A Feldenkrais Blog

Reflective Gifts from Kids

Part 4 of 9: Energy in Motion

Dear Students:
One of the quickest ways to realize what kind of emotional wounds you are holding onto is to allow children to reflect them back to you. When you are a parent you have the greatest opportunity to view and become educated by your own kids’ behaviors. A child’s reflections can help uncover aspects of yourself you may not want to see or feel, so be sure to view them without harming or judging yourself or others. If you lovingly honor what the young demonstrate as coming from parts of yourself and use it for self-change then all can benefit.

Parents pass on their own emotional traumas as well as family, ancestral and societal habits to their babies in the womb and beyond. Little ones are like sponges and absorb everything they observe while discovering what makes people tick. This is why an unfiltered toddler can accurately reflect back to an adult their negative and positive traits.

For example: if a Father cannot say “no” when appropriate, his daughter will sense this early in life. When she does not know the difference between right and wrong, she may use any means to get whatever she wants because she senses she can. If the Father never heals the causal reasons why he cannot set boundaries, his aging daughter may keep demanding of him until, if ever, something changes. A transformation in her Dad’s behavior can have a positive effect on her no matter what age she is when it occurs.

Another example: if a Mom becomes overwhelmed by her extremely needy son she can choose to listen & learn from it or become sick & tired. If the Mother honestly looks at why her boy does not do anything for himself, she may discover how she created his dependency. If she looks deep inside she can bring to surface the repressed feelings that fuel her wish to be needed. By releasing these core issues, she can begin to develop her own independence along with her child’s. Eventually her son may learn to love his new found skills and desire to grow more on his own.

Part 4: Learning from a Child’s Reflections:
1. Take note of any behavior you see in your child that brings up emotional pain for you. Know that whatever your child negatively demonstrates emotionally, mentally or behaviorally is largely a result of your suppressed emotional injuries and influences how you parent them.  The reflections your child shows you are short cuts to becoming aware of what you have bottled up inside. 
2. When you have time and are alone, sense wholeheartedly the emotional pain this child’s behavior reveals to you.  Feel this without hurting or blaming yourself or others. Let your thoughts & emotions be unfiltered as they surface.
3. For example: if your daughter had a temper tantrum at the grocery store, recall this event and let your thoughts & emotions be triggered uninterrupted: “I felt embarrassed as everyone was looking at me. I felt anxious and wanted to hide from the staring eyes.  I felt like a bad parent as I did not know how to stop her. I remember how my Mom acted when I did this to her.....etc."
4. Next read a previous blog post called: Energy in Motion and go through the process outlined in Part 1: Steps on How to Experience Emotions Gracefully.

One of the most worthwhile & challenging endeavors to take, is to become aware of some of your unkind qualities and begin self-healing. Since most unloving manners are handed down from past descendants you may have your work cut out for you if you decide to become the one brave soul of your lineage to start releasing these old patterns. This effort does require tenacity and can be much easier with help from the Divine Source/Creator and/or guidance from a counselor, therapist or friend.

May you welcome the intuitive feedback the children in your life give you and use that information to enhance your emotional healing. Remember that doing lots of Feldenkrais can broaden your sensitivity thus improving the quality of your process. I hope to hear from you & help you along your way. Peace!
~Donna

F.Y.I.: To learn how to fight for your innate rights against forced vaccines, testing, and other trespasses read Our Innate Rights and/or to find out about products that can help electromagnetic sensitivity click here.

When Suppression of Emotions Leads to Physical Pain & Disease

Part 3 of 9: Energy in Motion

Dear Students:
Understanding that pent-up energy in motion (emotions), can turn into physical pain or disease, may motivate you to pay heed to it’s relationship with your body. When your vital life force is repressed it can take the form of a headache, back pain, digestive problems or worse. This indicates that your body has limitations, as it can not hold onto harmful ideas, thoughts, emotions and movements forever.

When your Higher Self/Soul creates a pain signal, the most loving act to take is to stop and listen before you are forced to do so. When you are sick or injured, and use that extra time to self-reflect you may not create situations that side-line you in the future. Realizing the root cause of the problem can help you release old and personal distortions within yourself. Through this process you can heal discomforts and illnesses and become less reactionary when relating to others.

