mBODYed Belonging: Recognizing and Valuing Your Unique Voice

In this episode, Shawn and Karen continue discussing embodied belonging and its impact on creativity. They explore the importance of recognizing and valuing one's unique voice and creative output before seeking validation from others. They also discuss how to find balance between learning and encouraging creativity, and how to reconnect with one's deep why. Shawn explains the concept of creative embodiment and shares practical strategies for cultivating a healthy relationship with the body and mind. They also address the issue of high-functioning chronic anxiety in the arts and the need to prioritize self-care and well-being. In this conversation, Shawn and Karen discuss the modalities of body mapping and the Alexander Technique. They explore how these modalities go beyond injury-centric approaches and focus on full-body integration and developing agency and autonomy. Shawn explains that body mapping dispels myths about the body and teaches individuals to move in a clear and easy manner. The Alexander Technique, on the other hand, focuses on whole-body coordination and the conscious direction of movement. They also discuss the importance of self-mapping and the stories we tell ourselves. The conversation ends with Shawn providing journaling prompts for listeners to explore their own stories and maps.

Becoming mBODYed is a production of and copyrighted by mBODYed, LLC, 2024. www.mbodyed.com
Follow me at https://www.instagram.com/mbodyed/ and https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61566020594221
The intro and exit music is Dark Matter by Carlos Velez, recorded by Tosca Duo on their CD Dimensions.
A link to Carlos’s music is available at
https://composercarlosvelez.wixsite.com/carlosvelezmusic/about-me.

Transcript

Becoming mBODYed Podcast 

Episode 3: mBODYed Belonging: Recognizing and Valuing Your Unique Voice

00:00:08:18 - 00:00:39:20

Shawn

Welcome to the mBODYed podcast, where we explore how safety and belonging cultivate embodied creativity, curiosity, and authenticity. I am your host, Shawn Copeland, the founder and CEO of mBODYed, a program dedicated to embodied education and the performing arts. I am joined again today by Karen Cubides, saxophonist and coach marketing expert. She's the founder of the Karen Cubides Agency and the one-stop shop for musicians looking to take their careers to the next level.

00:00:39:22 - 00:00:54:04

Shawn

Karen, I'm so glad that you're back with me today. It's great to have you here. And it's great to, be doing this with you. I'm really, thankful and, very much enjoying our work together in this. In this room?

00:00:54:06 - 00:01:16:00

Karen

Yeah. Me too. Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure. And I feel like I have, like, my own front seat to the masterclass of of being with you and talking about all these topics that I feel like we're all passionate about. But there's also not enough research. There's a lot of intimidation around some of these big topics like vulnerability and, and bodying things and somatic stuff.

00:01:16:00 - 00:01:27:01

Karen

And I'm just excited to be demystifying this and learning from you in this process. And for to hear from the audience like what else they want us to talk about and all of that. I'm I'm excited for for what's to come.

00:01:27:03 - 00:01:49:03

Shawn

Yeah. I'm so grateful that that, we've got two episodes out now. So all the listeners who are who following along and, listening to the first two episodes, we're going to kind of dive in, pick up right where we left off. Today, I believe, in the last episode, we were talking about, why is this concept of belonging important?

00:01:49:05 - 00:02:16:11

Shawn

Bringing it down to kind of a real level for why it's important for artists. And I want to dive in right there. And we were kind of dancing around this, this topic of what I, after the episode was doing, all the editing came to realize we're really talking about embodied belonging. We're talking about how belonging affects us at the cellular level.

00:02:16:13 - 00:02:50:10

Shawn

You know, what effect does it have on our health, our well-being, our healing? And for us, and, you know, specifically our creative output? We were talking about, you know, the difference between belonging versus fitting in is whether or not where we're celebrating our differences and being recognized for our uniqueness and the unique qualities and the the journey that we've each had and how that contributed contributes to the community that we're in and to the creative space that we're in versus doing whatever we need to to fit into that.

00:02:50:12 - 00:03:22:04

Shawn

And it it really occurred to me afterwards, you know, there's so many cliches around this. Like, you can't love someone more than you love yourself. Belonging is very similar in that way. We can't belong to a group of people any more than we belong to ourselves. And for me, what that means is recognizing internally that my artistry, my voice, my creative output, I recognize it first as having value.

00:03:22:06 - 00:03:50:19

Shawn

That that I have something to say. And that is important for me to recognize before I can even expect that a community is going to value that or recognize that, I have to have that intense belief in myself, and I, I believe that we can we can cultivate that in the way that we teach and in the way that we learn.

00:03:50:21 - 00:04:14:15

Shawn

And we can create spaces where, you know, particularly let's think as, you know, like an early undergraduate student, you know, there's so fresh, there's so, new to the scene. There's so much to learn. But yet we also want to to recognize them for what they can say, what they are saying, what is their potential?

00:04:14:15 - 00:04:47:19

Shawn

And to see their potential and to to show them their potential, and cultivate that in the studio, if that makes any sense at all. So how do we how do we find that balance between, the integrity of the work? All that we have to learn, while also encouraging that creativity, and encouraging that unique voice to, to come out from the, from the individual, if that makes any sense at all.

