There is no doubt that screen time is a huge sucker of energy and time. It so easily keeps us from attaining even the simplest things we set out to do. Some vices have more or less power over us. It can depend on mood, history, circumstance and so much more.

Three Big Strategies To Turn Down The Vice: 1. Start with Identifying it and getting support. 2. Trade it for something else. 3. Lastly, protect yourself from it.

#1. Identify it + get support. Ask for help from people that love you, from friends, family and from professionals. You can say: “Hey I’m working on ABC can you help me with it by …( you choose). If, for example, when I arrive home later than usual, say 7 or 8 pm and I start snacking in the kitchen. I’m an early riser so I’m usually tired by this time. I’m eating, not because I’m hungry, and this snack turns into a 3 course meal faster than I can put my fork down. This in turn keeps my digestion feeling stuck the next day. In the morning everything is off. I like to wake up energized and refreshed. But when this happens my morning poop routine is sluggish. So this late night eating would be my vise. I’ve identified it. Next I ask the people in my house to help me out by not leaving food out or offering me any of their late night dinner.

#2. Trade it for something that is better for your body, the people around you, and the planet. The more reason this “something better” hits the brighter it will shine. Bigger bling =easier to spot among heavy clouds and storms of vise. In my evening food binge example an easy trade is warm tea with honey and creme. It’s a simple trade for a pretty small habit to break. There are as many options to trade as there are ideas you can come up with. There are more options for new great habits than there are vises.

#3. Guard. Gatekeep. Fight it like a warrior. You need fences-defenses. Create strong rules and boundaries to keep it from creeping in. For example: Don’t bring it in the house. Lock it away. Spend time with people when they are not doing the thing that you do not want to do because you know it is harming you. An example of guarding against late night snacking turned full course meal would be making sure I get the fuel I need during the day so that I am not ravenous. Paying attention to my food intake requires me to be steadfast and stealth.

Let’s consider another more common vice: my phone. Like eating, it , like Nikki Myers the creator of Y12SR taught me, is a Tiger you need to let out of the cage every day. The phone, however, is not so much of a primal need but a tool of the times. I do need to use it. But how and where do I draw the line when too much is just too much?

1. Identify and seek support: I know that if I am unable to accomplish my day’s list of tasks, if my level of physical activity is less than my screen time, if I am unable to settle in to sleep at bedtime, I am probably stuck in the vice of it rather than the tool of it. Those are my personal identifiers. Yours will be unique to you. Getting support to keep my phone from becoming a vise is fairly easy because the people around me will call me out when they see me hunched in and tethered. About once a month I have to explicitly ask for help around this. Sometimes I just say:” hey take it away from me”. And I have an arrangement with 4 people who have agreed to literally pry it from my hands when I ask them to. Even when I’m saying out loud I need to turn this off- my body actually clings, all fingers and thumb wrapped tightly hanging on for dear life. That’s a seriously powerful vise.
2. Trade it for something better: As a Yoga Health Coach we learn the daily habits of Ayurveda-the science of Robust Healthy Living. So many of these habits are great options to trade in to pull me out the stuck on the screen vise. One habit I’ve slowly developed a taste for is self- massage. In many ways it’s the opposite of screen time yet it has similarities. It’s oppositionional because self-massage requires taking time to slowly carefully pay attention to my body. Different from Screen time because it requires effort. Both have some instant gratification. Self-massage benefits sneak up on you and build over time-subtly. With repetition you start to crave the reward of self-healing those bones and muscles with your own hands.
3. Guard. Gatekeep. Defend: I must face both the phone and the computer as formidable opponents. Always be on guard, aware of its power and might. Many times I fall short. If I’m strict with a time on and time off it helps me tremendously. I have to limit myself to what I can functionally accomplish within a time period. I set my guidelines ahead of time because once I’m in I have hard time gauging.

So best wishes to you in your dance / wrestling matches. You can weed out the ones that are infringing on the goals you are cultivating. It takes time, energy, and attention. Identify them, seek support (you deserve it), trade the vice for something that is better for you, your body, and those around you. Guard, Gatekeep and Defend your goals, hopes, dreams from the habits and actions that sway you away from the paths you most want to tread.

Turn Down The Vise, Go Outside, and Move Your body! I’ll catch you later. Best wishes, Sincerely, Danielle.

