## Metadata - Author: [[Betsy Polatin]] - Full Title: Humanual - Category: #books ## Highlights - There is an order to the universe. Similarly, the mind, the body, the emotions, and the spirit have specific evolutionary designs that allow ease: maximum function with minimum effort. When we don’t follow our natural design, disease is the result; it’s a warning signal that something is off. ([Location 401](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=401)) - When you first wake up, lie in bed flat, or with your knees bent and your feet flat. Place both hands on your chest, your heart area, and lie there paying attention to your breathing for a few minutes. Notice any small changes. ([Location 639](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=639)) - Roll on your side to get out of bed. Listen to your breath for a moment. Feel the support of the bed. It does not take longer than popping up, just a change in attention. ([Location 651](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=651)) - As you get out of bed, take a moment to put your feet on the ground, and keep them planted there as you stand. ([Location 655](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=655)) - Write in your HUM Journal about how you experience your sensory and motor systems. ([Location 697](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=697)) - Write in your HUM Journal about your everyday use. How could it improve? ([Location 736](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=736)) - Write in your HUM Journal about your understanding of your own adaptive states. ([Location 792](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=792)) - Write in your HUM Journal where you think you might be developmentally stuck in your thinking and in your body. What triggers you, and where do you feel it in your ([Location 860](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=860)) - When you turn your head to investigate your surroundings and engage with others, the movement involves your sternocleidomastoid, the big muscle that you sometimes see protruding on the side of someone’s neck. When people have experienced trauma, or a series of overwhelming emotions, they respond to their environment in one of two ways: they are either hypervigilant, looking around all the time, typically nervously, and the sternocleidomastoid muscle is overactive; or they are the opposite of this, not wanting to investigate their surroundings or engage with others because of the potential for danger—in which case the sternocleidomastoid is often stuck, limiting head movement. ([Location 864](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=864)) - In your HUM Journal, write about how much you enjoy or don’t enjoy orienting to your surroundings. ([Location 879](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=879)) - Write about your willingness to be here in your HUM Journal. ([Location 898](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=898)) - The nervous system has two primary branches—the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system. The autonomic nervous system (ANS) is a division of the peripheral nervous system, and it influences the internal organs. The ANS controls functions that happen automatically, such as heartbeat, breathing, digestion, sexual arousal, and more, in response to your life activities. ([Location 1305](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=1305)) - Today, professionals commonly say, “Nerves that fire together, wire together,” which means that when you repeat any experience over and over, the brain learns to activate the same neurons each time. So, focusing on positive experiences creates new and positive neuro-networks and pathways. Thus, “It is never too late to have a happy childhood.” ([Location 1310](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=1310)) - Evolution continues to unfold—the fluid movement of life contracting and then expanding, with so many moving parts. All facets are in their right place and developing naturally, each in its own way, generating the appearance of the next physical reality. We fluctuate between contraction and expansion, stillness and motion: the stillness of the ongoing present evolving into the next perfect moment. ([Location 1981](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=1981)) - In this model, muscles do not really hold you up, nor do they contract to move you; they are more like sense detectors. When the muscles detect shifts in movement or instability, they respond by expanding and suspending you in an elastic web of adjustable support. It is like you are wearing an elastic suit that constantly adjusts to your needs. You then spring into activity by releasing the elastic. ([Location 2282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=2282)) - The psoas is involved in the survival instincts of fight, flight, or freeze. When you are in danger, it is your psoas that prepares you to quickly move away and flee, or stand your ground and fight. When it comes to primitive fear responses, the psoas helps you make wise decisions in support of yourself. ([Location 2676](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=2676)) - Each foot has twenty-six little bones with forty joints, and numerous muscles and tendons. With all these parts, your feet have a great capacity for gathering information. ([Location 2687](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=2687)) - Meditation is based on the Latin word mederi—to look after or to heal. ([Location 3796](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=3796)) - The fascial system perceives instantaneously, communicating roughly three times faster than the nervous system. ([Location 4018](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=4018)) - Tags: [[blue]] - As you train yourself to be a large enough container to hold your vast array of emotion and experiences, then being connected with others and everything in the universe can be your experience, sometimes. This love is the training for all human life on the planet. ([Location 4470](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=4470)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Some say our highest creativity occurs in altered states of consciousness. But because consciousness is changing all the time, all states must be altered states. There is no normal. The universe changes and regenerates every nanosecond. ([Location 4525](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=4525)) - Tags: [[blue]] - We need evolutionary practices that enhance rather than destroy this planet. We need to go to the source of imaginative creativity itself—sometimes called the great matrix, including male and female, science and spirituality—where all duality connects to oneness, for the benefit of all. Not just a chosen few. ([Location 4534](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B089ZYPG1D&location=4534)) - Tags: [[blue]]