Isometric Life

Self-Centred Newsletter* – August 30, 2023

I’m learning a lot these days, living an isometric life.
Allow me to share a glossary of terms:

neu·ro·plas·tic·i·ty (no͝orōplaˈstisədē)
Noun
the ability of the brain to form and reorganize synaptic connections, especially in response to learning or experience or following injury.


i·so·met·ric (īsōˈmetrik,ˌīzəˈmetrik)
adjective
1. of or having equal dimensions.
2. PHYSIOLOGY relating to or denoting muscular action in which tension is developed without contraction of the muscle.


Prehabilitation: the process of improving the functional capability of a patient prior to a surgical procedure so the patient can withstand any postoperative inactivity and associated decline. In other words, to get you to a better place physically before an operation. (American College of Physicians and Surgeons)

Isometric Life:

I’m waiting for knee replacements that may take up to a year and a half to happen, two years before rehab hopefully allows me to move freely in the world under my own steam. If it works…

Digesting and integrating that possibility has been, well, it’s been a lot.

Neuroplasticity:

My default brain* thinks things such as “I can’t wait two years to have my life back” “my body is broken” “my life is over because I can’t move the way I used to”

Bringing curious inquiry into those thoughts has been vital for my mental health.

Is this thought really true?

There’s a lot of internalized ableism embedded in that kind of thinking that could use some unpacking.

What are the ways of easing into kinder, gentler thoughts about my body, where it is, right here and now?

Where do I find life, right here, right now, in this body?

How can I bring myself to a better place?

Healing happens in community.

I believe this with all my heart, even if my head resists it.

It is so valuable to have someone to share my thoughts with, vulnerably and unedited. I am grateful for a partner who can be that someone for me, as well as beloved friends and practitioners. It takes a village.

Speaking my default thoughts into existence allows them to be transformed.

On the day that I got the news about the long wait for surgery, I sat on the treatment table with my physiotherapist and had a big snotty cry. 

(Also want to speak to the value of big, snotty, public crying, whether it’s out of joy, or grief, hope, hopelessness, or because of a beautiful piece of music…. yes, I am a crier. Please pass the tissues.)

Prehab/Rehab:

The big snotty cry in question started when I voiced the idea of waiting two years for my life to begin.

(It’s interesting to watch people respond to big, snotty, public cries – the physio intern asked me if I needed to be alone, to which I replied, no, but if my big, snotty, cry makes you feel uncomfortable, feel free to move somewhere that feels more comfortable for you. He stuck around.)  

My physiotherapist and the sweet intern helped me to begin unpacking that default thinking that surely does nothing to serve me, to look at the ways of living in my body, right here, right now.

And they introduced me to the concept of ‘prehab’

It’s a word I hadn’t heard before, and it’s so much more hopeful than the fatalistic ‘my life is over before it’s begun’ default voice in my head.

Living, stretching, strengthening, expanding, in the body I have now is prehab.

It’s paving the way to what comes next, whatever that may be. It makes what comes next easier to integrate.

Body Prehab

Then I thought “hey, maybe I’m in prehab for my brain too” but my physiotherapist explained that when referring to a chronic condition, the correct term to use is rehabilitation.

So, rewiring my brain is in fact rehab because it’s addressing an existing chronic condition. Ouch, and okay. I can live with that.

Thankfully, there’s neuroplasticity.

Easing into the thoughts and ideas around living, stretching, learning, expanding in the body I have now.

Brain Rehab.

Stocking my pantry:

I was introduced to the concept of a movement pantry by Hannah Husband, body liberation coach (I cannot recommend Hannah’s Seedling Strength program more)

The idea is to create an individual movement pantry with a wide variety of options, allowing you to plan movement meals and create spontaneous movement snacks during the day, choosing from bespoke variety of movements that work for your body after checking in

(that’s the liberation part – traditional strength training relies a lot on metrics and averages, rules that apply in general, but don’t really work for individual bodies, especially when that body is senior, fat, femme, disabled and experiencing chronic pain)

I love this concept.

I mean, really. Food and cooking are definitely two of my love languages, so this metaphor totally works.

(I bought a rainbow recipe box to create a personal little movement library but haven’t actually gotten to doing that yet. Hello perfectionist procrastinator. I love you.)

Hannah has the unique gift of describing strength training concepts in a relatable, non-jock (that’s me) kind of way. She combines nervous system science, strength training, and body liberation in a way that makes movement accessible for me, in this body, here and now.

