ROLFER BETSY DUNN & THE BE PROJECT - Betsy Dunn's The Be Project Blog: The Episodes of Being Absolutely

August 18th, 2020

8/18/2020

Touch is essential. I’ve been an Occupational Therapist for 20 years now. We are masters in facilitating the “occupation” of being human - what we need to overcome adversity, injury and illness in order to thrive and feel good. And we NEED touch. All of us, not just babies. When we get physically touched, we produce oxytocin, the body’s natural feel-good hormone. It’s so important for our overall health and well-being. So, during a pandemic, how do we get touch?

Be deliberate in your touching of your loved ones or any people in your pod if you have all agreed to touch. Be mindful of the connection you are making with them when you hug and try to sneak more touch in throughout the day. Linger a little longer in the hug.
Massage yourself or your partner/kids. Just 5 minutes total on your feet, hands and neck can make a world of difference.
Spend more time with your pets. If you don’t have one, consider fostering one.
Try a weighted blanket. This will also provide additional support to an overactive stress response and/or overactive sympathetic nervous system.
Come see me. I have been a Rolfer for 16 years. Rolfing is a powerful bodywork experience with the goal of aligning your body, mind and spirit with your highest potential for structural and energetic ease.

I am aware that times are especially challenging right now. There is a Covid risk associated with being in the community. But it’s also important to remember the overall health of being human. Touch boosts our immune system. It helps us feel emotionally connected to ourselves and others. It diminishes the negative impact of stress. I work at One Being Wellness Revolution in Lafayette. We are STRICTLY adhering to all CDC and state regulations for bodywork services, including everyone wearing a mask and cleaning and disinfecting between every client. I personally change my clothes between every client. Safety matters!

Because I feel so strongly that we must continue our self-care, I am offering a huge discount for your first session. I am also open to sliding scale for future sessions. Your first session will be 75-90 minutes with time for intake for ONLY $75. Times are tough financially right now too. Please, if you have ever wondered about what this “Rolfing” thing is, PM me and let’s talk about an option that will work for you.

A regular client of mine recently came back for her first session since February. This is the text she sent me the next day...

“I can’t tell you how much better I slept and how much better I feel today! Thank you so much! My life is better because of your skill.” L.T.

Touch is essential. Touch and get touched. Be Aligned. Get Rolfed.

Wall of mirrors

11/5/2019

One Body.
                  One Breath.

        Extensions outward from One place.

  what place?
                 turning in. closing eyes. reaching in… tuning in...

   and reaching out. Shaking out. Letting out. Breathing out.

I walk and I see my feet. Feet. Feet! tapping, rolling, shifting, curling.
My feet walking. Jumping. Leaping. Stomping.

Pah!

           A belly dance. Shimmy. Shaking.
                                Twirling, roiling, rolling, wiggling, wriggling, waggling, stretching my
arms.

                        My belly feeds my reach.

                                        My reach transforming into a caress,
                                                           a soft cuddling of my own arms on my own body.

Strong deliberate arms investigating grace.
Pointing, beckoning, wincing, abrupting STOP

pulling violently
in

into

into
a clench
that grips my jaw…

following suit
tongue lashing out,
                screaming out,
                    banging out,

falling to the ground

One body crawling towards one body on the floor.
Emotion.

Emotion from a time.
From a space.
From a memory.
Now Out.
Now One
with This moment.

                                    Eyes open,
                                        i glimpse my ear...
                                 I soften.
                               I listen.

              My breath not sure what took over
                          my breath strumming my pelvis,
                                   my weight shifting,

                                   Standing.

                                                I thrust my hips in no particular direction but my own.
                                        I am sexy. Sad. Full of rage and glad. I am desperate. At ease.
Frustrated. And wanting more. Longing. Belonging. Lonely and fried.

                                                                                                        And i make

                                                    my own Earth quake underneath my feet.

                my dance in front of mirrors.
                                     separate and separated by space.
                                              Images of a whole.
                                 In pieces of experience.

                                                  What is life but a transfiguration of bits separated by space.

