Most people spend their lives chronically over scheduling themselves and getting further and further away from what brings them joy, clarity and feeling truly settled. They view their body as the mechanism to haul their brain from meeting to meeting or place to place. They run from place to place in constant motion, ignoring the state of their body and mind, yet, wonder why they are completely exhausted at the end of they day even though their jobs are not physically taxing. They are caught off guard when they have emotional outbursts. They feel unfulfilled, unconnected and out of touch with their loved ones and personal pursuits. They have lost their internal compass and don’t know how to reconnect to themselves or their lives.
As time goes on, the solution may look like it is to be solved by pushing harder, getting more advice, or chasing after some new solution. The problem is that trying to solve problems when you are in a confused, agitated or always on the go will yield chaotic, confused solutions. But the good news is that you don’t need to do anything. All you really need to do is come home to yourself. You learn to quiet the constant hum and chatter of your mind and body by quieting the nervous system and returning to a sense of home in the body.
Coming home in the body starts by reducing the excess noise in the nervous system by settling onto the natural support of your skeletal system. When you are truly supported and calm, “down to your marrow” a new sense of calm and clarity can arise from which new possibilities can arise. I call this state Embodied Clarity. This place of calm readiness brings a completely new way to be in the world that is easy, joyful, and clear. Developing a calm, supported nervous system, provides a powerful, potent foundation from which you can uncover your innate wisdom, regain a sense of possibility and nurture your creative nature. Your internal compass and intuition can emerge once again to lead you powerfully into a fulfilling direction.
The practical result is that as a leader, partner, parent, business owner, creative genius, or student of self-development you are able to quiet the excess noise in the system so that Embodied Clarity arises from which you can begin to look at life’s big questions. You generate the ability to sense what you want and respond appropriately to life’s challenges. And, even though you may have some difficult choices, you feel confident in and supported in your inner strength and resilience.
Moshe Feldenkrais was a pioneer in the human potential movement and revolutionized the way we view movement, expression and self-image. His philosophy that developed in the 1950’s –1970’s was at the forefront of in changing reductionist views of the body and mind. He explained that our moods, emotions and thoughts are expressed through our body language, posture, gestures, and facial expressions. In other words, every thought or feeling has a corresponding set of muscle contractions associated with it. So the thought, “there is no way I can get all this work finished” and the subsequent overwhelmed feeling have a corresponding set of muscular contractions. Over time, patterns of muscle contraction develop and get hard-wired for each emotion and thought. In this way, certain thoughts patterns or emotions have a physical shape. In many ways, these patterns are predictable and thus, body language experts can read a person’s physical cues and analyze what that person is thinking and feeling. Some external manifestations, such as crossed arms, may be obvious; while others, such as touching an ear, are more subtle; yet others, such as a change in breathing pattern, are subtler still.
Most of us think that thought and emotion occur in the brain and cause the body to respond. But, the remarkable thing is that the opposite is also true. The brain receives information from the body that affects your emotions and moods. Because the muscle contraction or shape is hard-wired with the thought or the emotion, the shape of the body, such as being slumped, causes the neuro-chemical reaction associated with sadness. For example, a scientific study showed that bringing the face and mouth into the shape of a smile actually causes a rush of endorphins and other biochemical changes associated with smiling. Conversely, making an angry face creates the biochemistry of anger.
Ultimately, your posture reflects your moods and thoughts but your body and its posture also send information back to the brain that generates thoughts and feelings. In fact, your posture is so powerful that studies have shown that slumping actually makes it more difficult to recall positive thoughts. You are literally happier and smarter when you sit up straight.
The Posture of Anxiety and Stress
Feldenkrais studied the shape of anxiety and stress because he thought its presence drastically limited people in realizing their potential. He discovered that all humans have the same response to stress—contraction of the flexors, (especially in the abdominal region), inhibition of the extensors (which keep us upright), a halt in breathing, followed by a whole series of vasomotor disturbances, such as accelerated pulse, and increased blood pressure.
Throughout the day, you respond to stress by clenching your jaw, holding your breath, making the diaphragm rigid etc. The problem is that muscles only have an on/off mode. They are meant to contract and release again. But when you are under constant stress, even seemingly “low-level stress.” the muscles rarely return to their fully released (“off”) state. And over time the muscular contractions associated with stress become hard-wired into the body, so that even when the external stimulus is gone, your shoulders are still up at your ears, your breath rarely fills the whole lungs, and your jaw remains clenched. Your body is thus in a constant posture of anxiety and stress—continually giving feedback to your brain that you are stressed.
The good news is that because the physical contraction is so closely tied to emotions or thoughts, you can dramatically alter a thought, emotion, or response to stress by changing the pattern of muscular contraction and shape of the body. By interrupting the habitual muscle tension associated with stress, a new possibility of calm, strength, potency and clarity can arise. Conversely, if you remain stuck in a physical pattern of anxiety you will continue to feel stressed and it is difficult, if not impossible, to have different thoughts, emotions and actions. So, if you continue to sit at your desk (hunched over, jaw clenched, breathing shallow) you will continue to feel overwhelmed and think that the task at hand is impossible. If, instead, you can restore your breathing, unclench your jaw, and sit upright without increased muscular tension, your heartbeat will slow down, your mood will improve, you’ll have increased mental clarity and more things will seem possible.
Try this: Stop just a few times a day and take a few deep breaths–concentrating on a long slow exhale. Notice the shape of your body and try to undo some of your habitual holdings–unclench your jaw, sit up a little straighter without getting rigid, put your feet on the floor and un-kink yourself. Notice how your mood and perception of the situation changed as a result.
Will power is a topic of many a coaching conversation. How do we get ourselves to undertake lifestyle changes and tasks that are difficult? Many of us believe it’s simply a matter of putting our heads down and pushing through—using willpower to force our way through. But in my experience, this approach leads to eventual burnout. It does not lead to sustainable change because our ability to bully ourselves into action will eventually cease. But how else can we move to take on new behaviors or tasks?
Moshe Feldenkrais, a physicist and judo master, spent years studying how people learn. He developed a system of movement education based on increasing one’s awareness of how one moves. He believed that it is possible to create conditions for success that allow people move to action without forcing it through willpower.
In our society, effort is rewarded. In many instances, finding the path of least resistance is somehow less admirable. Feldenkrais points out that if one can do something without the sensation of effort, it is not good enough.
“From early childhood we are taught to strain ourselves. Parents and teachers seem to receive sadistic satisfaction from compelling children to make an effort. If the child can do what is demanded of him with no apparent forcing of himself they will put him in a more advanced class or add something to his duty just to make sure the poor thing learns “what life really means.’… [O]ne is not supposed to be satisfied unless one really feels the strain of pushing the limits.” (The Potent Self p. xii)
If something falls into place easily, we often assume it a fluke. We may even repeat the act just to make sure we strain ourselves the second time and thus feel like we have accomplished something. This type of behavior is glorified as sign of great willpower.
But, as Feldenkrais notes, “….willpower is necessary only where the ability to do is lacking.” (The Potent Self p. xii) He goes on to say that in learning new ways of directing oneself, it is essential to bring about optimal conditions for success. When you ask someone else to do something for you, there are ways of asking that make it more likely that the person will oblige. When you bully or nag the person, they are less likely to want to help you. No one responds graciously or willingly to nagging. So, just as there are ways to ask someone else to do something that are more or less objectionable, there is the same distinction when we are asking ourselves to do something. Nagging oneself is as bad as nagging another. If you direct yourself rudely—blaming yourself for being lazy, weak, clumsy—you can rarely oblige willingly. (Moshe Feldenkrais, The Potent Self p. xii )