A game for Learning as Enlightenment, and Connection as Love

Day Eleven:

Enlightenment as 

Learning, or..

“Trying” less hard, or…

“Enjoying” more

with a friend (or

on your own)

This can be done with a partner.

If you have a partner, this is an amazing way to come to presence and touch and learning and connection, as you become a newer and more highly organized person.

That’s a mouthful.

Okay, it’s fun.

How’s that.

Enlightenment as Learning Plus Touch

Enlightenment Game #3

Sit with a partner.

(You can do this game on your own.

You’ll learn a lot.

And…

If you want a partner, keep playing the games in this book. We’ll come to the “Heart’s Desire” part of Lust. Then it’s your time to write goals about the partner you want, and more important, about the shape and quality of the relationship you want.)

Take turns reading these instruction, until you each “get it.”

Then, hold hands and “do/ learn/ experiment/ experience” this game.

Head turning with doing it different/ better instead of doing it “right.”

Turn your head left and right as your partner matches you.

Come up with a mirror image direction you both want to improve. (One to the right, the other to the left)

We’ll call the direction you want to enjoy improving, the “happy” direction.

We’ll call the direction that might well “lag behind” the “normal” direction.

Turn right and left with this false idea: to make this “right,” I need to turn farther and farther.

Strain a little.

Do the famous “stretching.”

But..

Don’t do this too much.

Now, (again read these to learn in turns, then do it together)

Turn your head both ways and notice the difference between the happy direction and the normal direction.

Now, try this “better”….

As you turn in the normal direction, don’t change anything.

As you turn in the happy direction, go at half speed and half effort.

Do this four or five times and then close your eyes and “rest.”

And you can do the whole thing with eyes closed if you’d like.

Now try this better:

Normal do without any changes

Happy: keep up slower and softer and add on smiling.

Go back and forth the two ways for six to ten times, see how much you can enjoy the happy direction as slow and easy and with a smile on your face.

Rest again.

Feel the overall shift in your mood from movement with attention.

Feel the easing up from doing things in the new=now mode.

Back to improving movement by “better not right.”

Turn halfway to the happy direction.

Stay there and easily, while smiling, turn your eyes more in the happy direction and then back to where your nose is pointing.

Combine this with slow.

Combine this with less effort.

Combine this with enjoying paying attention.

Then come to the middle and rest.

Now, go the sixty percent to the happy direction.

Play the easy eyes, with smile and slow and less effort, to the happy direction and..

Let your tongue come to the edge of your lower lip and playfully head back toward the center when your eyes go a little in the happy direction.

This will be tongue one way and eyes the other.

Relax.

Breathe easy.

Enjoy new = now.

Enjoy learning = noticing differences.

This IS REWIRING YOUR BRAIN.

Without you trying.

Actually, especially because you aren’t trying. You are experimenting and experiencing.

This is real learning.

Enjoy.

Come back to the center.

Rest.

Now experiment with turning easily to the normal direction and the happy direction.

What do you notice about differences in each way.

Good.

Do this separately.

Then do this holding hands.

Enjoy what goes on as you do this in synchronization.

It could be good.

It might be very good.

It might even be very very good.

Enjoy.

Life is movement.

Life is learning.

Life is connection.

This is all that…. and more.

And if you don’t have a partner.

Maybe a friend can stand having their hands held. (PS, if you don’t have a mate, don’t use this as a dating tool. Find a friend of the sex you don’t want to date/ mate, and if they are game, good. If not.. keep wondering what life might be like with a learning buddy/ friend/ great love in your life.)

And if you don’t have anyone, fine… Do this learning on your own.

Remember the meta learning here: doing it right, sucks.

Find more and more ways of doing it “better,” especially if “better” means slower and happier and with less effort, will be key in finding a real person to be with, instead of the ghastly results that will occur if you find the “right” person.

So, learn on your own.

Learn with a friend.

Learn with your partner.

Learn.

You’ll life will expand every day.

As our buddy Bob Dylan says, “He not busy being born, is busy dying.”

Or, mystical subtext: “He or she not busy being born, is busy dying.”

Be born.

Turn your head more fun in one way.

Discover some “better” ways of your own.

Good.

Smile.

Breathe.

Sense your feet on the floor.

Feel gravity.

Enjoy a piece of nature out some window.

Smile some more.

Good.

Life, Love & Learning

Just brain, body.

It's so easy this work:

One day a child doesn't crawl

The next she/ he does.

No new muscles, no new energy, no new "thinking"

except hugely new thinking of the organic sort,

the non verbal sort,

the inner relationship and connection and "knowing" sort:

a brain organized to be a whole new child.

It's so hard because everyone wants to fix, relax, stretch, release, repattern, adjust, blah blah blah

None of which help the brain / real person.

