Musings
"The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant." -Albert Einstein
As I'm preparing for this weekend's workshop I'm starting to see the multifaceted and interrelated aspects arising out of the questions "when you think of coming home to yourself, what do you imagine?" and "how does a person develop their intuition?" Here are my preliminary thoughts:
1) Being in your body
For many reasons we are taught in our society to not be in our body and override or ignore or not be aware of sensations that arise. We can live pretty well for many years only "in our head" and sometimes it is out of a real necessity. Yet, with only a cognitive orientation to oneself, a person will miss out on bodily signals that are trying to tell them something.
2) Sensory awareness
How alive are your sensations? Pause and notice what you see, hear, feel, smell, and taste in your immediate environment. We learn to dampen our sensations as a protective mechanism in an overstimulating world and can habituate to that loss.
3) Kinesthetic awareness
"Kinesthetics is the study of body motion, and of the perception (both conscious and unconscious) of one's own body motions." - Wikipedia
These matters are what we are constantly developing in the Feldenkrais Method®
3) Being on your own side
I learned this term from the Being Well podcast with Forrest Hanson. He describes this quality as: "Valuing your own needs. Valuing your own perspective. Having an appreciation for your own context in all of this. And just caring about yourself in the same way that you care about other people."
4) Moderating technology use
I will freely admit that I struggle with this! Who doesn't nowadays? Being more intentional with technology, limiting use, and disconnecting for longer periods of time are key in coming home to ourselves. We can find a balance.
5) Connection with the natural world or the divine
Where better to practice the above list than immersing oneself in the beauty of the natural world, or in the presence of the sacred?
These ideas are a work in progress and I'm still at the beginning of my research phase.
I wanted to also share the words from one of the participants of the To Come Home To Yourself workshop in Cambridge, MA this weekend.
"I think Feldenkrais - more specifically, the development of my ATM* practice - has been the single biggest tool that allows me to feel safe enough to quiet down to hear what my intuition might be telling me. I find the timing of this workshop quite lovely as it relates to my recovery work because the only way I've been able to heal is to quiet down enough to know what I feel and think. And to quiet down, to hear my voice is what coming home to myself means to me." - Brooks Toombs
*ATM stands for Awareness Through Movement® which are the verbally-guided group classes in the Feldenkrais Method.