No. 13, August 3, 2017
THE WELLNESS SALON
Musings on wellness from Donna Simmons, Feldenkrais ® Practitioner
“I got the blues thinking of the future, so I left off and made some marmalade. It’s amazing how it cheers me up to shred oranges and scrub the floor.”
–D.H. Lawrence
“If we listen attentively, we can hear, amid the uproar of empires and nations, a faint flutter of wings, the gentle stirring of life and hope. Some will say that this hope lies in a nation; others, in a person. I believe, rather, that it is awakened and nourished by millions of solitary individuals whose deeds and works every day negate frontiers and the crudest implications of history”
–Albert Camus
“If you assume that there’s no hope, you guarantee that there will be no hope. If you assume that there is an instinct for freedom, that there are opportunities to change things, there’s a chance you may contribute to making a better world. That’s your choice.”
–Noam Chomsky
“Fall seven times. Stand up eight.”
–Japanese proverb
I don’t know about you, but I must at times remind myself that it is during times of chaos that opportunities arise. In the Feldenkrais® Method confusion often leads to an opportunity to learn something new.
I have the good fortune to be proficient in several languages. The ability to communicate with ease in English, Spanish, and French, and (to a lesser degree German and Japanese) has served me well over the years, not only as a passport to international venues but also as a window into different ways of looking at the world. (As an aside, the decline of foreign language instruction in US public schools is a tragedy of historic proportions, but I’ll leave that for another time.)
Our relationship with our physical self is likewise enhanced by our mastery of the various languages used by the body/mind. (Make no mistake, they are inseparable.) Of course, understanding requires listening, but listening alone is not enough. Listening intently to a movie in Polish will not help much if you don’t speak Polish and the subtitles are in Greek (true story 1). And being hyper-aware of your limitations, pains, sleep rhythms, etc. will not improve your quality of life if you are mystified by the messages being sent.
What Moshe Feldenkrais did was to develop a way of interpreting and understanding the body/mind messages through focused observation and self- discovery. Awareness Through Movement® lessons and Functional Integration® sessions provide an opportunity for individual exploration and learning. The key is to turn that learning into a lived action, to integrate it into daily living, into a daily practice. Of course, there’s a bit more to it than that (just as any language is not just words, but also syntax, grammar, context etc..) but, basically, focused observation is what I teach in my practice.2
There’s a good chance that, what with the current state of the world, you may be receiving some messages that you don’t understand (and I don’t mean from the White House! ? ). The physical self is connected to the world in a myriad of ways that we sometimes need help interpreting and understanding. Not to worry! My observational skills and knowledge of the language(s) of the human machine combined with your desire to learn offer great potential for a successful transition to a happier life.
I leave you with this thought: If not now, when? If not you, who else?
Namaste, Donna
1Not me, but an American who was invited by some dear Athenian friends to see an early Roman Polanski film in a Greek theatre with the explanation “It may be in Polish, but no worries, there will be subtitles!”
2Focused observation ( mindfulness) and self-exploration are the yin and yang of Feldenkrais