                What is this vibration?
         What is this feeling fueling my energy?
           This energy feeding a feeling.

I am human. I am.
I am me.
Here i am.
Here i be.

The Be Project - Discovering who you are and who you want to Be. The Be Room. A Wall of Mirrors. Current /installation at One Being Wellness Revolution. Get Aligned. (Past walls of mirrors have reflected in a sun pattern, crescent moon pattern and spiral.)

I have a room in my house called the Be Room. It was my prototype for my life’s work - creating a space in which to discover who are you and who you want to Be. It’s trite these days. But all you have to do is look more closely. Lean back into it just even a little bit to refresh its significance. Who the heck are you? Are you living the whole being you want to be? And if not, what’s holding you back? What piece is disconnected or missing? The wall of mirrors serves as a representation of the bits that make us. And when we’re not feeling whole, sometimes it’s helpful to just start looking at the bits first. Looking at a few individual story lines first. We are One Being and we are empowered to start with ourselves to make Change happen.

Who would you be?

5/14/2019

First say to yourself what you would be; then do what you have to do.

This experiment of living my life as if I had only one year to live (I’m down to 9 months - yikes!) (see last blog) has got me thinking about this quote a lot. It is attributed to Epictetus, a philosopher born a slave who lived in Greece around the year 100 AD.
My first thought was: I would be a woman who wears flowy pants.
Yep. I then said that to myself and started wearing flowy pants more often. Easy.
But what’s the deeper angle on that? The intention coincides with how I am choosing to live this “last” year. I want to be an easy going, self-assured woman who knows my gifts while being humble in my shortcomings. I want to be patient and wise and yet wild and fueled by the flow of life.
I would be a woman standing tall in my integrity.

And this is where I shamelessly plug Rolfing. Rolfing helps me be who I would be and it helps me do what I have to do to get there. When you are down or maybe just at the end of your day or week at your desk job or maybe just worn out from the pace of life these days, your shoulders are hunched; you’re not letting others in. Not other people, not positive emotions, not even light. The heart is tucked away inside a constricted chest and ribcage. Now I am NOT saying that standing tall, erect and open will fix major depression. But it can start to open a conversation between your body and the sun - the source of our energy. It can begin to lead you onto a path of self awareness that can shift your overall outlook on life as well as your openness to opportunity. Every time I get Rolfed, I stand taller and more ready to take on the world. I am more able to say ‘YES’ to everything that comes my way. I feel more confident in my structure and my functionality. I feel more confident in my humanity!
I like asking myself this question now and again. Especially during these “last” few months. If I only have these last few months of this year to live - do I really want to spend my time doing this, whatever ‘this’ is...
Who would I be in this “last” year to live? I am going to do what I have to do.

A Year to live

3/23/2019

I have committed myself to a year long workshop and life experiment entitled “A Year to Live”. A small group of us are meeting monthly for one calendar year to discuss our fears, desires and attachments regarding the notion that ‘none of us gets out of this alive’. I’ve only gone to two sessions so far; and yet, I know it’s changing my life. I’m changing my ways.

With two small children, this concept rocks me to my core. With enough Buddhist-y type study, I am fascinated and excited. I am thrilled to be saying ‘yes’ to digging deep inside myself to examine ALL. THE. THINGS. By that I mean that I am appreciating the level of angst, fear, and overall avoidance that I witness surfacing. I am also simultaneously adoring feeling an increasing sense of immense gratitude for what my life has been.

Stephen Levine, who I was first introduced to with Who Dies, wrote A Year to Live as a guide in teaching us how to live each moment, hour and day mindfully, as if it were all that was left. In Who Dies, he writes “When you begin to recognize that you are the path, that all of life is but a reflection of the mind, then each experience becomes an opportunity to free yourself from your prison. At this point, you begin to see that life is an opportunity for wholeness, for opening to the truth. You start investigating ‘What closes me from this essential spaciousness of being? Who am I, really?’”

