Strange = Grown Up

I had what I call a "bad boy"Gurdjieff teacher, who swore and smoked and refused to dress up, and talked a lot about sex and psychology and ethnic tendencies ( French vs. German Jews, say, or Northern and Southern Italians).

He said many times, "strange equals grown up," because it's what our programming didn't get as children, and we find it "uncomfortable."

Now, if you think about it, when we first heard about sex, most of us not raised on farms, thought the whole penis in Mom thing pretty strange, scary and outlandish.

We come to accept that as not strange, once we participate, but then when adults hear about OMing, this can either be: "Oh God, where has this been all my life?" to "this is weird, creepy, strange."

It's certainly nothing we were raised with, either paying attention, nor stroking a clitoris, nor women being naked while the man doesn't get his goodies as part of the deal. And the man getting a lot, without getting his goodies, stranger still.

People either treat the novel as new and exciting, and a chance to expand, or scary and threatening to the status quo, and something to be dismissed. And most of us can be at different parts of this spectrum at different times.

And then this weird paradox, as a raw foods eater, in the OM world, how many people treat my smoothies that have fermentation as strange and scary and something to be mocked.

Ah, humans. We are a strange, bunch, eh?

Kids, tantrums, having enlightenment thanks to kids pushing us to be awake when it's hard to be awake

After enlightenment, do the laundry. 

How to get enlightened?

 Be present with a child, 

or yourself, 

or any loved one or creature, plant or feature

on this planet. 

Kids are dissatisfied sometimes,
and they don't hold it in.

They scream, hit, throw things,
you know the drill.

And our job, as parents,
and as human beings working toward real
livng
which in my opinion means
being awake to the present moment

we don't take it personally

unless we do,
and then we "flip our lids"
as Dan Siegel, MD amused us describing in Austin
recently talking about the Whole Brain Child.


and how this happens:

parents "lose it"

he says: okay, it happens,
admit it, apologize,
talk to your child about her or his feelings before you
"lost it" and when you "lost it"

just repair the damage and they'll be resiliant,
and know something wonderful:
you don't have to be perfect,
you just have to be willing to communicate the love
that got lost in the "lost it"
moments

and,
guess what,
that wasn't what this was headed to be about:
it was headed to be about
when the child is in tantrum, anger, or whine mode,
and you are still present,
a fun and useful thing to do,
is not to repress their anger,
not to make them feel bad about that,
but to make it a game,
where you present alternatives:

would you rather throw the book, or the ball?
would you rather scream this loud or this loud?
would you rather look at me when you scream or look at the floor?
Can you switch your whining to this tone?
To this tone?

Can you hit with your other hand?
Can you stomp with this foot?
And that foot.
Can you make this sound when you hit?

AND THIS IS IMPORTANT, ME THINKS<
if their hitting hurts,
tell them:
I am a real person,
that hurts.

I get that you are angry and let's find six different
ways you can hit the couch,
and call it me,
and tell me you hate me

so you can be angry and hit,
but I don't get hurt

I'm a real person, so
the couch doesn't mind being hit,
and what about kicking the couch
(or those little blow up clowns with sand in the bottom,
punching bags)

This not only lets the child knwo
they are safe to be angry,
but that in the context of being angry,
a real adult can see alternatives,
can allow them to experience differences,
which means being more mindful and aware of themselves

and the adult is seeing anger as an energy,
something to be used
and used in a variety of ways

this is good news all around

and if that isn't enough;
Here's a  TED talk with Dan Siegel and Goldie Hawn
on mindfulness and childrearing:
TED TALK ON MINDFULNESS AND CHILD REARING

Special Needs Children, lessons to "imitate" the daily action of "normal" children, learning is the aim

A "normal" child is pushing into the floor, into the chair, into everything, and pulling herself along,
or rolling herself over, or figuring out strategies of moving, and sitting and going up and down and crawling, and doing just about everything.

All day.

Each hour of each day is a lesson for the average child.

For a special needs child, life is full and wonderful, too, but the spasticity,  or the limited repertoire of successful motion, or the disabled attention abilities keep the learning less than full time.

This is where lessons come in.

We practitioners create the connections and the pushes and the pulls,
slowly,
gently
with variation,
to mimic
but much more effciently,
the learning all children need about how,
say,
the hand pushing into the floor connects through to the ribs and spine and pelvis.

How the rotation of the pelvis affects the legs and spine and head.

How the chest and ribs affect the back and the pelvis and the head.

It's all the miracle of this body and this brain,
a brain that doesn't start out knowing how to roll over,
or crawl or walk or talk.

What is learning?
It's adding on an ability to perceive new differences.
This is what children's lessons are about, whether it is "normal" children
moving themselves around experimentally,
or the special needs child lucky enough to get our lessons
to simulate and encourage this learning.

Life is amazing, and lessons,
for adults and children,
at all ranges of activity,
can increase the ability of the whole person
to perceive the whole person, the self,
the "me" inside of each of us,
as an independent source of motion,
and intention and action.

Action is us living our own life.
Action is what brings the children in for lessons.
Action is the life expansion for the children,
however small, bit by bit, after each lesson.

