Friday, September 28, 2007

Remembering Ourselves, love, and The Feldenkrais Method®

garden
if you are a participant in FeldyForum,
for practitioners and trainees,
you are subject to a lot of people
putting forth their ideas, opinions,
feedbacks, attacks, counter attacks,
apologies, demands for apologies,
self serving nonsense, self serving wisdom,
axe grinding, strutting and posturing,
positioning
and whatnot

oh, well:

what would it be like,
i wonder
if people took a
breath before they wrote each
sentence

no, not just took a breath
but took a breath,
and knew they were breathing,
and what the heck:
since we're feldies:
took a breath, knew we were breathing
and sensed the five lines

say
you aren't a feldie

what does this have to do
with you?

well,
i was talking to a mother
yesterday
who was honest enough to admit
the parent thing is really hard

all i could offer
immediately
was Freud's observation
that parenting is the impossible task,

and my idea
that the only cure
for parenting's difficulties
is to be present
as if in continuous meditation

i gave an example from the
people who work with Thich Nhat Hahn:
when the phone rings,
before picking up:
two conscious breaths.

my idea:
when the kids do one of the
fifty things that
get the chain yanking,
take two conscious breaths
before doing, or saying anything

as per the Feldenkrais
method of learning:

take some time
between idea of acting
and acting
and scan for options

and what does that have to do
with love:
well if love
wasn't going to be the immediate
habitual reaction,
taking a couple of breaths before we act,
might allow
a loving
(i.e. one that is concerned at least as much
with the other as ourselves)
reaction

ah,
breath,
slowing
down,
waking up,
love,
kids,
feldenworld,
learning,
nature,

so much good
stuff
to have in
our lives


Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Feldenkrais Method and therapy

flowers

This a letter to Feldy Forum:

Therapy and the Feldenkrais Method.

Lots of wonderful conversations on this. FM involves touch. Therapy involves talk. Boundary issues. Cross possibilities and prejudices. And so on.
Some elusive obvious comments:
What do Feld and therapy have in common that helps create real change?
Listening.
Clarifying.
Creating options.

Now, a cynical and realistic way of seeing most of therapy is: someone paying to be listened to.
More harsh, and also true: paying someone to listen to their crap.
(Necessary corollary in therapy training: how not to be a human toilet).

But, not to run too blithely with this, let’s notice how non habitual, indeed, how remarkable ANY listening really is.
Take Ms. Teardrop with the statement: “My husband verbally abused me again last night.”

Here are the gamut of habitual responses she might get in the “real world.” Notice that all are forms of non-listening.

ENCOURAGING FIGHT OR FLIGHT.
1. You should get out of the relationship, fast.
2. You should tell that bastard off.
3. You should tell him off, and dump him.

ENCOURAGING VICTIMIZATION
4. Oh, you poor person. You have such a hard marriage.
5. Dual victimization: Me, too. My husband is… We are so…
6. Dual and competitive victim: You think that’s bad, my husband…
7. Historical victim: You probably had a mother/father who was …, let’s dwell on your rough past
8. Historical dual victims: We both had really tough mother/father, let’s dwell on …..
9. Historical competitive victims:

DIVERSION TO SEXUALITY
(We aren’t talking therapy here. We are talking the main set up for work place “romances.)
10. Oh, poor you. He doesn’t really understand you. I do. Let’s get really close and you’ll feel all better.
11. Oh, poor us. My mate doesn’t understand me, yours doesn’t understand you, let’s get together

Actually: this is a common, poor me and poor you, let’s talk about our bad past relationship and then get together strategy, even if it’s not the adultery route.

Anyway: in common to all the habitual responses: not listening.

Elaine has called therapy, my rephrasing, the rebuilding of a person via the chance to have a good relationship. This, at least in the times I’ve read, hasn’t been defined, but by combining the above examples, and her list of what you can’t do in therapy (abandon, scold, sexualize), you could take another elusive obvious step and say, a good relationship is relationship that is not a bad one.

Actually, just to fill out the not listening possibilities in the “real world,” now I’ve remembered the abandoning and scold/belittling thing, we’ve all seen those:’

ABANDON
12. I’m sick of hearing about your problems . I’ve got too much on my plate. Bye.

