Recently while doing a little research on interoception, I looked up the fantastic interview Norm Farb did with Brooke Thomas on the Liberated Body Podcast some years ago. Remembering how much I appreciate Norm's unique combination of serious researcher + playful teacher, I looked around a bit to see what he's been up to lately. Here's an uplifting and timely talk about the importance of choosing our stories, and continuing to do so as life changes (and changes us). Hope you enjoy.

Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

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"I'll tell you something very strange about oppression, a very simple metaphor: If you put me in jail, you've got to have someone to keep me in jail. That means there are two prisoners, you and me.
Our situation is precisely that.

What is crucial here is that we are confronted with the results of it. Not me more than you.
White people have oppressed me, yes indeed, but they have destroyed themselves in the act.
That's the crisis.
What do you do? Out of your oppression of yourself?
That's the crisis.

What do you do with your guilt?
You do with your guilt what anybody who hopes to grow up does with his guilt: you recognize that you'll be guilty until you drop dead. So that's classified, that's taken care of.
Then what you do is operate despite it.

Guilt is easy. Responsibility is hard. And action is even harder.
Because it does mean, for you and for me
(and I'm talking to you as a white woman and me as a black man):
In order for us to establish this cross-fertilization,
or rather to redeem this cross-fertilization, because it's already happened,
you will have to give up many things. And so will I.
This is true of any real connection.
People modify each other, that's what's called love."

- James Baldwin


**For support and guidance in seeing into yourself and your conditioning more deeply, and in taking responsibility for your participation going forward, I highly recommend this free resource.

Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

Image / Vaclav Volrab


We encounter each other in words, words
spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed,
words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark
the will of some one and then others, who said
I need to see the other side.

I know there's something better down the road.
We need to find a place where we are safe.
We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain: many have died for this day.
Sing the names of the dead who brought us here,
who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges,

picked the cotton and the lettuce, built
brick by brick the glittering edifices
they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle, praise song for the day.
Praise song for every hand-lettered sign,
the figuring-it-out at kitchen tables.

Some live by love thy neighbor as thyself,
others by first do no harm or take no more
than you need. What if the mightiest word is love?

Love beyond marital, filial, national,
love that casts a widening pool of light,
love with no need to pre-empt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air,
any thing can be made, any sentence begun.
On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp,

praise song for walking forward in that light.

- Elizabeth Alexander, from Praise Song for the Day



Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well.
http://www.danawyss.com/

A key component of developing and strengthening our internal resilience is the quality of the relationships in our lives. In this fantastic interview, Shawn Achor shows us how to cultivate happiness and gratitude, how to select our "team" and empower them to support us in ways that really serve our well-being, and how to show up as a positive influence for the important others in our lives. I found this interview delightful, generous and deeply inspiring, and I hope you'll benefit from it, too.


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well
http://www.danawyss.com/

The first day of the 2018 Resilience Summit has arrived, and the topic is Strengthening Your Body Against Stress with the incredible Elissa Epel, Ph.D. This is a rich topic that can serve anyone living in a body, and I hope you'll check this out!

Learn more about the effects of stress on your body, and walk away with tools you can use now to strengthen your body against the stressors you're going to encounter, and ways to repair the damage that previous stressors have done. Watch it all here.


Dana Wyss Healing Arts
Breathe deeply, practice often, be well
http://www.danawyss.com/