 Part 3: Steps on How to Fully Experience Pain:
1. When you experience physical pain, stop and listen to yourself.  Preferably, move to a private space, away from others.  If possible, delay or refrain from taking pain medication so you can fully experience your migraine, (neck ache, sciatic nerve pain, jaw problems, etc.). 
2.Sit or lie down on the floor in the most comfortable position possible and witness the sensations in your body.  For example: sense that the migraine is hot here, and achey there, and vision is altered in this way, etc.
3.Reflect upon the event that triggered the migraine headache.  For example: “I felt overwhelmed because too many people were asking of me. When I couldn’t say “no” the headache came on.”
4. Next, sense what emotions you have for those that “ask too much” of you. Take note of them without judging yourself or others.  Also note how it makes you feel when you are not able to set healthy boundaries with others.
5.Then read my blog post, Energy in Motion and go through the process outlined in Part 1: Steps on How to Experience Emotions Gracefully.  Remind yourself of the emotions you felt when the migraine surfaced, and experience them without filtering your thoughts, in a safe & private place.  Do not harm yourself or others because of what you feel.  Remember that suppressed emotions have very little to do with the people or conversations that provoke them.

Your body is like a vessel and when filled with traumatic feelings, there is no room for positive ones. By releasing unpleasant emotions, pleasant ones can take their place and be felt more completely and vitally. This is why a person that can fully experience joy, can also fully experience sadness. As a result of being able to let your energy flow, love can find an internal dwelling place. Thus, kind manners can become a spontaneous habit that prevents physical and mental pain from growing inside yourself.

May you learn to view pain as a friendly messenger that inspires you to slow down and learn from your injuries! I long for the day when divine love prevails within majority of the people on the Earth.
~Donna

How Do You Avoid Emotions

Part 2 of 9: Energy in Motion

Dear Students:
There are many reasons to embrace all emotions as they are messengers that can inform you about the people around you, your environment and yourself. There are no good or bad emotions – it is how you communicate them that makes them loving or not.

Unkind reactions are created by storing unexpressed emotions inside of yourself. This is why most heated arguments between individuals have little to do with the actual situation. Avoiding your emotions results in suppressing them and this is why it is important to recognize how and when you do this.

Unfortunately we live in a world where it has become too easy to evade our internal experiences. It is common to see people plan most of their daily activities around distracting themselves from such moments. This behavior is fueled by the fact that anyone who is openly emotional nowadays, is devalued as being “too sensitive’. To top it all off, majority of people reach for their cell phones when they have a quiet moment instead of choosing to self-reflect.

When daily events become diversions, it becomes difficult to uncover how and when you are running away from your state of being. Even things such as socializing, exercising, and meditating can become escape mechanisms that can develop into addictions.

A first step to take to discover what you repress, is to detect what evasive methods you use to check out. To become aware of how you do this, ask yourself what is your true intention for engaging in an activity. This can be a simple process but it does require you to slow down and attend to yourself with unfiltered honesty.

Part 2:  Recognizing When & How You Avoid Emotional Experiencing
1.  Before any activity that you partake in ask yourself, “what is my intention behind this?”  When you are honest with yourself you will realize that even activities that you think are “healthy” can be turned into a way to avoid yourself.
2. Choose a day to focus on becoming self aware.  Make a list of all the avoidance techniques & projects that you discover during one typical day.  Look at the list afterwards without judging or blaming yourself.
3. Pick one of your avoidance pastimes and when you have time, do not engage in it.  Instead sit quietly to discover what kind of suppressed emotions you are running away from.  For example: on one occasion, don’t drink coffee and the next, don’t watch television, etc.  Do not pick more than one self-study project at a time, so you don’t overwhelm your neurological system.
4. Then read my previous blog post, Energy in Motion and go through the process outlined in Part 1: Steps on How to Experience Emotions Gracefully.

May you find that you are intuitive and unique because of your energy in motion (emotions). I look forward to the day when a man can reveal his hurt feelings in a healthy manner and cry about it without being looked down upon by others. I believe, attaining empathy for our fellow neighbor in this way, can bring us closer to living peacefully on Earth.
~Donna

Energy In Motion

Part 1 of 9: Emotional Awareness

Dear Students:
It may be helpful to imagine the word, “e-motion” as meaning “energy in motion” while reading this post today. When emotions can freely flow through your body it helps create easeful movement and healthy behavioral patterns. In such a state, you become capable of lovingly expressing all emotions without harming or judging yourself or others.