If we don’t understand how the body works, how do we know whether it is working properly or not? What is normal? When I was in my 20’s, after having a child of my own and plenty of experience in the realm of sex, I was practicing for my midwifery skills exams. I was surprised with how little I actually knew about my own body. As the years passed, I forgot that I knew these things and assumed that others did understand the intricacies and importance of the pelvis as a bowl. As far as knowing whether things are normal or not, as long as everything “feels fine” you probably don’t really think about it or consider how your pelvis is functioning. But when the pain starts, that’s when you have no choice but to pull in all the tools and maybe even reach out for help.

  Now, working closely with individuals from all walks of life, I see how actually most people are not really sure what is going on down there. There are patterns that are helpful and some that are harmful.  What happens at the pelvis affects everything below and above it. Every joint below and above, muscles surrounding it, and even the throat and breath also affects the pelvis. You can have pain at the tail bone in the back, or the pubic arch in the front, at the back in the hips where the spine and sacrum meet or at the crest of your magic powerful bowl that your spine sits on. It even controls neck and head movement.

Key lessons from the Pelvis:

1.The Hips are the crossroads of spine and legs, upper body and lower body. The glutes are their King, the transverse abdominals (TVA) are their Queen and what happens or doesn’t at glutes and TVA will absolutely determine pelvic and back health. Let’s say the pelvic floor muscles are the Earth that the Queen and King work with, stand on, and preside over. And for the most part, you don’t want the earth to be like pavement or concrete.

2. It moves with the chest and neck. Pelvis, head, and chest move together. Consider your heart an Alter to God. Allow for your chest to lift high. Not necessarily out but high towards the heavens: strong, open, courageous, and warm. Now connect it to the EARTH. Your breath is the key to doing so. Having strong rhomboids, lower traps, and serratus anterior muscles at the back keeps this natural. This is shoulder girdle stability. The golden strands weaving these all together are your breath, your intentions, and connection to the Crowned Queen-TVA and other working muscles.

3. Your feet matter. You want to have diversity of use and whole integration. Footprint and Hip Action are inseparable. How you use and move your feet will absolutely affect your hips and of course the knee too. If your pelvis is the earth, the glutes the King and your TVAs the Queen then imagine the feet and legs as roots or pillars. They create the foundation for everything above the waist to function and expand.

Conclusion: What is going on at the pelvis will directly and indirectly affect pain in the front, back, upper, and lower body. The huge impact that the pelvis has is often ignored. You could say: it’s a bowl; it is the earth; it is the foundation; it’s a ball; a heart shaped bone; a diaphragm…the entrance/exit to/from another world? One thing is for sure, though, it should be strong, but it should also be fluid and moveable. The pelvis deserves attention and care because it is amazing and beautiful. Pelvis health is fundamental to pain-free movement.

WHY Pelvis, Pain & Pleasure? Because I’ve had so many clients with hip pain, pelvic floor issues, labrum tears, sciatica, low back or SI joint pain. This is important body information that everyone should know. It is basic whole body integration. I’ve found many friends, and colleagues who need to know mind, body, and soul. I created the program for them. Women, men, my children, and their partners. I wish it were taught in school. But it’s not.

Bio

I’m a personal trainer and group fitness instructor through the American Council on Exercise (ACE). I practice the ACE integrated model of stability and mobility as a key tool for pain-free movement.

I took my 1st belly dance class 22 years ago at St. Clair College when I was 6 months pregnant. About 5 years later, taught my 1st belly dance and health education class at the Asheville library while studying to become a Midwife. Later, in Bellingham I taught it as an adjunct to doula care because it is so valuable for pregnancy, birth prep, and recovery.

In 2013 I began facilitating belly dance, Tai Chi, and boot camp at a residential treatment center for substance use disorders where 30-60% of the participants were coming from jail or prison. At first, I was terrified-crazy nervous. I was incredibly intimidated. Now, finally I am much more comfortable and have taught movements to prevent back pain to 1000+ men and women of all ages and backgrounds. I realize how beneficial simple practices can be for every body.

I facilitate programs that encourage people to move their bodies outside with nature. There are many names for describing this, like: recreation counselor or fitness instructor. I work in the fields of outdoor behavioral health, ecopsychology, and lifestyle medicine. Regardless of what it is called, we use nature as therapy, or for growth, or leisure, because of course, we are deeply wholly connected to it. Regular doses of nature are the remedy. It contributes to our health and to that of our planet. People who live and work outdoors become stewards and take responsibility to conserve and regenerate our ecosystem.