That's what my Anat Baniel Method work is about.

That's what my Feldenkrais® work is about.

My opinion is that Anat takes the Feldie method to a whole new level.
( 4 years training with her, after 5 in the Feldenkrais Method®)

Come find out if you'd like.

Cheers

Chris

360-317-4773

And today, day three of
waking up
and
awakened relationship,
what's a game you might want to play?

Let's take all the digits and the eyes and the breath as our game today.

Sensing ten toes and ten fingers.

Now

And light

Now

and Breathing

is it in, out

or

in

between

When can we play that game and it seems absurd:

talk to people

reading

on the computer

cell phone nonsense

ten finger

ten toes

breathing

light

( and if you want, this will bring joy:

it's no extra cost, and actually, lots of

extra

credit

to feel the joy

as

you

stay

present

ha

yes

wonderful

now)

Special Needs Children: 3 ways to go with a heel that won't touch the ground

 

Change from outside vs. change from inside:
Or: Fixing vs. connection

This happens: a child with cerebral palsy, through great inner desire and perseverance, comes to walk. And yet, the putting their heel to the floor eludes them, so it seems as if they are walking on their toes all the time.

There are at least three ways adults can react to this, three routes to take.

To the rescue: the knife

One route is the surgeon's scalpel, cutting into the Achilles tendon, to allow the heel no recourse but to lower. If we discount what a child goes through in surgery, this seems to solve the heel down problem. But…

Push, prod and correct

Parents and various professionals can try to soften the tissues by “stretching,” or massage, or both. They can try pressing the heel forcefully down to the floor. They can “remind” ( nag, usually, unfortunately) the child with some range of possibility to do what she or he is “supposed to do.”

Braces can be put on the foot, to mold it to “how it should be.”

Again, a step in the right direction it seems, but…

The problem with these

These are all outside forces. They demand and force the change. Not only are they teaching the child, One: there is something wrong with you, and Two: only by outside initiation can any change happen, they tend not to work very well. Stretching, botox, scolding all wear off. Even the surgery often begins to undo after the foot begins to heal from the trauma.

Calling on….the brain.

What if the child in this story is not missing a foot that defaults to a 90 degree angle with the leg, but she is missing a representation in the brain, totally missing a feeling and idea and body awareness sense of what it’s like for a heel to press against the ground? That just doesn’t compute for her.

And if pushed and stretched and prodded, the feeling of touching the floor is always vastly diluted by all the stress and effort going on.

So, here’s the solution in the Anat Baniel Method and the Feldenkrais Method®. The child lies on her back, already a great start from the complexity and demands of walking. And then, instead of pushing and efforting the foot to 90 degrees, a false floor is brought to the foot.

The false floor

A book is held against the child’s foot, exactly at the angle of the foot. Slowly pressing the book against the foot, the whole foot more or less touches at once. Other things are done that make sense from having had a 4 year training, to help deepen this, but you get the idea: the foot feels the way it would if it were “normal” in terms of the contact of the entire foot with the ground.

The brain = the child is now in the picture

Now, the foot, and the brain and the child all begin to expand her idea of what a foot is, and how the heel really is part of the same “story.” Connections with the whole foot and the rest of the body are made.

Ideas and pathways are laid down in the brain with this “whole foot” feeling of the thing at the end of the leg. It’s a delight and a revelation, and the child is smarter, and has one more experience of creating change by creating more awareness.

Awareness is life. Awareness is freedom

This learning will spill over to other movement improvement the child is ready to make.

This learning will “work” not just in movement, but speech and school and play and life. The more differentiation and awareness we have, the more freedom to become and do something different.

What can a parent do?

Bring the child in for lessons.

Watch the lessons, be enthusiastic about small changes, encourage the What Is, of even the most minute improvement. All improvement that involves the brain spills over to almost everything, as mentioned about.

How about the book on the foot?

No, not really.

But parents can remember not to scold. IF THE CHILD COULD DO IT DIFFERENT, THEY WOULD.

And the parents can play with variations of many other things: directions of bringing foot to the mouth, pitch and length and texture of sounds, ways of moving a ball or a toy or a small chair.

Kids Beyond Limits, Anat’s new book!

Read and reread Anat’s book. It’s full of small and non demanding activities that don’t take much time, that create pathways for learning, and maybe best of all, create time and quality for bonding and love between you and your child.

My kids' blog, specialneedschildren-chriselms.blogspot.com/, too, has many examples of small but significant actions you can take. For example: do anything you usually do at half speed, and make this a game.

Another: follow your own breathing, for your own relaxation, and to create a "vibe" of inner awareness for your child. As above: awareness equals freedom. For you and for your child.

If you haven’t signed up for lessons recently…

Now is a great time to do so.