When feelings, such as anger, shame, fear, sadness and grief, become internally pent up, you may tend to emotionally over react in ways that have little to do with present situations. This usually taints communication and is harmful to all involved. Holding onto suppressed emotions can also result in skeletal and muscular pain that can advance into diseases.

All emotions are your friends as they connect you to yourself, your companions and to the Divine Source. When you choose to self-reflect and face what you suppress, the root cause of the injuries can be realized and healing can occur. The people in your life can benefit just as much as you can, when you stop storing what you fear, within yourself as you will have less tendency to project it towards them. Self change may resemble loving thoughts, sensations, feelings, and actions streaming through you and onto others.

Feldenkrais work, has helped make it possible for many of my students, to look at and experience their psychosomatic, deep wounds. They learn to integrate once overwhelming emotions into easy and graceful manners. Looking at these emotional patterns through movement is a very powerful way to release and create new ways of being.

 Part 1: Steps on How to Experience Emotions Gracefully:
1. When you decide to experience your emotions, I highly recommend to take lots of Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement classes and partake in regular Functional Integration sessions. A Feldenkrais Practitioner’s support and skills can help you release post traumatic stress in a manageable way. Lessons can help enhance your ability to sense, move, think and feel which you will need during your process.
2.Focus on becoming aware of when you hold back your emotions, during daily activities. At the moment of awareness, sense how you stop yourself from having an emotional experience.  Do you hold your breath? Do you clench your hands and jaw?  Do you squeeze your eyes and anal sphincter?
3.When you recognize how you prevent your emotions from flowing, let yourself internally feel them.  Where in your body does the emotion live? Is it hot, cold or warm? Does it make you want to scream, fight, cower, cry, hide, etc.?
4.If you can, remove yourself from the irritating situation so you can feel your emotions more fully and without projecting them onto others. If you can’t, then make a note of what triggered you. Later when you have the chance to be alone, remind yourself of the event and experience it fully.  Let your thoughts & emotions run their course unfiltered and without judgement of yourself or others. Stay with it until you get to your underlying, root causal emotional memories, usually from your childhood, so you can feel them fully and eventually release them. Now self-healing & understanding can begin.   
5.Ask for guidance during your processing. If you have a spiritual practice, ask the Creator, God, or a Spiritual Guide for divine truth and love about the situation to come into your heart & soul during your experiencing.  And/or, ask a trusted counselor, therapist or friend for guidance during your undertakings.

Remember that examining repressed emotions is a courageous and healthy act to endeavor. When you let go of old patterns you can attract new and different lessons and people into your life. Stay tuned for more on this in the next several blog posts.

May you find the courage to face your emotions with grace and without criticism to yourself or others each day of this new year! Peace!
~Donna

Favorites of 2021

Dear Students:
My Feldenkrais, Awareness Through Movement classes have been a joy to teach these past few months. Students have been enthusiastically learning and attending on a regular basis so I am happy to announce that I will be teaching classes in 2022.

Click here to learn more about class details in the new year.

Your favorite blog posts for 2021 were mostly all about how to improve your movement organization through the eyes. I wrote four posts based on this subject and I received many thanks for the information.
Visit the posts by clicking on each title:
1. Developing Childlike Eyes
2. Searching for the Midline
3. Overcoming Motion Sickness
4. Eye Patching
5. Prevailing Against the Odds: This post about one of my students and the struggles she faced in a world where she could not attach anything to her face, was accepted by many with humble gratitude. I am glad her story touched many hearts, as I feel it revealed the love & empathy that exists inside all of us even during these very bewildering times.

May you wholeheartedly listen for divine guidance and truth during each day of this new year! Peace to all on Earth.
~Donna

Eye Patching

Dear Students:
I began exploring eye patching when I realized the key to unlocking my leg pain was through my eyes. I lived many years with a bone chip in my ankle and was aware that my visual habits helped take weight off my injured leg. Hence, I knew I could turn standing into a pleasant experience by studying & broadening the repertoire of my eye motions, post surgery.

