Friday, September 30, 2011

loving the X, loving yourself

In divorce,
each person almost always feels cheated
of a dream.

And the dream was to be really loved,
loved on their good days
and loved on their bad days.

The trick is,
it's hard to love people on their bad days,
and so that's probably what the divorce is about:
more bad days than good days.

Not enough love.
Not enough appreciation
Not enough fun.

And all that was probably true,
and then the divorcee is all alone
and wishing they'd been treated better.

Oh, well.

Here's a couple of interesting shifts on all that:

One, the past is passed. Gone. Over.
The X is never going to whisk you
back in time
and act perfect the way you wish they'd been.

Two,
they are over whatever place they are
wishing you'd given more love.

Three,
getting someone new
aka "moving along"
while a good aspirin for the pain,
since sex always makes us feel better
about life,
and helps us pretend that
"now we are really loved:,
but "moving along"
without having
"done the work"
is the path to a life of no growth
in our ability to love.

Because this is what we have to do with
the X'
sooner or later:
Love them for their inability to love us enough.

The work of Byron Katie
is the quickest and easiest way to get there.

And just for starters realize this:
if they could have loved more,
they would have.
It's fun to love.
Inability to love is painful.
Their inability to love more is
their pain.
Hope that they get over that pain.

And second, realize: hey,
if I can't love myself every second of
every day,
how could have they.

So, that's the start:
realize they were in pain.

Two, realize you're in pain,
since you don't know how to be a full
time unconditional lover of yourself.

And then, "move on."

Not necessarily to another person,
but the a world brightly aglow
because you are in love with every moment.

Good.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Learning as Transformation vs "Learning" as Dog Training

piglets fooled/ trained to think they are tiger babies, and same with Mom having a tricked perception
I suspect problems down the road if this is in the wild.
How about you?

Dog training really sounds insulting
doesn't it?

Oh, well.

A huge portion of what passes as
healing
helping
even "transformational" work,
is merely this:

helping us go from low grade automatic (i.e. low functioning robot)
to high grade automatic

Untrained dog
to house trained,
or rolling over and sitting on command

Or:

Like saying thank you, when presented something
rather than grunting,
a nice shift from low to high grade robot

A definite improvement as for keeping the herd
moving affably,

but to actually sense the object being given
and know one is breathing
and look into the eyes of the giver
and say, "thanks" is that's what's really felt,
or "what a surprise," if that's true,
or "how come this for me now" if that's what's up,
or even, Golly forbid
"No thanks," if that's the present truth
about the presented present in this present moment,

this is to be awake and alive
instead of well trained

same with the "lessons" we present in the Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel world

the reason I find Anat so valuable is that she
doesn't let people forget for a day,
that the lessons are about the client
learning something,
not being given something to do,
but learning,
and that learning is based on the increased perception
of differences

and that if this happens,
the system/ person is a new person
new brain
upgraded for their whole self,
even if the "presenting issue"
isn't fixed yet,

the person is a person with more options,
more awareness,
more connections
and a sense of themselves as a more potent
and amazing being

the amazement
is in discovering all the new possibilities,
including many that don't come up in "lessons."

Wow, sounds like good old fashioned
"learning how to learn,"
but it's not an abstract idea,
it's the brain really have millions of new neurological pathways
at it's disposal
so the person leaving the lesson
isn't the same one who came in

So there

Ciao
for NOW,
Chris

Monday, September 26, 2011

Training or Learning// Why parents need to take the lessons

Parents don't need to take the lessons
with every practitioner,
and I'm going to start requiring at least one
full lesson each month
from parents who want deep and amazing changes in
their children.

Why?

1. To feel in their bones and nervous system how
Small
Slow
Aware
Directed/ connected
Discovery movement

can feel so good
and make such a huge difference.

2. To know when they watch their children's lessons that
this is happening.

3. To resist the temptation to move their children
in too big and too strong of movements in an
attempt to "help" at home

4. To get the "soul" benefit from their children being on
the journey they are.
This sort of ease and transformation is something very
few people get to experience and the stress and demands
of parenting are high enough, even with special needs children.
So, it's like the air / oxygen in the airlines.
When in stress, the parent is supposed to take the oxygen first.
Then they can be of real use.