Love and learning in the world of special needs children parents

Each day is a chance, for your child to learn something,
some little connection,
some little difference,
or to learn a difference a little better,
the big toe and the little toe,
or to learn a connection a little more clearly,
the heel and the hip,

that's what brains are for,
when used to make our lives
bigger and better:
they discover, note and make rewiring to be able to use again
this:
differences that make a difference.

Feed your child's brains:
differences,
variations,
options,
possibilities.

Make it new and fresh
for them,
and you,
the delightful worlds of continuous discovery.

This is why I think
it's so wonderful for
parents to be
having lessons
and studying
reading
experimenting from
Anat's new book,
you know the one,
Kids Beyond Limits.

If you, the parent,
can feel how pleasant
and useful it is,
the feel
as sensation,
without any words in the way,
just FEEL a connection,
say from your hand back into your shoulder blade
and back even more into your spine,

If you can feel this
sense this,
know this in yourself,
you can begin to realize how powerful
and playfully useful you can be with
your child,
just "playing" with her hand.

This is love.
Attention to yourself,
just perfect as you are now.
Attention to your child,
just perfect as she or he is now.

A hand, a rib, a cheek,
a toe,
all these parts are so amazing
and connect with so many other parts,
and are so happy to be moved
gently and in a way
that makes them "wake" up to
possibilities of new and different actions.

And so,
there are no mistakes.
Your child moves this way,or that,
it doesn't really matter,
all motions  can have four or five variations.

The child moves a way someone else might call
a "mistake,"
and with enough variations,
some more useful options will show up,
and if they really work for the child,
he or she will pick them.
With no scolding, repremanding,
being told to "stop that,"
or "do it this way."

If it's a game
and a better way is practiced,
the better way WILL be adopted.

We are always at that crossroads
of sleeping through our life,
doing what we've always done,
and waking up the the intense magic
and possibility of NOW>

And still,  habit says:
do what you always did.

Learning is always whispering (or more):
I wonder what this change would be like.

Play with the changes,
in you
and in your child
and in your movement with your child.

You'll have a lot of fun.
It will feel like love,
because it will be love.

And the changes will come,
at just the speed they are supposed to come.

ciao
for
NOW,
Chris

Neck, Back, Shoulders, Brain... movement lesson fun

This takes some thinking, which won't
harm you.

Just slow down.
In your reading.
In doing the movement.
In taking rests between the movements.
In any confusion or irritation because you don't
"instantly get it."

Is it true you are supposed to "instantly get" everything?
Or is learning a delightful meander sometimes,
and the slower you go,
the faster you learn?

Okay.
Sit in a chair, way up toward the front,
both feet flat on the flow.

Turn your head easily right and left.
very slowly.
feel differences.

rest.

now just turn from the middle to the left.
slowly.
middle to the left and then back to the middle again.
feel how this feels as sensation.
see how far you easily turn.
do this six seven ten times.

rest.

Now, staying on the front of your chair,
put the back of your right hand on your left cheek.
Slow down, you can figure that out.
Back of your right hand on your left cheek.

In this position slowly
turn left
a number of times, and then
back to the middle.

Sense yourself turning left,
sense yourself coming back.

Think of the right elbow as wanting to look
to the left, too.,

Do this six eight ? times.

rest.

Now hug yourself with each hand in the opposite
armpit.
Slow down. You can do it.
Right hand in your left armpit,
left hand you guess where.

Slowly turn your ribs and head to the left
and back to the middle.

Slower.

Breathe.

Enjoy.

rest

Now, hands in opposite armpits again, but the other
arm on top.
Figure it out.
It's fun.

Turn to the left, stay there with your head,
and turn your ribs back to the middle.
Slowly, reverse the two: ribs to the left
and head to the middle
and
back
and
forth,
with the ribs and head going
opposite directions.

Slower the better.
Gentler the better
More aware and pleasurable the curious the better.

A bunch of times.

Rest.

Play with your belly and pelvis a little, like
this:
belly forward, pelvis rolling a bit,
back lengthening,
and
then
belly in, lower back backward,
pelvis rolling back a bit ( as if tucking your "tail bone" under)
your sternum sinking a little.

rest.

Now, take your right hand again
put the palm on top of your head
and slowly pull in your
belly
and take the elbow toward your
right knee
(think it thru),
then push your belly forward
and bring your right elbow
up, higher than your head,
and to the left,
an arc kind of thing,
then belly in, slump down,
bring your elbow back toward your right knee.

do this arc slowly.

rest.

do it again.

rest.

There's a lot more to this one in a class or in person.


If you are in Austin, I'll be talking about this at the Friday morning
Toastmasters that meets at 7:30 AM upstairs at Whole Foods.

Demonstrating three essentials to improve the brain
and the back neck shoulder brain thing.