My first learning strategy was to take walks wearing a patch over my dominant, right eye so I had to rely on my left eye for vision. I found that this was very unfamiliar and when I got tired I would see the inside of the eye patch. My right eye would automatically take up the slack when I could no longer go on. As the weaker eye become stronger, my eyesight became clearer and it helped distribute the weight through my skeleton more symmetrically. My ankle discomfort went away for long stretches of time and when it returned I did not understand why.

Eventually, I connected a habitual behavior of not being able to say “no” when it was the righteous thing to do, and found that my left limb grew distressed after such a conflicted moment. This directed my investigations around recognizing how I used my head & eyes differently when I set a boundary compared to when I did not.

I knew if I became able to observe my right sighted dominance during uncomfortable conversations, I would be able to lessen this habit. The problem was I was too distracted by internal turmoil to do that. Months would go by until an emotional trigger would lead me to the realization that my new habit was not quite strong enough to serve me during such times. I sensed, a different way of being was almost fully developed within myself each passing day. When familiar pain would reappear it was with less intensity and I was able to unravel it’s grip more quickly.

It wasn’t until I started patching my lazy eye that my awareness progressed exponentially. By only observing my right eye in action, without the influence of it’s partner, I could finally sense how it initiated an asymmetrical organization of my movement. I found that both of my eyes tend to hang out on the right side of my nose even when focusing on an object. This places my head in an unbalanced position which effects every part of my body down to my feet.

After some time, through this process I created a novel habit that allows me to stand, walk, run and flip with great pleasure. I continue to explore and presently am benefiting from focusing on my peripheral vision as it helps each eye live on it’s respective side of the midline more often. I remind myself also that my visual field is 360 degrees around and this helps me to continue to discover many helpful ways to improve my eyesight and uneven ways.

May this post inspire you to learn more about the direct connection between your eyes, emotions, behaviors and movement patterns. Thank you for your support throughout the years! Peace to all on earth!
~Donna

Overcoming Motion Sickness

Dear Students:
Throughout my childhood I used to get severe motion sickness while traveling in cars. As an adult, when I began to study how the organization of the eyes influence the vestibular system, I found a way to lessen my carsickness. I discovered that when one is advancing forward in a vehicle, the movement of the landscape appears to move in the opposite direction. As a kid, I was too queasy to become aware of this or let it happen. Later when I could observe the opposing blurry vision, my nauseousness disappeared.

I taught myself to stop trying to see the scenery moving in my peripheral vision when riding in an automobile. Instead I view it as it is – a blur. By letting things in the distance swirl past me, my eyes relax, my vision benefits and it keeps ill sensations at bay.

In the past, by trying to latch my eyes onto a moving object, it strained them and disturbed me. Understanding this, now I can pleasantly read a book on a train by letting the letters bounce around during bumpy parts of the trip. This healthy eye habit has changed my life for the better.

I have included a lesson for you to explore that will help you learn how to let the world pass you by in a beneficial way. I think you will find this lesson very helpful as the technological way of living promotes staring at digital screens thus encouraging us to quickly forget to perceive oppositional movement.

Notice For the Lesson:  Take lots of rests when using your eyes in a non-habitual way.  Signs that your eyes need a rest are feeling: dizzy, nauseous, tired, sleepy, uninterested, mentally unfocused. When this happens stop the exploration, sit or lie down and take a break.  Come back to it when you feel refreshed or leave it for another day.

Observing Oppositional Motion lesson: 
{For those that tend to get dizzy easily, or are in the habit of staring with their eyes, I suggest to do this lesson with your eyes closed first until you get used to the motion.}
1.Stand and place both arms straight out in front of you at shoulder height.  Make loose fists with your hands and point both index fingers forward.  Swing your arms to the right, keeping your right arm straight while your left arm bends at the elbow towards the right.  Focus your eyes on your right index finger as it swings to the right and returns to the middle.  Do this movement until you can sense the blurry objects in the distance moving to the left when turning to the right and vice versa.  Rest while walking, in sitting or lying on your back.
2.Do the same movement while swinging to the left and return to the middle. Keep your eyes focused on the left index finger until you can see the world swirling around you in the opposite direction you are turning towards. Rest.
3.Do the same movement swinging back and forth, left & right, passing through the middle.  When going to the right focus on the right index finger & when going to the left on the left index finger. Even though you know the objects in the background are not moving in reverse of you imagine they are, until they appear to be doing so. Rest. 
4.Repeat swinging your arms left & right making the swing smaller, faster and more playful. Sense the oppositional movement and how it’s appearance changes with speed.  Rest.

