When you want to sting back in your love relationship.... don't

Week Two, Day One: LOVE

Be happy when you feel like arguing

Don’t say it when you feel like arguing

Be present when you feel like arguing

Say your complaint in gibberish when you feel like arguing

Go take a walk in nature when you feel like arguing

This is a day to begin to shift one of life’s most painful occurrences.

We have a mate, who loves us and whom we love. And they say something that stings. Or, we say something that stings.

Either way, our scorpion mind or their scorpion mind wants to bite back, sting back, fight fire with fire.

And…

Can you please remember any times in your life when this has worked?

So. That’s the game today. Notice when you are stung. Or when you are stinging and do one of three things.

Love Game #5 Feel your sting, or their sting.

Stop.

Say nothing.

Take three deep breaths.

Ask for something non-verbal:

A hug.

A walk that is holding hands.

A kiss.

(Not sex, that’s too radical for the way out of the venom, and creates a messy pathway to inner shifting.)

A dance.

That’s pretty self-explanatory, and it’s so hard.

We love to drive ourselves deeper and deeper into the mess by “just saying one more thing.” (The urge to get in the last word has ruined more marriages than almost anything else.)

Words don’t heal, usually, the wounds started by words.

“I’m sorry” might help.

“Something’s going on with you I don’t understand” might help.

And let’s start with going to something kind and friendly and non-verbal.

This is a good habit.

And,

Love Game #6: Ask for all of the above during the day even when there is no sting going on:

A hug.

A holding hands walk.

A kiss.

A dance.

This is life.

We need to cultivate touching the person we got together with for touch.

We found this person for two reasons, and many more.

The main two: someone to talk to.

Someone to have sex with/ enjoy physically.

The hug, the walk, the kiss, the dance don’t need to have any hints of sex in them.

Better they don’t.

And they do have the CONNECTION that is so crucial to human life on Earth.

And…

If you are in the work environment.

And you want to calm someone’s mean remark… a dance and kiss and a holding hands walk probably won’t work.

A hug is even a little iffy.

You might invent a silly/profound reason to shake hands, saying something like: “Let’s agree to disagree and mull this over for a win-win approach.”

“Let’s agree to chill on this for a bit, and come back to it when we are feeling more friendly.”

“Let’s agree to explore ways to make this good for both of us.”

All of these could work in the romantic/ love/ marriage relationship.

And back to our partner. One other game to play when the sting starts happening is a two part game.

Love Game #7: When you feel like complaining

One: Say at least seven gratitudes to them, three or four being appreciations about them

Two: speak the complaint in gibberish.

After that’s over, they may not know what you are doing. If they ask, say you are practicing turning negativity into gibberish. To spare them, and to spare yourself.

If they don’t ask, enjoy it.

Perhaps even say some more gratitudes.

If they want to sting back, anyway.

Ask them to channel their sting into gratitudes plus gibberish.

If they say yes, great.

If they say no, ask to be excused while you go take a walk.

And then: go take a walk.

And be present to your feet and your breath and nature and the world of you, alive right now.

If you feel like arguing or are rehearsing your counter-attack in your head, see if you can switch it to gratitudes and gibberish.

Enjoy.

Summary of Week Two, Day One: LOVE

Go three ways with the “sting” temptation.

One: Non verbal.

Two: Practice hugs and hand hold walks, and dancing and kissing even when the situation is “normal,” to make this a normal and everyday part of life.

Three: Again, if the sting is happening, react with gratitude and gibberish .

Be honest: stinging back has never work.

Good.

Maybe the violence/ aggression post was too narrow-- TWO NERVOUS SYSTEMS—APOLLONIAN vs DIONYSIAN—BOTH RIGHT

TWO NERVOUS SYSTEMS—APOLLONIAN vs DIONYSIAN—BOTH RIGHT

Once there was a panel from a number of successful communes throughout the country. When asked what the central problem was, a large majority said: Dogs!

My dog’s barking and doglike behavior is great to me, but may be annoying as hell to another.

(Same with my frisky child, seen by another as my bratty child)

This is my third time around on the slapping issue, slapping as a part of the Authentic Games nights,  and having had the epiphany that for some people this is a big kick, and in a certain way, I don’t have a right to interfere with that kick, set the quietness in motion from which these reflections can take place.

The “problem” is age old in societies. Does the perky young neighbor’s right to have a hell of a good time having a noisy party at 1 AM come first or my wish to have some sleep starting at 11.

The dogs issues shows it’s not an age thing, though it often plays out that way.