00:04:47:19 - 00:05:13:05

Karen

Yeah. No, that makes tons of sense. I'm curious. Like what? How would you, you know, instruct any of your clients to to maybe find that voice again because, you know, deconstructing, you know, you have the professor and then their students and they're passing on what they know. But I feel like in, in career, a lot of things can can start to either feel mundane or you're kind of going through the motions, or maybe you're burnt out, understandably, especially in academia.

00:05:13:07 - 00:05:25:16

Karen

Like, what are some ways to, to start to, to read channel? What is your voice and your creativity so that you can then in a healthy way, pass that on?

00:05:25:18 - 00:05:56:06

Shawn

I think that really begins with, with connecting to our deep. Why why are we doing this? What what is it that brought us to the work itself? The creative work itself. You know, maybe there's a, maybe there was a person who inspired you. So kind of returning to the roots of that, maybe it's the love of the instrument or, the love of a particular genre.

00:05:56:06 - 00:06:30:07

Shawn

I, former colleague of mine said I started playing horn because I went to see star Wars, and I heard the horn and know in John Williams music. And that's what I wanted to play, you know? But I think, I think all of us artists have some level of inspiration in that regard. We, we connect deeply to that, that initial experience and, and then, of course, someone comes along and says, hey, you've got something you should you should follow this.

00:06:30:07 - 00:06:50:23

Shawn

You should, you should pursue this. And we get further inspired and, and that continues to grow. And, and then all of a sudden we end up in, you know, our music class or our theater class for the first time. And, we built community around that. And then we decided to do it as a career.

00:06:51:01 - 00:07:14:17

Shawn

And something happens along the way when all of a sudden, my my paycheck is going to be dependent upon how well I do this, or my paycheck's going to be dependent upon how many gigs I get or winning that audition. And it becomes work. And it and it becomes hard work.

00:07:14:18 - 00:08:08:10

Shawn

And something there's something very important about that change. If we think about what we do as being hard or difficult, we're going to approach it differently than if it were truly a creative expression of ourselves. So we need to find a way back to to the work itself, being authentically connected to who we are as individuals and not connected to, you know, it being work, or being connected to our productivity or our, our value as an individual, you know, it just falls into those categories too easily.

00:08:08:12 - 00:08:35:22

Shawn

I think societally we're, we're preprogramed in that way. And I think one of the ways that we can do that is through this, this embodied process, to feel back into our tissue, to feel back into our bodies, to feel, to sense, I'm going to switch to a different word, to sense into our feelings themselves.

00:08:36:00 - 00:09:04:17

Shawn

I have to be careful because feeling can have several different meanings here. So I want to make sure that I'm to feel into our feelings doesn't really make much sense. You know, to sense our feelings about this thing, about this work. And to reconnect to those initial early feelings, to rekindle them around the work that we're doing now, I think is, is where this begins.

00:09:04:19 - 00:09:31:00

Shawn

And I think we need to not be afraid to talk about that. I mean, I, I think we all have, you know, some story around someone sitting down with us and saying, you know, your special what you do is special, you know, and, and so someone, someone lit that flame for us. Do we do it for others.

00:09:31:01 - 00:09:56:16

Shawn

You know, that's do we do we do return the loop on that or are we so, cautious about sharing our emotional connections or being in touch with our emotional connections that we avoid that? So again, it just keeps coming back to am I listening to myself? Am I paying attention to what my body is telling me in the work that I'm doing?

00:09:56:16 - 00:10:30:06

Shawn

Means what my body is telling me in the work that I'm doing? Am I paying attention to my stress? Am I am I paying attention to my level of exhaustion? Am I paying attention to how hard I'm working, both in terms of hours put in, but also into intensity and effort? And I think finding balance with those things gives us a way to, to rekindle the, the creative spark that you're asking about.

00:10:30:08 - 00:10:58:01

Karen

Yeah, that's super helpful. I can also hear, you know, people listening to the episode be like, that sounds great, Shawn, but like, what does that mean as far as a modality? So can you elaborate a little bit more on, like where this creative embodiment is coming from, as far as the literal actions you're taking? Because a lot of this, to me, sounds like mindfulness and sounds like a lot of self-awareness, a lot of trauma work, I'm certain.

00:10:58:03 - 00:11:17:09

Karen

But that in itself can just feel like incredibly overwhelming. Like, oh yeah, just go meditate about it. It's like, okay, but what does that mean? Or, you know, it's go move your body. Awesome. What does that mean to you? So as far as, like your work in your clients, like how how do you help people come back to themselves and, and really sends their feelings around that, embodiment?

00:11:17:11 - 00:11:46:15

Shawn

It's a great question. Yes. Can I give you a direct answer without unpacking a bunch of a bunch of science behind it? In a very literal sense, it means, approaching approach. Let's let's just say I'm going to go practice today. And, you know, I didn't get off stage last night until 1130. I got home, I picked up some McDonald's on the way home.

