Back, Neck, Shoulder Pain... What the heck, Rewire the Brain

Many a person has an "issue" in their neck, shoulders, or back

They feel tight
They hurt
They feel crunchy
They can't move the way they used to move
They can't sleep
They can't participate in activities that used to bring them joy and delight

And
There are plenty of "modalities" out there that can
ease the pain
Reduce it
Relax it
Shift the energy and so on

And another way is this:
To create connections throughout our body,
Ankles, knees, hips, each vertebra
The eyes
The ribs
and the arms
and the fingers
and the toes
and the neck
and the jaw
and the spine,
each vertebra
and
the ribs, which I've said before, neglected, so often neglected
and
the lynch of all movement:
our pelvis

How can all these be woken up?
Teased into slightly more movement ?
Connected with each other?
Shown new variations and possibilities that weren't in the repertoire?
Allowed to begin to explore that way we did as a child?

Ah, that's what the Anat Baniel Method lessons
are about.

It's a long training on purpose.
It's deep and worth it
and confusing at first
and then
totally clear

tapping into the brain's love 
of learning
piggybacking on how deeply important clear
and organized movement is

letting coordination and ease
go hand in hand

skill
and ease

soft and clear

move and relax

our bodies like a cat
our brain/ bodies like a child

Relearning to learn
how we learned
to roll over
to sit up
to crawl

is obvious once you "get it"
and
it
takes three or four years to get it

Come by
Try some lessons

You'll be amazed

Internet in the public

Home internet is off for a bit. This means I get to come to Whole Foods
and eat avocado and blueberries
while I write up today's constant contact newsletter.

Hmmm.
Eating and working on the computer.

There is a story of a Zen student
questioning his master,
who was eating and reading at the same time.
"I thought," said the student,
"That when you eat, you eat.
And when you read, you read.
Isn't that what we were taught?"

The Zen master stuffed a little more blueberries
into his mouth,
grinned and chewed happily and then said,
"Yes, and when I eat and read,
I eat and read."

Alas, I wasn't "awake" at the both of them,
and either were a temptation to not really be awake
but to be lost in translation
lost in action
lost in the rolling ahead of life,
as it were.

And it's a good life,
blueberries,
it's a good life,
computer Internet nonsense.

And....
the awake life vibrates
or resonates
or glows
or something


What is it for you?

Here, for me, it's slower
and richer
and easier
no "worry" about the famous
"what's next?"
nor about
"am I doing it right"
nor
"am I getting enough done"

it's just
....
life

which is the present
the miracle
the joy
the yes


good

"Resistance" to the Feldenkrais Method

resistance so-called
to the Method

again:

now, there is a sort of "resistance"
which is a hideway excuse,
as in : this client is resisting change

famous was Milton Erickson who never had resistant clients:

fun stories:
the man in mental hospital,
grumbled and wouldn't cooperate,
he was Jesus.
great said Milton, since your Jesus,
you're a carpenter, here's a hammer and saw,
get to work

or the young boy in office
stomping on floor,
protesting being there.
Milton: nice stomp, but a big boy could stomp
much harder
of course, the boy stomps harder,
well, that's getting there, but a strong and big
boy could do better than that
and so on and so on
until the kid was begging to sit.

NLP,
which has some sleazy uses,
(seducing women, say),
has some brilliant ideas:
one of which,
there are no resistant clients
only bad therapists/ teachers

2. on the other hand
Moshe
and many others have pointed out:
people love to have the idea of changing
with the hidden clause they
don't have to change anything

3. thinking about resistance
as inertia

two passions back
(byron katie's, the Work, in between that
and the feldie method)
I pretty much single handedly stated a large
(3 acre) public garden, herbs, flowers,
food, trees, permaculture, soil and soul,
good place, now beautiful.
anyway,
since i loved it
i was enthused to invite lots of people to come.
many liked the idea
many said they'd be out "tomorrow" to help
most didn't make it

i discovered one class of people showed
up:
new to town

my theory became:
people have a rut of 3 or 4 main things they do
and it's really hard to break into that

new people don't have their ruts
defined yet
and so are open to somethng new
and wonderful

with ruts,
old and familiar
wins over new

recent article in New Yorker
on a megachurch in New England,
interesting confirmation:
best new members:
people moved recently,
divorced, lost jobs,
i.e. broken from their rut

4.A. resistance in ourselves, part A, heroic overcoming
last month i set out to do this
national november writing month ( NaNoWriMo.org)
where you go for a 50,000 word novel in
a month
i did it
and plenty of days
"resistance," reared it's slothy claws:
too hard, too crazy, novel sucks,
don't know what i'm doing,
etc etc too busy
blah blah
and i did it anyway

old Gurdjieff work thing:
in a group,
take an "aim" sew an hour a day,
talk to three people a week about job,
wear a business suit to all plumbing jobs,
weird or hard or interesting
you publically admit to something
and
set out to do it (Gurdjieff's idea:
people can't "do,"
are a bunch of I's
one i says, yes, i'll clean my room
tomorrow
tomorrow another set of I's want to watch tv or "has to"
answer the phone or , you know )
and see what happens

anyway,
another resistance
i do halfway well at heroically overcoming
is an aim
to do one or two alexander yanaii
a day
lots of resistance
though
and
always
always
glad i do

HOWEVER
4.B. then there's part B:
the resistance wins:
for twelve years at least i've been going to
"get around to"
learning piano,
learning guitar,
even writing the novel.

with help of organized event
some progress on third,
but piano
and guitar
ah,
and spanish
all languish in the "sometime"
labyrinth

so what is my "resistance"?

one, the ever-ready "story"
story:not enough time
but time to read New yorker,
or see dvd on computer
or...you know,
stuff that's part of my rut

story:
i'm not natural, or talented
or .....


and another factor:
non instant satisfaction
as learning curve bites
which actually, once people get to the Feldenkrais lessons,
we have much less problem with
in our work
(and maybe someone teaches music so the immediate
process of discovery is as delightful
as in ours?
don't know yet.)

5. so,
in a way, it seems to me:
that one of the core processes of our method:
the playing open of habits
to create new options
is what's (partially) going on when
people don't want to/ can't/ are "too busy"
and not interested in
opening to having the feldenkrais method
in their life

they have the habit of not being involved
in our method