Below you will find a list of articles by Liz Koch available on other website’s and publications. Each of these articles will open in a new browser window.
Loading...Protected: FLUID CORE ~ A Way Out of Freezing Fear
Core Awareness Exploration: Fetal Curl Expression
Freezing, Curling, and Arcing are three core gestures of the primitive midline and are primal expressions of Psoas (messenger of the midline). [Read More…]
Protected: Juicy Psoas & Scar Tissue Copy
W i L D A G E N C Y: Awakening Our Animal Instincts with Kimberly Ann Johnson
Kimberly Ann Johnson is a birth doula, mom, and author of The Fourth Trimester. Activating Your Inner Jaguar is her online course concerning embodied consent, healthy boundaries, and real-world understanding of your nervous system. Kimberly and I discuss expression, coherency, self-actualization, creativity, play, and our wild animal bodies.
Protected: MOVING WHITE(NESS)
Fluid Core ~ A Way Out of Freezing Fear
Fear is the only instinct that has the power to immobilize us. As an involuntary muscle, psoas as part of the sympathetic neuro-core* is both a primal mover of our core integrity and part of our fear response. When for example, a child is threatened and told to stop crying it may seem like an act of will, but what physiologically happens is such a child will hold his or her breath, as a fundamental means of feeling safe, while tightening the solar plexus in order to engage muscular control.
By abating feelings and sensations of anxiety, a child learns to suppress his or her emotions. When feelings are habitually unacknowledged and as adults we still lack problem-solving skills, we can easily revert back to relying on this maladaptive physical coping strategy in order to bring our feelings (and sensations) under our control. By limiting the amount of oxygen and blood flow which in turn decreases the amount of sensation and thus feeling, we, again and again, return to the freeze response as a means of immobilizing our expression. Over time, this strategy of repressing emotions becomes familiar and may even ultimately feel powerful. We have gained control but at what cost?
When we misuse our psoas we ultimately end up energetically depleting our life force and physiologically stressing our adrenals. The solar plexus, often referred to in Traditional Chinese Medicine as the “will center,” is the home of our adrenal glands and our immune system. These glands rest on top of our kidneys, which are energetically associated with our vitality. A constricted solar plexus, and thus psoas, results in not only tense muscles but also can profoundly disrupt biological functions and energetic flow. As our kidney/adrenals literally float (one on each side) above the juicy psoas, with time, the misused and overused psoas loses its fluid, subtle nature and eventually may even shrink and dry. What is often thought of as a tight psoas is actually becoming a dry psoas. What is often thought of as a weak psoas is more accurately an exhausted psoas. The health of the psoas can directly affect kidney health. Depleted adrenal and kidney health is an increasingly common medical condition that not only compromises our overall health but also eventually stifles our creative capacity to flourish in life.
Returning the core to its natural fluid and expressive nature is a subtle but beneficial strategy for dissolving our old patterns of achieving safety. Although for a child this may be the only option, as adults we have the opportunity to choose to stay true to our core and show up fully in the world. When we learn to regain our fluid spine and soften our upper psoas, rather than manipulate our core, we offer our kidney/adrenals a juicy, fluid, and dynamic tissue to float upon. We claim our birthright and discover the deep-rooted sense of ground within our belly core that is profoundly nourishing. Moving from within our very bones allows life to support us. By living on the axis of our core, we nourish a harmonious relationship with gravity that enables us to stand our ground while wholeheartedly expressing our true selves. That is, we show up fully in life.
Core Awareness in Action…
Consciousness may be defined as the ability to hold two opposite or paradoxical realizations in the same moment….what might be called radical inclusion. It is this ability to stop identifying with either opposite that evokes a third force called presence.
Often experiencing traumatic events springboards this awakening – breaking open consciousness, and catapulting us into new perspectives, perceptions, possibilities, and realizations about self, other, and life on earth. It is embodied in the saying “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” as trauma (i.e. the overwhelm of the nervous system) can force us to reflect upon what it is to be human and not human and holds the potential for awakening deeper questions regarding the meaning of life.
However today’s traumas are well-worn, trodden down, overgrown, out-grown, and quite frankly quite exhausting. Beyond being a marker in our own personal life and professional holding-place in the market place, trauma has now expanded into an all-inclusive global event, touching every plant, animal, person, social, economic, political and unspecified expression of life. Suffering on a global scale now seems almost unavoidable and yet the ability to stave off suffering, to recover, and reestablish safety seems paramount not only for surviving but also for thriving. Life on earth is having an existential moment…
Sensing through the field of awareness I ask myself what is my role in this moment? Is it impossible to see ourselves as an overwhelming species attacking and destroying our very own? Is it not overwhelming to witness even from the distance of web-outlets and photo shares what humans do to each other? Even more intimate is what is emerging deep within my inner terrain, flowing through bloodlines and emanating from living bone exposing this maddening dis-ease – a species gone mad… numb…dissociated.
To try and ignore this madness is part of the dis-ease. Although I am not one to fancy zombie stories I do find myself more and more awe struck whether I am standing in a Bath & Beyond or my local Health CO-OP watching people stock up their baskets full of plastic waste and wondering what the fu#@k is going on – are people numb or are they truly dead asleep?
For me, a biological imperative moves me to reframe the story of humans. Piled deep under the rubble of our personal history and familiar story is an unraveling (or in-folding) of the cacophony of dissonance drowning out what I might define as rational thought, conscience, and common sense while simultaneously awakening a longing to renew and thrive.
I recently heard astrologer Ari Moshe Wolfe explain that sensing our 3 dimensional selves within a framework of time helps us land and locate in the now. Doing so reduces fragmentation. He explained that although time is a construct it can free our awareness. Time is therefore to be used and when we intentionally use time we are no longer victimized by it. I like that idea and find it profoundly comforting. As we can orient ourselves in time and space we show up in presence. This moment is the kiss that awakens so we are curious of what we can learn in this moment. We are no longer simply entrained i.e “sleeping dead” rather we are literally remembering ourselves as expressive living organisms.
For anyone privileged enough to reflect on, pursue, and long for world peace i.e. safety, justice, and harmony and who can perceive themselves as both individuals embedded in local communities but also global citizens, I find this scrambling of the nervous system results in no other appropriate response than a longing to show up more fully as who I am in this moment. I can feel my empowerment by simply allowing my self to both infold and unfold from within and without that ignites the longing to be now.
As we stand on this threshold – at this turning point. My years of teaching shows me that turning towards our center of being is the first great gesture of compassion and revolution. Doing so strengthens our sense of self awakening our embodied agency. We begin to literally stand up and be present in life.…as Wolfe clarifies ”holding relationship to all of this with a sense of inner authority”…our core actions resonate from a deep coherency within our bio-intelligence. Landed and located in this moment we ask ourselves how do I choose to create and shape my world?
Credit: Photo Source Stanislav Kondratiev usplash
Core Awareness Exploration: Warding Off Expression
Freezing, Curling, and Arcing are three core gestures of the primitive midline and are primal expressions of Psoas (messenger of the midline). [Read More…]