Perspective is Everything
A former fighter pilot recently spoke at a business leadership conference. This fighter pilot, a woman with woman friends who were also pilots, talked about a "bring your child to work day" where the child in question was a boy. Asked whether he wanted to be a pilot when he rew up, he responded, "No way, that's for girls!"
Our lives are framed by our perception of possibilities. So how do we shift the frame?
I see people every day who feel, believe, and sense that they cannot do something. They can't turn to the left, use their arm, stand on the right leg, or walk without pain. And they're right, they can't. Often we can't even imagine doing this thing that feels difficult and seems impossible. It's relegated to a vestige of a lost sense of self, perhaps a younger, more vibrant, more mobile, unconcerned-with-pain-and-injury self.
However, the possibility of more movement and more choice always exists, unless you're dead which, if you're reading this, you are not. Consider that your nervous system is always doing the best it can given the perception of available choices.
I have seen over and over the moment when people feel life is possible again. They feel some easy movement somewhere in the system, or some aspect of living has less pain, or some long-term contraction disappears.
This is not that to say that there was ever anything wrong. There is no wrong, just adaptive behaviors that no longer serve us. And there is no right, either, just more and more options informing us of the possibility for a vital, potent, spontaneous life, unencumbered by predictive assumptions about pain and discomfort. When you're guided to clarify many new movements, you start to envision new ways of living, not just moving.
Borne out by studies on mindfulness, the moment-by-moment awareness of a Feldenkrais lesson allows us to perceive more possibilities. When we focus our attention, we're able to think more expansively instead of sinking into narrow judgements and negative forecasting. The ability to track ourselves through space, without judgment and with simple presence, literally widens our frame. With this wider frame, we can envision a new future. Men can even be fighter pilots! Consider that:
Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team.
Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for not being creative enough.
The Beatles were turned away by a record executive who said that guitar groups were on their way out.
Stephen King stacked rejection slips on a nail in the wall and when the nail was full, he used a spike and kept on writing.
All of these folks envisioned a different future. Use the mindfulness of Feldenkrais to help your world expand. It will anyway, without the conscious part of you even trying!
“Your assumptions are your windows on the world. Scrub them off every once in a while, or the light won't come in.”
― Isaac Asimov
“It takes something more than intelligence to act intelligently.”
― Fyodor Dostoyevsky