Taking it down a notch more, does the Toddler’s right to bang the hell out of the pans and learn about gravity by pouring the milk on the floor over ride the parent’s desire for some order and peacefulness.

And then there are the two nervous systems. Parasympathetic calms us, creating conditions for digestion, sleep, relaxation. Sympathetic ( I know, it’s a weird matching) is to jack us up, get us ready for fight or flight or sex or vigorous activity ( no surprise sports and war language going hand in hand).

Both have their cool sides. Jacked up, hyper alert, ready for anything, this is ecstatic dance at it’s loudest or any of the old orgiastic times, called Dionysian by the Greeks, for the god of drink and merriment.  Thrashing around the campfire, letting off steam, or getting ready for the orgy, or charging up in war paint to go off to war.

No doubt about it, this is a fun one.

The calmer nervous system is more boring sometimes, and cultivated say in slower, more mindful movement, tai chi and whatnot, or mindful walking or meditation, or moments of quiet in a busy day.

The Apollo  way, Apollonian, calm and ordered. Which actually isn’t how real meditation is, but that’s another story.

So the slaps come along. The shouting comes along. Not my cup of tea. My hearing on the left side and my sight in my left eye are both considerably weaker. Think through where a right handed slap from good old Mom would land.

But that doesn’t mean for the young bucks, this isn’t a hell of a great chance to experience something young bucks have been experiencing as long as we’ve had these two nervous systems, which is a pretty long time.

Young bucks, let’s say in this day and age, includes women who don’t want to deny that frisky wild woman part.

I could yammer a bit more about ecstatic dance vs what I used to call the geriatric dance (Dancing together), and why I liked to go back and forth between the two, but the fun of this now, is realizing: both sides are right.

We need peacefulness.

We need alert vigorous living.

How does this fit in the Authentic Games room?

I’m not sure.

I do know someone slapping in my sight, or shouting in my hearing range, has to activate my parasympathetic nervous system.

What I don’t’ know, that I thought I did when I jumped into this fray, is whether that’s anything I have any right to want to restrain or put conditions on.

Ah, life. Uncertainty can be very sweet at times.

Go slow, dance, close, kiss

Alternating touch and talk,
today is touch

and
let's dance

let's keep this in the
sex before dinner repertoire,

which is really,
sweet and juicy touch before dinner


and today,
or any day

as part of your ten minutes of touch
yum
before dinner

dance
no music,
keep the clothes on,
so you'll get in the habit of dancing a lot

and
dance,
slow,
and hum to each other
and
kiss
a lot

that's it:

slow,
left right left right

nothing fancy

close

hum

kiss

enjoy

good

Additional thoughts about "Movement with Attention."

In Anat's book, there are some very
inspiring examples of people whose
lives made dramatic shifts when
they discovered Movement with Attention.

The main element I missed in yesterday's essay
was the usefulness
and importance
of realizing that thinking and "feeling" in the emotional
sense,
are also movement.

And if we pay attention to our emotions,
we can feel them either deepen,
if they are sweet emotions,
or begin to loosen and shift
if they aren't such pleasant ones.

With thinking, she didn't give any examples
of watching our thinking as motion,
but one of the great uses of journalling,
and the "three pages a day" of the Artist's Way,
is that we can go beyond the usual two thoughts
clunking through our nogans and discover deeper
and perhaps more stimulating and useful thoughts
as we let the thinking itself
get in motion.

I often discover that
in writing these blogs,
that one thought leads to another.

Speaking, too, my gal and I love to talk five minutes one,
five minutes the next,
and if we stay present with ourselves
and looking into the eyes of the other,
we often discover ourselves saying things at
a deep and profound and often very loving level.

So attention to thinking in speaking
can lead to love.

Actually, being present almost always leads to love
of one sort or another,
love of the sky or the tree you are seeing,
love of the walking you are doing,
love of the person you are with
or the music you are hearing
or playing
or humming.

The song of life.
The dance of life.

Moving into waking
is to move into joy.

Let's go.

Tango, Dance, Walking, Learning and Love

Most of us learned to walk along the way.

It was hard, easy, fun, amazing.

Mainly, if you think about, or really feel how small the feet are
under such a tall, large thing this body of ours,
you'll see that standing (harder than walking)
and walking (harder than being three or four legged)
are
both almost miracles.

And then, we grow up and want to dance,
and sometimes have fun and then we go to dance classes.

And the teacher, good old teacher, shows the "right way."
Once: we get it or don't.
Okay, the teacher shows it again: we get it or don't.
Then the show the "other" (usually follower) part, once, twice.
People get it or don't.
Put on music and you're on your own.