As your vision improves, you may notice that while moving, the blurry background will seem to flow more subtly. May you eventually see this phenomenon improving while you are engaged in daily activities such as walking, sweeping or cleaning a mirror.
Peace to all of you.
~Donna

Searching for the Midline

Dear Students:
I am happy to announce that beginning September 14 through December 14, 2021, I will teach my Feldenkrais Class each Tuesday @ 11 am, (click here for more details). I promise that during one of those 14 classes I will teach in full, the Awareness Through Movement® lesson that I am featuring in this post.

Moshe Feldenkrais emphasized the importance of knowing where the actual midline is, so a student could converge his eyes at that point. When a person’s eyes meet at the middle, vision can be clear. The farther one’s eyes move to the left or right of the midpoint the less clear vision becomes. Moshe also highlighted this central line because when one finds it, the head can center itself along it’s axis. Someone that becomes conscious of balancing their head, can more evenly distribute weight through their legs.

Personally, I search for my the central axis all the time, because it allows me to function without any pain or restraints after having ankle surgery years ago. My joints can stay healthy and my eyesight in good shape when I explore lessons like the one I include here.

Finding the Midline through your Hands, Lesson:
1.Sit in a comfortable position at the edge of a chair or on the floor.  You can even pleasantly kneel if you like.
2. Place your hands together in front of your chest as if in prayer. Close your eyes and sense the back of your right hand.  Then sense the back of your left hand.  Which hand do you feel more sensations in?  Rest while sitting at the back of your chair or you can lie down on the floor.
3. In your starting position, with your eyes closed, slowly move your hands up towards the sky & return while your right eye pays attention to the back of your right hand in space. Where do you feel the hand the most clearly?  Do you know when and where you loose connection between the hand & eye?  Rest when you are no longer interested in the exploration.  Repeat the movements, going more slowly at the places where you loose awareness of your right hand & eye during the journey to & fro.  Rest.
4. Begin again, while keeping your eyes closed, move the hands from your chest, downwards & return.  Track the back of your right hand with your right eye, traveling down & on it’s way back to the starting point.  Is it easier or harder to sense your limb while moving downwards compared to upwards?  Rest.
5. Explore all the movements with closed eyes, while feeling the back of your left hand with your left eye, in motion.  Can you tell which hand is your dominant hand?  How do you know which is your non-dominant hand?  Which eye are you more familiar with?  Can you tell which eye you rely on more during your life for vision?
6.Study these movements with your eyelids closed while sensing the back of both hands & eyes moving in the direction above your head & downwards towards your belly.  Which hand do you loose awareness of first?  Become curious & slow down at the places where you are not tuned in to both hands & eyes at the same time.  Sense how your pelvis and vertebral column move in relation to your head and arms.

Sometimes when I exercise I experiment with myself similarly to the lesson above. For instance if I do pushups, I focus on the back of my non-dominant hand & eye during the first set. On the second set, I attend to the other side and throughout the third set, I focus on both eyes & hands. This helps to better center my head to foster more symmetrical use & strengthening of my muscles.

Other times when I am walking I combine my eye/hand awareness practice, with looking back and forth at objects at different distances as described in my post, Developing Childlike Eyes. I find it to be challenging & compelling to be mindful of many things at once. Have fun creating your own experiments & opening your eyes to new ways of being.

May finding the midline help you learn to develop your attention & understand in a novel way what the saying, “keep your head on straight” means. I hope to see you in class very soon!
~Donna

Developing Childlike Eyes

Dear Students:
I was walking around the neighborhood when I approached grandparents playing with a little boy on their driveway. The boy sensed me moving towards him and immediately looked up and smiled, and then went back to playing. The older couple did not respond or blink an eye in my direction. The beneficial habits of the little one, stood out to me that morning and inspired me to write this post.

