A Good Feeling. "Aha" moments and sound advice for a fulfilling life. With psychologist Ulrike Scheuermann and Sinnsucher.de
Ulrike Scheuermann, together with Swiss body researcher Benita Cantieni, explores the topics of flexibility, freedom from pain, beauty, and faceforming. They discuss how targeted exercises and mindful breathing can help people achieve greater ease and a better quality of life.
Pain-Free Through Greater Mobility
Do you often feel tense and want to find new ways to improve your flexibility and build strength?
If you want to learn how to regain a sense of ease and improve your quality of life—and how to use your breath as a “information taxi” to carry information throughout your body—you should definitely listen to this episode right away.
Benita Cantieni shows you how to trigger a positive chain reaction in your body and consciously take responsibility for your physical health.
“The miracle that is our life is worth treating with care,” Benita Canteni emphasizes.
Find out which exercises work best for you, which kinds of pain might actually be “good pain,” and how you can redefine “pleasant pain” for yourself.
Faceforming: Your Key to Natural Beauty
Would you like to preserve your inner and outer beauty—without resorting to invasive procedures like Botox and facelifts?
Ulrike talks with body researcher and expert Benita Cantieni about how CANTIENICA® Faceforming can help you stay healthy and beautiful.
By consciously working with the muscles and ligaments in her face, Benita has managed to feel so comfortable that facial wrinkles no longer bother her. They are a natural part of facial expressions and the way we show joy and anger, our expert explains.
Ulrike and Benita will show you exercises you can do every day, such as the “hammock exercise,” and demonstrate just how much vitality can be found in the individual muscles and bones of the face—even after menopause.
You can try out three basic exercises from Benita Cantieni right away and make them part of your routine.
Stand up straight
Align yourself over your heels, lifting off the floor. Your sit bones should point behind your heels.
Imagine that you could pull 5 cm out of your bones—and grow 5 cm.
Gently place your hands on your groin. Breathe in through your nose, and “imagine” pulling your elbows farther and farther apart.
Feel all the longitudinal structures in your body stretching, including your pelvic floor and diaphragm.
Sit Comfortably
Sit as often as possible on stools with a flat seat and no backrest, and position yourself right at the front edge, directly on your sitting bones. Ideally, your hip sockets should extend slightly beyond the backs of your knees.
Stand with your feet hip-width apart; you should be able to fit your fist between your knees, and your feet should form a V shape when viewed from above.
Draw your sacrum deeper into your body and stretch it—along with all your vertebrae—toward the crown of your head; this will make you feel 5 cm taller.
Imagine clouds under your heels and draw those clouds up through your leg. You’ll feel a chain reaction all the way up your back. Repeat this “cloud pulse” whenever you’re sitting—it also strengthens your pelvic floor.
Lie comfortably
The basic position for a perfect abdominal workout and also for a good night’s sleep. Lying on your back.
Push your heels forward, away from your body, until the backs of your knees are relaxed and resting on the mat.
Your feet should form a V shape, with enough space between your heels and knees to fit your fist. Position your chin at a right angle to your neck.
Gently place your hands on your groin. Rest your forearms on the mat.
Draw your sacrum into your body and lengthen toward the crown of your head. Gently direct your armpits forward and upward.
You know you’re doing it right when your entire abdominal wall stretches, your waist feels like it’s gotten 5 cm longer, and your lumbar vertebrae float as light as a feather.
Inhale through your nose, extending your elbows out to the sides without moving your arms. Repeat 5 to 10 times.
A feed section and comments that are to die for
1
“Dear Reader,
In January, I conducted two interviews with the well-known body researcher Benita Cantieni on my podcast “Ein gutes Gefühl.”
I’d like to tell you about her, her insights, and her practical applications, because I find Benita and her method unique in many ways. Her insights, gained from nearly 40 years of developing physical exercises for pain relief and mobility, take a different approach than conventional methods—from strength training to yoga.
Benita Cantieni is an example of persistent, creative exploration through personal experience, through which she creates something entirely new.
A skyscraper made of bones needs intermediate floors
She explains that the body follows the mind and can thus, for example, grow—instead of shrinking, as is usually the case with age. She herself has grown more than five centimeters over the decades using her method.
She describes the body, for example, as a “skyscraper made of bones that needs resilient intermediate floors.”
But how does one develop something like that? Partly with the help of visualization. She says, for example: “Imagine your feet are standing on clouds, and you’re drawing them up through your legs” or “Align all your bones perfectly, lifting them off the ground.” She speaks of “mental pulling,” “intermediate levels of the body” (which include, among others, the pelvic floor and the diaphragm), and the “cloud pulse.”
Exploring the body firsthand rather than through scientific research
I prefer to work in an evidence-based manner and conduct extensive, thorough research into studies to ground my work in scientific findings rather than in individual experiences, which are prone to error. In the case of Benita Cantieni, however, I find that the term “body researcher” fits even without scientific proof of efficacy. She uses herself as a research subject, constantly observing and sensing her body with keen attention and sensitivity, and from this she developed the Cantienica Method; among other things, she is considered a pioneer in pelvic floor research.