But every move is right foot, left foot, or some pause with the weight on
one foot or the other.

What if we learned dance as a fancied up walking,
where we get to try by ourselves as the pretend "leader"
a bunch of walking to music variations.
Then we explore, by ourselves, as the pretend "follower",
a bunch of walking to music variations.

Then we pal up, guy and a gal, gal and a gal, guy and a guy, father and a daughter,
mother and a daughter, or son, and so on.

Play around.
Invent some steps.
Learn to float around the floor with the music.


Would this be nice?

I think so.

Come and find out.

Here's the word part of a flyer I have around town on Orcas Island in Washington.

Tango,
Feldenkrais® &
Learning how to Learn
A 4 class series at Odd Fellows Hall
Thursday, 6:15-7:15 PM, June 17- July 8
What if we went about learning Dance (anything)
as a process of discovery,
rather than a determination to “Get it Right?”

Chris Elms is a beginning Tango student and an advanced Practitioner
in the Feldenkrais Method®.

He teaches private lessons to Undo Pain, Relieve Stress,
and Increase Mobility & Skills.

A BABY LEARNS TO CRAWL, NOT BY FOLLOWING ANY RULES, but
by experimenting with hundreds of movements, many of them “mistakes,” then one
day, she puts 30 of them together and crawls, not so show off or accomplish anything,
but to get the toy across the room.

DANCE CAN BE LEARNED AS PLEASURE, EASE, and LISTENING.
Listening to the music, listening to your own body, and listening to your partner’s
ease and movement.

EVERYONE DANCES “LEAD” & FOLLOWER”

IF YOU DON’T LIKE DANCE: come and learn as if walking to music.

IF YOU DO LIKE DANCE: come and treat yourself to a way of learning that
can improve & relax many areas of your life.



That's it.
Let me know, if you are a practitioner,
and want to collaborate on teaching any form of dancing
this way,

or collaborate working with and getting mentored working with,
special needs children.

Chris.

Dancers, Musicians, Actors: a fine opportunity in Tucson this week

DANCERS: dance better.
MUSICIANS: play better.
ACTORS: use your voice and body more easily.

Hello:
My name is Chris Elms and I am in Tuscon this week,
until the 25th of February.
This I realize is a short time
and
I am curious what if anything I can contribute to any of the
faculty or students in the dance, music and theater departments in that time

My work
which I call Neurological Upgrading,
is from the Feldenkrais® Method (http://feldenkrais.com),
of which I am a practitioner after a 4 year training,
and the
Anat Baniel Method,
in which I have taken the Mastery Training to work with
High Performers. (http://anatbanielmethod.com).

This work, by using our brain,
literally creatine new neurological pathways,
can help improvement at all levels:
• injuries become irrelevant to heightened and easeful movement
• chronic stuck points become the leaping off point for expansion of
movement, awareness and thinking capabilities
• high performers, Olympic athletes, world class musicians,
gain that extra ten percent that put them to the next
level, whatever
that might be for them.

I can give demonstrations of the brain/ body/ learning
connection to groups.

The most rapid upgrading,
however is in individual lessons,
which are slow, gentle,
hands on,
with the client fully clothed, lying or
sitting on a low and firm table,
and discovering inside connections
and ease
that she/ he might not have known
since they were a child.

Or maybe never.

Please fill free to call or email.
Soon.

With enough interested clients
I would be happy to schedule regular
two or three week visits to Tucson,
as the lessons are most powerful in 6 or more
per two week concentrations,
since the brain,
though it loves to learn,
also love to slip back to the way
it has always done things.

A concentrated group of lessons
allows the change to integrate and become the
new you.

Thanks for reading and considering this.

P.S. The starting picture, on my business card,
is something I learned to do recently, at 63 year old.
Not by huffing and puffing and "trying harder"
but by applying the go slow, learn faster principles
of this work.

Awakened Movement

To move
is

fun


To move
is

to be alive


To move
is

to move toward
or away
from various things in life


To move
is

a chance
to dance


To dance
is

a chance
to express
our life,
the joy
and
the other stuff


And what would awakened movement
be like?

A chance
to move dance
create
shapes
and motion
in ourself
in a slow
and aware way

or even,
after we've gotten the sense
and feel of it,
a fast
and aware way

to move so we know
how we are moving

and can slop
reverse
change directions
breathe
smile
sing
dance

while we move



A nice state,
a nice practice


I think
feel
sense
believe

Then again
beliefs
are just
beliefs


And experience
is all
we can
really know.