00:11:46:15 - 00:12:20:22

Shawn

So I ate garbage, you know, and then I, I stayed up until 2 a.m. because I just got off stage. And so I'm tired, you know, is this the day to jump in the studio at 8 a.m. and dive into the brand new piece that I'm, you know, the new concerto that I'm about to learn? No, this is the day to to pick up my instrument and just refamiliarize myself with my fundamentals, you know, coming back to scales, arpeggios, long tones, coming back to basics.

00:12:21:00 - 00:12:47:03

Shawn

It's what I often hear in the ballet world is going back to the bar. Like going back to where the work begins, and acknowledging this is the state. This is the state of my nervous system. If I push it, which is what, you know, our field says to do every day, three hours a day, practice the hard stuff like, you know, today is not the right day for that.

00:12:47:05 - 00:13:13:06

Shawn

But it also means each day that I come to practice, I have clear goals that I want to accomplish. I pay attention as I'm starting the process and asking myself, what's my level of of of nervous system arousal right now? Am I awake enough to do this work or am I right? Do I need to do some deep breathing to kind of bring myself down a couple notches?

00:13:13:11 - 00:13:49:07

Shawn

Do I need to go run around the building a couple times and wake myself up so that I'm I'm ready for this? And once I get myself in this state for learning, you know, that optimal state of learning where I'm calm but attentive and awake? Here's where that those goals really come into play. If we if we have clear goals, then we can practice for a certain period of time where either we accomplish the goal itself or we we fill the time that we intend to practice in.

00:13:49:09 - 00:14:27:18

Shawn

Now, if you know yourself well, you know that you have about 20 to 30 minutes of actual attention ability, you know, meaning that the time, the window that you're able to pay attention to what you're doing, you can do that for about 20 minutes. 22 I think the actual time is like 22 or 27 minutes. There's something very specific about how long we can maintain that kind of attention, and then we suffer from this diminishing returns in terms of our, you know, our, our ability to pay attention is going to diminish because it costs us something.

00:14:27:20 - 00:14:50:02

Shawn

You know, it it requires metabolic activity. It costs calories, in order to pay attention. And at that level, we want to pay attention to that. But what happens is if we, you know, succumb to the I have to practice three hours a day. I just keep going and I keep going and I keep going and I've over, you know, I've overflown the pitcher, so to speak.

00:14:50:02 - 00:15:31:20

Shawn

The pitcher has poured over and is now crashing down on the table and now crashing down on the floor. As opposed to just chilling right to the rim and saying, I accomplished my goal today, or I reached 30 minutes and it's time to stop. The pitcher is full. I need to pause. I need to go do something else, and I need to let my body, my nervous system, my brain do all of the computations and the writing and the processing that it needs to do, so that I can learn and then come back to it an hour or two later or the next day and do the same type of thing.

00:15:31:22 - 00:15:51:18

Shawn

Where am I at? Am I ready to learn? What are my goals? Do the work either accomplish the goal or hit the time mark and then that's the end of the day. If you're under the age of 25, you can do that about three times a day. If you're over the age of 25, really 1 to 2 times.

00:15:51:20 - 00:16:27:02

Shawn

And we're talking at this point, we're talking about neuroplasticity and and how, getting our brains into a hyper plastic mode for learning, After that, we need to go to sleep. If we don't go to sleep, we're not learning all of your actual learning and the writing. Think of it like the way that that we write onto a computer disk, the when our brain does the coding for our learning, that happens at night while we're sleeping.

00:16:27:04 - 00:16:51:09

Shawn

And if we're not getting that minimum of eight, 8 to 10 hours of sleep, if you're under the age of 25, ten hours minimum, you're not learning. Your brain isn't coding what you did in the practice room that day, or in the studio that day. And you suffer from that, that experience that I think we all have had of like we come to the practice room the next day.

00:16:51:09 - 00:16:58:05

Shawn

We're like, this was so good yesterday. I don't understand why this isn't working. What's going on with this?

00:16:58:07 - 00:16:58:22

Karen

Yeah.

00:16:59:00 - 00:17:27:06

Shawn

We over, we overflowed the pitcher and we didn't get enough sleep. We gave our brains too much information to to compute and we didn't sleep on it, so nothing. It's not necessarily time wasted. It's just not the most efficient use of our time. And you're not working with your body, and and leveraging the way that your body is designed to function.

00:17:27:08 - 00:17:31:03

Shawn

Does that make sense? Was that was that a clear, clear enough answer for you?

00:17:31:05 - 00:17:51:23

Karen

No, I totally was. It just made me think again of like how impactful the last episode was on On you sharing about the possibility that's available to all of us to be superhuman. And it sounds like, you know what you're sharing. It's it's very much tied to befriending your body and, and having that degree of awareness where we're working together instead of against it.

00:17:52:01 - 00:18:14:16

Karen

So, yeah, I know that that's super clear. In that same vein, we've talked about this before recording, but I'm curious now that I've heard you say all of this stuff. How can because the hardest part I find in the wellness space and in the mindfulness space, especially with creatives, is like, yeah, who cares? Or like but yeah, but I have to win the job or yeah, that's nice.