Toastmasters is free until you join
and this is a very fun club.
Maybe you'll join.


And if you want even more,
next Monday I'm having a intro workshop on
mindful money, mindful relationship,
mindful movement.

There will be even more of this in that intro,
6:30-7:30 PM at Casa de Luz, which you know
if you live in Austin.

If you don't, search out the nearest Anat Baniel Method practitioner,
or the nearest Feldenkrais practitioner and call them up,
and find out where and when group classes are being held.

AND
if you want more of my written ones,
click on the label "movement lessons" below and a string of them will come up.

Enjoy your brain
body
and rewiring as
inspiring
today.

Good.

Special Needs Children, Monday Post: milestone vs learning

(Even with her hand "fixed" in her mouth: 

the difference between hand and elbow,

and between elbow not bearing weight vs elbow bearing weight 

is HUGE in this moment for Harper)

Here's the Normal Doidge quote again, bold and all:


"Following in the footsteps of the revolutionary scientist-clinician Moshe Feldenkrais,
 the greatest thinker about how to improve movement in the twentieth century, 
[Anat] Baniel show why our mainstream approach to these children is often wrong, and at times damaging, 
because they train the children 
to 'ape' developmental milestone they are not developmentally ready to meet. 

The approach here, 
far wiser, far more subtle, 
truly holistic, far more ingenious, 
far more in accord with how brain development occurs, 
show ways to access the child's OWN brain plasticity, 
and yields far greater results, so that the children can spontaneous grow from within."

I broke it down into pieces,
and maybe it's easier to read that way.

If so, that itself begins to illustrate the genius of the Anat Baniel Method and the Feldenkrais method:
it's about discovering the pieces to learning, not trying to
get the child to do what the child can't do.

I'll say that last part again, because I've seen PT and OT and good meaning body workers
over and over do this,
with children,
with injured adults,
with themselves.

If something doesn't work, the main goal
of the "fixers" is to
get the thing that Doesn't Work
to Work.

(Like when someone tells you: Say something funny,
and you aren't in a good mood.)

Now, with an adult, whose shoulder "used" to work,
whirling away "trying" to improve "range of motion,"
though painful and ineffective, is not necessarily harmful.

Well, actually it is harmful,  but not in the massive way
this approach is to a child.

Think about it:
A child can't sit.

The developmental milestone of their age is to sit.

So someone shoves, pushes, helps, prods, pads the child into sitting.

Since the child doesn't have the pieces and the learning of pelvis and ribs and head
and back and shoulders to sit, what does it learn?

Failure.

It learns that people are trying to get it to do something
and it is going to fail over and over and over.

What is missing is not the "how to sit" program, but the brain's awareness
of all sort of small differences that make up sitting.

As Anat clarifies it in her book:
(Kids Beyond Limits)
the brain needs to/ loves to/ wants to/ is designed to
DISCOVER that
Thing One
is
different than 
Thing Two.

I just finished a section in the book, describing her work with an autistic boy
who could barely speak,
and could hold toys only for brief periods
and seemed unable to finish any sentences.

She helped him distinguish Thing One
and Thing Two
of back and shoulder
and
back and head

and one finger from another
and one hand from another

his speech and his drooling and his thinking
all rapidly improved

no work on speech or drooling or thinking
but
he could and wanted to live at a more complex level.
Why:
  his brain had become more clued in and excited
to be doing what a brain is meant to do:
distinguish differences.

Or better said:
Learning is distinguishing differences
that make a difference.

( If you are married, try this for a difference that makes a difference:

Thinking and saying: "Why don't you stop doing....." when there is unwanted behavior.

Vs

wondering and asking: "Is something bothering you?")

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

The Learning Switch: Anat's Second Principle/ Essential

One: there is no learning switch.

Two: Anat didn't invent learning as crucial to our method

Three: without a constant awareness that a purpose of a lesson is
this:
the student/ client learns something
the lesson isn't a lesson

That's really all that needs to be said.

With a special needs child, with any child, with your lover:
what's the difference between the "this little piggy goes to the market" toe,
and "this little piggy stays home" toe

That's huge
That's delicious

and if we can hook that up
with the opposite hand's fingers,
little toe left to little finger right,
how much more delicious

and if we can sense
and they, the special needs child, any child, the lover
wakes up to the spine in between this two,
how useful

and then for a lesson:
what's a function this can tie into

for the practitioners:
you figure it out

for the parents:
stand up,
move around,
find something you do that noticing left big toe
and right thumb makes clearer, easier, happier,
more pleasurable, more potent

don't try to evoke that in your children
by movement or manipulation,
but have it in the back of your mind
when playing with toes and fingers

go slow enough so you can see that look
in your child's eyes,
you know the look when the learning switch is on

practice with your mate
who knows the delights that might led to

Good
Move into Life
 










The Potent Self



Mindfulness and Learning

Latest Special Needs Children blog posting, and good "work/love" for us all

I've covered this before,
but the more I think and talk about these
six
the more I find them applicable to almost any
process of transformation.