5. To realize over and over and over
that this isn't about "fixing" the child,
it's about learning,
and that we all can learn,
and the perception of differences is how we
learn,
and to feel this
and experience this in their bodies
how this work is about:
"making the impossible possible,
the possible easy,
and the easy pleasant."

Good.

And getting Anat's back or shoulder or scoliosis DVDs and doing the group
lessons at home is an added treated:
for yourself
and for your improved way of understanding,
touching
and enjoying
your special, special, wonderful child.

Happy Monday.

Friday, September 23, 2011

Relationships and Mindfulness

As I write this,
and as you read this,
we are either mindful
or not.

Aware can be all sorts of things,
but it seems to need to be at least in part
grounded in the physical reality,
like our breathing, or our arms and legs,
or light coming in our eyes right now.

The good old here and now.

and if we aren't mindful,
then we are on some sort of automatic,
which even Thich Nhat Hahn admitted was hard when writing.

And he's not in relationship.

So, we meet someone.
And they are groovy
and they think we are groovy
and sex is good
and we like a bunch of things in common,
so whoopie,
life is solved.

Feels like that for awhile,
except that once we start to spend enough time
together,
someone is going to fall away from the "perfect" projection
and fall back into normal jerky selfish scared angry whatever.

You know, the stuff happens.

So one person has stress and reacts,
and then the options are:

one or both people realize things are off and become mindful

neither become mindful which means you
by definition
are on automatic (which sounds nicer than mindless,
but that is the opposite of mindful isn't it)

Anyway two people on automatic have to fall
back on what their parents taught mainly
and then any other training
or habits they've developed/ gotten away with
over the years

So we have the couple:
stress
people fallen into not so great patterns
and various automatic responses.

Which means: if you and your partner had perfect unconditionally loving
parents,
who dealt with stress with love and listening and humor,
then you can fall back on some pretty high grade
automatic behavior

without such parents,
things more or less have to disintegrate

or the couple has to get more and more busy
and distant
and businesslike
to stay out of the trouble zone

or the "trouble" can be held inside
and gnashed away at as
it eats somebody's guts out
(and chances are the inner gnashing
if used by one or both,
was a pattern they picked up)

So:
without the mindfulness
to feel what we are feeling
as in us
and the mindfulness to stay
present to the other
and to our words as we "deal"
with a situation,
we are bound to either avoid
or conflict

and what to do about all this?

one is to agree,
in calmer moments,
what the default agreed upon
pattern will be when conflict happens:

say, doing the work of Byron Katie

or listening to each other without interruption
of five minutes at a time

or stopping the talk and touching for awhile

or arguing in gibberish

or non violent communication

or taking a walk and calming down

or writing up gratitude lists

or prefacing each statement with:
I know anything that bothers you
is in me too

or.


well, the world is full of things to do besides the usual painful ones

it's kind of amazing
we take so little advantage of them

oh, well.

See: My Joy of Divorce website, five month course page
if you are by chance interested in a group from yourself
or your friends that could lead out of a LOT of suffering

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

The Joy of Divorce, the Novel, first scene: Ping Pong balls

HAPPY ANGER

Ping pong balls

Jennifer is in a rage, that bastard, how dare he? And she’s a little bit joyous, too, how can you not be when six other divorcees are all hurling ping pong balls at photographs of their X, making all sorts of ridiculous grunts along the way, all the while Joey’s voice so cheerfully urging them along.

“Feel za anga, yah,” he almost sings, pretending embellishing clearly enjoying some ridiculous accent. “And feel za breathing, too, yah. You breathe, you anga, you throw the balls. Gut. Make zos grunts bigga. Big noise. Angry noise. A little bit happy, too noise. So fun to throw ball and grunt. Yah! Grunt ze ‘ Yah, yah’ as the throw.”

They grunt the yah, yah, and Jennifer loves this stupid stuff. It feels so good to move. And stop worrying. And stop torturing herself, ‘What went wrong?’ She throws, grunts, “Yah, yah.”

