Hi Feldenkrais® Students:
One reason why I love my job as a Feldenkrais®Practitioner is I get to teach people how to become aware that their mind and body are one. It is always exciting for me when a student organically feels this connection unquestionably.
Many people don’t realize or have never been able to feel within themselves, that an emotional way of being has a physical way of expressing itself. I can say it even more simply – every emotion has a motion. The word “e-motion” and sayings such as, “her feelings were written all over her face,” are solid evidence that at one time human beings understood very clearly that there is no difference between the mind and the body. Today in this technical, fast paced world it is easy for people to become distracted and it is understandable why many have lost this self knowledge.
Moshe Feldenkrais explains it better in the following short statement. “In short, a recurrent emotional state always appears together with the attitude of the body and the vegetative state with which it was conditioned earlier. Therefore, when an emotional complex has been resolved, a specifically individual body habit is resolved simultaneously. I contend that all successful analysis, whatever technique is employed, is invariably accompanied, and probably preceded, by an alteration of posture and a change of muscular habit both in body and face.” Body & Mature Behavior, pages 128-129.
Being a Feldenkrais® Practitioner has given me the opportunity on a daily basis, to witness with myself and my students that our physical and mental states of being are interchangeable! If you would like to share a telling mind / body experience that changed your self perception, please email me your story and I can post it on this site for others to learn from.
Check out some new photographs on my site by Afshin Odabaee. (Many thanks to you Afshin!)
Sincerely, Donna