There are many reasons why an adult would not reflexively turn towards an advancing neighbor, and I will not focus on them. Instead, let’s look at the importance of becoming aware of what some toddlers do naturally, to promote healthy eyes and movement. The child’s swift reactions, displayed why he can see clearly and move quickly. His eyes caught my movement and the rest of his body helped him to view more.

Becoming aware of some simple things that “people with clear vision” do, can help you to maintain and/or improve your eyesight and the way you organize movement. Motions and sight can improve greatly when the body can spontaneously follow the eyes’ invitation to move.

Curious, childlike habits such as looking at the details of a tiny bug and within a split second, marveling at a hopping bunny, and then studying a blade of grass, keep the eyeballs malleable. When examining an object up close, the eyeballs form a slightly different shape compared to when looking at scenery in the distance. Investigate this phenomenon on your own. Sit and feel if you can sense your eyeballs changing shape while focusing compared to gazing? The more the eyes transfigure themselves throughout the day, the healthier the eyes can become.

Keeping the Eyes Malleable Lesson:
1. Sit in a comfortable position and look at something up close and then far away - quickly go back and forth like this. 
2. Don’t “try to see”, instead just allow your eyes to change shape rapidly without expectations.  Rest afterwards.
3. Repeat this at three different distances, experiencing the malleable eyeballs at work.
4. If you wear glasses and feel prepared to do something differently with your eyes then try this without them. Teach yourself to become comfortable and interested in your vision no matter it’s quality.  Notice what distances you see better at.
5. You can also do this exploration while walking.  If you can walk and not bump into objects without spectacles on, then do so.  If not, keep wearing them until you are sure you can stroll around safely.

(Take lots of rests when using your eyes in a non-habitual way.  Signs that your eyes need a rest are feeling: dizzy, nauseous, tired, sleepy, uninterested, mentally unfocused. When this happens stop the exploration, sit down and take a break.  Come back to it when you feel refreshed or leave it for another day.)

I suggest when challenging your eyes in an unfamiliar manner, to get comfortable with any blurry vision you may have. Let vision come to you instead of straining your eyes to see something. Relaxed eyes see clearly and if you wait for yourself to make sense of what you’re looking at, eventually it can become lucid. It may take lots of practice to experience one second of crystal clear vision. When this happens it is a sign that you can turn a second into a minute, a minute into an hour, etc. All you need to do is form the kind of habits that will get you there!

May you gradually and consistently develop the customs of “one that can see clearly”. If you experiment with your eyes on a regular basis, you may find that you can explore longer each time before getting tired.
Stay tuned for the next several blog posts as I will give more tips on how to keep your eyes thriving. Starting on Sept. 14, 2021, I will begin teaching Feldenkrais classes on Tuesdays @ 11am. Peace!
~Donna

Transfer of Learning

Dear Students:
Moshe Feldenkrais explained that “learning how to learn” through his method, would help his students carry learning into all areas of life. I am grateful to have found this to be true in myself and my students. A most recent occurrence of this happened for my pupil, Joyce.

“[You will] acquire ease and accuracy in every task...  In everything and every interest, mental, abstract, and intellectual, or materialistic - in all of them you will be helped.  It will make anything you have to do more pleasurable, because there is no effort it in.”   ~ Moshe Feldenkrais, A Life in Movement, by Mark Reese, page 298;

Joyce shared with me that she had never enjoyed writing. Because of current events she found herself compiling extensive information that led to writing it down. As a result, Joyce wrote, “My Thoughts, Reflections & Questions about Covid 19”. After many months of editing she began to appreciate the process.

I shared Dr. Feldenkrais’s theory on learning with Joyce as I thought it related to her experience. I include her eloquent chronicle here:

My Thoughts, Reflections and Questions about Covid19 
~Joyce H., June 2021
The past 15 months have certainly been challenging, as we all have had to find our way navigating the turbulence this global crisis so abruptly brought into our lives. I don’t think anyone could’ve imagined how life could change so drastically in this span of time! It feels like our world is still in a fearful and chaotic state. My prayer is that we can each find inspiration, peace and hope for our future - individually, as families and collectively as a global family. 

To read Joyce’s “Research On Covid19” in full click here.

May you find value in the thoughtful research Joyce organized and freely shares with us. Peace to all on this beautiful earth!
~Donna