(and p.s. – REST is a movement pantry staple as well. Thanks Hannah!)

Speaking of accessible:

Being able to recognize my needs, to ask for those needs to be met, to admit I don’t know something and ask for help (aka trauma healing) has allowed me to feel hope in what otherwise might feel like a hopeless situation, to add practices and movements and mobility aids into my life right here and now that allow for expansion in small (really the tiniest) but significant steps towards healing, in my mind, body, and soul, and regardless of where my body is now or where it will end up.

I now have a walker. I’m learning to make friends with it.

It’s kind of mortifying to be honest, because it makes my disability visible.

But also kind of cool, partially because I am a nerd and I love gadgets, but mostly because it meets my body where it’s at.

I can sit and rest after an embarrassingly small number of steps, that is actually three times the number of steps I can do without it, so win.

And I have been able to walk out of my driveway under my own steam for the first time since moving to this house four months ago. Liberation titrated.

I have a mini pedal exerciser that sits on the floor to use while sitting.

One of my favorite means of transport before the arthritis and pain prevented it was bicycling.

I currently do not have the range of flexion/extension in my knees to allow a full rotation of bike pedals, nor do I have the balance to stay upright on a bike.

I was horrified to discover that I can’t sit a full-size exercise bike with both feet on the pedals, I just don’t have the flexibility to do that anymore.

But I CAN put both feet in the stirrups of the little floor pedaler and move less than a quarter of the way round, forward and back.

It’s really hard to get my body in position to do that, but I’ve noticed that this less than a quarter round the pedal movement feels GOOD when I’m done, because it’s working the muscles without loading my knees.

The old and rigid ‘ride or die’ thinking is still strong in me, but most of the time I am able to look at this little machine as a friend and it definitely helps to think of the small movements as prehab rather than failure.

Isometrics have also become a staple in my movement pantry.

Strengthening by way of “tension developed without contraction of the muscle.”

Isometrics. It’s a metaphor for life in this body, here and now, just as it is.

It may look like not much is going on from the outside, but there’s a lot of movement happening. In my body, mind, and soul.

Thanks for allowing me to share what’s real and vulnerable and active in my life right now.

I hope that you are able to find ways of moving from a stuck place – whether that’s physical, emotional, or intellectual – to a place of spaciousness, more hope, and more joy in your life, right here and now.

And if there’s anything I can do to assist you with that, hit me up.

Love,
Janine

* the language of the “default brain” comes to me via the transformative and healing work of Sarah Peyton, neuroscience educator, constellations facilitator, certified Nonviolent Communication trainer and author who invites audiences into a compassionate understanding of the effects of relational trauma on the brain, and teaches about how to use resonance to change and heal.

***

Hi, I’m Janine, Anti-Capitalist Crone, Post-Trauma Growth Coach & Consensual Copywriter​​​​​​​​

I believe it’s possible to heal and transform, in our bodies and in our communities, in small, doable, but significant steps.​​​​​​​​

Interested in working with me?​​​​​​​​

Check out my offerings here on my website, or send me message​​​​​​​​

* If you’d like to be among the first to read my Self-Centred newsletter, you can have it delivered directly to your email inbox by subscribing here.

Self-Centred: What If You Were Easier On Yourself?

Hey there,

It’s been way more than a minute since I’ve written. And we’re back in retrograde season. Fasten your seatbelts! Or maybe even better, slow down.

I’ve been doing some pretty deep humaning since writing to you last, and HUMANING IS HARD.

So, with your indulgence I’m going to time travel back to March to share something I began to write then. Something that still feels relevant and potent for me today.

And maybe you can relate…

(this one is longish – you may want to grab a cup of tea)

There is a voice in my head calling the shots – my manager. She isn’t who am anymore. But her voice is still loud and bossy and dominant.

It makes sense that she feels that way. She was running the show up until three years ago, and that means she ran the show for 58 years.

She did the very best she could.

But she drew some illogical conclusions from the data that resulted in some pretty unhealthy and unsupportive strategies for living that go like this:

  • I can’t trust anyone, so I must do everything myself or it won’t be as good, or it won’t get done
  • Doing everything by myself makes me really angry; it’s a lot of work and I wish there was someone who could help carry the load
  • Suck it up, get ‘er done, pain is weakness, needing others is weakness
  • Moving cyclically through hypervigilance (trying to control all the variables) to freeze (total non-functional depression, eat, sleep, work, walk the dog, binge eat, binge watch, fall asleep, repeat)
  • Knowing that dismantling racism, colonialism, the patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism is the work I want to contribute to
  • Thinking the way to do that is by going to war, politically and energetically, fighting our way to peace, fighting my body, my nature, my blueprint essence

As you can imagine, navigating life according to those rules is a lot of work and extremely extractive. Three years ago, I reached the point where I had nothing left to give – to my work, my family, my partner, my self, my dreams.