Now, I realize that this isn’t an easy task but nor does it have to be arduous. At least this is what I’m telling myself. I have known for years that there is no destination, that it’s all about the journey. That’s why I love this excerpt...I am the path. What matters is how I choose to act and how I choose to be in any and all given moments. That I can stand in integrity breathing, or counting if I need to :) , when my 4 year old is not listening to me. That getting to school or the store or wherever on time, would not matter if this were my last year to breathe this beautiful earth air with him. I do however admit that I am so grateful to be doing this with a group of people, because what does feels arduous is the process of improving my consistency in this intention. I look forward to going to this workshop to confess my transgressions. I look forward to being held accountable to change these habits of stinginess, hurriedness, anxiety, impatience, and intolerance. It’s hard to keep forgetting and then remembering and then processing the emotional tax of feeling badly for not doing better.

I am going to die. Someday. We all are. It’s the one thing we all have in common. Being mindful of this helps me live my life in a more extraordinary way. It helps me appreciate each moment differently. It helps me know when to choose my battles. And it might even help me realize that there aren’t any ‘battles’ in the first place. Being mindful of my mortality is turning out to be a dear companion who is guiding me down the path of love. I am this path. I can be this Love.

Please come join me this Thursday as the next Investigation: Community at One Being Wellness Revolution is just this topic - Death and Dying: The Impact on Our Living. Panel discussion members are Pavandeep Kaur, Death Doula, Lisa Goedert, Natural Death Care Intern and Karen van Vuuren, co-founder of The Natural Funeral.

Thursday, March 28th, 2019
7-8 pm
One Being Wellness Revolution
409 S. Public Rd. Lafayette, CO 80026 Suite B

Ground the system in gravity - becoming you again

3/11/2019

Rolfing Structural Integration is different from a typical massage in that it’s not just about adjusting your structure when you are lying down. We live in gravity. And those of you who have ever experienced back pain or hip pain know that how you position yourself alters your experience of pain. Your structure, your tissue, YOU are affected by gravity. We need to make sure that the changes we make while you are horizontal will translate to when you are vertical, when you are standing, sitting, getting up, moving around, walking, working, laughing, sportzing :) (see upcoming blog on sportzing) and playing.
In Rolfing, we have a process of tracking the body in space. Most often, it is around the joints of our body. I will position your body to be in optimal balance and I will ask you for movement. Often, I will ask you for a knee bend - for you to allow your knees to float forward while your tail reaches back, sinking into your feet, letting your feet open up to the ground. Then I will ask you to push the earth away to stand up. My hands will be on a certain joint or tissue space, guiding the soft tissue in the position of this new balance. This process “grounds” the system into the new experience of your body. It is an opportunity for your brain and your entire neural network to recognize the new pattern we established during the soft tissue work on the table. We repeat it until you have the felt sense of the newly ordered balance, until you feel in your awareness the ‘ahhhh’ of more space, ease, lightness and integration.
We are facilitating a change in your habitual way of being. We are anchoring in your body memory the knowing that “THIS IS ME NOW.” So then, when you are in gravity living your life, you can access this new pattern again and again, initiating a long-term shift toward increased alignment and freedom.

You are living in the process of Becoming You each new moment of every day!

i love rolfing

3/5/2019

i love rolfing test

Why Rolfing?

3/5/2019

Because it changes bodies. It changes lives.

Rolfing Structural Integration is about feeling good in your body. It is about this passion of mine, of becoming absolutely, over and over and over again. Our bodies are not stagnant. The cells in our body die and get replaced. We shed our skin, we shed weight, we gain weight, we feel feelings, sometimes all the feelings. We stress out, get wired, break down, fall down, get back up, hurt, feel better, move on. We change. And I fully realize that this is argued. People tell me all the time, “Well, y’know, people don’t change.” I disagree. As humans, we have an entire lifespan through which we can learn and grow. A person who has had a stroke re-patterns their nervous system, brain and body. A person who has not had a stroke can re-pattern their nervous system, brain and body.