“Gut, gut,” continues crazy wise Joey, “ feel za spine, feel za weight shift, one foot to other. Yah. Feel za breathe. Breathe more. Feel good and gut and yah to za breathe in you. Feel za arm move and let ze throw be soft and anga and delicious all at once.

“Now stop please, pause, stand still, close zee eyes, feel za you inside of you. Feel za ‘I am alive’ on you.

“Feel za you, yah. No name. Just the you experiencing za you, just now. Only now. Now now wow. Feel za two feet and two legs and two arms and how ze body thing all held together. How does that miracle body puzzle you given for a while all fit together?

“Feel feet on za floor, good floor, nice floor, hold you up. Feel za floor holding up feet, feel za feet holding up legs, feel za legs hold up pelvis. Breathe. Breathe down near to pelvis. Ah, gut. Send love up feet legs pelvis and then spine, love up spine, feel pelvis hold up spine, spine hold up head, brain in there. Good brain.

“Awareness in there, or maybe not. Where is aware? Don’t know. Don’t matter. Feel za awareness of feet legs pelvis spine head and spine hold ribs and ribs hold arms and breathing inside ribs, some and down by pelvis some.

“Breathe. Good feel, yah. Feel the in. Feel the out. No need to take care of breathe. Breathe take care of us. And heart, feel if can, it pump. Pump, pump, heart always pump, always love you, always send oxygen all over to your feet and legs and pelvis and spine and ribs and lungs and stomach and liver and brain and tongue.

“Good heart. It loves you. Can you love your heart for taking care of you? Love your feet to hold you up? Love za legs to hold you up? Love za everything to be alive for you now?

“Now. Feel za now of heart, breathe, legs, arms ribs, spine head lungs pelvis. Feel more. Sense the all of you.

“This is gut, no? Yah, this is gut.

“Now open eyes. Look around room. See other people in same room. See them breathe. See their feet holding up their legs holding up their pelvis holding up their spine holding up their heads. Other people alive. See them alive. Feel you alive. Feel the same now you all in. Gut? Yah, feel za gut to be alive just now, wow, all together here. Look at them, see them, see them seeing you, forget a little who is who watching whom in this room, zoom, zoom, zoom.

“Breathe. They breathe. You breathe. Sense your breathe. Notice or imagine their breathe. All alive.

“Gut.

“ Now look at picture of X. Sense feet and look at picture. Feet real, now, picture two dimensions. A story not now. Feel legs and pelvis and spine. And feet. Sense the real. Look for anger in you when look at picture.

“Realize big dumb joke. Picture not sending anga to you. Anga in there, but when sense feet arms spine legs breathing, not so big the anga, is it?

“Sense the little anga, and if not any imagine a tiny bit, and throw za balls again. Throw slow. And feel each throw as delicious movement. Feel the feet and spines and rotation and weight shift and fingers on ball and then letting go. Feel delicious to be you and to be move and feel tiny bit anga, and feel alive.

“This is you, now alive. Feel za miracle of two legger creature throw ball. Feel joy to throw. Watch ball in air. Hear sound when it hits. Love za breathe as you throw. Love za you with za anga and za pleasure of za throw.

“Be happy big, and anga a small part of the big you. Throw za pinger ponger and say, ‘Thank you, God,’ or ‘Thank you, Universe,’ or ‘Thank you, Life’ each throw you go.

“Have fun in this now, now, now. Breathe. Feel all the little parts of the spine, the vertebrae changing and moving as you throw. Feel fingers. Feel toes. Love to be alive.`

“Sing out, thanks, Thanks. Thanks!”


Jennifer, tears streaming down her face, a smile so wide in hurts her jaw, the glorious sensuality of her body as she moves, throws these ping pong balls of anger, ping pong balls of love, ping pong balls of waking back to the magnificence of Jennifer.

And what is that?

She doesn’t know yet and can’t wait to keep discovering, recovering, singing and moving. “Thank you, sweet Life,” she sings forth, “Thank you, thank you, thank you, indeed.”

Sweet life. Alive life. Sweet life, indeed.

Monday, September 19, 2011

Babies love to learn, help them along



I had a nice talk with a parent on the phone
the other day.

Her daughter does not yet use
much language.

