I exploded into tears of defeat and humiliation. My partner thought I was crying because of something she said or did and so was almost brought to tears herself.
The instructor came over and sandwiched my solar plexus between her hands and let me cry. "I don't know how to do this," I wailed. "I'm never going to get it! It's hopeless!" Utterly embarrassed, I continued to sob in front of all those people I barely knew. I wanted to be able to place my hands just so, to move my partner's body this way and that, and — voilà! — have a miracle performed right before my eyes (and everyone else's). I wanted everyone to marvel at my special-ness. I wanted to be perfect.
After my tears were spent, the instructor led me in a few Mentastics. She had me feel the bottoms of my feet, sit on my imaginary tail, and think of my torso as an umbrella. With each in-breath I was to open the umbrella, then close it with each out-breath. She quietly told me, "It's okay not to be an expert right off the bat. Not grasping something on the first attempt doesn't mean you're slow or in any way inadequate. It's merely an indicator for you to open up to the moment, release past expectations, and accept that your unique learning style needs space and time to grow."
"Unique learning style?"
"Each of us has her own way of taking in information," she said. "Each of us has her own timing for processing it. Personally I learn by doing. I have to get the feel of something in my guts to really know it. Seeing it demonstrated helps, so does hearing the instructions and understanding the reasons behind it, but nothing falls into place for me until I've processed the touch." She clasped my hands in hers and looked into my eyes. "I can't know something until I get the feel of it. I bet you're the same."
An aha feeling sank down to my tailbone and made a home for itself.
"There will always be more to learn, grasshopper," the instructor said with a smile and a twinkle. "There will always be a deeper place to go, another layer of the onion to be peeled. So just give yourself a little more time."
* * *
That day a seed was planted, a seed that would eventually grow into the unraveling of my belief that I had to be perfect in order to be loved.
How freeing!
From that seed my ego-self grew to learn there is no such thing as static perfection, only an organic process of learning. My job was to recognize my unique style and give it the time and space to grow.
It took a while, but the weight of needing to be perfect — or instantly knowledgeable — dissipated, allowing me to reintroduce innocence into my life. This in turn helped me to give up expecting myself to know (or not know) everything that someone else knew. And that, in turn, opened me up to what was really there. In other words, I began to learn how to just be.
We are like plants, taking time and attention to grow. We cannot be flowers before we have gone through the process of nourishing our seedlings. Why should we expect to be at the end of the learning curve before we have stepped into the beginning?
What is important is staying in Beginner's Mind, not allowing our past judgments or future expectations to impede our unique learning style and pace. Each way of processing information has a different combination of strengths and weaknesses — one is neither better nor worse. The key is to remain innocent.
Beginner's Mind facilitates the process of learning by allowing the knowledge to unfold in its own time without taking the wrong turns associated with premature judgments of how we think something ought to be. When we adopt the innocence of a beginner, 100 percent of our attention is focused in the present moment instead of having part of our minds time-traveling into the past or future. It doesn't matter whether we are artists or lawyers, plumbers or housewives, Beginner's Mind will help anyone suspend past judgments and be in the here and now.
As you read this book, allow yourself, once again, to be a beginner.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Trager for Self-Healing by Audrey Mairi, Nancy Grimley Carleton, Candis Graham, Paul Latour. Copyright © 2006 Audrey Mairi. Excerpted by permission of H J Kramer and New World Libray.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
LIST OF MENTASTICS (MENTAL GYMNASTICS),FOREWORD by Deane Juhan,
PROLOGUE: Taking Flight,
INTRODUCTION: Playing Light,
Part 1: The Basics,
CHAPTER 1. So, What is Trager Anyway?,
CHAPTER 2. Giving Yourself Permission to Be a Beginner,
CHAPTER 3. Having It All!,
CHAPTER 4. Trusting the Life Force,
CHAPTER 5. Clear Communication,
CHAPTER 6. But What If I Can't Feel?,
CHAPTER 7. Opening to the Life Force: A Sample Session,
CHAPTER 8. Releasing Holding Patterns,
INTERLUDE 1,
Part 2: Tools to Get There,
CHAPTER 9. Pause ... Breathe ... Feel the Weight,
CHAPTER 10. Questioning,
CHAPTER 11. Trusting Ourselves Not to Know,
CHAPTER 12. Finding Our Rhythm,
INTERLUDE 2,
Part 3: Putting It All Together,
CHAPTER 13. The Story of a Waitress,
CHAPTER 14. The MS Story: A Woman with Multiple Sclerosis,
CHAPTER 15. A Novelist's Story,
CHAPTER 16. Milton's Visitation: Audrey's Story,
A Few Last Words,
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS,
ENDNOTES,
BIBLIOGRAPHY,
INDEX,
ABOUT THE AUTHOR,