My cup was bottomed out. Empty.

My self-centred intention for 2022 is to focus on chronic pain and mobility issues, to find more ease and capacity in my body. To put myself first and to let everything else fall into place from that centred ground.

So, I gifted myself with a series of Rolfing sessions, to massage the muscles and fascia not only where the pain happens, but all over the body. The goal is to fix and retrain posture and structure so that your body can correct any lingering imbalances causing the pain.

It is common for this treatment to bring up emotions and experiences that have become stuck in the body (aka trauma), so I also gifted myself a series of sessions with coach/therapist/magician/world changing witch to accompany through the process.

The week in question, my coaching session “homework” was to find ways of lightening up on myself by 4%. Because 3% seemed like not enough and 5% felt like too much. 4% felt doable.

The week following the time change to Daylight Savings, I decided it would be a good idea to:

Eliminate coffee from my diet
AND dairy
AND begin a bean protocol to expunge toxins from my body
AND have a rolfing session
AND it was the two year anniversary of the pandemic lockdown AND AND AND…

Go big or go home, right? If DST was going to mess me up, might as well make it worth the ride, said my manager.

It didn’t take too long before my body started screaming at me. It sounded pretty much like many variations on “WTF?!”

One morning, when my partner was planning to make himself a half pot of coffee and an oat milk matcha green latte for me, I decided to ditch the oat milk latte and return to coffee, all dressed with coconut milk, cacao, a splash of maple syrup and a cinnamon stick. Black coffee messes with my gut. Coffee with all the things doesn’t. It was delicious, and I felt more human than I had all week.

I’m Italian. Pretty sure coffee is an ancestral food. Going with that.

Navigating stairs often hurts and is always slow for me and I am blessed with a partner who happily uses his movement breaks to deliver snacks and tea throughout my workday.

That afternoon while I was working in my downstairs office, preparing for a client session, my loving partner up and decided to do some resourcing of his own and took off in the car for a hike in the woods near a beautiful waterfall. He texted from the car to say he was on the way.

Without asking me if he could deliver tea or snacks beforehand. 

My manager kicked in:

“HOW DARE HE?!

This kind of inconsiderate behaviour just confirms everything I know to be true about people and how you can’t depend on them.”

I observed the feelings of abandonment that came up in the moment, and then I laughed.

The manager would have created a crisis, held on to the feelings of abandonment until they festered into bitterness, and armed herself for a big fight whenever the bastard decided to return. 

But me? Me now? She LAUGHED!

The truth was that there was plenty of time before my client session to wander upstairs to make a cup of tea. So that’s what I did.

And guess what? Nothing blew up and the world did not end.

That night I had a revision of a recurring childhood dream:

I’m in the back seat on a road trip with my parents sitting up front when they disappear but the car keeps driving out of control with no driver, so I must climb over the front seat, take the wheel and steer the car to safety.

(How obvious, right?)

The feelings in this recurring dream were consistent in childhood: fear and panic and terror.

This new dream was the same but different:

My partner and I were on a road trip, but somehow I was sitting in the back seat. He decided he had to take care of something important and left the vehicle. No drama on his part but the car was still running. So, I climbed over the front seat, took the wheel, parked the car and explored the streets of a new and unknown place to find him and let him know where the car was so we could resume our adventure when he was done with whatever it was he’d needed to do.

No fear, no panic, no terror. I felt calm and in control and resourced.

Could it be that my brain and nervous system were processing the niggle of abandonment I’d felt the day before? Letting the feelings move through my body instead of getting stuck?

I’m thinking yes.

The new me has been calling the shots for three short years, just 5% of the time I’ve been circling the sun in this body.

The new me is a virtual toddler.

Maybe it’s time to cut her some slack already. 4% is what feels doable for my nervous system.

Starting with a delicious cup of morning coffee that doesn’t mess with my gut.

And here’s the thing: starting to work with what feels doable, with 4%, seems to have opened so much more than 4% capacity for nervous system regulation and healing.