Where transformation
is deep change,
brain rewiring
behavior changing
life altering change,
so not just the coating outside,
but change from the inside out.

And these six are the ingredients that
Dr. Dan Siegal came up with for helping a bipolar lad
to come out of his stuckness without drugs.

Here I'm oing to use them as stepstones
to more of what I like to emphasize:
this change for our children
can be so much more kind to ourselves
and them
if we see and allow ourselves to be in
transformation
as well.

So, what would the steps be for parents?

1. Good sleep

Well, sorry, this could be the hardest with certain children
and you know as well as I that deals can be made with
our mates,
and perhaps caretakers
to at least every other night get a good sleep.

AND
there is naps.
20 minutes, once or twice a day.
(Even in the office.
If they catch you, tell them to judge your
productivity increase
and suggest a nap for everyone)

And lying down,
for 5 minutes
on your back, or side
on a rug, some grass, any firm and useful surface.

Lie down, and move very slowly
with awareness and self-learning
and self-love,
as if you are giving AND getting a lesson
from and for yourself.

2. Good food
including brain food

Brain food includes omega 3 from eggs of chickens on pasture (not the same as free range,
which just means chickens in dirt), and grass fed meat and buffalo, and wild caught fish, and
flax seed, and if you are lucky, the weed purslane.

Brain food also includes high quality fats: raw butter or at least spring pasture butter, organic olive oil (they use disgusting chemicals in non organic production to kill extra olives), soaked nuts and seeds

I'd even include green smoothies as brain food.
I could be wrong, but I suspect not.

On the good food line, and I tell people this when they think my lessons "cost too much,"
How much more iron does organic spinach have than non organic?
80 times.
Not 8. EIGHTY TIMES.

3. Relationship
The way you touch, talk to, and think and talk about your child is fundamental to your relationship to her or him.

The way you touch, talk to, and think and talk about each other is once
more,
big surprise,
fundamental to your relationship.

It's no surprise, but sometimes worrisome, to realize how
stressful being a parent of a special needs child,
and in Austin, TX as least, there are lawyers who specialize
in divorces among these parents. Creepy perhaps, but a pointer
to the troubles.

So, what do I recommend.

Call me for counselling if you wish.

Do the work of Byron Katie, almost daily. (http://thework.com)

Talk to each other with a timer, taking turns,
3-3-3-3 4-4-4-4 or 5-5-5-5 minutes back and forth,
all listening, no interrupting when the other is talking

being present
looking the other in the eye
not nodding nor frowning, let them say it without your feedback,
even non verbal
send love when listening
send love when talking
look in the eye when talking
go slow
take a breath
take many breaths
say what you are "afraid to say"
be vulnerable
make all I statements (I am scared when you...., not You shouldn't)
and as much as possible talk about yourself and leave the other out of your side of the talk
BUT
if there is an "issue," make sure to give yourself at least a half an hour to deal with

it's a lot quicker in the long run
than a divorce and an unhappy child/ children

4. Novelty
Buy Anat's dvds and do them at least twice a week
Buy my book and do one of the games at least once a day
Go to the Feldy blog site and find "movement lessons" label and do one a day
Write in a journal each day with the left hand
do something different every day
be present, then novelty will spring up all around you

5. exercise
stand up, touch the ground (knees bending all you want,)
touch the sky
five minutes,
huge variety,
huge pleasure
lots of shifts of weight
pay attention fingertips to toes to spine to ribs to pelvis to heartbeat
to breathing
love yourself

take a walk each day

touch your partner, lovingly, each day

6. Mindfulness:
Do all the above while sensing your arms and legs
and following your breathing

if you can

do everything with a chunk of your awareness in the present

meditate a bit each day
(get my book,
or just sit and breathe and follow breathing
and count the breaths one to ten,
and sense spine and arms and legs as well)

five to twenty minutes

make a gratitude list:
be mindful as you think and feel about it

okay,
that's a pretty nice essay, isn't it.

Have a great week.

love
Chris

the big C: great news----Change or Die ---Feeling, Finding, F...ing, Feeding, Frolicking, Fun, Feldenkrais and Waking Up

If you have cancer you can keep doing
what you always did,
and
die

or you can change.

I am, in this essay going to offer a bunch of possibilities for
change,
and every single one of them would mean a more wonderful
life for you, and you, and you,
whoever and wherever you are,
with or without cancer.

The most important change is
Finding.
Finding your true self.