We can use outdoor programs of all kinds as a health prevention tool for humans and for our ecosystem. Exercising, working, and healing outdoors does however present many challenges. It helps to have guidelines for decision making, a compass so to speak. My profession has morphed and shaped through many forms, from midwife to farmer to personal trainer, to emergency medic, to adventure guide, and to health coach. I would like to share with you the systems model for decision making that I use. It is the Wise Woman Steps of Healing that I learned from my teacher Whapio Diane Bartlett when I was training at LaMatrona Holistic Midwifery.

The Tao of Midwifery was our mantra: when the midwife’s work is done it disappears. Success in contributing to empowerment means that the client will be able to say, “I did it” not “I couldn’t have done it without you”. That’s how the midwife’s work is supposed to disappear. I see how this fits with adventure programming leadership, being a mother, being a personal trainer and in all the work I do.

Really the Wise Woman Steps of Healing can be applied to anything. The steps are first: Do Nothing; next Gather Information; then Work with the Energy; Nourish and Tone; Stimulate and Sedate; last only when necessary is Break and Enter. Each of these steps can have actions or medicines that are used for each purpose to activate and bring safety and wellness as much as possible. We rely mostly on the first four steps, resorting to the last more in crisis situations. Explained in the next section are the first four: Do Nothing. Gather information. Work with the Energy. Nourish and Tone. If we always promote the first four in the beginning, we safeguard the process. It is always important to set up the first steps. The last step is rarely necessary or helpful.

By Do Nothing, we mean be mindful, be at peace. Let the mountain speak for itself. Have faith in an outcome that is greater than you can direct or ever imagine. It also means having faith in the ability of the people around you. This is always the first step. The second step is Gather Information. Here we find out what the group and individuals’ goals are. It’s active listening. What medical needs or physical handicaps do they have. Only after letting go completely of your control over a situation and then finding out what they want, and need can you then begin to put your ideas or your will/mark on it. This is at the heart of empowerment I believe.  Also within the Gather Information step is to learn about your client population in general as well as about terrain and technical skills that overtime enable you to improve your judgment. Nourish & Tone is taking the time to meet people where they are, giving what help is needed and asked for. In outdoor adventure programming it’s sequencing for optimum safety and building on their strengths. Making sure people don’t go beyond their learning zone into the terror zone, however pushing them gently into their learning zones outside of their comfort zones but only for their benefit.

Stimulate and Sedate takes challenging to another level. This could be where you may or may not breach your scope of practice. And regardless of your field, your profession or your title, you should always be careful not to overstep the line. Stimulate, at one end of the spectrum is where you’re challenging people to their maximum capacity. I’ll use the example of a healing strategy used at Shunda Creek Treatment Center, where I interned.  Clients are welcomed with rhythms and rituals of love and support specifically organized to dispel shame. They are given personal time and space to feel safe and talk when and how they are ready. Playful games and activities create a nest. Clients choose which modalities they will focus on for creating their own recovery plan. Only in the last weeks of an intervention, once participants have had a solid 10 weeks or more of care, of skills learning as well as many small challenges building up to this bigger peak challenge, does it start to have the full look and feel Stimulating, in the sense of the Wise Woman Steps. They are brought to the deepest challenge, so that they are triggered but still within an emotionally safe setting. On the opposite pole within this same step is Sedation. By Sedation we mean: bringing people back into their comfort zones, even going so far as numbing them even. TV or funny cat you-tube-vegging out without having any physical or mental effort is an example of sedation. It is important to take down time for recovery especially in a therapeutic setting. Stimulating and sedating can be used interchangeably in long outdoor expeditions or intense settings for therapeutic purposes. Sedation is used for basic recreation too, in that we use entertainment as a form of recreation. It can be used by giving individuals time away from the group. Or taking down time after a long demanding week of work. Meditation, prayer or sitting in silence is an important aspect of all forms of recovery. This is different from sedation in that it also includes attention and connection to something greater but it does share some flavors of sorts.