SCOLD/ BELITTLE ( often done by a family member to whom one goes for “help”)
13. That’s so stupid of you to keep putting up with his crap.
14. I told you not to get together with ….
15. When are you going to realize….

HELPER ROUTE:
16. What you need to do is this…..

Okay,
So good therapy would preclude all the not listening possibilities that “real life” often offers someone who opens the conversations with the “my husband verbally abused me again” complaint.

Now, Carl Rogers had an ingenious way to do this listening: He’d just say, I hear you say your husband ….
This seems silly. But in contrast to all the ways of not listening is actually fairly profound, and indeed couple to couple arguments can be radically dissolved by people taking turns listening to each other and then feeding back what was said before they have their chance to put in their “defense”, which is often their attack.

Traditional therapy can go off into unproductive waters if the Carl Rogers, “I hear you say…”, is followed by: how do you feel about that?

Why.
Because it’s missing the second of the elusive obvious steps: CLAIRIFICATION:
What did your husband say that you felt was verbally abusive?

Say she says,
He said I was selfish, and a liar, and only cared about myself.

Okay. Now we have clarification.

What to do from here gets interesting. You could go the, to me, unproductive, how did you feel when he said you were selfish route.
You could Gestalt: how do you feel and what are you aware of now, as you talk about that. Or the Gestalt, hop back and forth on two chairs, and get some communication going.

But, in a process I’ll talk about in some later posting, that I find accomplishes most if not all that therapy does, and then some, here is an amazing way to get some options, and go into non habitual territory.

Have a discussion with Ms. Teardrop about: is it true you are sometimes selfish, as am I and everyone on this planet. Is it true you are a liar, as am I, and …. Is it true that sometimes you only care about yourself, as it is true for me and everyone on this planet.

Then what happens to the verbal abuse.
It turns into words we didn’t want to hear.
Oh, well.

There is more. But this is a start.

Next step: What Ms. Teardrop dislikes about her husband, and how that can all be turned into awareness and self realization. Later, for that.

Anyway: touch or no touch: if you keep the person doing what they always did, they’re stuck in the poop. If you get them to slow down, feel validated for being a person who does whatever they do (listen), get some clarity on what’s going on, and provide new ways of ACTING IN THE WORLD, then you've provided some real and wonderful help. (I like Paul’s thing of ACTING as one of the big four).

So: car keys, weird dad, mom hostage. Calls for action. I could go into this one and have a lot of fun, which again is non habitual, since this is supposed to be real bad stuff, but, one of the first things I’d ask is: is it true you need to do anything about this?

Ciao,
Chris

Monday, September 17, 2007

Take a Rest

field and sky


have you been to
a yoga class
where the teacher
likes to wear you
out?

and some students
like
that,
out of
a wish to be using themselves hard,
or guilt,
or lack of moving in the rest of
their lives

this is what i call:
donkey work.
animals
are good at working hard,
people, too,
but it's kind of sad
when in a yoga
class,
two cores to
the human essence:
our ability to
learn,
and to
be
aware

are neglected

i've seen this too
in tai chi
chi gung
Pilates
and 'trance dance'
keep moving,
and don't pause,
don't rest,
don't take time to distill
what you are doing

don't slow
down
and imagine
and examine
any new way
of doing something

same
old
same old,
but with lots of huff
and puff

what a waste
of human
possibility


Thursday, September 13, 2007

The Real Challenge of Nine Eleven

fava beans

Are we asleep to our lives
right now
or
are we awake

when we give or
take a Feldenkrais class
or a yoga class

are we awake
going into the class,
during the class,
and especially,

this is the hard
one,

after


or do
we open our mouths
start to talk
and go
back
to sleep?

so nine eleven:
how can people
do awful things to
other people:

only by being asleep.

and the retaliation,
the war on
whatever
the excuse for Iraqification

what's that all about?

being asleep

and so
what are the real weapons
of mass destruction?

hatred
and
revenge,
our poor little
wanting to love
hearts,
that in their hurt,
don't want to admit their
hurt,
or fear,
or confusion,
and find it a
"comfort"
to lash
out

(if there can be comfort
in living in hell,
which
there can't)

so what can we do:
wake up
forgive
love

ah,
it's that easy
eh.

well:
what's the alternative,
stay asleep
and march off the cliff,
angry
unforgiving
asleep
human leemings

human
being
or
human
leeming

a fine choice
and so obvious
until someone gets our goat,
or we get a parking ticket,
or our "rival" gets a step or two
ahead

la, la
what to learn
today????


Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Learning and Love

lake at reed

To learn
is to fall

into the new

maybe a new way
of thinking about
something

say:
someone you used to "hate,"
and you realize:
hey,
they've got issues
and they not only treat me
bad,
but treat themselves
badly
and you decide to just send them
wishes for the best

or:
you always brush
your teeth
with your right hand,
you try it with your left
and
it's slower,
and then
again,
more interesting

or:
you sit at your computer
and kind of hunch over
and
you decide
to try rolling your pelvis
for and aft
a
bit
belly out,
belly in,
feeling shifts in your spine
and your ribs

and then you sit,
with a slight arch in your back
and it
feels new

it's learning

and love
is
noticing
that butterfly
and just really grooving on it
or the
smile
of someone
you know, well,
or don't even know at all

just lit up
by the wonder of
it all

this is what we strive for
in Feldenkrais
and in life
and in meditation
and in coming home to now:

that lit up feeling:
ah,
it's wonderful
to
be
alive


Tuesday, September 11, 2007

The Real Terror

flowers on edge


Happy Nine Eleven,
the day
we had a chance to wake
up
and didn't

wake up
to the riddiculousness
of the
Enemy Game

wake up
to the weird truism:
death and gravity,
these are part of the deal

wake up to
a realization:
we think we know
what's going to happen
next,
and we don't

wake up to the
realization:
this moment
this is our life
if we drift
or charge
or "busy"
or numb
or robot
our way along

doing today
what we did yesterday
(different chair,
same way of sitting,
different food,
same way of eating)

thinking today
what we thought yesterday
(same resentment,
perhaps rotating blamees,
same worry,
perhaps rotating worry schemes,
same planning,
perhaps rotating
plans,
same regrets,
perhaps rotating stories)

and forgetting
the minor detail:
this is it
now

now
we are alive
and breathing
and having five lines
and being upright in gravity
and having feelings and impressions
and thoughts and sensations
and movement

way cool
to
be
to be
alive

way cool
yes

and from that comes:
THE TERROR OF
THE SITUATION:
people live,
and die
and maybe
don't wake up
to the preciousness
of their own
and everyone's life,
until the last few moments,
if at all

(postulated by G. Gurdjieff,
Russian sage, philosopher,
tearer outer of his hair
over the dilemma:
how to wake up sleeping humanity,
see either: Wikipedia Gurdjieff
or
Gurdjieff Legacy Journal Gurdjieff)

nice
upside
to the terror:

is that every now
is equal
opportunity
to
wake
up
to
the
now

ciao,
chris

See also:
Dennis Leri's
article on Gurdjieff's influence
on Moshe Feldenkrais



Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Waiting for ....????

brendan funny


One of the most interesting complaints
people
sometimes make about the floor work,
the group sessions,
the Awareness Through Movement® lessons,
is that they are
boring.

The lessons involve slow movements,
often small movements.
Not a lot of muscle is
involved,
usually,
though some can be quite
demanding.

And even the demanding ones,
the goal is to slowly
go about mastering
something difficult,
instead of the usual and common
mode
of powering your way through.

So, what is boring about slow?
If you do the same thing
over and over again,
it can be boring.
If you do something slow enough,
and hence have time
to pay attention to subtle
differnces
in how you are using say breath,
and ribs,
and spine
and pelvis,
and eyes
each time you move,
then,
to me,
that's a chance to learn,
and it's interesting.

And after about a minute at most,
the slow repetitions
will stop,
and you
can savor
what you have learned in a resting position.

And then, there is
VARIATION,
the same theme,
but with a different twist.

So unlike an "exercise"
same, same, same.
This is slow, pay attention,
rest,
then
something different, slow, pay attention,
rest,
then
something different.

To some,
this might not have enough razzem dazzem
so be
it.

For me,
this is fantastic.

To some it's boring.

Oh, well.

The chance to learn
and be aware
is not for everyone.

Thus is life.