Using mindful movement to revitalize your body between sessions

6 whole body movements. 7 sense organs. 12 cranial nerves. This is my self-care score for vitality.

I’m pointing to a revitalization and mobilization of tissues and an awakening of sense organs that helps us organize ourselves bottom up, not top down. It’s the opposite of cognitive.

In the past I’ve done workshops on somatic support for better boundaries, which is definitely important.

However, it’s become apparent to me that one also needs the energy available to activate boundaries. Energy is not something you can conjure with your brain. It’s something that the rest of your body provides to your brain.

12 cranial nerves supply 7 sensory organs in your head; when the top spinal joint is free, 6 foundational whole body movements are available any time you need them.

These elements are the building blocks of all the more sophisticated stuff you do, but you may have forgotten how to play with these building blocks since you were a kid.

This weeks video guides you through the 6 movements that articulate your head, connecting it to your body so you can mobilize energy in multiple directions:

• Forward

• Backward

• Turning left

• Turning right

• Tilting left

• Tilting right

Each of these movements can be made with one’s attention flowing through on of the 7 available sense organs. This creates a softer, easier mobility than your usual stretches:

• Nose (smell and taste)

• Eyes (Vision)

• Head (the whole head is a sense organ covered in skin)

• Ears (Sound)

• Vestibular organ (balance)

• Tongue (Taste, speech, digestion)

• Multiple digestive organs supplied by the vagus nerve

I know – it’s not exactly scientific. Scientific definitions are super important, and my course is chock full of them. However, functional definitions are more useful in practice. I geek out on both.

In the video, the combinations go like this: the nose, animated by breathing activity, leads forwards and backwards. The eyes, with their ability to look side to side, lead head turning; and lastly, the ears lead the tilting of the head, which stimulates the vestibular system and also changes the direction from which you receive sound waves.

Each of these prompts creates a slightly different activation of your head, spine, and body.

You can combine any organ or nerve with any movement mindfully. And of course, we really can’t turn any of our senses off. All we can do is shift our attention from one to the other.

What’s most important is mindful play and pleasurable movement experimentation.

Lastly, 12 cranial nerves give us pathways to explore all the nuances of each sense organ. Some organs, like your eyes and your tongue, have 4 different nerves because they do so many different things.

Then there is one big nerve, the vagus, that has multiple branches supplying multiple organs, most of them digestive and recently included in your “gut-brain axis.”

Some of these nerves and their organs are perhaps over-stimulated or under-stimulated, depending on our lives and habits. Some never get a rest! Some never really wake up. Balancing sensory input with both rest and movement helps us activate full, nuanced capacities for sensing, feeling, and moving ourselves in ways that revitalize our thinking and communication with others.

We’ll get into all of this and more in the upcoming Cranial Nerve Sequencing Course. I hope you will join us if revitalizing your energy and enhancing your mobility are needed right now!