Its been a strange week for many this week, the beginnings of re-opening up society, getting back to “normal”. I think for many the questions that have been raised haven’t made it any less stressful and confusing as to know what to do for the best.
Most of us need some kind of certainty to feel comfortable. And what we do in a Feldenkrais lesson is about creating self-knowledge and certainty about the physical and mental space of ourselves: where we start and end, inside the confines of our skin. We spend time feeling how our skeleton supports us, sensing this from the inside: our structure within.
And whilst it might not seem it, greater kinaesthetic sense of ourselves, a clearer relationship to ourselves and to the environment around us, can help us find more calmness, more sense of what is us, and what is outside of us.
It shows us the possibility of giving ourselves the mental space to respond rather than react. In creating an environment in a lesson where we have time to think more clearly about how we move ourselves: what’s necessary, what’s not; what’s a habit and can be changed; what are the limits of the bio-mechanics of our species, we are also teaching ourselves mental clarity in general, in what is a real limit, and what is only a limitation of how we think, and can be changed.
In kinaesthetically sensing where we start and end, in relationship to the room around us, we are creating an opportunity to also sense this in relationship to the world around us: what is our opinion, what is a useful way of thinking, what can we do, what can’t we do, and where are the spaces where we have the power to choose. Spending time focussing on the here and now with ourselves on the floor, can help us come back to that when we’re not in a Feldenkrais lesson.
All of this quietly works together to help us let go of dramas, to allow us to be more effective in how we move through our world, and have greater clarity in how to adapt to a situation and move forwards.
This week’s lessons will follow this theme of grounding ourselves and sensing our centres, to find more mental comfort. Next week, we’ll start a new theme, how to make yourselves more comfortable at the computer screen.
If you’d like to join us for our weekly Feldenkrais online lessons, sign up here:
themovingbrain.com 