00:18:14:16 - 00:18:45:15

Karen

I'll do it once I insert x, Y or Z and there is very limited research in the wellness mindfulness piece and injury piece for musicians particularly, but also in the the unfortunate fact that there are musicians that play at an incredibly high level, that are at the top of the field, that are revered as you know, that the deities of our industry that are arguably the most unhealthy humans and and how can both of those be true?

00:18:45:15 - 00:18:59:21

Karen

How can you be at the top of your game and also wildly unhealthy? And then that's the trickle effect that, you know, all the generations get of, like, that is the standard of excellence and it's not. So how do you combat that?

00:19:00:02 - 00:19:37:17

Shawn

Well, and on top of that, it's it's it's the passing down of this is all that I've had to sacrifice. And if you want to play at this level, you also have to sacrifice the same amount, you know, and that that level of sacrifice gets gets worked in there in terms of the, the perpetuation of this, the the answer to this, or at least my response to this is that in these circumstances, which I myself included at many points in my life had been, you know, high functioning chronic anxiety.

00:19:37:19 - 00:20:11:15

Shawn

These were not acknowledging the cost. We're not really paying attention to, to how is this affecting our lives? You know, what's our what's our overall diet like? What's our BMI like? You know, body mass index. When's the last time we were in a gym or God got good cardio? When's the last time that we sat down and had a real conversation with a family member or a loved one, or a friend that wasn't in the car on the way to a gig, you know?

00:20:11:15 - 00:20:31:09

Shawn

And we were able to to truly be present with them and not going to kind of get through this, to kind of get through this and going to a rehearsal, you know. Right. Like, I don't have time for this. Like, when were we a when's the last time we were able to be present and cultivate healthy relationships with other people?

00:20:31:11 - 00:20:59:17

Shawn

When's the last time that that going to work wasn't stressful for us? And I don't mean. So let's let's unpack this a little bit so that we're really clear about what I'm talking about. Stress exists. We all have it. We can't function without it. For our bodies, a certain degree of stress is necessary and helpful, and vital stress is what gets your immune system going.

00:20:59:19 - 00:21:30:22

Shawn

Stress is what wakes you up in the morning. Stress is just your body responding to stimulus around you. Okay, to a certain degree, as stress increases, performance increases. You get adrenaline and cortisol going in our bodies. Our senses shift in the way that they perceive things and we become superhuman. All of the sudden you get on stage and you can play it two clicks faster and you can articulate it two clicks faster, and, you know, you actually made that breath where you've never been able to make it before.

00:21:30:22 - 00:22:03:13

Shawn

Like you become superhuman. That's what those hormones are for. And then there's a point where as stress and in continues to increase, we reach the point of exhaustion. And to continue past that point comes at a cost to our bodies and to ourselves and to our performance. If stress continues to increase, we will move into the the responses, that we often refer to as fight or flight.

00:22:03:15 - 00:22:37:05

Shawn

You know, these are our sympathetic nervous system panic responses. And the first two are elevated responses. They get you going. They're going to, you know, get you running in and out of there. Or, you know, get you in a fight. The second to our dissociation and fawning or freezing is, it kind of has a bunch of different names now, these are not exciting responses.

00:22:37:07 - 00:23:15:21

Shawn

These are, diminishing responses where we actually start to shut down and when we move into dissociative responses, we are our nervous system actually thinks that we're going to die. And this is this is the last ditch effort to save us and prevent us from experiencing traumatic injury and pain. Now, I'm sure that you've had experiences where you've been talking to people and they say, yeah, I don't I don't remember anything about performing.

00:23:15:23 - 00:23:47:12

Shawn

I'm backstage and then all of a sudden I'm, I'm sitting backstage again and I have no clue what happened on stage. That's that's not stress, that's PTSD that needs that needs a really good TSD therapist to work with you on unpacking something that happened in your early stages of performing that was particularly embarrassing or traumatic for you.

00:23:47:13 - 00:24:05:12

Shawn

And you might go, oh yeah, yeah. When I was six years old, my first piano recital, I had a memory slip and I forgot the music. That's nothing. That's no big deal to a six year old. That's a huge, big deal to you at 25. Whatever. I know how to improvise. I can I can get through that. That happens all the time.

00:24:05:14 - 00:24:39:23

Shawn

No big deal. But that six year old is still going. I never got off stage safely from that. I never recovered from that. And so every time we perform, we're reigniting that, that experience. I remember, one of my early teaching experiences, I was teaching a master class with a pianist, and they got to the point of a mistake, and they, like, froze up and got burned, like, you know, took their hands off, you know, and then and then started over again.

00:24:40:00 - 00:24:55:15

Shawn

I was like, what? What are you doing right there? Tell me about that. And I'm like, oh, it just really frustrating. And I just feel it like all the way down to my bones. I'm like, what do you feel? And I said, whenever I make a mistake, I feel like every mistake that I've ever made all at once.

00:24:55:17 - 00:24:57:00

Karen

My gosh.