I suggested that she could have a lot of fun
and be of huge use to her child
by playing with differences in the world of sound.

It could be differences
in pitch,
going eeeeee in a high pitch
and eeeee in a low pitch.

It could be differences in long and short:

laaaaaaaaa and la
la and laaaaaaaaaa

It could be differences in sound
ma ma ma ma
ba ba ba ba

It could be differences in fast
and slow
ma////////////////ma//////////////////ma////////////////////ma
and ma ma ma ma

All sort of combinations
could be invented and played with
ba ba baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ba ba
ma ma maaaaaaaaaaaaaaa ma ma
and the ba and ma could be different pitch

When the child hears the difference and begins to play
with them
she is learning the basis of language.

"The dog is in the house" can
wait,
first play with da da da n nnnn nn n nnnn hoooooooooo
huuuuuuuuuuuuu haaaaaaaaaaaa heeeeeeeeeee
ssssssssssssssssss snake salad slippery and so on

the "dog in the house" will come


It's like how I explain our system is so different that the rest
by talking about crawling.

Take a child who doesn't crawl
and do
accupuncture
energy work
spinal adjustment
stretching
and you'll get no results, and probably a lot of
discomfort in most of these,
since babies aren't masochists yet

Take a child who can't crawl
and show her connections of pelvis to shoulder
and to knee and to ribs and to head
little soft
showing of connections

and you've given information
and information
which is the learning of differences
that make a difference
is what the nervous system
lives for

it's called learning

it's great

go out and have a learning day


ciao
Chris

Friday, September 16, 2011

The Happiness option

You know and
I know
we can at any moment
"chose happiness."

And it's a bunch of fun to let happiness
emerge as
"Who we really are,"
not by "trying" to be happy,
nor by the Pursuit of Happiness,
famous words we've heard someone,
and a sucker's game for a consumerist society, really,

nah, just happy because we run out of
steam in our games that avoid happiness

Like the
"You are wrong game."

play that and be happy.
lots of luck eh.

righteousness feels so good for the first half
second
and then, whether we know it our not,
it's just disguised hatred,
and that poison plays away inside

oh, no,
does that mean we can't be right and happy
at the same time?

No. we can be right about the bird we
see
the sky we watch
the breath we follow
even be right about the yukky sensations we
feel when righteous

but right that another is wrong,
or even better,
right that another should be different
because they could be "factually wrong,"
or behaviorally challenged (always according
to our rules and expectations of how we want
to be treated like kings and queens, and they somehow
just don't
"get it")
and how far do we get being right that they are wrong about
how they proceed in the world

ah, this is either obvious or
not

doesn't matter

I've discovered that the Work of Byron Katie
can greatly be assisted by switching positions:

sit here and believe the story is true
sit here and think it's an opinion
(this is Questions 1 and 2 in a way)

sit here and look at the other person knowing with
sweet righteous conviction: They should be different

How do you react in that seat.

Move to the "my thought is an opinion" chair.
look at them without the thought, empty mind,
just see the present reality
and
ta da...
what's left
who are you?

happiness is probably part of what's left
when the not you of judging falls away

don't believe this
or preach this

try it out

or not

your business
your life
your happiness

nourish your happiness and it will nourish you
and those around
you
and the Earth

be of good Cheer
on this muggy in Austin friday
with Austin City Limits music blasting to me
from several miles away,

good
Chris

Loving What is

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Anger with variation

As I've mentioned I believe
I've realized that this mindfulness + variation thing
which is to say
creating options THAT YOU KNOW ABOUT
which is to say
GIVING OURSELVES FREEDOM
is
what transformation is about up and down the line.

Let's take anger.

We can feel the anger in our body.
Then stand and feel the anger in our body.
then shift foot to foot and sense the anger as a smaller part of a bigger body.
Then we can skip and try to start angry

We can babble the words that we are angry about,
especially useful if we turn it into a should and shouldn't statement.

