Dear One,

As your social media algorithm might have told you by now, the body keeps the score. But of what?

Our bodies are scorekeepers for safety. For potential threat and suspicious activity that has been equated with pain, loss, or danger in the past.

Our bodies also keep track of our safety successes. Did looking a certain way gain acceptance? Ding ding ding! Did omission of certain information lead to conflict avoidance? Check!

For many of us with relational and attachment injuries, the protection mechanisms that helped us strive for a sense of interpersonal security in the past still live inside our body.

Let's read that again. Or maybe I'll word it differently.

Inside your body-brain-nervous-system is a network of blueprints that illustrate how to *try* to sustain love, connection, and attachment, based on the (sometimes distant) past.

And sometimes those blueprints are very, very outdated. We still see a wall where there's now a corridor, and we don't walk through it because we're still expecting the dead end. We're still expecting a free-fall if we step on the wrong rotting floorboard. We don't know that the internal structure has been reinforced and that our floor is probably more solid now, compared to when we were at our most vulnerable.

(Even when the world / nation / systems are standing on shaky ground, as they usually are.)

If you're engaged in some kind of therapy, healing, and recovery work, you're probably working to update your internal blueprints of safety. It's a process, often grueling, often beautiful. And in order to re-write the blueprints of your body-brain-nervous-system, it often helps to develop a relationship with these parts of you. If yoga is a place where you befriend these layers of self, join me on the mat.

Coming up at JP Centre Yoga: Thursday 4/10 Flow & Restore drop-in class at 5:45-7pm (hybrid), and Sunday 4/13 Befriending Stillness Restorative Yoga Workshop at 1-2:30pm (in-person).

And if you're a yoga or clinical professional looking to bring more embodiment tools into your work with clients, check out the 35hr Trauma-Informed Yoga Therapy Training, starting May 29th. There we will deepdive into the world of nervous system literary and regulation, and equip you with tools that can transform how you help your clients navigate and re-write their body's scoring system.

As always, reach out with any questions.

Updating my own blueprints alongside you,

~Alex

COMING UP:

Flow & Restore drop-in classes are Thursdays at 5:45-7pm, in-person and livestream/recorded at JP Centre Yoga (note: I'll be off April 24th).

The next Befriending Stillness Radically Restorative Yoga workshop is SUNDAY April 13th, from 1-2:30pm (note the Sunday afternoon time slot!), in-person only at JP Centre Yoga.

PS: If you do the Instagram thing, let's connect at @alexbauermeisteryogatherapy. And for some music to help you ride the waves of this time, check out my public playlists on Spotify under abauermeister. And ... I always love hearing how these newsletters land with you. Send me a note to say hi!