This is the little miracles that can add up to such big ones.

Hope to see you and your child soon.


Chris

Potency, Difficulties, Sex, the Good Life and Moshe Feldenkrais

"The overcoming of difficulties 
is one of the essential parts
of the pleasure of living" 
is a part of the second to last sentence in The Potent Self.

This is a book worth reading,
either front to back
of bit by bit.

There are tremendous sections on the problems
of how most of us were raised, most specifically
the "oh, that's so good" praise/ conditioning when e
were "good". This seems so kind, and yet, the message is
always there:
Stop the rewarded/ approved behavior and you are
not so good
which can quickly and easily be felt and expereienced
as
you are bad.

Tremendous sections of how the central feature
of humans is that they learn,
here with the upside of becoming Pablo Cassals or Michael Jordan,
and the downside of become the same sort of neurotic that
Mom or Dad was.

And then, this is Moshe Feldenkrais, right?
Huge amounts of the book talk about real posture,
which he calls acture,
and the use of the back and spine to further
mobility and ease

and potency.

Sex is important to life
and to Moshe.

Good sex is one of the essentials of a good life.
He shows how his work compliments
and even transcends traditional talk therapy
for dealing with potency issues,
and gives examples of people who
under his guidance where able to go from
impotence to potency.

And then, of course potency
is potency is
potency.,

And one of the great and glorious things to do with potency:
dive into the pleasure of overcoming difficulties.

Good.

And, if the "overcoming of difficulity,"
was the Cancer thing,
how much better to go about this with the peacefulness
of a good sex life,
and the clarity of functioning in a potent
and mature way.

Feldenkrais' Contribution to Humanity: Gurdjieff, Jesus, Buddha, Moshe and more !!!!

What was the Buddha's contribution to humanity?

That we live, as it were, behind a glass darkly,
hidden from our real lives,
in a slumbering existence,
disconnected from the Present,
and that from that,
ta da
we can Wake Up.

What was Jesus' contribution?

Well, that gets messy:
it could be the lesson that beautiful words
can lead to ugly Inquisitions,

or it could be the idea
that this is possible:
Love your neighbor,
Love your enemy,
Let go of all your possessions,
come into the Kingdom of Heaven,
which is within us right now.

Okay,
that's sort of spiritual stuff, isn't it?

Why am I setting up Moshe,
a great skeptic in these matters
in such a way?

Because

one: various places it has been said that he mentioned
in an unpublished Playboy interview (wouldn't he have been
great there?) that Gurdjieff was his foremost influence.

And what was Gurdjieff about?

We are asleep,
wandering along with no real center
at the mercy of every tide that sways
first one personality one way
and then some other personality the other.

solution: remember ourselves and wake up

and Gurdjieff also said,
to the staid St Petersburg crowd to whom
he taught in the early part of the 20th Century:
what we are after
is to be real Christians,

by which I'd say he meant,
really able to love

And what's that go to do with rolling around on the floor?
And being touched very gently and with great intelligence
and listening?
Or touching others with gentle intelligent listening?

Lots.

Say you clarify rolling your head to the right,
and lifting it just slightly.

And you stand your feet,
and clarify tipping your knees to the right, so that
your right knee falls almost to the floor,
or to the floor.

And say you get this idea of the , of your, left arm coming across you
to the right,
as you lift your left shoulder and bring it forward and down

and you begin to do
legs to the right
and left arm to the right
and head to the right and toward your right knee as if to
kiss it

and your right elbow kicks in as something like a hand,
and you
go slowly
and roll your head so it is near and then above your
right knee
and
you are something like sitting
and then you are sitting

You have changed.

You were a lying down person.

Now you are a sitting up person.

You know and love and like
and understand your arms better,
your head better
your knees and legs and pelvis better
and they
with your awareness and knowing
all come together
and you are sitting from lying down.

That's change.

That's practical being present.

That's loving yourself in this way of a child:
not,
oh yeah, let's just lie in the sun
and all is groovy,
but let's learn to jump across a pond,
let's learn to climb a tree,
let's learn to fingerpaint with a new color,

it's the love of life
that comes from expanding out into more
of living

And is that like Buddha?

yes. Waking up in perhaps its easiest form,
with aware movement.

And is it like Jesus loving the enemy?
No.
But it does take you away from all thought
of enemy
and help you make friends with all sorts
of parts of your body
and when you body feels sweet and friendly to
you,
is it easier to love anyone
and everyone.

I'd say so.
You say what you want to say.

But if we are all a genius inside
and were that genius when we were children
learning to roll over
and come to sit
and crawl
and walk
and talk

surely recovering that genius
(and didn't Jesus say, become like the little children)
again, is
to my mind
Moshe's gift to humanity:

You are never to old
to re activate
awareness
and the genius of learning that we had
as children

This is our birthright:
to be awake
to be in the joy and thrill and fun
of learning
and waking to now
and loving ourselves more
not as vague "self esteem"
but as happily more potent people
able to do something we couldn't do
an hour ago.

Good.