00:24:57:02 - 00:25:24:08

Shawn

I said, what? Yeah, I feel every single one. They all come back to me at the same time. And I just said, then why do you keep doing this? I have to says, who? What? Like when we get to that point where we're creating and reinforcing trauma for ourselves and it becomes part of the work that we do.

00:25:24:10 - 00:25:30:21

Shawn

And this and doing our work reinforces the trauma.

00:25:30:23 - 00:25:54:09

Shawn

That's we don't want to get to that point. And and the way that we get to that point is because we don't acknowledge the damage along the way. We don't acknowledge that, you know, I need to come home and drink two glasses of wine to calm down. And then I have to have three pots of coffee in the morning to get up to go to the to go to the practice room the next day.

00:25:54:11 - 00:26:42:00

Shawn

You know, we're not acknowledging the unhealthy aspects of the work that we're doing because we've been taught that those are the necessary sacrifices that we need to make in order to do this work. It just doesn't have to be that way. We we can align our creative work in such a way that it becomes an authentic expression of who we are and our our individuality and our identity, such that in doing the work, we actually become better at being ourselves.

00:26:42:02 - 00:27:03:13

Shawn

I, I heard a I was in a masterclass a couple days ago, and I heard a statement that was so powerful for me. And this is in response to like, the regulation or the deregulation of the nervous system. So let me unpack that just a little bit. If I'm moving towards fight or flight and moving into my panic responses, my nervous system is deregulating.

00:27:03:15 - 00:27:30:13

Shawn

If I'm moving into a calm state, a flow state, you know, a healthy, a healthy mindset, my nervous system is regulating and is in a healthy state of regulation. The truth and and acting in truth and acting in your truth is regulating to your nervous system.

00:27:30:15 - 00:28:09:20

Shawn

Sit with that for a minute. Like doing my work and doing it within healthy boundaries and safe boundaries. I'm talking physically. Physically safe, emotionally safe. Doing my work within that realm regulates my nervous system. It makes me a healthier, happier individual. And it connects my work with my identity such that the better I get in my work, the better I get it.

00:28:09:20 - 00:28:15:00

Shawn

Becoming who I am. Who wouldn't want that?

00:28:15:02 - 00:28:17:03

Karen

00:28:17:05 - 00:28:44:01

Shawn

You know, now to your point, how do I do that. We set boundaries. We honor those boundaries. We set goals, we reach those goals. We reward ourselves for those goals. You were talking before about, you know, the, the, the characteristic of being superhuman and kind of bringing this down to, to a real level. You know, we're essentially talking about safe, healthy habits.

00:28:44:03 - 00:29:05:11

Shawn

How do you create a habit? You do something, you reward yourself for it, and then you do it again and you reward yourself for it. And then you sleep and then you get up and you decide, I'm going to do it again. I want to do it. I have the desire to do it, I do it, and then I give myself a reward.

00:29:05:13 - 00:29:33:00

Shawn

And then I repeat the process. That habit, habit formation is very simple in that regard desire, action, reward, rest. Do that again and again and again. And over time you build the habit of that. It's very, very simple.

00:29:33:02 - 00:29:58:07

Karen

I like it. Okay. Just playing devil's advocate because before you go for it, I'm curious about or it's devil's advocate, but I'm curious about these modalities. So as a non body mapping Alexander technique person like I'm not in that world at all. My perception of it on the outside is that it's very injury centric. It's very like this is the modality.

00:29:58:08 - 00:30:34:10

Karen

It's very much in a box. We have a skeleton. We have what I respectfully call party tricks around, like what you can do with your body and your limbs and all of that fun stuff. And I think on principle, like, that's great, but it feels like it's very one track minded. But then hearing you talk about all of these things and like the full body integration and the connection and the addressing of of your humanity, essentially like it's it's so much bigger than just like, sit better and here's your sit bones and like, it just it feels so pedestrian to minimize it to just this one dimensional thing that may or may not work.

00:30:34:12 - 00:30:56:00

Karen

Can you tell us a little bit more for, for somebody who was in my situation, like how at your company, you, you, you take these modalities and support people in their pursuit of their superhuman ness and in pursuit of just fulfilling not only careers, but lives and in doing their art on their own terms.

00:30:56:01 - 00:31:36:03

Shawn

Absolutely. Great question. Let me let's separate the modalities. To have this discussion because I think, that will make things clearer. So first off, body mapping was a modality that was invented created. I'm not quite sure what the what Bill would say is the originated, within the context of teaching Alexander Technique. Because Bill was Bill Carnival, the the cello teacher at at Ohio State University.

00:31:36:05 - 00:32:15:20

Shawn

It's the person who created this work. He is also an Alexander teacher and one of my dearest friends and colleagues, and he was really fascinated with how the body worked. And he was also in a situation where he was, having to teach 20 people at a time in, you know, large, large classroom settings and realized that many of his students were moving according to how they thought their body was supposed to work, as opposed to how their body was actually designed to work.

