Introducing HUMANUAL®
(A Manual for Being Human)
“The expanded Self” is described as both your greatest potential and your birthright. As the term implies, we need not be limited in our vision, actions, dreams, and spirit when our body’s design and the mind’s reach offer us myriad ways to be an active and significant part of the world we see, experience, and create.
“Each of us has an everyday self that we assume our self to be. But what if there is more to you than meets the eye? What if there is an expanded version of you that includes not only the habitual patterns, the lost parts, and the innate organization but also a connection to the grand, scintillating space of the universe and the possibilities it offers us?”
Understanding the cohesion and synchronization that connect the body, mind, and spirit can lead to an expanded version of yourself. Humanual offers specific guidance about how the musculoskeletal, nervous, and respiratory systems function. The book clearly outlines our evolutionary development of physicality and movement patterns, going on to explain personal adaptive patterns and character traits. The nervous system and effects of trauma are discussed in detail, as are natural human responses to danger as well as social connection. An extensive chapter on how the body is designed to function reveals many commonly accepted “myths” to be inaccurate. Exercises for a healthy, well-functioning body and meditations for a mind at ease are presented in a simple, easy-to-follow format.
Humanual not only illustrates ideal function of the human body, it gives concrete instruction on how to facilitate a change in habitual responses, helping you to break the binding patterns that repeat physical, mental, and emotional responses based on past experience, instead of meeting each moment in a fresh way. The book is both instructional and inspirational—it is useful in daily life for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of how the body, mind, and spirit are unified to work together. Anyone can use the exercises in this book for personal exploration and growth. You will learn:
- How to become aware of habitual thought and movement patterns that prevent you from embodying your full sense of Self in body, mind, and spirit.
- How to breathe to full capacity, with maximum efficiency and minimal effort, according to our inherent design, which fully oxygenates your system to feel more awake and alive in the present moment.
- How to cope with and resolve overwhelming experiences, and handle stress that can hinder enjoyment of a rich, positive experience of life.
- How to awaken your inherent potential by finding the support from the ground that can lead to full stature and expansion, while noting how trauma and overwhelm can interfere with this process.
Please join us on this epic journey to your expanded Self.
“Based on decades of clinical work and astute exploration, Betsy Polatin has, in this book, created a science-informed, concise, and elegantly practical step-wise guide to finding the space within our bodies for our true selves to exist and to expand. She brings us wisdom much needed in our times.”
-Gabor Maté, MD, author of When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection
HUMANUAL is a unique and comprehensive approach to self-knowledge and self-improvement, offering a clear, concise, and rather simple set of explanations and exercises to facilitate understanding and unity of body, mind, and spirit. Many of us have lost our connection to each other, the planet, ourselves, and our bodies, causing distress and discomfort. But in actuality, we have a wealth of resources inside of us that we can learn to enliven and use to our advantage to access health and well-being. Anyone can use the exercises in this book for personal exploration and growth.
Praise
“What it means to be a human being is a subject that has engaged, enraged, and perplexed psychologists, anthropologists, and philosophers–for thousands of years.
So, what can anyone possibly add to this well-worn topic in a meaningful way? I believe that Betsy Polatin has given us a new lens into this subject. By exploring the tangible role of “embodied expansion,” she shows how poorly most of us use our bodies and our being. Here I am referring not only to the physical, anatomical body, but to the living, sensing, and yes, knowing body. Moving the body properly carries multiple opportunities for how we feel, our levels of health and energy, and the equanimity of our emotions. Properly observing ourselves and moving our body efficiently has a bearing on everything we do. Read, experience, and learn what it means to be fully human.”
—Peter A. Levine, PhD, author of Waking the Tiger
“In Humanual, Betsy Polatin provides us with a richly illustrated guided tour to help us connect deeply and consciously to our bodies, minds,souls, and spirits. A dancer by training; a student of movement, music,breath, and meditation; as well as an Alexander Technique Practitioner(among the many disciplines that she has mastered), Betsy in this volume passes on to us the vast wisdom and multiple skills that she acquired over many years working with artists, musicians, and other human beings who are stuck in dysfunctional habits. Humanual shows us how the body is organized to move, create, and adapt. However, sometimes our bodies create patterns that may momentarily allow us to cope, but that, in the long term, can transform into character traits that interfere with life’s satisfaction. Angry people come to live in angry bodies; and frightened people carry their fears in their muscles, sinews, and bones. ‘Every move you make, every thought, manifests as muscular reality.’ Humanual shows us how to listen to the signals of our bodies, and guides us to shift out of habitual patterns that keep us stuck. This wonderful manual is a trustworthy guide to learn to feel at home within yourself.”
—Bessel A. van der Kolk, MD, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma
“Based on decades of clinical work and astute exploration, Betsy Polatin has, in this book, created a science-informed, concise, and elegantly practical step-wise guide to finding the space within our bodies for our true selves to exist and to expand. She brings us wisdom much needed in our times.”
—Gabor Maté, MD, author of When the Body Says No: Exploring the Stress-Disease Connection
“The author, Betsy Polatin, takes the reader on a journey of self-discovery, in which we learn how our body moves and relates to gravity. On this journey we uncover our historical choice of either welcoming ourselves into our body or functionally dissociating our sense of self from our physical structure. Humanual teaches us, through processes focused on movement and awareness of our body, that we can reap the benefits of an embodiment celebrating the continuity among our physical structure, our feelings, our creativity, and our spirituality.”
—Stephen Porges, PhD, author of The Polyvagal Theory
“Betsy Polatin has been studying bodies for 50 years–first her own as a dancer and then how people’s bodies are affected by and affect their emotions and performance. In this intriguing new book, she integrates a wide range of approaches with her own wisdom and offers powerful,body-focused exercises to get to know and heal yourself. In doing so,you will experience and live more of your life from your expanded Self.”
—Richard Schwartz, PhD, developer of the Internal Family Systems model of psychotherapy
“The beauty of Betsy’s work is that . . . it is applicable in everyday life.”
—Deirdre Fay, LICSW, author of Becoming Safely Embodied Skills Manual
Humanual (as the author explains the neologism) reminds us that we can expand in many other ways, too, by adding proper breathing and positive thinking to the simpler business of standing tall. And by doing so and with luck becoming significantly more human as a result, as readers of this fascinating and plainly written book might well conclude, is not a bad thing.”
—Simon Winchester, OBE, New York Times best-selling author of The Perfectionists
Every once in a while, you find that rare and wonderful book that can truly
positively impact your life. This is it. Fabulous and inspiring book!
—Bishop Heather Shea, CEO & Spiritual Director, United Palace of Spiritual Arts
“Enjoy this captivating compelling, book. Betsy’s deep caring for the well-being of everyone on the planet shines through. This book is a gift to us all.”
—Ian Macnaughton, M.B.A., PhD, RCC, FEA, SEP, Body, Breath, and Consciousness: A Somatics Anthology
“Betsy taps into your body, inviting all its many parts to sit at the same table for a
good discussion. The conversation can be lively or quiet, but no matter how it
goes, old stuck patterns often dissolve making it possible for something new.”
—Margot McLean, Visual artist and co-author with James Hillman of the book Dream Animals.