What's Up With These Changes?

photo - http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-effects/silhouettes

They don't stick.
Or, do they?
The significant ones do stick.

So you do an Awareness Through Movement (ATM) lesson and most of the tiny changes you notice in the way your body is lying on the mat have disappeared from the day before, so what's the point? Here's the deal: the exercise of noticing these little changes is really about growing our ability to tune in and be connected to the physical body. It's how we learn, but it's also how we can learn to move through pain, trauma and limitation.

This apparent paradox is not to be resolved. Some changes don't last. Some changes do last. It's to be accepted. It's the changes that affect more than your contact with the mat on the floor that usually stick. It's the changes in how you move, how you are organized that stick. It's such a fundamental shift that it changes how we relate to everything we do. How quickly we are able to absorb these changes depends on our ability to tolerate things unknown,* and our openness to new learning.

Yesterday, I was delighted to work with some new recordings that I am unfamiliar with. In contrast to regular exercise, what's fun is the adventure of not knowing what's coming. This is an especially useful aspect of ATM because it gives access to beginners mind, the ability to sense one's own body from the point of view of someone who has never had a body before. It's kind of like experiencing yourself for the first time with the newness of the newborn babe.

Anyway, based on my history of seven or more whiplash injuries to my neck, compromised by too much time learning dysfunctional software on the computer (Who comprehends what goes on in the minds of programmers?!? - but thank you anyway - lest I be deemed ungrateful for some of the things computers can do!) - I meet the mat in a certain way. I find my silhouette bears the traces of a lifetime of proclivities. It's a certain expression of who I am in the same way that my thumbprint is unique to me alone.

It changes a bit from day to day, but not in huge ways. Depending on the season, for example, when there is more gardening or digging to do in the early spring my body manifests a slightly different shape than when I spend a lot of time raking leaves in fall, because it's an activity that makes for using oneself in a different way. Or, if I have been on a road trip and sitting on a motorcycle for six hours for days on end, I notice a completely different set of small changes. It's a miracle I am forever grateful for that I can do any of these things given my history of injuries. Feldenkrais, you rock! (An aside to Moshe, wherever you are.)

So, to get on with my tale, I was doing a very interesting ATM with the pelvis that woke up the residue of an incident I had on horseback a couple of years ago. It's not something that bothers me much, but it's like a residual reminder of what was going on at that time. Like all injuries, I figure it was a wake up call. Question is, a what was it saying? I believe the issue will be completely resolved when I completely get the message. In this case, it has to do with traveling through time back home to where I grew up, and letting go of ways I relate to that that no longer serve me. But that is a different story, for another time.

As I moved my body according to the request in the ATM, trying to sense what other parts of me moved along with the focus on the pelvis, I went through a myriad of emotional states: I was alternately puzzled, curious, bored, tense, relaxed, overcome by huge, global yawns, and gradually more global in my movements. In other words, although the lesson appeared to focus on one specific area, it was a means to an end (as any ATM is). In this case, it was a way of using a local movement in the butt cheeks to awaken a more global neurological response: moving FROM the pelvis. The lesson was about tuning into, refining, improving how that affects the way the legs meet the hip sockets, how the knees accommodate that, how it affects the way the feet meet the floor. It was also about how the back responds to mobility (or lack thereof) in the pelvis, how the shoulders respond, and ultimately, always ultimately how the carriage of the head is achieved over the torso in any upright position or motion. Not only was it about all that, but my body got it without my brain having to understand it at the time; kind of like being able to get to your destination by following the directions without really knowing where you are going.

Hence, the answer to that question about changes. After I got up off the mat and walked up the hill to feed my small heard of two horses, I felt as if I was sashaying on the dance floor of civil war-era Charleston in a huge dress with flouncing petticoats - even though I was actually working my way up a dusty red hill covered with fist-sized rocks that try to trip you up every couple of feet. (We are rock farmers here in the Sierra Foothills; not unlike Wales, Ireland, or canton Graubuenden in Switzerland).

This morning I woke up to sashay up the hill again. Horses like to be fed regular and promptly, thank you! Those changes were still with me. I waltzed up the hill with a sense of gratitude for a new, amazing day in which I get to feel younger than I have any right to feel - if the pundits were allowed to have their way with me. But who cares about the opinions of 'experts' anyway? If I left the care of my body to others, I would most likely be on painkillers and living a pretty sedentary life, limited by the fear instilled in me by those who tell me what not to do, or that it's to be expected 'at my age,' instead of how to find solutions that allow me to dance, sing, run and ride (most importantly ride!) with a power born not of muscular strength alone, but of something much more primal, and fundamental to learning: the ability to notice small changes. Some stick, some don't, but the ones that do, watch out, 'cause they completely change the way I relate to the world and to life and to being in a body. The feeling of youth may be wasted on the young, but I ain't gonna let it slide again! I did miss the boat the first time around (long story), but, believe me, it won't happen again. This time we are gonna relish the ride with gusto...