This means waking up, because if we aren't in the moment,
and aware of what we are doing, thinking, feeling and being in
that moment,
then we are being pulled pushed or mashed along by our
programming.

It's strangely obvious,
so obvious that it's like the fish unable to discover water,
but here it is:
if the real "I" isn't home,
then the programming has to be running the show.

And the real "I" isn't the thinker,
though real thinking is an attribute of the real "I,"
and real thinking has almost nothing to do with the chatter
in our heads we call thinking.

So,
Finding out
Feeling into
the real you.

Later I'll recommend buying my book.

For now,
see what "being present" feels like for you?
Look at the next couple of sentences, then get up from the computer
and walk around
and see if you can have as little of the "chatter" inside your
head
as possible,
and just look and listen and feel your feet touching the ground
or floor,
and follow your breathing.

See if the sweet and amazing Being inside of you
can be your central experience as you walk a bit.

Okay, up from the computer:
take a walking of Being in the Moment.

Now

.......

Okay, so I walked around. You walked around.
Sometimes we were present,
sometimes not.

When we were, that was the real us.
When we weren't, all sorts of wishes, worries, wants,
traditional thoughts, obsessions, hungers etc came up.

Oh, well.

Take lots of walks.

In as beautiful of places that you can find.
As close to where you live as possible, so that we can avoid
the car habit a bit.

Finding,
Feeling.

What do you feel throughout the day?

If you are happy, this is a sign you are close to or at who you really are?

Dis-ease has a hard time sticking around happiness,
so being happy is healthy as all get out.

And if you have unhappy moments,
like unhappy you have cancer,
feel those feelings.

Feel how that unhappiness is something you
have felt
with slightly or hugely different reasons,
many, many times.

Feel the "itness" of that unhappiness.
Feel the real sensations in chest and belly and breathing and eyes.
Wherever it takes place for you.

Then notice that the sensation of any unhappiness
is wordless.
It's just sensation.
Notice that the words almost always make you feel
bad
and aren't in the present,
they are auditory hallucinations in your head.

This is what people call "thoughts," but it's more like
unhappiness programming.

What do do about the unhappiness programming?

Do the Work of Byron Katie
(if you are away from this link,
just remember: TheWork.com )

Her website will show you how.
I have written many essays on here work, and clicking on the label at the bottom
will bring them up.

Also, my book, has a whole systematic build up and working through
of her method.
Book can be bought to the right,
and has 108 ways of being more happily thrilled to be alive.

It would be good for cancer or wanting to have a more full
and happy and awake life, or both.

And the Katie work leads to something crucial in
any
dis-ease.

Forgiveness.

We could, if we don't beat ourselves up about it,
look at "dis-ease" is a form of suicide.

And we could look at suicide is a form of anger turned against ourselves.

And then we can figure out whom out there we are angry at.
It can be petty, and have been held onto forever and ever,
or some major "hurt," that is festering away in us.



If we admit our angers toward all the people we were ever angry at,
and do the work
The Work of Byron Katie

to dissolve that anger,
then the dis-ease will be bathed in ease,
and again, dis-ease tends to dissolve in ease.

........

Feeding.
Ah, sigh, this is a big one.

Give up some things, at least for a while:

Give up: white carbohydrates: ie. sugar and flour, all pasta bread and so on

Give up: non food: anything with a list of ingredients, any chemicals, sugars, fructose, corn syrup, all that crap.
give it up.

Give up: All grains, even whole except millet, buckwheat, quinoa and amaranth.

Give up:  all meats and egg not raised on pasture. "Free range" in poultry can mean hanging out in a lot of dirt.

Give up: most eating out, unless you are willing to pay for good real organic grass fed food. Otherwise the restaurant has the incentive to get you cancer filled low cost corn and pesticide filled yuk.

Okay, give up those:

Add on: lots of high quality water

Green smoothies at least 2 quarts a day.


Raw food, at least one meal a day,
and all snacks.

Raw protein, from animals: raw meat and fish, and butter.

Some do well with raw dairy.
Some not.
Or some do well with raw dairy if it's fermented as in keffir and yogurt.

Food is big, and lots of people don't like to change.
And who knows: stopping bread etc seems preferable to chemo
but I'm not an expert
though I'm pretty healthy.