We all know the benefits of massage: increasing blood flow, aiding relaxation, boosting immune function, improving sleep patterns. With Rolfing, when we add intentional and mindful activation of the musculature, i.e. “keeping your leg heavy on the table, slide/reach your leg toward the wall” while simultaneously being hooked into the fascial network, it allows for a stretch and release of the myofascial system into a new opportunity for connection, health, and freedom. We involve the nervous system, we practice firing the neural network in a different way that the body will remember later. Here is a new pattern for your body to try out. This is a new and different OPTION for your body. This is often primarily accomplished in the typical horizontal position on the table but then I get you up into vertical, into gravity, and here, we ground the system in gravity. I guide you in owning this new option, this new you. We anchor you in this new becoming.

For more on what this means, stay tuned for the next episode....
……………………………....………..Grounding the System in Gravity - Becoming You Again

So what is rolfing anyway...

3/1/2019

You’ve heard of it, but really, REALLY, what is Rolfing?

I’ve been answering this question, and answering this question differently every time (ha!), since 2001. That’s when I started my training at the Rolf Institute. This is true because Rolfing encompasses so many aspects, some of which are hard to explain in words. Sometimes you just have to experience it to really understand, but here we go…
Rolfing is bodywork that is designed to empower you to live in a more comfortable and balanced body.
It is soft tissue mobilization with the goal of aligning your structure within gravity. We want your head on top of your shoulders, your shoulders on top of your hips, your hips balanced over your knees and your knees in line with your ankles. This is the way to be efficient in your human body with the least amount of stress and tension.
Rolfing is different from massage in that it, as Ida Rolf is quoted to say, “calls on the spirit of man to take over.” What this means is that on the table, in the session, I am teaching you how to live in your body in a way that yields less tension and strain. We’re not just working together to lessen the body’s pain and stress, we are working to find a way for you to naturally change your habits and patterns so that you live in a more easeful body. What this means is that you participate in the work. You take an active role in moving your body with my direction being mindful of connecting to a sensation of “a-ha, this is how this part of my body relates to that part.” You are learning how to be in relationship with your body so that you can be more aware of what it is telling you BEFORE a major breakdown. Rolfing teaches you how to BE in your body.

At least those are my answers for today. Stay tuned......... :)

Being Absolutely 'me'

5/24/2018

I am Betsy. I am Betty. I am Elizabeth, Liz, Izzi, Beth, Bootsie, and Boo. I am Bets. These are names I’ve gone by or names people have called me. But I am also Jane, Janet, and Nena. These are my alter egos. Jane is the best of me. Janet, the worst. And Nena is someone who is just always cool and knows the right thing to say.

This blog is actually dedicated to all the me’s out there. All of the me’s that I am. And all of the me’s that you are.

There is marriage advice, or maybe a marriage warning, that the person we marry will actually be 5, 10, 15 different people in the marriage. We change as humans. We grow; we mature. Sometimes we devolve. But we definitely change. It’s just whether we do it consciously or not. And regardless of that it’s usually best for everyone involved to be prepared for it.

That’s how the Be Room got started. I wanted to be better prepared for my future relationships and for my future life by knowing myself better. Who the %@*# am I? Why am I cranky? Why am I crying? What am I doing “here”?

That’s when I first met Janet. She was the one swinging sharp objects around. Recklessly. And people were getting hurt. Or at least needing to protect themselves from her. From me. She is my shadow side. The anger, despair, fear, rage, shaming and shameful. She comes out wreaking havoc when I am unaware. When I’ve closed my eyes and ears and heart to a deeper Truth. Janet is a force to be reckoned with. A force I think SHOULD be reckoned with.

She doesn’t surface as often when I do my Be Rooms.

Jane was born out of my deepening relationship with Janet. She is the Superman to my usual dorky Clark Kent-ness. Jane wears really cool ninja style martial arts pants with a super sexy navel revealing shirt. She carries a sword and a styley goblet of wine. She is the one of service. The kind, compassionate, kick-ass defender of Right and Good. She’s also known as The Villager.