* This is why the FELDENKRAIS Method is such a huge leap for humanity: it can provide a catalyst for tolerance that is powerful enough to completely change how we relate to others, so that we learn to tolerate diversity, all things foreign, even points of view we disagree with. It has the potential to further 'humans judging' into actual 'humans being' in peace with themselves and others.

A Touch That Releases Fear

Wisconsin and me July 2010...touch as a form of communication that provides the freedom to move in unison: in cooperation.








I had never been touched that way before. I left that room in awe that there was a way to have an interaction including touch that had no expectations, no strings, no manipulation attached.

When I came in, he asked me how I was doing. I said I was tired and my back hurt from the labors of the day. I had been doing the mucking out of fifteen stalls a day for about a year and it was getting to the right side of my low back. In the horse world, where I worked as a groom/secretary/stall help, I was basically expected to work all hours in exchange for five lessons on horseback a week. The lessons could have been awesome, except for the sarcasm, and the impatient yelling of the trainer, who really didn't want to be bothered. But I was young, and I wanted to learn more than anything, so I subjected myself willingly and it was starting to tell on my body. It was talking and it was saying it didn't appreciate the abuse.

I lay on a low, wide table. In contrast to the hectic schedule at the barn it was exceedingly calm in this large studio with undertones of zen Japanese design; panels of rice paper and beautiful calligraphy decorated the walls. I had spent the day, as usual, first feeding 40 brood mares, doing stalls, getting one young horse after another ready, tacked up and shining for her ladyship while she trained the horse I had just provided for her to mount, followed by a few more hours of paperwork related to sales of horses worth more than I had ever made in a year, a lesson and evening feeding...It was all a bit much after a while.

But I was told this practitioner person could help me with my back pain and so I showed up for myself, game to try something new, something I had never heard about a few months before, something not mainstream: the Feldenkrais Method. This man touched me ever so gently in ways that informed me of my own tension and the muscles of my shoulder seemed to relax of their own volition. I hadn't realized I held myself so stiffly there. But what amazed me most was the touch of a man that did not demand a response. There was not call for me to do anything, and I was used to having the touch of a man be a call to action, to sexuality or to submission.

In my own family, my father was ill-at-ease with any kind of intimacy, especially touch. He did not even meet my eyes when he spoke to me for the first decade or two of my life. I never knew what that was about, I thought there was something wrong with me, but I think he was just not a social person, he lived in another world, the world of theoretical numbers and theorems. My mother was affectionate, when she was not drunk, but when she was drunk she sheared my sense of confidence away from me with snide insinuation and sarcasm, often related to things I did not understand at the time, or had no experience of. Again, I thought it was me. And from her I learned that men are to be disdained and manipulated and used. I did realize that it made no sense in the grand scheme of things, yet, it was the only power she bequeathed to me, after she stripped me of all self-esteem...

So, this person, this practitioner of this strange method that no one I knew had heard of, save a small group of enthusiastic horse people who were interested in working with horses that have behavioral issues, he touched me with with a quality of presence that I had never experienced before. He touched me with a sense of intention that was about the release of pressure, rather that the building of it. He made me wonder what I had been missing all these years. Was there, in fact, another way to be - one that did not include hyper-vigilance? I was not even aware that I had been constantly watching my back in case I did something wrong in the eyes of the people in charge of my survival...I had no clue that I was a bundle of tension I had no sense of carrying. Over a couple of weeks, I found that I was releasing a whole new supply of energy to live that had previously been tied up in living defensively, an unconscious habit that my body was beginning to rebel against with back pain. It was telling me that something had to give and if it wasn't going to be me taking better care of myself and my own need for rest, it would be my back. It was pretty loud and clear.

A few months prior to this I had had my first experience of what the Feldenkrais Method could do for a horse. In a public presentation, a woman named Linda Tellington-Jones brought out a large Hanovarian stallion, dark in color, high of head and pushy and unsettled in front of the arena full of an audience of thirty or so. Using nothing but her intention, her hands and her expectation, which she conveyed to this animal clearly, through the lightest of touches and the projection that he could do this thing that she asked of him, he began to settle. His head came down and his eye became soft - in a matter of 20 minutes of less. Having handled stallions of varying degrees of training, I knew how precarious it could be to work with them firsthand. I was impressed. This animal, who had come into the arena irate and irritable, disrespectful and full of intimidation tactics, was dramatically different. He was calm, relaxed and there was a light of understanding in his eye, a new intelligence: a presence.

Later, in asking more about her work, I discovered that it was based on Feldenkrais. That's why I went off to experience it myself when my back began to give out again. I have always been more interested in the source than the derivatives, so I went to discover what it was all about for myself. Yet, I got more than I bargained for. I was, in those first moments of being touched with that level of respect for the innate knowing of my own body to come up with it's own solutions to my pain, struck by the power of pure presence, and the gift of being shown how much was possible for me. I was given a new lease on life, in essence a new-found hope that I could live in a body that was relaxed and comfortable enough to be straightforward and direct without fear of recrimination. What would it be like to live without fear, in a body without constant apprehensive tension? It was a revelation; a revelation for what is possible for me, but also for what is possible in relationship between women and men: a world where respect and mutual support generates fertile ground for love, creativity and a kind of interaction that is rich in subtlety, delightful in it's depth and color. This is true freedom for all.

