Better Parenting

Dear Students:
This month, I wish to share more words of wisdom spoken by Moshe Feldenkrais from the public workshop he taught in Dallas, Texas in 1981.  Inspired by his students’ questions Moshe talked about how they could better their own development & enhance their children’s growth.

 

He explained,“By the age of three……..the majority of [children] have the feeling so inhibited that they alienate themselves to themselves. At the age of three they don’t rely on their feeling – they never do what they feel to do. They will first find what their mother likes [it] and father likes [it] and they will change their way of doing, just not to loose the affection of the mother. Because by the age of three if the mother and father did really hate you and didn’t want you, you are dead.”

Due to these survival reasons, babies become very in tune with the emotions of their care givers which ultimately forms their positive & negative behaviors.  Loving parenting is essential for beneficial development whereas the opposite creates physical, mental & emotional injuries that can be carried into adulthood.  When a person grows blind to his character flaws, he looses the power to change them.  This is why Moshe emphasized teaching his students how to become self-aware through sensing, feeling, thinking & moving. Through this process, deeply rooted wounds can be revealed to those that wish to see, so healing & growth can begin.

Moshe continued, “We find that, all the troubles we have are due to the parents insisting and then eliminating and killing in us our feelings.  You would think you would be better off without parents all together.”

Then he addressed the parents in the room to suggest how to parent in a way that creates healthy adults. He said, “And by the way, as many of you are parents now, your children will think the same way if you don’t understand their make up and you don’t help them to grow into individuals where they have very strong faith in themselves and appreciation of their own value and they don’t listen to anybody but when it is of very intense public social importance.  Other wise you should have a society of intelligent, strong, healthy people with healthy feelings and good thinking and good senses and ability to act properly.  That would make a humanity in which would be quite different from the one we have now around us.”

Dr. Feldenkrais delved into why he chose to use movement as the vehicle to awaken people to their true nature through teaching of  Awareness Through Movement (ATM) and Functional Integration lessons.  He expressed, “We are better than we think.  Take away the junk, the trouble that you have and see what you are. We are doing [ATM lessons] in order to understand how we function and how we work, how our brain works,……how we feel. Therefore we do movement, action and through that we learn really about ourself more than anything else.”

If you enjoyed reading the quotes from Moshe Feldenkrais in this post, you can learn more about him & his work in the video included.

May you take action each day to learn something new about yourself so you can embark on self transformation. Peace.
~Donna