“Oh! Is there something inside my body I should be paying attention to?!”
Someone asked me that in a movement class once. Their question was funny and honest.

In “The Psychophysiology of Movement: The Lost Art of Sensing the Body” Dr. Alan Fogel begins:

“Only human beings have come to a point where they no longer know why they exist. They have forgotten the secret knowledge of their body, their senses, their dreams.” (Lame Deer & Erdoes, 1972, p. 157)

I’ve been called to assist people on a journey home to themselves. On a journey back to what Dr. Fogel calls “embodied self awareness.” A fancy way of saying being present with one’s full being body, mind, and heart.

“What may come as a shock is that the loss of attention to ourselves brings with it additional losses. We risk losing our emotional equanimity, our physical health, and our sense of well being” (Fogel, 2009, p 1.)

By “attention to ourselves” is meant self awareness, not self absorption. Self awareness is open, attentive, awake but relaxed. It opens out to others around us. Self absorption shuts us down and shuts out the world around us. I create a learning environment where the highest value is placed upon reconnecting with the interior landscape of  body, mind and heart in service to reconnecting to the outer world in meaningful ways.

There are plenty of places where we can go that offer ideals of what we should be doing with our body and that is a perfectly fine way to learn and it’s not the only way to learn. It brings us closer to someone else’s ideal of what your body should be doing. It’s good to be able to discern between different kinds of learning.

And it’s good to know how to work with those ideals in such a way that you can make them your own because embodied self awareness is about authenticity, that is, being comfortable in our own skin.

Uncovering our deep resources for embodied self awareness which includes self regulation and emotional intelligence requires patience and self compassion. Embodied self awareness  builds trust and offers a return home that so many of us long for.

An audio version of this blog post can be heard here.

Once upon a time there was a Chinese farmer whose horse ran away. That evening, all of his neighbors came around to commiserate. They said, “We are so sorry to hear your horse has run away. This is most unfortunate.” The farmer said, “Maybe.” The next day the horse came back bringing seven wild horses with it, and in the evening everybody came back and said, “Oh, isn’t that lucky. What a great turn of events. You now have eight horses!” The farmer again said, “Maybe.”

The following day his son tried to break in one of the horses, and while riding it, he was thrown and broke his leg. The neighbors then said, “Oh dear, that’s too bad,” and the farmer responded, “Maybe.” The next day the conscription officers came around to conscript people into the army, and they rejected his son because he had a broken leg. Again all the neighbors came around and said, “Isn’t that great!” Again, he said, “Maybe.

Why I Love This Story

It’s a reminder that our inner peace isn’t tied to the ever changing tides of life: this is true freedom. The farmer understood how interconnected life is.

Such insight and it’s resulting equanimity may be challenging to come by these days and yet, with practice we too can find steadiness within ourselves and remain open to synchronicities. That steadiness is always there within us and the journey home to it is essential now. It doesn’t mean we don’t take action, it means we know what motivates our actions and we keep the big picture.

These are challenging times and here’s the test of these times: Do we allow our contentment, our joy, to be determined by outer circumstances only?

On a recent trip which took me through Los Angeles International Airport, the Pharrell Williams’ song “Happy” played while I was at the boarding gate. It is a contagious piece of music and a group of us broke into spontaneous dance. It was the medicine of the moment. During the flight I thought about what it is to experience happiness or contentment in harsh times.

Your contentment and mine is an inside job. It is an inside job because we already carry on the inside what we keep seeking outwardly. What appears as obstacles to our contentment is at the heart of all inner work and just happens to be what I love to explore with people.

The” Logical” Client

One person I work with is a scientist. She tells me that according to her “evidence based” approach to life, she is unloveable. I gently let her know that I only work with lovable people: this caught her by tearful surprise as she realized she was one of those people!

One of the aspirations of supported inner work is to assist people in discovering or rediscovering their own goodness. When we reclaim or discover our inherent worthiness what naturally follows is responsibility for our own contentment.

Yes, there is plenty to be concerned about these days. And recognizing that our inner peace is not dependent upon the ever changing tides of life, is freedom from unnecessary suffering.

It is possible to be deeply touched by the aches and pains of the world and not be upended by the chaos. This is a necessary skill for these times.

Times of transition are upon us and they will be for some time to come. Times of transition such as we are experiencing are not meant to be comfortable; they are chaotic, dangerous and workable.

These times are workable. What do I mean by that?

I used to think “workable” meant a happy ending, everyone gets what they want and everything is resolved. Workability for me now is more about self compassion, being humble enough to acknowledge my need for support and accepting that some things are never “resolved”.

In childbirth, there is a phase called “transition”. It is an experience of heightened sensitivity and demand. A skilled midwife must know how to support a woman in a time of chaos through the urges to push or give up.

The comparison to what we are going through in our world at this time is unmistakable and the urge to push through or give up is habitual. We need our inner and outer midwives to guide us with fierce compassion.

What makes situations workable in times of transition is an invitation to notice how do we meet uncertainty? How do we find freedom within limitations? Do we ignore uncertainty? Is our style to try to control what’s happening? Is our habit to catastrophize?

Being aware with self compassion…

…of how we meet such times opens us to more choices in our capacity to respond. Or as somatic teacher Moshe Feldenkrais put it: “When you know what you are doing, you can do what you want.”

To know we can learn how to be at choice in our responses is true freedom.

There’s a Japanese proverb that says “Fall down seven times, get up eight”.

Between “failing” and “falling” there is only one letter difference. From my audio book “Freedom From Habits of Body & Mind(c)”  I write:

“We live in times of great instability. For many there is not much consistency. There are both inner and outer circumstances that can knock us off our feet, literally or figuratively. There is no such thing as always being stable or ‘in balance’…there is no once and for all. We experience balance because we learn how to make friends with change…inner or outer.”

To Fail is a Creative Act

One of the teachings I’ve gleaned from my partner who is an engineer is that he spends many of his days experimenting and failing. I’ve learned that when I am terrified of failing, there’s no room for much else to happen: the insight, the glimmer of “ah ha!”, or humor has vanished, there’s just me in my frustration.

Perfectionism is not a big part of my personality but when it strikes I know it is where creativity goes to die!

The secret to vitality and creativity is being willing to experiment, being willing and able to slow down and to be aware. These little moments illuminate what’s actually happening. These are skills we can acquire and apply anytime.

In Japanese culture there’s the “nobility of failure”.

This idea says that when we are failing we are most vividly alive. It’s a kind of Zen compliment: “Look how many times that person has failed, they must be truly alive!” Implied in the failure is a willingness to learn.

There’s a corresponding idea in the world of bodily movement: with each step we take we are falling. In between one foot leaving the ground and the next one arriving, we are in midair.

Our brains compensate for the perception of falling. If we slow down we see how we embody the constant experience of shifting from instability to stability and back again in every step.

“We experience balance because we make friends with change inner or outer.”