00:32:15:22 - 00:32:48:13

Shawn

So he started sharing with them the information about their body. Where are the joints? How do the joints actually move? You know, how is how is your breathing apparatus really supposed to function versus the myths that we have around that? And. For me, I use I use body mapping in the same way. It's a way to dispel the myths that we have around our bodies.

00:32:48:15 - 00:33:13:08

Shawn

And we just went through a bunch of those myths. You know, the the. I have to be productive despite the sacrifice that it has on my actual body is a myth. That's a mapping myth that we have, that my body can withstand that, And that it doesn't hurt me is a myth. It's a it's a map that we have, and we can change that.

00:33:13:10 - 00:34:01:01

Shawn

That's what's so wonderful about these modalities. First off, is that they teach us that these things that we believe we don't have control over. We do actually have control over. So first and foremost, these modalities teach us agency and autonomy. And then they teach us a process for developing those in ourselves. So coming back to it, body mapping for me, in a classroom, it's, it's a great way of getting people to move in a more clear manner, and an easier manner.

00:34:01:03 - 00:34:29:23

Shawn

And it also teaches them about their bodies. It's a it's a safe, not not safe. And in terms of danger, I mean, safe in terms of, like, non-threatening to to musicians. A safe way back into the embodiment of their selves. You know, learning where my feet are, how my feet function. That increases the sensitivity of your feet so you feel them more.

00:34:30:01 - 00:34:49:10

Shawn

And then we work our way up. I feel my legs more. I feel my breathing more. I feel my torso more. Most people are shocked to find out that. That the muscles on the base of their pelvis, their pelvic floor muscles, move when you breathe, and the first time that people release them and feel them, it's like they've taken a breath for the first time in their lives.

00:34:49:12 - 00:35:14:19

Shawn

And you know, when you're working with a singer or an instrumentalist, like, that's a beautiful experience to watch and witness. Usually everybody cries, you know? And the people watching it, we all cry. Or the first time someone realizes that the diaphragm actually goes down when you inhale and up when you exhale. People get that mixed up. And so they're trying to breathe in a paradoxical manner.

00:35:14:21 - 00:35:38:09

Shawn

Again, when they finally let their diaphragm, that's the way that it's supposed to you. They breathe for the first time. I just took a nice breath and had a nice experience of that for myself. So these are great ways to develop the idea of embodiment, and to teach people how to come back home to themselves.

00:35:38:11 - 00:36:04:18

Shawn

Alexander is, it's like once we learned. Once we learned body mapping. Body mapping is is, for me, a really great thing on the ground level. Now let's come up to a 10,000ft level. That's where the Alexander piece really fits in for me. Because, you know, if you study body mapping it, you learn about all the individual parts.

00:36:04:20 - 00:36:23:05

Shawn

But trying to direct all of your joints all at the same time, while you're also trying to play the saxophone and play the, I can't I was trying to come up with the saxophone concerto off the top of my head, but it's been too long since I've been in Jerry's class. Yeah, yeah, but but, you know, while I'm.

00:36:23:05 - 00:36:51:18

Shawn

Well, I'm trying to perform. I don't need to be thinking about how are my knees bending? How are my hips bending? What's happening? Am I letting my my spine have four curves? Like, you want to do all that work prior to that? But you also, we our brains are not wired to think about individual parts. First of all, our nervous system and our bodies are far too complex for that.

00:36:51:20 - 00:37:23:04

Shawn

But we also don't think, well, in that regard to try and think about such high levels of specificity while we're trying to do something extremely artistic and complicated on its own, such as performing. That's what Alexander is such is is so beautiful for within Alexander's discovery. Is this idea of a whole body coordination that allows us to move freely.

00:37:23:06 - 00:37:53:01

Shawn

And this coordination is what taught you this coordinating principles which taught you how to move your eyes came in, you know, developed and came into focus. You know, this because you just had a baby and you just watch this with with your son. You know, once the eyes start really starting to focus, then they start looking and they start looking around and they start turning their head, and their head keeps turning and turning because a baby doesn't know that the head only turns a certain level or certain distance.

00:37:53:03 - 00:38:10:08

Shawn

They just keep turning. You can't see it on the, on in the, in the podcast, but I'm turning my head and my spine follows that, you know? And if I'm doing that in a crib, I just keep turning and turning and turning and my spine follows that and I roll over. Lo and behold, here is this principle.

00:38:10:10 - 00:38:37:02

Shawn

The head leads and the body follows, and the whole body coordinates around. First our vision, then the movement of our head that follows our vision, then our spine that follows the movements of our head. So it's this coordinating principle that allows us to expand and terminate, in contrast to contracting, pulling ourselves in. It allows us to free up.

00:38:37:04 - 00:39:04:03

Shawn

And our whole system coordinates around this intention such that we don't have to be busy directing the parts. I don't have to tell my my lower arm to rotate in this way. I don't have to tell my knee how to bend in this way. I don't even have to tell myself how to breathe. I just get to focus on what is it that I want to say?