Oh, and, by the way, did my back pain go away? You bet. But that was just icing by comparison!

Many thanks to Ezra Marrow of www.equuselemental.com for his help with Wisconsin!

From Debt to Back Pain

Its like jumping from the frying pan into the fire. After months of seeing your income drop, your tension level sores. But it happens so gradually, you don't notice. One day you wake up and realize you are obsessed with your finances and next thing you know, your back hurts, you can't sit or walk properly and now you not only have no money, you have no money to do anything about your back. If this has happened to you, you know the state of helplessness and hopelessness you are left with. At this point, you need help and you need it fast. You need to turn it around in a way that is cheap, effective and immediate. How else are you going to get back on your feet again, both literally and financially?

The somatic connection between money and back pain is becoming more and more self-evident. What is the somatic connection? There is no line between mind and body, no separation. Whatever affects your mind and emotions in a profoundly adverse way will have a related effect in your body. In this case the fear translates to tension because the nervous system can't tell the difference between no money and any other potentially life-threatening experience. It goes into high arousal to be ready to protect you from danger. Breathing becomes shallow, heart rate rises, stress hormones are continuously released, especially if the situation remains, or worse yet, increases over time. However, do not despair. You can make a difference in how you feel, and you can do it yourself. You can learn to effect change in the state of your own nervous system. You can do it through the mind, or through the body. For the best results, you consider the possibility of working with both. Each is simply a doorway into a new way of responding. Think of it as working with your whole self, just entering the engagement from different places.

In Europe they use the phrase 'overindebtedness.' How much debt can one person hold before they are completely overextended? It's an individual thing. But when you are in debt or simply don't have enough money to pay the bills, it feels like being stuck in a steel trap. The muscles respond to the nervous system's signals to tense up because that is how any animal gets ready deal with an emergency: fight or flight. In fact, we become more like animals than ever when threatened because all that hormonal response tends to override normal common sense. We stop thinking and start functioning from the lower brain stem which is governed by instinctual response or by reactivity rather than conscious thought.

Herein lies the first key to dismantling the discomfort. Stop the pattern and you intervene in the pain. Conscious thought is a tool, like an opposing digit, you can pick up something new and run with it. Cat's cant do that, nor can any other animal without thumbs. Using your ability to be aware of your own movement, you can train yourself to preempt the pain pattern.

The fear feels like a steel trap because that is literally what your body turns into after long periods of that kind of stress. The stress response diminishes breathing because the instinctive response to fear is to hold still so that the physical location of the danger can be ascertained. So, now you're not breathing, your brain isn't getting as much oxygen, and the muscles of your entire torso are pretty much frozen in readiness to spring, just in case. The only problem is, a huge athletic response is not indicated as a solution to financial woes, unless perhaps you're a race horse. The result of this, over time, is that you begin to hurt because you are only moving in a few places, or only moving in the places you absolutely have to move to get around. Meanwhile, you haven't noticed anything about the deterioration in your own mobility. That, at this point, would seem to be the least of your worries.

Ah, but that's the lie. When you don't know what to do, just do something. Anything, first of all, shift your energy, shift your state of mind. How? Sing, call somebody, watch a movie, go for a walk. Do whatever it takes to move into a better-feeling state mentally. That's the first thing. Once you have gotten out of being frozen in fear, move into discovering the vast array of ways that you can deeply relax. It takes intention. Most people confuse relaxation with distraction. What you need is a profound shake up of your neurological state: you need the kind of rest that is deeper than sleep, so that the body can shift out of survival mode and make up for lost time. That level of stress creates a backlog of hormones, and physiological responses to deal with and only a deeply relaxing state can begin to repair the damage. The good news is that the repair happens at all levels simultaneously. That is the magnifigance of being a whole being, not just a mind or a muscle.

To access this kind of shift, the Feldenkrais Method of Awareness Through Movement can teach you everything you need to know. You can do it at home and you can, in many cases, do it for free what with all the resources online. It involves slow gentle movement while paying attention to different parts of yourself, simultaneously improving comfort, cognition and functionality. You may even find you start handling your finances more efficiently - because you are working with your whole self. But don't take my word for it. Try it. And remember, like anything else, you will get out of it, what you put into it. It helps if you approach it like a good novel. Suspend disbelief, at least until you have read through three or four chapters. You never know how much fulfillment you may find.

For a safe, gentle, free Feldenkrais lesson online that is appropriate for back pain, check out the breathing lesson on my website: www.focusmindandbody.com

'The increasing number of over-indebted private households in industrialized countries and the importance of back pain for a countries economy and health care system, gave us reason to believe that a preventive approach to the "public health problem" back pain related to over-indebtedness is imminent. It may be found in socioeconomic, legal and political changes.'
- explorative study of the prevalence of back pain in over-indebted persons in Germany, abstract on BMC Public Health 2009.

You can wait for society to change, or the economy, or, you can do what you can for yourself, NOW!