Don't worry, the learning process is up and down
I get many questions about how Feldenkrais helps, when we should feel a difference, what it means, and how long the change lasts. I was even discussing with a colleague the other day the best way to integrate new movement into regular life after a Feldenkrais intensive. We were questioning the effects of the old environment on the change that happens on the table.
Going back into your regular environment, with all its pressures and familiar habits, can be overwhelming. It takes time and practice to become aware of how you are affected by the familiar. The more sensory discrimination you practice in Feldenkrais, the more you bring this ability to your lived experience. You start making better and better decisions to support your well being, reduce stress, and improve performance.
I know that's what allowed—or propelled—me to move to another country: I gained a clearer awareness of the constant stress and pain I was living with. I had been ignoring it, telling myself it was a natural consequence of living in New York City with a demanding job.
Unfortunately (or not, as the case may be), doing Feldenkrais all the time makes you annoyingly aware of the discomforts of existence. The subtleties of sensation are more obvious, which creates a choice-point, one that most of us don't want to face. Self-awareness is not for the faint of heart.
Moshe understood this, as he remarks here:
"It should further be realized that as changes take place in the self, new and hitherto unrecognized difficulties will be discovered. The consciousness previously rejected them either from fear or because of pain, and it is only as self-confidence increases that it becomes possible to identify them."
I like that phrase: Only as self-confidence increases, it becomes possible to identify them.
Yes, sometimes we all regress. But, these regressions will become rarer. For me, it took years to educate my developmental patterns enough so that I didn't return to painful cycles of thinking and sensing. I also had to move across the world...twice. But then I am a slow learner.
Moshe reminds us again:
"It must be fully realized from the start that the learning process is irregular and consists of steps, and that there will be downs as well as ups.
We must not become discouraged, therefore, if we find we have slipped back to the original condition at any time; these regressions will become rarer and return to the improved condition easier as the learning process continues."
from the preface to Awareness Through Movement
“Learning to think in patterns of relationships, in sensations divorced from the fixity of words, allows us to find hidden resources and the ability to make new patterns...In short, we think personally, originally, and thus take another route to the thing we already know.”