Virtual by Design, Part II: For the Ones Who Live in Places Where This Doesn't Exist
I grew up in a town with two traffic lights.
Actually, that’s a lie. Because that two traffic lights place, the one off of the two lane “highway” (Route 9, Exit 9), bordering the Connecticut River, didn’t even meet the definition of town. By government standards, officially, it was a village. A census-designated place, i.e., the government's elegant way of saying: sure, it technically exists; and sure you can have your own zip code, but that's about it.
The village of Higganum, Connecticut. If you know it, I'd be genuinely surprised. (And also I probably know you.)
With it’s four-aisle grocery store (the Higganum Country Market, obviously) and gazebo in the center of town.
Where the best take-out options were A.J.'s for grinders and Sofia's for pizza. But there was no delivery. You had to call in order go pick it up.
And movie night meant a ride to Pete's Home Video to see if anything new had come in. Or to see if you were picking between The Goonies and The Princess Bride. Again.
What wasn't there
In my version of the world, there was no local yoga studio, I didn't hear of or practice yoga nidra until deep in my thirties in New York City, and my only experience with hypnosis was when a stage entertainer came to our high school. (Yes, I was picked to go up on stage. Yes, embarrassing things occurred. No, that’s not the type of hypnosis I practice today.)
If this work had existed then the way it does now; if clinical hypnosis, breathwork, sound, and yoga nidra had been as visible and available as they are today, there would have been no local way in.
You would have needed to drive. To the "big city," maybe, i.e., Middletown, CT, whose global claim to fame is that it's the home of Wesleyan University, but I knew it as the place we could go to the movies, have McDonald's, buy our dance shoes for classes at Miss Alane's Dance Academy, and see the strange kids walking around with blue, green, and purple hair.
You would have needed a car, gas money, a schedule that could accommodate not only the hour for the actual practice, but also the traveling to and from. Time and money you might not have had to spare.
In my adult life I've been fortunate to live in places where access isn't an issue: whether it was Boston, New York, San Diego, pretty much everything I could want is always available.
But those rural experiences of my childhood have stayed with me. Because Higganum is actually not unusual. Higganum is many places.
There are a lot of people who live in towns or villages like that right now. Rural areas, suburbs, small cities, areas of the country where this kind of practice hasn't landed yet.
"Just find a studio" is not a universal option. It never has been. And building a practice as though it were would mean keeping geography as a gatekeeper.
Virtual is accessible
Part I of this series spoke to the physiological barriers that virtual practice alleviates; here geography is the roadblock. A virtual practice removes both.
Because in a virtual space, all essential elements are present: there is connection, co-regulation, a voice guiding you into slower brainwave states. Nervous systems sensing and responding to each other through the call. A place to be seen and heard.
The Good Muck is virtual because it's the most reliable way to ensure geography isn't an unintended gatekeeper.
Start from wherever you are
The Future Self Session is a 20-minute guided clinical hypnosis audio. It works from your couch, from your bed, from a small house in a village no one has heard of.
Lie down. Press play. Start from wherever you are.
»Experience the Future Self Session
See you in the muck.
Caitlin
The Virtual By Design Series
This is Part II of a three-part series on why The Good Muck is virtual by design.Read Part I: For The Ones Who Need the Practice to Come to Them
Part III coming soon: The Performance Barrier.