I'd recommend these three books to have some new ways to think
feel and act
about eating

Carol Alt Raw Fifty: lots of testimonials of people who undone cancer, as well as other stuff











Sally Fallon:  Nourishing Traditions, whether raw or not, get this book, amazing information from teh discoveries of Weston Price, a dentist who in the 1930's went looking for the healthiest people in the world









Victoria Boutenko, Green Smoothie Revolution: read it, and start green smoothies, actually start today, just add fruit, organic, and greens organic and make something that tastes good to you. Add soaked sunflower seeds, soaked almonds, soak pumpkin seeds for fat and protein

I showed this above, it's worth buying two,
and maybe add this:

Okay, there's more to curing cancer:
The Felkenkrais stuff
and the Anat Baniel stuff:
this is a long discussion and deserves its own
posting,
but these movements,
in group or private lessons will:
balance the parasympathetic and sympathetic nervous systems
produce calmness and helping breathing and sleep
lift depression and encourage enthusiasm for life
create more self love
create inner ease, both physical and mental
teaching slowing down
help people to be present
reinforce self loving
return to a youthful discovery and excitement about life
plenty more

find an Awareness Through Movement class with a Feldenkrais practitioner
or
a Transformational Movement class with an Anat Baniel method Practitioner,
and read
Anat's book
of nine essentials for lifelong vitality,
This will help undo many unhappy habits in movement, thought and relationship

Move into Life

And last and maybe this should be number one:
Make love
more.

Once a day.
But first talk.

get a timer
set a timer.
5 minutes you talk, your mate listens, no interrupting

look into each others' eyes

don't "think" of what you, as listener, are going to say

look into eyes and listen to the sound of the words

both listen: talker and listener

go slow

discover new things to say

don't complain

talk about loves and likes in life
and wishes and dreams
and what noticing in the present

go back and forth for 30 minutes

then make love

every
day

this will be immense

try it and see


Also:
if you want,
come to one of the places I live
and experience an intensive
in Enlightenment in Action

Which will include all the above and more

Okay, that's a good start.
email me questions, comments, discoveries

Improving Tennis as a chance to move toward enlightenment

I am writing a second book, this one of 108 ways to live a more fit,

awake and healthy life.

(link to book one, contents and eight sample chapters, above)

In it there are tips on eating in a different pattern
and a more healthy kind of food.

There are a progression of meditations and movement games,
all with the idea of "getting fit" with as little over effort,
and as much conscious and awakened effort as possible.

The main thrust of this new book, and the one
already written is:
we have two choices: Mindful Living or Mindless.
One is amazing. The other, no matter how well programmed,
eventually grows stale and turns our life in a pseudo-life.

I highly recommend reading the eight sample lessons,
and doing one a day
and then buying to book and for 108 days
spend the ten minutes trying out something "new and now"
in the worlds of
moving,
emotional learning,
thinking,
"soul."

So, the following tennis "games"
are just incidentally to improve your tennis,
and will surely be included as a chapter later in
this new Fitness as an Enlightenment Game
book.

Here goes:

Get a couple of small rocks that weigh just a little more
than your tennis racket, and have the rocks different enough
in weight so that your brain notices which hand is holding the
heavier rock when you are holding both.

This isn't necessary to get started,
but will add a lot to the exercise (that isn't "exercise")
over the long run.

Stand as if to hit a right handed forehand.

Except make a backswing with both arms.
If you have the rocks, fine, use them the second
time through this.

Make your backswing with both arms,
and then make a forehand swing with your right arm
and a backhand swing with your left.

But more like this,
just swing the arms from your right side to your left
side
slowly
and gently
and paying attention to each arm,
it's weight and shape and place in space.

Come back, with both arms parallel,
and repeat this motion,
two more times, eyes closed to "feel" in
the "sense yourself" way
how you do this.

Now,
according to Moshe Feldenkrais:
unless we can do something at least three
ways, we are a slave,
so let's give ourselves seven variations of this
two armed swing.

1. As we swing the arms right to left,
we notice and deliberately shift our weight from right to left foot.
Coming back the weight shifts left to right foot.

2. As we swing the arms R to L,
we keep our weight on the back (R) foot the whole time.
Going and coming.

Wait, you might not know this, if you aren't in the Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel worlds.
Take a sweet rest between each variation. Stand easy, arms down. If you have the rocks, drop them. Close your eyes. Feel the "you-ness" of you in the moment.
Notice any changes in body ease or overall organization
in each rest.
The rests are for your brain and your soul and your fitness.
Take them.

3. As we swing the arms R to L,
we keep our weight on the front (L) foot the whole time.

Rest.

4. As we swing the arms R to L,
we shift our weight in opposite directions:
to wit, we start with the weight on the front foot,
and as we swing to the L, we shift our weight to the back, R, foot.
And as we "come back" we shift our weight from the back, R, foot,
to the front, L, foot.

Rest.

5. This gets a little complicated.
Good.
Read and "think" this in your mind.
"Thinking" as a practice,
rather than the mislabled babbling to either speech or "words in our head"
(monkey chatter as the meditators of a certain stripe call it),
thinking is sadly undeveloped.
So:
start with the arms spread, L arm out to the L,
R arm back as if in the backswing of a forehand shot,
as you "swing" forward with the R hand,
swing "back" with the left hand.

