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