Awake and Asleep: More Stories Our Bodies Can Tell by James Nemec.

Companion books :

Touch the Ocean: The Power of Our Collective Emotions

Journeys: Stories Our Bodies Can Tell

Cranio-What? A CranioSacral Therapy Primer


Publishing date September, 2011


Awake and Asleep: More Stories Our Bodies Can Tell :
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Prologue from Awake and Asleep: More Stories Our Bodies Can Tell by James Nemec

When our bodies are touched with a light, gentle touch, stories can arise, that is, if only our bodies are given a chance to speak. For the body is a book filled with stories. When we can read the stories in our bodies our health is renewed. And all of us have stories, stories our bodies can tell, not just the mind.

Now, after the spiraling adventures in the ocean and with dolphins in Touch the Ocean: The Power of Our Collective Emotions, here we will rewind and journey back in time to the Melrose Avenue clinic in L.A. to view a wider spectrum of actual case histories, one after another. Can the human body organize stories? Do our bodies contain story material? Can the raw information our precious bodies contain organically arise as whole stories, and if so, what is the value? What can we learn?

When doctors and hospitals have given up hope, another kind of journey is required. Often it’s the journey that we needed to take in the first place, and the journey we had postponed. We have long been living in an era of “instant gratification” and “quick fix,” filling our bodies with pills or letting them be cut by knives and scissors, often without real need. In the midst of this calamity, we cannot discern the false from the true, or recognize what is real and authentic, much less what is good for us.

We often feel we are split apart and separated from our own bodies, unaware that our bodies might contain wisdom that is healing. Our good hearted medical doctors complain that they are overrun with patients that they truly want to help and yet do not know what to do with, while the healthcare system in this “richest country in the world” is impoverished, divided, and burdened to the breaking point. Now, at the outset of the 21st Century, philosophers, scholars, musicians, and spiritual teachers have observed that we are entering a new era of awareness and the expansion of consciousness, of new ideas, and of fresh approaches to the same old patterns.

We are also learning that we have other choices that we can make first, before going under the knife, so to speak, or to highly invasive medications. This book is a quiet space apart, or a time-out, for everyone. Here we will linger on such details that only the art of story can provide. It is designed as a tool for contemplation. It’s something to hold in both hands. It can show us how to learn from the stories our bodies have to tell. It can show us how to listen and to receive the wisdom that arises from our own bodies. Some of the stories we carry deep inside can help us to heal, other stories that remain buried can hurt us, others, and even our loved ones, if unknown and unexamined.

The body has stories to tell? It seems so simple, so obvious, doesn’t it? It could because it’s so simple that we miss this source of wisdom, friendship, and of kinship in our lives.

We do hope you will join us on this exciting journey to the mysterious “core” of the human body! The stories are written as they occurred, moment by moment, and do not always arise in a linear fashion. The narrative itself, like the flows of the sessions, at times may unfold much like a wandering ocean wave, or a tapestry on a magical flying carpet. The storyteller is often resting on a relaxing massage table with all clothes on, soft music might be playing in the background. The listener is seated on a chair or standing, moving from one story area of the body to another in silence, using a very light touch. No story is judged as better or worse than any other, as good or bad, right or wrong, for the attentive listener knows that each story that arises from the body contains its own secret medicine.

This is a lyrical book about the stories our bodies can tell and the honoring of the tellers of these stories. Although some portions of this book may educate us about leading edge approaches to health and well being, such as those developed by Dr. William Garner Sutherland and Dr. John E. Upledger, it’s not written in medical-speak, by design. Clients, colleagues, and friends who have made the flowing journey through these stories say that the experience of reading feels much like an opening of the core in itself. There is a vast array of calming feelings to be experienced as the fluid structures around the core gently and non-intrusively open all the way down the back and the spine, and some of this calm and serenity actually transmitted through the stories to them.

Only a small amount of awareness can go a long way. One small opening, one chink in the crack, can beget another and another opening. As we too listen along in the quiet, we are invited to make our own discoveries. We might find we can rest in the quiet spaces between the stories and the words, the storyspaces. And in the stillness of these spaces, we might possibly discover that we are not our stories. If we are not our stories, well then, what are we? In our essence? The stories our bodies can tell are not always told in a straight line with tidy endings, and some remain open to the mystery.

J.Nemec
January 20, 2009.

Excerpt from Awake and Asleep: Stories Our Bodies Can Tell
BY JAMES NEMEC LMT, CST-D All Rights Reserved