And then babble them sit to the left,
sitting to the right
sitting to the left with a British accent
sitting to the right with another accent

babble them at half speed
half volume
double speed
double volume

say them while standing on one foot
hopping

and then there's the whole Work of Byron Katie game,
that we can play with the should and the shouldn't

and if we are movers of attention and deepeners of awareness
as in Feldenkrais or Anat Baniel people,
we can start some simple complexity
like head one way,
eyes the other,
ribs the same as eyes,
babbling the anger while we rotate head to the left
babble life is wonderful while we rotate head to the right

babble anger on the outbreath
gratitude on the in breath
reverse those two

and this is just beginning

anyone getting the idea of how much fun
this would be
and how hard it might be to stay committed
to the suffering that anger likes
us to get stuck in?

Good
Chris

Monday, September 12, 2011

Shorty but goody, for special needs parents, and....all of us



This is going to be short.

Find anything
your child is learning,
or enjoys
or does well
or does slightly better than betfor
or is happy about

and be enthusiastic about that

And realize what a miracle a human
body is
and
get enthusiastic about taking lessons yourself.

You know all the reasons.

And if you only know the tiniest smallest littlest
reason,
get enthusiastic about that.

Good.

Sunday, September 11, 2011

The Joy of 9/11



By the time you finish this little ramble
at least 3000 people will have died on this
beautiful planet from idiotic reasons:

Car crashes,
stupid wars,
starvation because the rich stole the food that was supposed to go to the poor
starvation because the world bank shoved the country into monoculture and the people forgot or weren't allowed to grow their own food
drugs that doctors gave doing the person in
lover's quarrels where the gun is the answer
drug war idiocy

and so on

This human race does dumb things
with its big brain
that gets used to make weapons
and to justify the most common human
fallacy:
The Me Right, You wrong fallacy

And throughout today,
many will be busy saying
the terrorists were wrong
or that George Bush was wrong
or that the whole economic mess of the country is wrong

and you know what:
everyone who wants to be right,
is
and yet,
are they happy?

So let's dance around and wonder:
are we terrorizing ourselves with the idea
that 9/11 shouldn't have happened

are we terrorizing ourselves with the wish
that in this country at least
crazy men with the idea that they can solve
anything by killing a bunch of people all at
once ( Hiroshima anyone? firebombing of Dresden and Tokyo)
should happen

people want to be right
the most idiotic form of this is to go
out and figure that you are so right
you get to kill off a bunch of the Wrong crowd

crazy

and then,
if we want to erase this idiocy
from the world
or from happening in "our" country,
who are we, but mental expungers of the
the Wrong folk
so we wipe the "bad/ dumb/ wrong THEM" out
with our judgment

me right, you wrong
ah, such sweet poison

such a common way to waste our lives

and the unfailing way to be unhappy:
You, the past, should have been different

me right, the past should have been my picture,
you, reality, the past as it was, is WRong

la, la

lots of luck

so, if you don't agree with me,
be happy,
but don't be right,
be amused, confused,
curious:

how could he possibly think that way?

what would it be like if I tried that out for awhile?

And if you can't entertain an "alien" viewpoint,
why get so mad at the terrorists,
who clearly lacked humor and the good graces
to see that not everyone agreed with them

they are just like us
with the extreme of getting to really wipe out
what they don't like
including themselves

imagine how much self hatred goes into terrorism,
forget all the hogwash about 40 virgins in heaven,
these dopes all knew they were going to die,
and that they were destroying themselves

nothing but good old lack of love
for self
others
and the whole big mess
can lead to such drastic acts

and then again as the ramble rumbles
down,
and the 3000 mentioned above are all
dead
and here we are still

what's that about?

it's our moment
this gol dern moment is
our life

how much love and joy
and tolerance of the "wrong" people,
and love for the "wrong" people
can we conjure up

IN THIS MOMENT,
CAUSE IT'S THE ONLY ONE

ciao
for
NOW

Chris, 9-11-2011
whoppie, here we are,
you and I
alive

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Joy of Divorce, via Slowing down the emotional roar



In a time of divorce
or separation
or breakup,
the temptations are two:

to simply lie down, pull the covers over one's head
and
"give up:

and
to add a bunch of extra activities,
learn Spanish,
take dance lessons,
keep busy every single night

Ah, yes.
Well, in a way, both are useful if they
shift us out of the rut
we were in,
AND they are only useful
to our true discovery of ourselves
and our inner transformation,
IF
we take part in them as mindful actions.