The last step, the one least often necessary and most often not recommended is Break and Enter. Itis the idea that we force people to do things they don’t want to do. Crossing the line from Stimulating and Sedating to Break and Enter is not always clear and obvious. Consent is a strong determinant. As a leader sometimes, usually for safety, it’s necessary to make that call. It’s definitely an action you want to refrain from if at all possible.At the same time it’s common that people have doubts and we’re to encourage them. There is a place for all of these steps in leadership. And most importantly actions can fit in different steps depending on Attitude, Intention and Dose. Different trades, roles, or ranks have more or less license to use tools of Break & Enter, and of all the steps for that matter  in their scope in the proper circumstances. An herbal medicine could fall in Nourish and Tone, or Stimulate and Sedate, depending on its chemical properties and biological effects. Same with giving advice: using or recommending drugs, over the counter, prescription or recreational,  and self-medicating could fall into any of the steps. What it is matters but so does who you are, where you are, and the person in front of you. Surgery of all forms usually fits into this category but getting consent gives it some Nourish and Tone like qualities. In emergencies, there are times where we’re not able to get true consent.

And sometimes we defer our own authority. Sometimes it’s taken fairly, other times unjustly. In counseling or in coaching will there be feedback? Are people correctly understood? Are we pathologizing? Is it helpful, as in: if I say this, will it be Nourishing? Toning or am I pushing into Stimulating/ Sedating or could this be a Break and Enter?

Telling someone something they don’t want to hear can have a little or a lot of the spice of Break & Enter. On the other hand sometimes our own denial can be harmful and it helps to trust an outside source over our own judgment. Other times we might be getting help for people we care about who don’t want it, but we fight for them anyway we can because we have hope for something better. There are many of wise women who’ve navigated these choppy waters. They play the balance between Doing Nothing-trusting, Gathering Information -listening, Nourishing, Toning and moving carefully, stealthily, and briefly into Stimulate, Sedate, Break & Enter– in order to overcome obstacles.

Whether we’re talking about defense, combat, positive psychology, religious debate or medical advice: fighting, challenging & pushing is tricky, that’s why we use a compass and guidelines. Finding that balance can be messy. We may have to fight for ourselves, advocate within systems that don’t always have our best interest or haven’t fully understood what we do. And then there’s mistakes of course, which we all make.  Miss steps of all kinds: misunderstandings, mislabeling, misdiagnosing, or wrongfully interpreting. Can land no matter which one of the wise woman steps. It is important to ask for help. Use referrals and seek allies. The steps are fluid. The wise woman is careful. She uses the Wise Woman Steps as a safety web to question all of her actions. 

Thanks for reading my blog. Please let me know what you think. In comments or elsewhere. Love, Danielle 12-7-2021.

References

I would like to honor here more of my teachers.. Firstmost my wise mom Lori Gouin.  Earth angel Grandma Emilia Chevalier. Whapio Diane Bartlett for sharing the Wise Woman Steps when I was a wee baby midwife.  She built on these from Susun Weed’s original and  I have continued to weave into them my own personal professional guidelines as a member of American Council on Exercise, American College of Sports Medicine, and Association for Experiential Learning. I’ve added what I’ve learned from Keith Russell and my professors at Recreation WWU, Randy Burtz, Jasmine Goodnow, Melissa D’Eloia and Lindsay Poynter, from yoga + movement healing arts: Beth Collins health and Fitness Program chair at Skagit Valley College, Niki Meyers and Y12SR, Scotty Lewis and 5Rhythms,  Michelle Thielen Sozo & Somatics and Cate Stillman’s Body Thrive and Yoga Health Coaching.

Becker, S. P. (2010). Wilderness therapy:ethical considerations for mental health professionals . Child Youth Care Forum, 47-61.

Blanchette, A. W. (2010, Sept 14). The clinical theory and practice of outdoor behavioral healthcare. Regent University. Virginia Beach,VA.

Brymer, E., Davids, K., & Mallabon, L. (2013). Understanding the psychological health and well-being benefits of physical activity in nature: an ecological dynamics analysis. Ecopsychology, 189-197.

Dawson, & Russell, K. C. (2012). Wilderness experience programs state of knowledge.

Ewert, A. (2014). Military veterans and the use of adventure education experiences in natural environments for therapeutic outcomes. Ecopsychology, 155-164 .

Exploring the foundation of nature’s role in adventure therapy. (2011).

Greenway, R. (1995). The wilderness effect and ecopsychology. 123-135.

Jelalian, E., Mehlenbeck, R., Lloyd-Richardson, E. E., Birmaher, V., & Wing, R. R. (2006). ‘Adventure therapy’ combined with cognitive-behavioral treatment for overweight adolescents. International Journal of Obesity, 31-39.Moote, G. T., & Wodarski, J. S. (1997). The acquisition of life skills through adventure-based activities and programs: a review of the literature. Adolescence, 143-177.