Discovering who we are and who we want to be is such a rich intention for me. My given name, Elizabeth, comes with a lot of nicknames and I have most usually welcomed people calling me special pet names. (Except Beth. I’m not a Beth. I didn’t like my 8th grade English teacher calling me Beth.) I know I have different personas at different times and I’m amused by naming them. I also know I have changed as a human. I like to think mostly for the better. I try to be as purposeful about it as possible these days. I happen to believe that the more in depth we are conscious of ourselves, of our me’s, the deeper we can dive into the meaning of being human. And the deeper we can relate to everything. It provides a buffer of understanding that quiets our personal insanity for bits of time. 'Oh, that’s the little girl who used to be so anxious and eager to please her dad.' 'Oh, that’s the Proud Mama Bear trying to protect her cub.' 'Oh, oops, Janet got out again. Sorry, I haven’t been engaging in healthy self-care.' It gives me a chance to explain myself even if it’s just to myself. And it gives me a chance to forgive myself and make amends to both myself and others. It helps me navigate a path of conscious evolving, one in which I get to choose the me I am becoming.

The Be Project’s tag line, ‘Discovering who you are and who you want to be’ is about celebrating the ‘me’. It’s meant to empower you to own all of the parts of yourself, to honor who you have been and to CHOOSE how you want to show up in the world, how you want to be ‘me’.

The episodes of being absolutely...

4/27/2018

My freshman year in college I had two major, life-changing and ridiculously self-evident realizations. 1. I was always going to be 'me', and 2. It was up to me to be the 'me' I wanted to be.

Fast forward 16 years and I founded The Be Project with the tag line 'Discovering who you are and who you want to be.' In the middle, I'm proud to say, I think I've done that. Or am doing that. I am constantly exploring the difference between who I am and who I want to be being. Ha! I am also constantly charging myself with the sometimes herculean task of that becoming.

Earlier the same year I started my business, I had a totally clean slate in front of me. My partner of 8 years, best friend of 10 had moved out of our house while I was in Guatemala on a Habitat for Humanity trip. We had broken up months earlier but it was as amicable as it can be in a situation like that and we had ridden it out until he could find housing. Not just suitable housing but housing he could thrive in. I got the hell out of dodge and he moved all of his stuff out (and most of our stuff had been 'his' stuff) while I was out of the country. I came home to a near empty house. Very little furniture, no dogs, no partner, just 'me'.

First things first. That night I painted the grimy old gray-ish stairs to my basement bright blue. I put a sky chair swing up in my house. I got a couch, a dog, a roommate and then a boyfriend. Or at least guy that I dated in that awkward 'coming off of a long relationship' way.

I named the great room in my house, the one with the swing, the Be Room. I set out on creating this room as a place where anyone could do almost anything they wanted, a place to just Be. In there, I painted and screamed, sighed and rejoiced, danced and sobbed. I kicked, punched, cursed and lay still. I asked and did Tarot. I listened. I swung and I sang to the loud, loud music at the top of my lungs. I looked in the mirror. I thought and wrote and laughed and played. I dug deep.
I WAS JUST BEING. AND I LOVED IT!
I dated. I went dancing. I hiked. I did yoga. I wrote poetry. I did Contact Improv. I did T-group. I meditated. I watched sunrises with my dog. I met a lot of new people. I explored how other people did 'human'. I realized how I wanted to do human.

My best friend was married and had just had her first baby. She said once that she loved hearing my stories, that she was living an alternative reality vicariously through me. And that she was tuned in like to a television show. Since we met that freshman year of college Abigail has always called me Betty. We decided to call it, my life at the time, The Episodes of Being Absolutely Betty.

I dedicate this blog to me. To me, 19 years old, taking my first steps into the responsibility of self-actualization. To me, 33 years old, stepping out on my own to re-create myself and my life. To me, 34 years old, quitting a full time job to continue pursuing my dream of my own business dedicated to helping others explore their potential. And to me, 41 years old TODAY, a wife, a mother, a Rolfer, an OT, a woman, still digging away at Being Absolutely...