So, if we go dancing:
pay attention to all the movements, thoughts and feelings
while showering and dressing to go
while getting in and driving the car
or getting on and riding the bike
while waiting for someone to dance with
while getting instructions
while either "getting" the instructions, as in knowing what to do, or not

In other words,
if we are desperate for approval,
and that's what our relationship seemed
to be satisfying,
and wasn't really,
and then we go off to dance,
and are desperate for approval there,
even if we find someone who seems to be the one
who will give that approval

it won't work

unless we are content within and
able to give ourselves approval up and down the line,
good days and bad,
in sickness and in health
in poverty and in wealth
in good mood and bad

then we aren't ready to pretend that someone
else is going to do that for us

they aren't

So, maybe only do one or two new things.
And take them as experiments to be mindful
the entire time.
And don't try to meet anyone.
And watch, and be lovingly humorous about
our wish, need, demand, craving for outside attention
and
approval
and
affection
and
"love"

Why don't we take this breakdown time
and a breather
a breathe in
and breathe out
time,
time to discover who we are,
who we would be without the approval, or disapproval
of any person
or set of people

Okay, and what of the head under the covers
path.

Slow down on that, too.

Can we go to the bed, slowly, and sense our entire body.
Can we feel ourselves on the bed,
can we feel the covers,
can we sense where our arms and legs and spine are
in space
can we follow our breathing

can we get so relaxed and "into" our body on the
bed under the covers
that we can start to watch our thoughts
as a very entertaining show

and if the thoughts are coming too
fast
or are
too mean,
can we slow them down?

how.
by getting a journal and writing them down.
slowly.
carefully.

One "Should"
and one "shouldn't"
at a time.

All misery has a should or shouldn't or a should have or a shouldn't have attached.

Can we slow down, by writing, and then looking at what we have written with our
eyes and heart and brain,
and say: Oh, that's what I believe.

Soon, with the shoulds and shouldn't written down
the transformation can deepen.

But just to get away from hiding from the thoughts
behind our misery
into writing them down
and recognizing them
is to move so much closer to mindfulness
as to almost constitute,
then and there,
the new life we want for ourselves.

Good.

Wednesday, September 07, 2011

Out of the Soup, into the brain: Transforming Emotional Pain

The amazing results we get from the Feldenkrais Method
and the Anat Baniel method,
are all about going slowly, and
gently,
and in harmony with the natural functional movements
of humanity,
so that our brains get more alert and smart
and at ease moving in many new ways.

New options.

New possibilities.

And the pain becomes superfluous because the movement
and our selves becomes so interesting
and free.

Let's take a "bad feeling"
and play a little with what I'm calling the
Elixir of Transformation.

You feel bad, very sad say, as if you are all alone in the world,
no friends, or something like that.

First thing is to pause,
and not try to run away from it,
but just stick around there awhile and see
"What Is."

Then you start to gently see this feeling as a
four layer package:

The thoughts:  I'm never going to have any good friends. No one likes me.
(Whatever they are(

The emotional feeling: which is sad and abandoned, say. But it's you,
you find what it is for you, now, today.

The physical sensations. Where is this constricting you.
All "unpleasant" feelings are felt as unpleasant
because we clamp in and down on ourselves.

How and where are you doing that? Now. Today.

And the "soul" equation.
Soul knows we are all one, and that this moment is precious,
and body life isn't forever, and that life is good.

This area is a bit less clear to work with, but we can just
feel the missing, the longing in our soul, when
this feeling is where we are living.

And then,
hang out with the four layers all at once,
and experience who and how you are.

Now,
my whole process is taking each area into more and more
distinctions,
more and more differentiations,
more and more options,
so the stuck becomes not only unstuck,
but darn interesting.

Let's take the feeling realm.

One option: intensify and lessen the intensity of the feeling.
Notice these differences.

Two: think of the feelings as a child that needs care.
1) Give that child a tender feeling, by breathing gently into the pain,
as if stroking the child.