00:39:04:05 - 00:39:27:00

Shawn

Here comes the air. And my nervous system made sure that I had just the right amount of air to say what I wanted to say. The same is true when you pick up your saxophone and you play the opening phrase, of the glass, and or I pick up my clarinet and play the opening phrase in the Mozart concerto, my, I don't have to say I need X amount of volume of air.

00:39:27:02 - 00:39:51:09

Shawn

I just go, that's the phrase that I want. There's the my nervous system coordinating that breath. And on I go. And body mapping is a great way of getting rid of the misunderstandings that are in there. So that that that whole body coordinating principle can do its job.

00:39:51:11 - 00:39:54:02

Shawn

That makes sense. Yeah. Okay.

00:39:54:04 - 00:39:55:14

Karen

So we're removing interference.

00:39:55:19 - 00:40:37:16

Shawn

We're removing interference by by providing clarity around our design first. Okay. Now there's this whole other side of of Alexander work that is the technique itself. So we've got his discovery, which is about the coordination of the body. And then we have the technique. The technique is a way of noticing what are my habits around a stimulus and deciding, through my own conscious intention and awareness, particularly the awareness that I've just built by doing all of that body mapping work.

00:40:37:18 - 00:41:08:17

Shawn

So now I'm much more aware of what's happening in my body. I'm more discerning about what my body is doing because I've. Awoken. I've woke, I've woken to what's happening? I've woke up to what's happening. I'm not sure what the right word is there. But you get my point. And then there's this process of what he called inhibition, where I can pause and interrupt that habit.

00:41:08:18 - 00:41:43:21

Shawn

I can pause, you know, in how my body is organizing around a certain stimulus in order to to take action, I can pause and insert my conscious direction of what I actually want to happen. So I become I. This is where we talk about that the development of agency. I become the creator of my own intention. I am able to direct the action of my body or more importantly, more clearly.

00:41:43:21 - 00:42:04:09

Shawn

I'm able to remove the interference from that habit that I no longer want to be so automatic. And I can pause, insert some new information, and then start building a new habit around that.

00:42:04:11 - 00:43:06:06

Shawn

That's that. That's the technique itself. Is this awareness pausing, inserting some some healthy information, some conscious direction and onward we go. What I often described is that or describe it as is that Alexander Technique gives us the opportunity to go from stimulus reaction to stimulus response. And the difference between reaction and response is choice and intention. So it gives us the ability to realize that we have a choice in how in some of these things that we have sort of taken for granted are automatic, that I you know, how often do we say I have no control over how much stress is in my life?

00:43:06:08 - 00:43:28:07

Shawn

Yeah, you do. You just have to create boundaries around it and then you can control the amount of stress. You just have to say, no, it's 5:00. I'm done. I'm going to go play with my cute dogs and I'm going to go play with my cue. Baby. And I'm going to cook dinner, and I'm going to sit at home and I'm going to watch Netflix and play with my kid, you know, and turn the sprinkler on and go garden.

00:43:28:09 - 00:43:54:00

Shawn

Like you have choice over that, you know? Yeah. And again, that's another kind of map in and of itself. And that's where, when we sort of blow this whole thing up, we, we get into what's called self mapping, where we, we get to decide, like, who am I? Am I a teacher? Am I a performer? Am I an artist?

00:43:54:02 - 00:44:18:09

Shawn

Where are those things in the mix? You know, what we ultimately want to get at is artist is first, and then within that are the various branches of our artistry and the way that we, we, enact our artistry through teaching, through performing, through composing, through, creating and writing, you know, all of those kinds of things.

00:44:18:11 - 00:44:57:18

Shawn

But those are all just ways of self mapping. It's sort of like, doing an org chart on your body in your life and your existence, you know, and somewhere in there is business owner and somewhere in this. I'm doing this for you right now, by the way. You know, somewhere is is is, you know, partner and your business partner and life partner and mother to a child and to dogs and, you know, but you're also a daughter and, you know, a sister and you know, all of these, all of these things have to line up in a certain, in a certain order that is based on your priorities and based on your choices.

00:44:57:18 - 00:45:17:23

Shawn

And it those the way that those things map out dictate the choices that we make, to the stimuli around us and dictate the boundaries that we set and our abilities to enact those boundaries and to honor them.

00:45:18:01 - 00:45:37:20

Karen

I love this, I'm really glad we're recording with all of these. And not that I ever needed convincing, because I'm totally on board with everything you do, but I just I really resonated with, the agency piece because I feel like as creatives, business owners and or whatever, like it's so that the illusion of control is, is just such a good one.

00:45:37:20 - 00:46:07:09

Karen

But we don't have any of it. But it is a great reframe to know that there is agency and choice. And you don't just have to be a reactive individual, you can have choice and in the way that you choose to respond in the way that you choose to embody whatever it is that you're doing. And I also really appreciate the, the notion of we need to stop romanticizing the struggle and the, the heartache and the, the physical toll that it takes to do something at a high level because it's not actually true.

00:46:07:09 - 00:46:21:11

Karen

It was never true. And I think that we've we've done so much damage and, and now there's just so much unlearning, that I'm, I'm grateful for, for the work that you're doing to support people and in that journey, because it's it's a hell of a ride.