Those old voices, while not completely silent, don’t run the show anymore. I love and respect my manager for taking care of me for so long.

She has some wisdom. She’s part of the family. We talk, reminisce about the old days; I soothe her, and offer her some rest.

She seems to be good with that, and life feels so much more than 4% easier.

What are the ways that you might be easier on yourself?

By 1%, 2%, 3% or 4…. Whatever feels doable for you.

I encourage you to give it a try, and see what opens up.

I would love to hear about it if you’d like to share.

Wishing you self-centred peace and love,

Janine

Thinking of working with me?

A Future Planning Session is a great way to discover how it feels.

Give yourself the gift of an hour, in safe supportive space, to land in your body and focus in on want you’d like to create for yourself.

I’ll offer that space, some grounding practices, insights and suggestions.

I know the power of setting intentions and getting out of my own way to allow them to manifest and would be honoured to hold that kind of space for you.
 
Sessions are delivered by Zoom, priced at the introductory rate of $250.

Book now or click here for more information.
Thank you for being here!

I appreciate you and would love to hear your feedback; just hit reply.

Feel free to pass this along to anyone who might appreciate it.

If you would like to subscribe and have Self-Centred delivered to your email inbox, you can do that here

Until next time,

Janine Bertolo (she/her)
www.janinebertolo.ca
Trauma-informed somatic coach & space holder
Anti-capitalist crone & Culture Maker

What exactly does a life coach DO?*

A life coach creates safe space for you to explore, examine and excavate, experiment and create strategies that work for you

* This blog piece is a little out of the ordinary for me, but hey, this whole year has been out of the ordinary! And I have new things to announce that I’m excited about! I hope you’ll indulge me today. I plan to be back to more regular blogging on life, the universe and everything (including some coachy kinds of things too) shortly. xo Janine

What exactly does a life coach DO?

That’s a good question, and one I’ve been asked repeatedly as I’ve made public my desire to transition into certified coaching as a career.

As is often the case, in describing what a life coach begins with describing what a life coach DOESN’T do.

A life coach is not a therapist, counsellor, or consultant.

Therapists, counsellors and consultants are the experts in those relationships.

Therapists and counsellors diagnose and treat mental illness and severe trauma effects such as PTSD. When it appears that therapy or counselling might be the best option for you, a good coach will suggest an outside referral in your best interests. Therapists and counsellors often work alongside coaches in assisting people to find inner healing and ease.

Coaching is a co-creative process of equals that recognizes and honours you as the best expert at being you, even if at times that knowledge might be clouded, distorted or buried by the impacts of the systems, cultures and families we’re raised in, by traumatic events, and by the coping mechanisms we’ve developed to survive them.

When the beliefs and strategies you use to navigate life no longer serve you, you might begin to feel stuck, unhappy, depressed, helpless or hopeless about your place in the world and the ways of moving forward.

You might just be feeling a little off about something and want to set it right. Or you might want help with problem-solving or goal-setting.

A life coach assists you in uncovering the tools and strategies that work best for you.

A life coach works with you in the here and now, creating the safe, nurturing, confidential and non-judgmental space for exploring beliefs and values that might be standing in the way of accomplishing your goals and living your dreams.

Always in an atmosphere of sacred consent, permission, and safety.

A consultant is an expert who tells you what to do. A coach understands that you already have everything you need inside yourself to discover and decide what’s best for you.

A dear friend and mentor describes the coaching relationship using the metaphor (coaches love metaphor!) of mining underground for valuable treasure; the coach holds the lamp while you do the excavating.

AND THE TREASURE IS ALL YOURS!

A life coach is someone whose role is even more valuable in these uncertain times we find ourselves. I have experienced the great value of coaching before and during the pandemic, and knowing the benefit of service that coaches can provide is the reason I’ve become certified as a professional life coach.

While coaching is largely non-regulated, certification from an International Coach Federation (ICF) approved college ensures you service steeped in coaching ethics, standards, and core competencies, coupled with my deep compassion, empathy and wisdom of life experience.

With a few rare exceptions, the coaching relationship is entirely confidential, creating the safe space for you to explore, examine and excavate, experiment and create strategies that work for you. All sessions are currently delivered online using Zoom, so location is not a barrier. I am able to serve you wherever you are in the world, as long as you have a stable internet connection. If you’re reading this, you likely do!

It would be my deepest honour to work with you in coming home to yourself.

Contact me for more information or book a free 30 minute consultation call here.