Not everything can be scientifically proven, and the international success of her method speaks to its powerful impact. Today, there are over 330 licensed trainers in 15 countries worldwide who teach her method.
From editor-in-chief to creator of an internationally recognized physical training program,
. Benita is also an impressive person in her own right, but that probably goes hand in hand. Today, at over 70, she is extremely vibrant, agile, beautiful, and full of life. From childhood onward, she suffered from scoliosis with persistent, painful complications. She describes it as having lived trapped in the prison of her own body until she was able to come to terms with the pain and became a body researcher. Today—contrary to all medical prognoses—she is completely healthy and significantly taller.
From the 1970s through the 2000s, she served as editor-in-chief of renowned magazines such as Vogue, Annabelle, and Shape, as well as chief reporter for the Swiss daily newspaper Blick.
A quote I’ve been reflecting on and taking to heart: “Posture is half the beauty”
In her books, Benita Cantieni combines flexibility, suppleness, and strength with beauty, and her many publications are all highly recommended.
“I wish you mental and physical agility.”
Your Ulrike
Ulrike Scheuermann, M.A. in Psychology
Hildegardstraße 31, 10715 Berlin
www.ulrike-scheuermann.de
2
“Dear Benita
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the themed podcast on my favorite topic. Of course, I was absolutely thrilled! The format is truly brilliant. I’ve already listened to it a few times while peeling carrots, but there will be plenty more times when my hands are free for a bath towel and my mind is fully present. “There’s no tipping when you’re centered” is my new mantra. Thank you for repeating this for me, for us, and for your clarity and patience.
Since that wonderful weekend at your place, my “problem area” has changed… My left pelvis (which was hurting) isn’t bothering me anymore; now I often feel ligaments tightening quite intensely across the right rear part of my pelvis. The “pain” is moving higher up—to the lumbar vertebrae, the thoracic spine… But for me, it’s now a noticeable process of changes moving upward. That vague cracking sensation and the constant pain have become less frequent. Now I feel that when it does crack occasionally, it’s a gentle reminder to lift my sacrum or adjust my sitting bones a bit more… I realize, though, that this transition requires regular sessions using your method! I’m looking forward to getting to know the “fire pit” as well. It’s good for my body and my entire system! I’m slowly starting to figure some things out. I remember telling you back in 2015 that the training was making me feel more balanced. I “came” from a place where I couldn’t feel a thing in my body. Now I know that it regulates my entire nervous system and that this sense of presence is so valuable to me. Feeling my body again and opening up feels good. But I also realize that it’s not just about posture.
I’m also very grateful to you for the interview with Ulrike. My participants found it very engaging and inspiring as well. I’m already looking forward to the second part. This is the first time (as far as I know) you’ve addressed trauma, so I’m looking forward to more. I have a feeling that a lot is coming up within the group—I don’t think it’s just my own bubble. Thank you for that.
I just read the newsletter from the new CANTIENICA®-Daheim. I’m really happy for you all, and I get the feeling that there’s a breath of fresh air—and that many new people are learning about the method and can benefit from it.
I wish you continued energy and joy as you embark on this new beginning, and confidence that everything will turn out well. I’m sure it’s not easy to let go of your studio, but I hope it will bring you some relief one day.
“All my love and warm regards”
Barbara Schenk, CANTIENICA® Platinum Trainer
www.barbaraschenk.ch
3
“Dear Benita,
In response to my “food for thought,” a highly esteemed colleague of mine and former participant in my Logosynthesis training, Anne Lohmann, mentioned you and our podcast in her newsletter and recommended the episodes featuring you; see below.
She has a very large mailing list and many attentive readers.
I wanted to let you know this, and I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear it.
Here are also some thoughts about you from Anne Lohmann, which she wrote to me:
“I took the time over the weekend to listen to both podcasts. And your conversations are sooo inspiring. Awesome. It just makes you want to get started right away😉!
One aspect that interests me is the term “empirical body researcher,” which Benita Cantieni uses to describe herself. I find it valuable that this path to gaining insight—including through your podcast—is recognized, as it were, as a side note—especially in our time, when society is often unwilling to accept the individual’s experience, search, and struggle as a serious alternative to mainstream forms of research.
I was wondering if I’m something like an “empirical nutrition researcher” 😉!
In any case, it really challenges our usual way of thinking when someone says: “Breathe diagonally between your lips and the back of your head” or “Expand your skull through your breath”—especially since the breath doesn’t actually cause any immediate movement in the skull (unlike, for example, in the torso). So we don’t actually “breathe” there; rather, we “imagine” breathing there, using the breath merely as an aid.
And the fact that THIS works—that is, that simply imagining something can, for example, “set our cheekbones in motion” or “expand our skull”—is a giant leap forward compared to traditional views of the functions of the body and the mind.
So if THAT is possible, then a lot of other things are possible, too. Then we can and should take the power of our minds much more seriously than we have so far. And given the physical and mental state of many people, as well as the state of the Earth, I consider it absolutely essential—even life-changing or life-saving—that we do so.”