00:46:21:12 - 00:46:43:22

Shawn

And just to kind of loop it back to our previous two episodes, we're now talking about Brené Brown. We're talking about the Guideposts to hold to wholehearted living. We're talking about Daring Greatly. We're talking about the belonging work. We're talking about the boundary setting. We're talking about the struggle. And, you know, rising strong and the rumble with all that.

00:46:43:23 - 00:46:46:09

Shawn

Like, it just.

00:46:46:14 - 00:46:47:12

Karen

00:46:47:13 - 00:47:24:09

Shawn

They just mesh so beautifully. And to, in my view, and in my teaching, her work is a modern take on the Alexander process. And, and I'm, I'm really focusing on or trying to bring her work into the somatic realm and down into the cellular level. You know, it's it's we've talked a little bit about like, that's the social justice piece, but what does it mean?

00:47:24:09 - 00:47:49:01

Shawn

What does it mean to to embody belonging? What does it mean to embody your creativity, to embody your your curiosity, to embody your boundaries and honor those boundaries? That's how those the, the, those three modalities really all fit together. It sounds like that's going to be episode four.

00:47:49:03 - 00:48:07:22

Karen

I'm so excited. This is so juicy and so good. I'm just like, oh my gosh. Yeah, I think this is a great place to stop because like, I almost feel like I need to go back and listen to this and like, process even more because there was just so much good stuff. So what would you tell somebody who's listening to this, like, and completely their jaws on the floor, like, what what what should we do?

00:48:07:23 - 00:48:11:20

Karen

Should we journal? Should we write things down like, like, what's our next steps here?

00:48:11:22 - 00:48:39:06

Shawn

Oh, goodness. Well, listen to it again and hit, like a lot and send it to your friends and tell them to hit like and do all of that good stuff. See? I'm learning. I'm learning from you. You know, I think, yeah, I think journaling is a really great place to start. And the question that I, I like to start with, and this is a deep one, is what are the stories that I tell myself?

00:48:39:08 - 00:49:01:08

Shawn

What are the stories that I tell myself that lead to my success? And what are the stories that I tell myself that prevent my success or manufacture my own smallness? Don't worry about whether or not those stories are true. Just write them down.

00:49:01:10 - 00:49:34:17

Shawn

That's that's a great way into self mapping. And and probably some tears. So get some. Yeah. Get some tissues handy before you do that. But that's a great place to start with. This kind of work. Is digging into what are the maps that I have around my success and, you know, honoring or honoring them because they got you here.

00:49:34:19 - 00:49:54:23

Shawn

The question is, are they still serving you, or is it time to kind of put them on the shelf and say, let's, let's build some new ones, let's build some new maps, let's build some healthy maps around who I am now. Even in the greatest sense of things, what I could do when I was 19 is not what I can do.

00:49:54:23 - 00:50:11:12

Shawn

And I'm 47. Even if it was healthy when I was 19, it's not going to be healthy at 47. I can't eat a Quarter Pounder anymore. Not that I ever really could, but you get my point.

00:50:11:13 - 00:50:12:23

Karen

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:50:13:01 - 00:50:16:00

Shawn

Great. Thank you so much.

00:50:16:01 - 00:50:25:11

Karen

I think it really was. I am obsessed. Where can people, like, write in with questions like, should we, like, DM on Instagram, on the website?

00:50:25:17 - 00:50:54:11

Shawn

Absolutely. We are on Instagram. They can find us, under embodied. And we would love to hear from you there. Send me, direct message there. You can also find me on Facebook. And we'd love to hear from you. That way you can also go straight to the website which is embodied.com. And on there, there are several different ways that you can get in touch with me there through, booking, directly booking from my schedule and booking, discovery call.

00:50:54:13 - 00:51:08:06

Shawn

We've got some, lots of workshops happening this fall that you can sign up for. So we're all over the place. We're, we're, we're trying to be present and all of the all of the spaces.

00:51:08:08 - 00:51:11:00

Karen

Yeah. Oh, thank you so much for the invitation Shawn. This was amazing. Yeah.

00:51:11:06 - 00:51:12:15

Shawn

Thank you. Thank you so

00:51:12:15 - 00:51:42:16

Shawn

much. And we'll see you next time. Thank you so much for joining us today on this episode of Becoming mBODYed. Please feel free to DMs on socials. You can find us on Instagram under mBODYed and Facebook under Shawn L. Copeland. Our website, www.mbodyed.com, contains more information about Becoming mBODYed, Alexander Technique and Body mapping, as well as our programs and workshops offered throughout the year.

00:51:42:18 - 00:52:12:08

Shawn

You can find more information on Karen and her agency, including her extensive bio and the many programs she offers to emerging artists at www.karencubidesagency.com. Becoming mBODYed is a production of and copyrighted by mBODYed LLC. 2024 Intro and Exit Music is Dark Matter by Carlos Feliz, recorded by Tosca Duo on their CD dimensions. A link to Carlos's music is available in the credits.