One arm will chose to, and have to, go over the other.
Notice this.
For four times do whatever you picked.
and then the next four shift whatever arm is on top.

Notice: how are you shifting your weight
as you do this?

Are you tensing your jaw or your breathing,
or rushing through this?

Don't.

This variation can be done
in all four of the above combinations of weight shift.

Rest.

6. As we swing the arms R to L, in the beginning style,
and shifting weight "normally" R to L,
moving the chest in the opposite way.
Figure this out.
Go slow.
This is thinking without words.
Both arms go R to L,
the chest each way goes opposite the arms.

Do the weight shift as "normal" but have awareness of the weight
in each foot,
as well that you notice when the weight is 50-50.

Rest.

7. Let the L arm do what it normally does in a forehand.
Bring your R arm back
and play with these eight variations:
4 variations of the weight shift:
(R to L, all R, all L, L to R)
as you make the right handed swing.

How does that make 8?

In each of the above,
do sometimes your chest the same way the
arm is moving,
sometimes opposite.

Rest.

7b: Do a right handed forehand as easily
and smoothly as you can,
not particularly "thinking" about
how you are doing in,
but hugely AWAKE AND AWARE to the sensations from finger tips
to toes,
spine ribs pelvis and all else,
sense yourself as you make as easy a swing
and as aware a swing
and as pleasurable a swing
as
possible.

Good.

And, start the book, a segment a day,
link up above,


so give it a try
and then buy it after you get in the grove
and do 108 days of waking.

Good, 2.

Monday treat, Chapter 61: Easier neck, smarter brain for those who sit at computers

The normal Monday posting is at my Special Needs Children blog.
It's about the amazingly vast field of opportunities parents or
anyone has to create learning in themselves or another, by
NOTICING DIFFERENCES.

As I rewrite and upgrade the book I sell as a pdf,
I keep find chapters I'd love people to experience right
away, whether or not they buy the book.

Here's chapter 61:

Sit somewhere comfortably where there is a desk or a table in front of where you are sitting. Put your forearms on the table/ desk, such that one hand is on top of the other. Then lay your head on your hands.

Practice rolling your head right and left (nose going right and left, rotating in your neck and spine) in two ways:

1. Your forehead rubs along your hands, so that as your head rotates, the spot on your hand stays roughly the same. Do this a number of times.

2. Your head actually rolls right and left, as your nose rotates. So as your nose goes left, the part of your head touching your hand rolls toward the right on your hands. As your head turns, you touch a new spot on the hands at each part of the moving. Your head shift a bit to the right. Sense this moving point of contact, a, from the point of view of the backs on the hands, and b, from the point of view of your head feeling where it is touching/ pressing against the tops of your hands.

Of course, coming back, your nose goes right and head travels to the left.

Do this “many times” (eight to thirty), slowly and easily.

Rest.

Now switch which hand is on top and do this movement the second way, where your head rolls along the hands, again “many times,” and as you do it, shift easily your focus:
What’s happening in your neck?
What’s happening in your ribs?
Where is your nose pointed?
Can you feel a tendency to shift in your pelvis?
What are you eyes doing, or do they want to do?
Do you have a breathing pattern with this?

Rest.


Now do the head rolling way, again shifting top hand, where you deliberately:

1. Shift your weight side to side on your pelvis and thrust out your ribs a bit on the side to which your head is rolling (which is opposite the way your nose is pointing. Keep sensing the point of contact between your head and hands).

2. Let your eyes swing like a pendulum actually looking farther to the left and right than your nose is.

Go slowly. Gently. “Many times.”

Rest;


Now, the final variation. Roll your head this moving along your hands way. (Put the other hand on top). And move your eyes in the opposite direction that your nose is moving.

If you really want to pay attention, notice that your eyes and pointing the way that the pelvis is shifting.
Go slowly. Follow your breathing.
Enjoy learning this and picking up more clarity about yourself and being present.

If you want all 108 Wake Up/ 

Move and 

Be Happier and 

Think Better and 

Cultivate "Soul"

lessons,

feel free to

order the book,

links above will give you views of the contents

of all 108 lessons,

and the text of the first eight lessons.

here's the pay pal
thing, if you'd like to order now

108 Paths to Awakening

4 Brain Transformation

why what we do is "easy" once you get it

one: evolution took 4 million years to wire in intelligence of a spine that works well when it talks to the feet and the ribs and the head and the pelvis. we just help people re-find that.

two: if anyone slows down and senses themselves they will come closer to who they really are

three: in movement we are linking up to life. we are alive. moving is fun.

four: learning is fun. we are working with learning

five: we don't have to "do it right." we just have to open up people to "easy," or "better," or "interesting"

six:
you pick