2) Feel the historical aspect of this feeling, the whole panorama of times
this has been where you've been caught.
Find an observer in you to witness this, like a kind parent,
just watching and knowing you went through all this.

3) Look around the room. Be like a parent who guides a sad child
to look at the tree leaves and the colors in the sky in addition
to the feelings.

4) Rock yourself, not to escape the feelings, but as if it's a baby,
that needs soothing motion.

5), Sing to the child

Three:
Give voice to the feelings without words. Let them sing
to you,
but with no words.

Change styles: opera, lullaby, country western, classical, anything you want

Four:
Add other feelings at the same time.

1) Sad plus gratitude

2) Sad plus curious

3) Sad plus patient

4) Sad plus happy!

really, you can do both, it's not common,
and it's freedom.

Five:
perspective:
think of happy moments in your life, and see them from your sadness

think of happy moments in your life and see the sadness from your happy moments

Six:
Get lost in the present,
leave the words out,
leave the history out,
just sense what you are aware of in your body now

This leads to the sensations part of your feeling,
and there are lots of options there,
and that's another essay,
and the sensation route is actually the most sure route
out.

So why didn't I pick that first?

I don't know.

Enjoy this much learning.
Even though it's a fourth of the Elixir of Transformation,
leaving out the work of Byron Katie on the thinking part,
and all sorts of movement and sensing play in the physical part,
and all sorts of distinctions on when we are in soul and when not,
it's huge what I've offered here.

Take advantage of it, if you wish.

Ciao
for
NOW,

Chris

Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Tansformation via backing off: the importance of subtlety. written for "special needs children" parentk, applicable to all

We are here again,
as we always are.
You're here, is........
My here is .......

Just taking the time and attention to notice:
what is my now,
this is one of the most important subtle shifts in
our
whole life.

We are always in whatever moment we
are in.
To shift to noticing that
knowing that
experiencing that
is something that someone outside of us
might have no awareness or recognition of

And yet from the inside
it is like lying down on the floor when we are tired:
it creates a shift back to the "us" of us
that we often forget in our rush through "daily life."

So, Anat has found what Moshe Feldenkrais found:
that the little movements,
the little difference,
that we notice,
make all the difference in the world,
in improving and transforming our own
lives
and in improving and transforming the lives
of our children,
special needs, or otherwise.

A child who is noticed
when the mood is slightly shifted
when the skill is slightly higher
when the posture is slightly different
when the hunger or emotion is slightly different
is a child who doesn't need to go through
big swings of emotion or action to
get attention from itself
and from others

The more we honor the little shift,
the 109 degrees to 99, or 88 to 82, the more we
can appreciate the what is or
our life,
and not have some fixed temperature,
either in emotion, or heat, or activity
that is "the good one"

life is change,
the Buddha says: it's impermanent,
and as we notice the subtle shifts,
we find life an ongoing delight

With you and your child,
the feast is large:
the child's slight changes,
your slight changes,
and slight changes in the environment:
all these make each moment new
and potentially magnificent

and what would keep us from thinking every
moment is magnificent?

Having some fixed opinion of "how it should be"
could be one way

Not being free to experiment with subtle changes
inside ourselves when "things aren't going well."

And yet, it is the subtle changes
we
can trust, because
almost anyone can change their mood
by running a hard run,
or jumping up and down like crazy to wild music,
but what about sitting in a boring meeting
and shifting the focus from disliking the meeting
to the colors you see in the room,
distinguishing all the blues from the yellows say,
or distinguishing the quality of your in breath from
your outbreath,
or deepening your dislike feelings
and then lightening the intensity of them.

Would that begin to bring back
freedom
and
joy.

Something like this is actually exercise 2 in Anat's chapter on
Subtlety,
and she then has some inspiring quote kind of stuff,
that I'll put down here:

"The correlation between discerning subtle differences,
being in the now,
and vitality,
is impossible to deny.
Our sense of vitality is CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH
OUR BRAIN'S
ABILITY TO PERCEIVE DIFFERENCES ( my caps)
and it is through this perception of differences that our brain
creates new information.
Sometimes just a shift of our attention
in the direction
of noticing subtle differences
can be transformational,
awakening us to vitality in
new
and suprising
ways."
The capitals, and the messy line breaks are mine. In the book it's straight sentences.

Her book is worth reading straight ahead front to back, and also to just randomly opening a page here and there and soaking in what that has to offer.

Happy noticing of subtle differences today.

Chris

Sunday, September 04, 2011

Carlos, again, Casteneda in motion

Back in the days,
if you read Carlos Casteneda
you got hooked

magic
mystery
deserts
Indians
sorcerers

whoopie

in was like Harry Potter and
it was supposed to be real

and who knows
some probably was

he's got some great stuff,
reading through Journey to Ixtlan
about treating the world as a mystery
as an unknown

that we don't need to buy into everyone
else's description of Reality

and you read the first part of Awareness through Movement
and basically, Moshe is saying:
the society wants you to be a cog,
that's it's purpose

and hey, person: what's your purpose

and what's the best tool to escape the mold,
the mask as he calls it,
and discover the life you really want for
yourself?

awareness.

and what's the best step to awareness?
movement that creates new patterns
and increases complexity
and demands
and rewards attetention

and will attention lead to awareness?

well, it is awareness while being used,
and it can turn on our "awaring" ability
as at first a gift
and then later a necessity:

life is so dull and same same same
without awareness

and even my fingers
now
on the keyboard

I can get the job
or sense the tips touching and my spine holding
up my head
and my eyes looking at the black shapes
appearing on the screen

needless to say,
awareness like that can contribute to
wanting to leave the restricted world
of the computer,
but awareness like that sharpens me
wakens me
back into life

and so all Carlos' adventures
real
or not,
was I following my breathing while
reading them

was I real
as i thrilled to his learning to be more real

sometimes

it's a great day
to live in reality

have a great time

here's the book again.

I have so far made 10cents from people buying Amazon books
off the blogs,
so it's obviously a flourishing source of income

Awareness Through Movement














PS my book for sale to the right,
if you click to the demo chapters you'll see choices
of four prices
the bottom price is just for another week

great day
play in the fields of awareness
do things wrong
see who you are
if you forget who you are

be your own sorcerer

good

Saturday, September 03, 2011

What are Brains for?




You know that seems like a silly question,
or an obvious one?

And in our day and age,
this insulting phrase is floating around:
"it's a no-brainer"

As if a human could stand,
let alone breathe,
let alone make an easy/ what the talker or writer thinks is obvious
decision.

And brains can get us in trouble:
they are very good at comparing;

So and so has a bigger car?
You should have been nicer to me (comparing reality to our picture
of how reality "should" be,
is ,
alas,
one of the great ways to suffer in this world)

It's hotter outside than inside,
or vice versa.

Brain's notice.

They also are kind of lazy, sometimes.
If you know how to open a door,
we "just do it,"
we don't really feel our fingers on the door,
or "play around with/ experiment with" several ways
to open the door.

When is the last time we used the other hand
to open a door?

When is the last time we slowed the rate of turning
as we opened the door?

When is the last time we noticed how our feet were placed
or how our breathing felt
when we opened the door?

And this is just one of the many things
that we could,
for all we know,
improve,
or at least become more awake and aware and playful
about.

What others?
Saying hello.
Looking around on the computer.
Rummaging around in the kitchen.
Walking to our car.
Getting in our car.
Driving our car.
Getting out of our car.

Me, not having a car,
like to point out how auto-matic
people tend to get around their auto mobiles,
but put a mobile phone in my hand,
and I go automatic, too.

Except when we don't.

Brains love to learn.

They love to notice differences,
and learning could be said to be
the noticing of differences that make a difference.

So brains love to learn.

In good Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel Method lessons,
our brains are given, via movement, opportunities to
tune into options and possibilities that were there
before the lesson.

We learn that we are less restricted than we thought.
We learn how big and amazing our possibilities are.
We learn how to move easier and more gracefully
and farther from the clutches of pain.
More pleasure.

This is all learning that takes place in the brain,
by new pathways and options being opened.

Brains love to learn.
Brains love to stay to same.

This clues us into the challenge and opportunity of living an
amazing life.

How are we going to use our brains?


For a change.


Good,
Chris